Andrew Garcia 1967 "Tough Trip through Paradise"

[Dave Robertson]

Edited by Bennett H. Stein from manuscripts by Garcia composed circa 1930
that were "discovered in a dynamite box in a cabin".

I recognized this book when I bought a copy last week (autographed by Stein,
I noticed when I got home).

But a search of our list archives turned up no mention of it.  Tina, did you
mention this guy to me a few years ago?

Garcia lived in western Montana from about 1876 to his death in 1941, and
engaged in serial monogamy with Native women.  He's a heck of an
entertaining writer, has a fine eye for detail, and witnessed a period of
major change for the Native people of the region.

There's a bit of Jargon in the book, surprisingly to me since we have no
really good evidence for its use in Montana.  But the CJ that's included is
actually in an English-language matrix...I mean, there's no quoted CJ
speech, just a few words in Garcia's narration.  Seems like they could've
been added for color.  They're all words that would've been familiar to
someone who was well-read in Northwest pioneer literature in 1930: "skookum
house", "Siwash", "the great muck-a-muck" and very few others.

Garcia clearly had a good ear.  He quotes Pend d'Oreille Salish speech and
personal names, and says he learned the language from spending time in a
"camp" of PdO people by his trading post.  He took at least one country wife
 who he could only communicate with via (Plains Indian) Sign Language and
PdO Salish.  One of these women, In-who-lise, was a Nez Perce refugee
[called by a Salish name] among the PdO's.  Nez Perces are known to have
spoken CJ. so she might've been more likely to know it.  But the general
sense I have is that Jargon wasn't being used in western Montana, while PISL
(another pidgin, right?) was known by most everyone.

Other linguistic observations by Garcia that I relish: he refers many times
to Natives speaking "Piegan English", which turns out to seem
indistinguishable from what he calls "pidgin English".  He quotes some of
this English.

Garcia also ran into plenty of "Cree half-breeds", "French Canadians",
"cayuse Frenchmen", people from Canada with Red River carts, and people he
labels in similar ways, who spoke a kind of "Injun French".  This puts me in
mind of both Metis French and Michif.  (He also speaks of Canadian
half-breeds with Scottish names and highland burrs.)

He mentions Blackfeet and Piegans greeting people with the word "how", which
I'd thought was Lakota.  (But it's a weird word in Lakota -- the only one
with that diphthong.)  Hmm.

I'm only about halfway through the book, but you can see the wealth of
information it contains.  I gladly recommend reading Garcia.

--Dave R

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