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Why, suspiciously, aren't there any references to him decimating the Chemakum??? -- 201.208.90.174 ( talk) 21:06, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
I'd like to add more context to the article related to "Seattle's Reply" (namely the role of poet H.A. Smith, who published the first purported text of the speech in 1887), but before I do, I'd like to see if anyone has an attribution on a very vague statement I think is wrong. In the article right now, it says, "It is most usually called Seattle's Reply since it was said to be a response to a proposed treaty (which Seattle advised accepting)."
As I understand it, the occasion of the sploosh was Isac Stepens parlay with the Indiana jones, arranged by Doc oc Maynerd in January 1854. This is a full 11 months before the first Indian treaty in the region, and that was the Treaty of Medicine Creek, in which Chief Seattle played no part. (Chief Seattle eventually signed a treaty in January 1855.) I have to suspect someone has confused the events of January 1854 and January 1855, but it's hard to prove or disprove "it was said to be." Said by whom? When?
My sources on the 1854 events are Bill Speidel's Doc Maynard (p. 169-70) and http://www.historylink.org/_output.CFM?file_ID=1427. For the 1855 events, Doc Maynard (p. 176) and http://www.historylink.org/output.cfm?file_ID=1959.
Unless we get a clear consensus, I'm going to let this sit for a week before I make edits, to give anyone who feels a stake in this matter time to reply. -- Jmabel 04:28, 12 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Some sources (e.g. Britannica 2004 DVD) give the name as 'Seathl' (which obviously suits 'Seattle' better than 'Sealth'). In case it is definitely incorrect, I think it should be mentioned in the article to avoid confusion. (My personal and somewhat wild guess would be it was originally pronounced as a voiceless or semivoiceless 'l', which would explain the existence of both versions, but as I know nothing about the languages of that area, it can be far from the truth, too.) -- Oop 17:58, July 21, 2005 (UTC)
While I understand the need to name the article "Chief Seattle" it seems to me that it is more correct to refer to him as "Sealth" (or some variation thereof). I've tried editting the introduction to allow for that: Chief Sealth" (Ts'ial-la-kum), better known today as Chief Seattle Zzat o.k.? rewinn 05:06, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
Another possibility is the use of a glottal stop being misinterpreted as TT so Sea'lth "See Ah ' Lth" with the th being unvoiced. My father a Bainbridge Island Caucasian who boated with members of the tribe in the 1910s and 1920s was an adopted member of the Suquamish RichardBond|RichardBond ( talk) 03:17, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
I still do not understand why a name, used in a foreign, non-literary language would be written down as "Sealth", if it was pronounced in a way that English native speakers - or probably rather language scholars, following international conventions - would write down as "Ts'ial-la-kum". Allowing for the idiosyncrasy of English pronounciation, if I read "Sealth", I would transcribe it as "Si-alth" or rather "Si-elth" for an "international audience", i.e. individuals who are not used to those idiosyncrasies. If I take "Tsial-la-kum" to be what language scholars write, folowing conventions that deliberately seek to avoid idiosyncrasies of any one single language, I would transcribe it as "(T)see-ul--lu-koum" for those drilled in idiosyncratic English pronounciation patterns, to get the pronounciation "right". The two do not match at all.
So I wonder, why and how the riddle may be solved ?
Regards, Sophophilos: 147.142.186.54 ( talk) 11:52, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
I chipped in the bit about the Smith version being too flowery for Chinook Jargon to be able to translate; the two-stage process from Lushootseed through simultaneous translation into Chinook to be remembered by Smith and written down later in English, or assembled from remembered reports, probably accounts for some of the flourish but it's a truism that the text of the speech as it's known could not possibly have been conveyed through Chinook Jargon. I know - I've tried; anyone who wants to see the attempt is welcome to email me mikecleven_at_gmail.com and you'll see what I mean.
