Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 68.djvu/513

Rh stories without any deviation from the original text, since he could often write down the word correctly, when he could hardly satisfy the Indian's requirement in the way of pronunciation.

The Indians have their 'chatter' and 'nonsense' as well as the whites. Amelu was very fond of chanting and talking to himself in somewhat waggish fashion. This he called, in the Chinook jargon, 'cultus wawa' (nonsense). As he sped along the trail he would sing to his horse, slapping it on the flanks, or making rhythmic motions with his hands:

 Tō tō tō tō! Turn turn turn turn! Tā tā tā tā Tai tai tai tai!

The repetition was ad libitum, according to his mood, or his fancy. Another refrain, which had an 'infinite variety' of inflection, intonation, etc., was the following, which he sang with great animation:

 Hai yā! hā hē yau! Ē yā! hā hā hai yau! Hē yā! hō yō!

This sounds a good deal like some of the refrains used in the gambling games of the Kootenays. Another refrain, which he chanted as the fire was being spoiled by the scattering of the burning logs, was:

 Hum kē pupum! Hum ke̱ pupum!

An interesting procedure, indulged in often by Amelu, was the mispronunciation and distortion of words, amounting not seldom to real punning. Thus for saiwā́skō, the name of a species of dragon-fly, he would repeat: Saiwā́sukw', sauwā́tskō, sauwā́sko, saiwā́sekō, saiwā́tshkō, etc. Sometimes when the Indians were telling legends in their own language, they would deliberately mispronounce or distort words to see if the writer noticed the difference—if he did not at the time they would generally tell him, and have a little fun over it. When they came to the parts of the stories where the animals played tricks on one another they would stop to laugh over it, making fun of those who couldn't talk very well. The Indians would laugh to themselves when the writer used a proper Kootenay term, and one of the other white men about a slang or jargon term without knowing it.

While the writer and Amelu were out botanizing and sampling every edible berry (the Indian, of course, tasting first), they ran across the 'soap-berry' (Shephardia canadensis), the gōpātētl of the Kootenays. The wry faces made by him as he chewed up a few of the