Badlam 1891 copied from Hibben?

[David Robertson]

Hi,

A book I hadn't heard of before turned up in a WorldCat search.  

This one isn't in Sam Johnson's great bibliography (1978), nor in 
Reinecke's (1975), not in Pilling (1893).  Less-specialized bibs might have 
it, but all I've photocopied from Smith, Soliday/Decker, or Lowther are the 
bits about Le Jeune's shorthand. So who knows.  

The book is Alexander Badlam (1891), "The Wonders of Alaska" [3rd edition, 
revised], self-published in San Francisco.  The copy I'm looking at was 
donated by William Heryet, "Engineer - Soldier - Reader," to UBC in 1964.  
Its original owner was S.E. (or A.E.?) Baltin (?) M.D., who autographed it 
on May 28, 1894.  

Chapter XI is "The Chinook Jargon," pages 141-144.  It's very superficial 
and refers only to Hibben's dictionary as an authority.  No reference is 
made, for example, to any actual speakers or remembered conversations.  A 
bit of "selected" vocabulary appears, maybe from Hibben.  Here are a few 
examples in Badlam's spelling, in case anyone here wants to check:

Sugar -- le sook; shugae
Fork -- la poosshet
Dollar -- dolla or tahla
Deer -- mowitsh 
Language -- lk lang
Bear (black) -- chet-woof; its-woot

The original owner made a couple of notations next to Badlam's prose 
discussion of Jargon.  Baltin marked "!" next to this: "Of course, the 
native races of the region comprehended as Alaska had a distinctive 
language of their own prior to the advent of foreigners in their midst, 
though there were undoubtedly different dialects in each tribe[...]"

And he marked "!!" next to this: "But in the past century these languages 
have been so corrupted that they have lost their distinctive character and 
become condensed into a sort of jargon general among all the aborigines of 
the region."  

So Baltin was aware that there are several different Indigenous languages 
of Alaska, and that Jargon didn't form out of these.  

Whether Badlam had much acquaintance with Alaska is unclear.  His book is a 
tourist guide (must be among the earliest for Alaska!)...and it seems like 
the writing of a tourist, liberally mixed with quotes from newspaper 
articles published in the lower 48.  Badlam's knowledge of Native cultures 
seems nonexistent outside the sources he quotes.  He manages to 
misinterpret many of these, too, for example claiming that the "potlach" is 
practiced by all the tribes of "Oregon, Washington, Alaska and British 
Columbia and extending as far interior as Idaho and Montana"--does that 
wording sound familiar?  It's the standard description of the range of 
Chinook Jargon, not of the word "potlach."  Badlam describes the range of 
the term: "among all the Coast Indians, the same word is used.  It is 
believed to be of Chinook origin."  He's pretty mixed up.

Badlam also resorts to the desperate tactic of the ignorant in repeatedly 
implying that the Indigenous people talk about "heap big medicine" and 
other stereotypical phrasings.  Pages 30-31 paint Alaskan Natives, also 
stereotypically, as lacking a sense of humor (the one tiny exception coming 
from the chief Saginaw Jake).  I admit Badlam sounds like he's genuinely 
from California when he manages to work in a tangential 
comment, "The 'Diggers' of California at certain seasons of the year go 
down on all fours and eat vegetation..."  But this doesn't mean he *knows* 
anything.

I'm afraid the original owner of this copy had similar reactions.  Along 
with the exclamation points noted above, Baltin criticizes many of Badlam's 
statements.  I enjoy his "bosh!" next to Badlam's "San Francisco might be 
called an eastern rather than a western city" and his "Canadian" every time 
Mt. St. Elias is mentioned.  

Overall this book is interesting mainly for being one of the earlier pieces 
published about Alaska.  Badlam may have preserved some newspaper articles 
here that won't be found anywhere else.  Everything he says regarding 
Chinook Jargon manages to sound deeply ignorant and racist.  

--Dave R

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