Tlingit song

[George Lang]

Dave's Tlingit song _klingte_ a bell.  Boas's "Chinook Songs" (Journal of American Folk-
Lore 1 (1888) has the following Song #26 (sic):

Kanowe sun naika kelai
Saia naika mitlait alta

For which Boas gives:

Always I cry
For I live far away

His #24 is:

Tawun gud naika tlatowa
Naika nanitch naika _sister_,
Naika tlos tumtum

I went to town,
I sawy my sister
My heart was glad

The sister thing gets better, since #16 is:

Ikta mamuk, naika _sister_,
Wawa naika! maika mash naika?
Ya un aya!

Why, o my sister,
Tell me, why will you cast me off?
Ya un aya!

Boas himself says that "gud" in 24 above means "on" in Haida, I go on the town.

Finally he quotes a Tlingit song, with a last line in Wawa .. "naika sister"

Boas's recorded most of these songs in the canneries of New Westminster in the
1880s where "members of numerous tribes gather, who use Chinook as a means of
communication."