Swil Kanim

[Kelvin Saxton]

lhahawiam Dave, pi lhahawiam nayka shiks,

Come visit Bellingham some day. I'll take you to hear Swil play, he is
an amazing artist and hand's down one of the best violinists and story
tellers I've met.

Last year I asked Swil about the meaning of Kanim and if he made of it a
connection to either CW "canoe" or the Canim families south of here. He
didn't connect his name to either.

Swil is an enrolled memeber of the Lummi Nation. He says "Swil Kanim" is
his Lummi name, and has a personal meaning, but he wasn't aware of any
other, more public meaning for it.

wEXt nayka wawa, if any of you have the chance to attend to a
performance of his, do it.

lhahawiam nayka shiks,
nayka nim Kelvin




---
  Kelvin Saxton
  ksaxton at fastmail.fm

----- Original message -----
From: "David Robertson" <ddr11 at COLUMBIA.EDU>
To: CHINOOK at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 11:20:21 -0400
Subject: Swil Kanim

I saw this Lummi violinist in the movie "The Business of Fancydancing",
and
had to Google his name.

Possibly he's related to "Patkanim", the 19th-century Snoqualmie chief
whose name was also sometimes written "Pat Kanim".  The second version
implies that people reanalyzed his Indian name as Pat[rick] + the Jargon
word for "canoe".

I hadn't realized till now that this reinterpretation has survived.

--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!