Talk:Skokomish (tribe)

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my understanding is that the Skokomish and other Twana peoples were NOT along the puget sound and were all around hood canal. the edge between the puget and hood canal watersheds seems to be the language and cultural boarder.

[edit] Skokomish -> Skookum-ish?

A fellow contributor to the Chinook Jargon article posted a source for the Skokomish name I hadn't heard before: that it's composed of skookum + -ish - meaning "brave/strong/stalwart people". I'd always thought that the name came from their relocation to the Skokomish River, which as far as I understand it is the remaining length of the Snohomish River after it meets the Skykomish River. Don't know my Washington history/name-source stuff to know any better; the -ish ending is vaguely Salishan for "people" (usually -mx, -mc or ??) but I can't think of any other Chinookisms that have this ending. Comments?Skookum1 00:10, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

The book "Washington State Place Names", by James W. Phillips (2nd ed. 1972, U.W.Press, ISBN 0-295-95158-3) contradicts the etymology skokom + ish that I posted in Chinook Jargon. Phillips (p.132) writes:

Name of the area's resident Indian tribe is based on two of their dialect words — s'kaw, meaning "fresh water", and mish meaning "people".

I still think that skokom+ish = "strong people" is correct, but that's because I've been familiar with that from childhood. I and the family member who taught me could easily be wrong.

However, I must point out that the the Skokomish River is on the opposite side of Puget Sound from the Skykomish River, which on my maps feeds into what is now called the Snoqualmie River, which runs past the town of Snohomish (which may originally have been a name for the river, also). (Note that this is an easy mistake: it's frequently the case that Washington State place names sound very similar, but are for different features in different places.) Tom Lougheed 01:41, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

That was my confusion; Snoqualmie + Skykomish = Snohomish River, for its last few miles before the sea; the confluence is somewhere southeast of Everett, between there and Snohomish I think. And I'll go with your attestion; you can't cite original research, but I can cite you (being a chinook studies kinda guy, i.e. not credentialed but familiar enough to go OK, there's a Puget Sound usage/adaptaton that's not recorded in Shaw/Gibbs.Skookum1 03:46, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

BTW the -mish ending, or things like it, in the Salishan languages I'm half-famliar with (from placenames mostly) means "wind", as in Squamish - "big wind", apparently, and yeah, the head of Howe Sound is like the Columbia Gorge for howling wind and big waves. Not sure about Samish and Samamish because they're across the line. The "people" ending tends to be -mcw/-mxw (-emc in Secwepemc, -imc in St'at'imc, -mux in Nlaka'pamux (not so with Comox, which is from the Chinook Jargon for "dog" - which these people apparently were known for having many of, and like other tribes in the region bred them for food and wool; that breed is now extinct; and in Comox the -mox ending is from Chinookan, which is entirely unrelated but does mean "creature/being" or something to that effect), or at least the -ox/-ooks ending is (Pasiooks=French; "cloth people", as they came trading cloth, and dressed in it). Oh, just to clarify, the Comox were Salishan, but their name is from the Chinook Jargon; there is a Comox language spelling of it K'omox, and I don't know where the accent goes, but's quite common for BC bands to Indianize Chinook words and names in their community to a "more Indian-looking" form. Hence, for example, Kiy-oose for what had been Cayoose Creek , as though it were a St'at'imc word in origin (Cayoose Creek is the map/English band name of the reserve, but the adjoining creek it is named for is normally spelled Cayoosh Creek). The modern revival of the Chinuk-Wawa in Grand Ronde is proudly based on its creolization - its incorporation of more and more elements from the many languages in their multitribal community, and purgations of English and French elements, or at least totally Indianize their prononciation. The name conversions in BC are not so systematic, more a statement of identity, and an affirmation of the look/orthography of their traditional language: spell a Chinook name/word in the traditional-language spelling instead of in the pseudo-English spellings. Similarly, within local native tongues Chinook and/or French adaptions are spelled in the local format, and are often not taken for "foreign" words (mowitch for "deer/game" is a famous one on that account; from Idaho to Alaska and throughout BC and WA and OR).

Anyway, all of that to get to the point that I think it's a Puget Sound hybrid form of skookum/skokom (vowel harmonic contraction of some other effect, or just the local prononciation) plus that -mish, which is distinctly Salishan and not part of the regular Jargon; as if there was a regular Jargon. It makes perfect sense to me that the -mish ending would be recognized by their immediate neighbours throughout the Sound and adjoining Straits and Coasts, because of the common roots built into Salishan tongues, different from each other as they so very much era. The mainstream Chinook Jargon, as emanating from the lower Columbia, would have had skookum win. I'd also suggest that your inherited translation of it as "brave people" rather than "strong wind" may be that the latter was taken by these people metaphorically; that they are a strong wind etc. Skookum has all kinds of meanings, as I'm sure you know: skookum win can mean someone potent with life-force, strong-souled, or with really good cardio. All depends on when and in which context, and how you deliver it.

But I don't know about Puget Sound Salishan tongues that much; there's the Duguamish too, isn't there? As said, as far as I've ever heard, the -mish ending up here is "wind", but all Salishan tongues are subtle in how their consonants work and it might not be too far from -imc/emc to -mish. Skookum1 03:48, 23 May 2006 (UTC)