Page:History of Oregon Literature.djvu/105

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Chinook Jargon as a Literary Language
83

Whiskey is good for nothing,
And now I throw it away—
Now I throw it away.

Whiskey mimoluse tillikums,3.
Pe alta nika mash—
Alta nika mash.
Whiskey mimoluse tillikums,
Pe alta nika mash.
Whiskey kills people,
And now I throw it away—
Now I throw it away.

Cultus klaska muckamuck,4.
Pe alta nika mash—
Alta nika mash.
Cultus klaska muckamuck,
Pe alta nika mash.
They that drink it, drink what is worthless,
And now I throw it away—
Now I throw it away.

6

"Me No Like White Man Nohow"

By Theodore Winthrop

Theodore Winthrop, a 25-year-old Yale graduate, spent the summer of 1853 in the Pacific Northwest, visiting Puget Sound, Portland, The Dalles, Oregon City, Salem, Marysville, Yoncalla, Scottsburg and St. Helens. Returning to New York, he studied law and was admitted to the bar, but devoted himself almost entirely to literary work, completing the five books which were published after his death in the Civil War in 1861. The best known of these was called by him Klalam and Klickitat but changed by the publishers to The Canoe and the Saddle, from which this selection was taken.

The speaker was a root-digging Klickitat, called Shabbiest, because of the shabby cast-off Christian coat he wore and little else. "At last … he turned to me, and, raising his arms, one sleeveless, one fringed with rags at the shoulder, delivered at me a harangue, in the most jerky and broken Chinook. Given in broken English, corresponding, its purport was as follows—in a naso-guttural choke:"