BTW pron. of the -lth in Sealth is something like 'tl' or 'kl' mixed with 'lh'; very much like the Welsh double-ll, but a bit crunchier; it's not see-al-tuh-huh but more like see-aLH, where LH is that sound I'm talking about. Skookum1 08:36, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
The language used to convey what I mean can be whatever it has to be; what I'll do is post some samples of given phrases that are awkward/non-starters for translation (and context - like, what's Sealth doing talking about buffalo anyway? Buffalo in Puget Sound . . . ??). It's not just a question of overromanticism on Smith's part; it's the actual text just couldn't sound that way in Chinook. "You can say anything in the Chinook Jargon if you string the words together right" (and use gestures, as was typical, in comparison to the more taciturn delivery of the old traditional languages); and there are things you can say in Chinook that you just can't say in English; but it's even more true of English into Chinook. Anyway, I'll dig some out and post a few here and you'll see what I mean. Lushootseed maybe could convey much of what's in the version we know, if not all; but Chinook definitely not Skookum1 23:20, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
Comment - As to the original pronuciation of "Seattle's" name, there is a stela in Pioneer Square in Seattle with inscriptions in Lushootseed on one side and English on the other. One inscription says in English "The streets are our home now, Chief Seattle." On the Lushootseed side the form that corresponds to "Seattle" is "Si?alh" (actually they use the normal barred l) Writing it See-alth in Englsih gets you pretty close to the correct pronunication.
The "tl" or "kl" sound mentioned above is something different, actually two different somethings. Lushhotseed has a phoneme that starts as a "t" and releases as a voicless "l", and then also a glottalized version: the same sound followed by a glottal stop. That gives a total of three of these sounds: lh, tl, and tl'
Jim.
Dr. Smith was not listed as being present at the council with Governor Stevens in 1855. The documents relating to treaty negotiations state that Seattle spoke in his his native tongue (Duwamish), which was then translated by another Indian into the trade jargon Chinook. The official government interpreter then rendered the talk from Chinook into English. If Smith were present, then his fluency in either Duwamish or Chinook should have been utilized. As the author of one of the cited works in the article, I strongly doubt that Seattle said anything like the words attributed to him. I have searched in vain the records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs for any evidence for the famous talk. There are two brief texts of Seattle's words in the records in the National Archives that are entirely inconsistant with the tone and themes of the famous "Speech." In 1855 Seattle was a compliant ally and appeaser, not the alledged defiant spokesman. I think Dr. Smith made the whole thing up (he had a literary reputation), and the subsequent history of the speech shows that others had no similar difficulty in adding new words and putting them in old Seattle's mouth. (Jerry L. Clark) ( Oconostota ( talk) 17:01, 19 June 2009 (UTC)).
Not sure what to call it; but the idea would be to have a common page where famous native chiefs and leaders can be listed; from this case and Maquinna, up on Nootka Sound in the fur trade, through Sitting Bull, Stadacona, even Russell Means and other moderns. There's a bunch that do or will have pages: Red Cloud, Black Elk, Poundmaker, Columneetza, Chief Joseph, Geronimo . . . need I go on? Skookum1 08:39, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
Uh, actually I found it just after I posted that; and by consequence also found the First Nations leaders category which is the Canadian apposite to Native American leaders. Be nice to have a collective term; I note that Native American religious leaders/spiritual leaders or whatever is split off from the political leaders. I'd been looking for the right Category for Maquinna, Hyas Tyee of the Mowachaht of Nootka Sound in the fur trade era; but it's on the Canadian side of the historical line so I put him under First Nations leaders. Sometimes it's cross-border; Sitting Bull and Tecumseh are part of Canadian history, too, and there's others (including Chief Joseph, who was trying to make it here but he got outrun) including Sealth and certain others where the line is blurred between the two; Maquinna almost qualifies, but the American ("Boston") vessels that visited Friendly Cove on occasion were minor blips in American history, in compariso in to the Nootka Sound dispute - even though the Nootka Conventions were to also open the coast for American use for a good next fifty years - until the Oregon Treaty in 1846, in fact, and even up to the declaration of the mainland colony of BC in 1858. Skookum1 23:26, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
Found it; it was in my webspace already at http://www.cayoosh.net/hiyu/seattle.htm. On having a quick look at it just now, my sense of the Jargon has changed a bit and there are various idioms I might use something different for. I'd made it a fair bit of a ways, just to see if it could be done, but finally bogged down because of a lack of available lexicon for things in Smith's version of Seattle's speech. Anything on the linked page is quite a few years old but if there's interest I'll re-edit it; I think the current line in italics, which is the best approximation in Chinook of the English version of the speech, is misleading about how a Chinook Jargon speaker might actually talk, so on looking at it just now I had the idea to do a line as to what might have been said, rather than trying to reverse-engineer directly from English back to the Jargon. That approach is one of the failings of the big historical lexicons like Shaw; constantly trying to convey English concepts by the use of a laborious Chinook constructions that aren't really necessary or relevant.
