Looking for "Auxime"

[David Robertson]

I've turned up another reference to this Indian cowboy.  It's in Kamloops
Wawa of August 1895, page 115:

"A plain illustration of the usefulness of shorthand for Chinese, as well
as for any other language, was given last winter in a Chinese store at
Kamloops, where half-a-dozen Indian boys, conversant with the 'Wawa'
shorthand, happened to be present at the same time.  The merchant was
asked to name the numbers from one to ten in the Chinese language, which
he did very willingly.  The names were at once written in short-hand
characters, which the Indian boys read plainly and readily, to the
admiration of the Chinese present.  The exercise was found so interesting,
that the numeration in Chinese words was carried on from ten to one
hundred.  Nicola Auxime, one of the boys, can now repeat the numbers as
well as a Chinaman."

This passage has additional interest because it's one of the few anecdotes
I know of that definitely put Chinook Jargon and Chinese immigrants in the
same place at one time.  The only other I can think of tells of Chief
Tonasket (Okanagans of Washington State) supposedly threatening a Chinese
miner with violence, in Chinook.

--Dave R.

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