Chinook fire? Another "Chinook" expression

[David Robertson]

What a funny coincidence.  Now I've discovered the same terms used much
earlier in Kamloops Wawa, this time the issue of 26 June 1892, #31, page
154, in an article headlined "Corpus Christi at Shushwap".

The text tells of 500 Indians gathered there who completed the
construction of the local Native church and most of its bell tower.

They then lit lots of candles and "kitl sil kandl stiks" (can anyone help
me decipher what that is?--looks like it should mean "cauldron cloth
candlesticks" but what would that mean?).  I think this term is used in
issue #29 as well, in reference to an illuminated procession carrying
statues of Mary and Joseph.

The text goes on to define this last term as the things called "Chaina
lantirns" = "Chinese lanterns".

--Dave R.




On Sat, 7 May 2005 18:48:41 -0400, David Robertson <ddr11 at COLUMBIA.EDU>
wrote:

>Thanks to information received in off-list emails, and to the wonderful
>research tool Google, here's a bit more about "Chinook fire" etc.
>
>Apparently "Bengal fire" was and is an established term for a variety of
>fireworks, in both the English-speaking world and the French.
>
>"Chinese fire" turns out to be another pyrotechnic term.
>
>I suspect the torches or lanterns that the procession members were
carrying
>in the Chinuk Wawa passage I quoted were known locally as "Chinese fire".
>It's not unlikely that Father Le Jeune absent-mindedly wrote "Chinook
fire"
>because it's this that he was thinking of.
>
>You learn plenty of history reading this stuff!
>
>It's interesting to have read so much of Kamloops Wawa C.W. that slips
like
>this leap right out at me.  It helps that the apparently perfectionist Le
>Jeune made surprisingly few mistakes in writing, so any slips are so
>surprising that they're pretty salient.
>
>--Dave R
>
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To respond to the CHINOOK list, click 'REPLY ALL'.  To respond privately to the sender of a message, click 'REPLY'.  Hayu masi!