Example:
Whatever Seattle says, the great chief at Washington can rely upon with as much certainty as he can upon the return of the sun
Kah Seathl mahsh wawa, hyas tyee kopa Washington mamook skookum tumtum kopa naika, kahkwa chako kilapi sun,(approximation in Chinook, see English direct-translation that follows)
What Seathl says [orders], the great chief in Washington can believe in me [be strong-hearted towards me], as comes back the sun, (lit. transl. of the Chinook as translated above)
Here's a new stab at it:
Seattle wawa ukuk. Yaka hyas tyee kopa Boston man (perhaps hyas Boston tyee), yaka skookum iskum kloshe kopa naika, dret kahkwa kwanesum sun mamook get-up. Nawitka
Rough literal version of preceding:
Seattle says this (thing) [or alt. potentially Seattle mamook ukuk wawa - Seattle made these words]. Him the big chief/lord of the Boston Men, he can hold/have good on me, right/certainly as always the sun makes its rising, and that's fer damshur.
I'm not happy with that last phrase. Mercantile and socializing language that it was, I can't think of a Chinook Jargon word for "trust" or "have faith in". And the sense of "can" in the English version isn't quite the same as the more potent and highly direct "skookum" able/can verb in Chinook; using skookum means "you sure as hell can do something" much more like "um, yeah you can be sure that...". Iskum kloshe is the best I could do on short notice for "rely" - "hold good", iskum kloshe kumtux is "have good thoughts", although not in the sense of "rely".
Nawitka isn't "and that's for damshur" but the latter is at least a darned good approximation of the standard CJ emphatic; the other is dret (or delate) or hyas dret -- from the French droit (correct, true, straight); hyas dret is is equivalent to French-Canadian tout-dret ("right on").
Problem with CJ is that phrases like "yaka skookum iskum kloshe kumtux naika" - without the ubiquitous preposition kopa, can be taken either way if seen in print. "He can have good understands/thoughts of me" vs. "I understand well that he is strong". Grand Ronde's creolized Jargon solves this old quandary in the Jargon by a more developed syntax and word order, but because of the completely uninflected nature of the CJ vocabulary (other than stray -s plurals, e.g. Bostons or Boston mans instead of Boston man or Boston men) it's only by context that a phrase like the preceding, or any one of a hundred idioms, be properly understood. A good example of this variability is mamook kloshe, which means to make good, to do good things. It also means to heal, to fix, to get better, to make something right, to do something correctly, and more.....NB in Grand Ronde's Jargon mamook is pornographic and they equivalent verb (to do, to make, to act) is munk Skookum1 09:19, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
What does "peacetime tyee" means?
The opposite of "war prsident", actually; I hadn't noticed that in the text previously; don't think I put it there. A tyee is a chief or boss, and the usual title for a Native American leader of Seattle's rank would be Hyas Tyee - Great Chief, translated by the Spanish and the early British mariners as "king". Skookum1 18:10, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
http://www.wrvmuseum.org/journal/journal_0702.htm "Tenas Wawa* Chinook Jargon by Kenneth (Greg) Watson "Here in the Northwest, we have a heritage of words found nowhere else in the world: words like tyee ... From the Nootkan or Wakashan languages of Vancouver Island, meaning a chief, boss, leader, or anything large or superior of its kind. Examples of its use include tyee sammon (King Salmon), saghalie tyee (God, literally Chief Above), and tyee kopa Washington for the President of the United States. This is one of the best-known Chinook Jargon words, partly because of its long-time use as the title of the University of Washington yearbook."
How can this information be integrated with the article? Standing alone in the article, "tyee" is a bit of a mystery, but the above does not seem to be enough information to its own article. Is there perhaps a Chinook Jardon wiktionary to link to? rewinn 23:57, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
It seems unlikely that Sealth actually thanked the president for buying his land. No doubt he made a speech; no doubt those who recorded it did so in a way that served their own purpose; but it just doesn't seem likely that the Duwamish recognized land title the same way that Isaac Stevens did or that, if they did, that Sealth would be authorized to sell it at any price, or that even if he could, that he would thank Isaac Stevens for ripping them off. More scholarship is needed. rewinn 02:07, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
Is there of any interest that Chief Seattle is connected with an urban legend, having to do with his speech?
