siwash cosho for "seal"

[Leanne Riding]

I was wondering, is k'ash-ch'u a makah word, also what does it mean?

Here's some miscellaneous unimportant info about seals and pigs
that you might find interesting:

1) A while back we talked about an instance where an old CJ
dictionaries defined "ole hiyu" as a sea wolf, or seal. A day or
two ago while reading the french version of Gabriele Franchere's
journal, I noticed that he called the seal a "loup-marin" (sea
wolf).

2) Concerning pigs at Astoria, Gabriele Franchere (between
1811-1814), said that the pigs had multiplied like crazy, to the
degree where they were causing much damage to the roads. He had a
great interest in food -- describing turnips and potatoes, wild
berries and roots, fish of all kinds, pine moss, sea turtles,
penguins (apparently not very tasty), even the type of tea and wine
they were given aboard ship. However, he made no mention of seals,
until he related an incident in which some poor seal hunters were
stranded on an island by an unscrupulous ship captain. Which
circumstance makes me entertain the idea that "Siwash Cosho"
entered the Chinook Jargon with the first telling of that very
tale. So perhaps the language of the fellow who was stranded, who
was not chinook, has some bearing there. But we'll never know for
sure.

3) Alexander Ross, in 1811, said he amused himself shooting seals
at the falls on the Columbia. That sounds very high upriver.


Oops, gotta go. Deadline!


-- Leanne (http://timetemple.com)


On Tuesday, September 14, 2004, at 09:18 , Scott Tyler wrote:

> Hi Maria and All,
> ? baaqii dakhaa tliik maliiya ?  tluLuu atls.
> The Makah word for pig is  kwishoo  which is likely derived from
> Chinook
> kosho which is from French.
> It is interesting that  k'ash-ch'u is similar sounding to Chinook word
> kosho, but I think the similarity is purely accidental (or ?
> incidental ?).
> The last seal meat I had was many years ago at Neah Bay at 'old
> man' Harry
> Bowechop's house.  It had the texture of beef,
> was very dark in color almost black (likely from the high
> concentration of
> myoglobin---which helps the seal store oxygen in muscle tissue for long
> underwater dives),
> and it was fishy tasting.  More like 'fishy beef' than pork. Seal
> meat and
> seal oil were common foods for Natives like 'bacon and eggs' for the
> Americans, French and British.
> I can understand them coining the term Indian pork [saywash cosho]  for
> seal.
> Scott
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Maria Pascua" <mcrcmaria at CENTURYTEL.NET>
> To: <CHINOOK at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG>
> Sent: Monday, September 13, 2004 4:08 PM
> Subject: Re: siwash cosho for "seal"
>
>
>> In Makah, we have several words for seal/sea lions depending on
>> the type
>> seal; our word for what we call a hair seal or harbor seal is
>> k'ash-ch'u
>> or also pronounced k'ash-ch'u-oo.
>> Maria
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: The Chinook List
>> [mailto:CHINOOK at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG]On Behalf
>> Of David Robertson
>> Sent: Sunday, September 05, 2004 8:26 PM
>> To: CHINOOK at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
>> Subject: Re: siwash cosho for "seal"
>>
>> LhaXayam,
>>
>> "Siwash cosho" (sawash kushu) seems to me like it means "native
>> pig", so I
>> share your understanding of what "siwash" means.  Supposedly seal
>> meat is
>> like pork.
>>
>> There's a different word that was used in Chinuk-Wawa farther
>> south, which
>> comes from the Old Chinook language: "olehiyu" (ulXayu') also
>> meaning "seal".
>>
>> Klahawiam naika,
>>
>> --Dave R
>>
>>
>> On Sun, 5 Sep 2004 20:15:45 -0700, STEPHANIE FOGEL
>> <kalapuyakwealth at MSN.COM> wrote:
>>
>>> I was interested in the origin of your definition for
>>> "siwash"...using it
>> to describe a seal, would that be "native seal?" ...because from
>> what I've
>> been taught "siwash" was used to describe "native peoples" or of
>> native
>> origin...just interested in what you would use this word for? Or
>> how it
>> pertains to "seal"...
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>>
>>> Stephani
>>
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