Farrand: No CJ in Chilcotin

[Leanne Riding]

Wow. Thanks for the info.
Leanne

David Robertson wrote:
> I've been curious about CJ use among Chilcotin people.  (Dene or Athabaskan 
> group who neighbour the Shuswaps.)  
>
> There are strong hints in Kamloops Wawa that Chilcotins were initially 
> resistant or indifferent to the CJ-speaking Catholic missionaries based in 
> northern Shuswap country.  Here's some information gleaned from CJ texts in 
> K.W.  
>
> There are warnings in K.W. about medicine men active in Chilcotin country 
> (March 1895).  The same issue, in the mini-newspaper within K.W., "The 
> Sugarcane Bell", tells about Chilcotins driving the personified S.B. (I 
> presume Father Le Jacq, the priest who wrote it) away right at the river 
> that bordered their lands.  The image of Chilcotin country as a wild no-
> man's land is reinforced by news of outlaws like Red Bluff Charlie fleeing 
> there after committing an attempted double murder at Dog Creek (May 1894).  
>
> And Kamloops Wawa represents Chilcotins as talking in nonstandard CJ mixed 
> with bits of English.  (Mixed up "like soup", to use a phrase from December 
> 1902.)  For example (March 1895), "Ai don no, nsaika ilo komtaks maika 
> kapho, chi alta nsaika kolan ukuk nim Kamlups Wawa" ("I don't know, we 
> don't know about your big brother, this is the first we've heard this name 
> Kamloops Wawa").  
>
> The reports of Chilcotins' attitudes specifically toward Jargon, though, 
> are mixed.  This ethnic group is reported in K.W. as well-disposed toward 
> shorthand CJ, but to have failed to learn it because they had no paper(!) 
> (15 April 1894).  A similar report emerged a year and a half later (August 
> 1895).  (Mention of an early K.W. subscriber named Billy Chilcotin (01 May 
> 1892) is not clearly affiliated with the Chilcotin ethnic group; who knows 
> but it might turn out to be one of the kinds of name often seen in BC at 
> the time, comparable to Oregon Jack or Red Bluff Charlie [below].)  
>
> Yet soon after these reports, K.W. reproduces two "temperance pledges" in 
> shorthand CJ that were adopted by Chilcotin communities (April 1895)!  
> Suddenly seven K.W. subscribers are reported for that region (September 
> 1895).  Chilcotins start to be mentioned as participating in the big 
> religious gatherings in Salish country (September 1895, December 1901), 
> constituting at least 1/3 of those present at a Sugarcane Reserve (Shuswap 
> country) gathering (May-August 1917, August 1917).  After just a few years 
> K.W. is commenting that any reports of medicine men among the Chilcotins 
> should be taken "cum grano salis" ("with a grain of salt") (January 1916).  
>
> Some Chilcotins certainly learned CJ and wrote it in shorthand.  A 
> colleague of mine from one of their communities has two audio tapes of an 
> elder singing the Catholic CJ hymns from Le Jeune's hymnal.  (I've heard 
> one of these tapes and identified the songs.)  This same person's 
> grandfather reportedly sat down each year and wrote a calendar in 
> shorthand.  The people referred to in both cases must have learned their CJ 
> in the very early years of the 20th century, at the latest.  I've recently 
> heard of a possible third Chilcotin person who may have kept a shorthand CJ 
> diary, which has yet to be confirmed.  If true, this would be the most 
> extensive known text of its kind from an Indigenous person; the longest of 
> the letters I've found is around four pages long.  
>
> This leads me to Livingston Farrand.  On page 3 in the 1900 Introduction 
> to "Traditions of the Chilcotin Indians" (New York: Memoirs of the American 
> Museum of Natural History v. 4 pt. 1 / Jesup North Pacific Expedition v. 2 
> pt. 1, retrieved from www.candiana.org), he describes the Chilcotins as 
> having mostly resettled on reservations in the eastern end of their 
> territory, which is closest to CJ-using neighbours like the Shuswaps.  He 
> terms them very acculturated to Euro-Canadian ways.  Yet Farrand says of 
> his 1897 research trip:  
>
> "The conditions were not particularly favorable for the work, for the 
> Indians were by no means cordial at the outset, and good interpreters were 
> not to be had.  That great resource of ethnological work in the Northwest, 
> the Chinook Jargon, was also not available in this tribe."  
>
> (He goes on to thank the "residents of the Chilcotin valley for many 
> kindnesses during his work in the region", but it becomes clear that this 
> probably refers to non-Indigenous people, e.g. "Mr. Charles Crowhurst['s] 
> valuable assistance among the Indians".)  
>
> I wonder what to make of this picture.
>
> --Dave R.
>
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