Sail house

[David Robertson]

This is a bit that I found fascinating for the assumption that its English-
speaking readers would understand its referents.  It's from the back page
of "Hagaga" (missionary newspaper in the Kitamaat area of BC), July 1900:

"THE 'SAIL HOUSE'
Our new tent, we have named 'THE MARTHA' after the 'The Marthas'[,]
Sherbourne St. Methodist Church[,] Toronto."

"Sail house" is of course the Chinook Jargon word for "tent".

There's also an interesting possible bit of aboriginals' pidgin English on
the same page:

"Week after week over 200 sheets with the text or a passage of Scripture
in both the Kitamaat and English languages are printed and distributed at
what is called 'SCHOOLUM TEXT' which is held at the close of the morning
service when the text is taught in both languages..."

This 'schoolum text' could even be Chinook Jargon 'school' ('study')
turned into local pidgin English.  Alternatively there may be some
suffix, -m, in the local Oowekyala language (I've already forgotten quite
a bit of my Wakashan grammar from a course last spring...) and if so this
text could be English/CJ with Oowekyala grammar.  It would be fun to chase
down an explanation for this little snippet.

Cheers,

--Dave R.

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