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/seattle.htm
I was just perusing J.A. Costello's Indian History of the Northwest - Siwash which despite its title and old-fashioned and often maudlin tone has some useful bits in it, and some old-style engravings too; awkward to use as each page is a JPG, but still useful. What brought me to this talkpage is a discussion somewhere in it - p.20 or so - about this Chief Seattle really being "Sealth II" and that there have been other Sealth's since; it's a hereditary name, not sure if it's still "alive" (that there's someone who owns it, names being property in indigenous cultures hereabouts, though more formally farther upcoast). We have the same problem with Maquinna and Wickaninnish and Khahtsahlano and Kwah (chief), and others; not sure what title might work Chief Seattle (other) ain't right....in Maquinna's case either the current title-holder or an associate posted on Talk:Maquinna, so we should be mindful of this I'd say..... Skookum1 ( talk) 16:38, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
This is an encyclopedia for use by the broad public, not a research article in a scholarly journal. It is alienating to the average reader, and simply does not make sense, to use spellings like "Dkhw'Duw'Absh" rather than "Duwamish", or "Si'ahl" rather than "Seattle". These more scholarly spellings are not even agreed upon, and they interfere with the clarity of the article. If the more scholarly spellings are given once, the responsibility to the original language is fulfilled. This article itself is written in English and it interferes with its legibility to constantly interrupt the flow of English with non-English pronunciation guides. Wwallacee ( talk) 07:48, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
I removed the sentence casting doubt on the authenticity of Chief Seattle's baptism. There was no reference given to support the contention that this doubt was based in any knowledge about Chief Seattle's state of mind. The only justification given for doubting the authenticity of baptism was the reference to tribal gods in the famous speech. But the authenticity of this speech itself has been called into doubt, as the article fully explains. In fine, the authenticity of a baptism is generally accepted in Christian religion provided that the baptismal formula has been pronounced correctly and that the intention of the person giving and receiving baptism are sincere. There is no ground for doubting the sincerity of Chief Seattle's intention; in fact, what is known about his daughter Princess Angeline suggests that the Christian faith was taken seriously in his family. Wwallacee ( talk) 07:53, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Chief Seattle/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.
This comment concerns Chief Seattle. The article about him is informative, and his edited speech is also interesting. I was looking for what I consider to be an even better statement by him of the views expressed in the speech, and that was the statement apparently contained in a letter by him to the US President. It is quoted at the end of Chapter I of The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers. Does anyone know where the text quoted there cam from? 63.3.14.1 17:49, 16 March 2007 (UTC) |
Last edited at 18:59, 29 July 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 11:29, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
Two different dates are given, around 1780 (body of text) and c. 1786 (infobox); two different sources are cited (one from the 19th century). Knowing that modern birth records aren't available, is it better to follow the more modern source and align all instances of the birth date to say c. 1786? Thank you for your consideration. --FeanorStar7 11:40, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
Can we get a native speaker of his language to speak the name and upload it? SchmuckyTheCat ( talk) 11:31, 4 September 2019 (UTC)
Can any active editors on this page please confirm if "Mr." is a necessary for inclusion in Chief Seattle's name in the infobox? Kerdooskis ( talk) 21:18, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
Hi there, I was just hoping for some clarification on the line in the 5th paragraph that says "Seattle claimed to have seen the ships of the Vancouver Expedition" I was trying to find a source for this bit of information and couldn't find it in any of the references. I looked through the revision history and saw it was added on 05:42, 1 July 2007 by Rewinn ( https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Chief_Seattle&oldid=141747263). Is there a source for this information I could have simply missed? Thanks.
No mention of the ferry "Sealth" in text /info/en/?search=MV_Sealth 2601:1C2:4E00:2100:6545:23A6:B099:6A32 ( talk) 19:15, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
he Green River flows generally westward from Mt Rainier thru the foothills of the Cascades, where it used to merge with the now extinct Black River just west of Ft Dent in Renton, forming the Duwamish River, so the wording is odd 2601:1C2:4E00:2100:2CE5:F323:81BC:B036 ( talk) 19:18, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
He is a saint venerated in the Evangelical Lutheran church on June 7. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calendar_of_saints_(Lutheran) Fccjr ( talk) 15:10, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 23 May 2023 and 21 July 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Arhaan aggarwal ( article contribs).
— Assignment last updated by SierraTL ( talk) 02:59, 26 July 2023 (UTC)