Mystery solved? Pere Sainte [sic]

[David Robertson]

Hi,

One of the countless corrections to history (as it's been told so far) that 
I'm learning by reading First Nations people's letters in Chinuk Wawa 
shorthand...

HISTORY SAYS: Indians called Father Le Jeune, of Kamloops Wawa fame, "Pere 
Sainte" [sic].  That would be French for "Holy father".  

I SAY:  But why does History keep writing "Sainte" that way?  It's the 
wrong gender.  It also would sound wrong.  But maybe this spelling reflects 
the way First Nations people actually were talking.  So why were they 
saying something like [persent]?

FIRST NATIONS PEOPLE'S SHORTHAND SAYS:  Le Jeune really was called 
something like this.  But look at the shorthand, which spells things 
approximately the way they sounded.  You find spellings like <Pir Iasint> 
and <Parishnt>.  (Undated letter from anonymous writer: "Parishnt iaka 
nanich ukuk pipa" = Parishnt [will] read this letter.)  Most often this 
duplicates the shorthand spelling of Hyacinthe, which some Interior Salish 
males did receive as a baptismal name.  For example, in a shorthand 
manuscript by Le Jeune that's now at the University of Saskatchewan 
Libraries, this name occurs three times as a given name, once as a 
surname.  Some way or other, the First Nations people began referring to Le 
Jeune as "Pere (Father) Hyacinthe".  Someone had probably been advising 
them to say "Pere Saint", and this may have become mixed with the more 
familiar name Hyacinthe.  

Have I solved a tiny historical mystery?  Was it really a mystery if nobody 
knew it was mysterious in the first place??  (If a tree falls in the 
forest...)  I don't know, but the apparent process of modeling a newly 
learned, unfamiliar word on an already known, familiar one is something I 
see constantly in this excellent firsthand Chinook data.  

Klahawiam,

Dave R

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