Interesting story

[Isaac M. Davis]

That's really fascinating, Tom. Thanks for sharing that. I'll have to see if
I can get my hands on a copy of this book, difficult though that may be, out
here in Pasayuks Ilêhi.


Masi,

Isaac

On 8/14/07, Tom Larsen <larsent at pdx.edu> wrote:
>
>
> I recently ran across a book called _Native Seattle: Histories from the
> Crossing-Over Place_ by Coll Thrush, Univ. of Washington Press, 2007.  I
> haven't read this book, but I thumbed through it a bit and it looks pretty
> interesting, talking about the history of native peoples, and their
> interactions with whites, in Seattle.  I looked in particular in the index
> for anything about Chinuk Wawa.  There were a few places where it talks
> about the use of Jargon by whites, by native peoples, in place names, etc.
> Most of it seemed pretty much what you might expect and not terribly
> interesting.  But there was one story that I was worth passing on (on p.
> 64-65), so I quote it here:
>
> Sometime in the 1870s, a Chinese man named Ling Fu was brought before
> Judge Cornelius Hanford in Seattle's courthouse, accused of not having the
> proper citizenship papers.  Facing deportation, Ling Fu argued that he did
> not need to carry papers: he had been born on Puget Sound.  To test him,
> Judge Hanford quickly shifted his inquiry into Chinook Jargon, which had
> become nearly as common as Whulshootseed or English in Puget Sound country.
> "Ikta mika nem? Consee cole mika?" (What is your name? How old are you?), he
> demanded of Ling, who in turn replied, "Nika nem Ling Fu, pe nika mox
> tahtlum pee quinum cole" (My name is Ling Fu, and I am twenty-five years
> old).  Clearly surprised, the judge responded, "You are an American, sure,
> and you can stay here."  He then turned to the bailiff and decreed, "Ling Fu
> is dismissed."
>
> Ling Fu's brief trial symbolizes the ways in which settlers--Boston,
> Chinese, and others--had been transformed by their life in Seattle Illahee.
> Accounts of Seattle's "village period" are full of settlers speaking Chinook
> Jargon and sometimes even Whulshootseed; of white men and women learning
> indigenous subsistence practices form their Native neighbors and employees;
> and of people from places like Illinois and Ireland, Gloucester and
> Guangzhou, learning to accomodate Indians' insistence on participation in
> urban life.  Nearly thirty years after Seattle's founding, Native people
> were still in town, and their participation in urban life had changed the
> Bostons as well.  The mad house known as the Illahee might have been
> destroyed, but the larger Seattle Illahee, in which indigenous lives were
> woven into the urban fabric, remained, even as Seattle stood perched on the
> brink of an urban revolution.
>
> --
>
> [image: Portland State University logo]
>
> *Tom Larsen*
> Database Management and Catalog Librarian
> Portland State University Library
> PO Box 1151
> Portland, OR 97207-1151
>
> Phone: 503-725-8179
> Fax: 503-725-5799
>
> email: larsent at pdx.edu
>   To respond to the CHINOOK list, click 'REPLY ALL'. To respond privately
> to the sender of a message, click 'REPLY'. Hayu masi!




-- 
A hae been here afore.
O whan, whit wey, A ken nae mair:
A mind the girse ayont the door,
The douce saut air,
The hurrin hush, the lichts aroond the shore
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