Chinook Wawa

COSHO [ko’-SHO] or [KU’-shu] — noun. Meaning: Hog; pig; swine; pork; ham; bacon. Origin: French, le cochon, ‘pig’ “Oink, oink indeed,” said the Harbor Seal. Sometimes rendered as gosho, legosho, or lecosho in older sources, “cosho” (with the accent on the second syllable) was a French loanword used to mean pig…...

DELATE [de-LATEY’] or [de-LEYT’] — adjective, adverb. Meaning: accurate; authentic; certain; correct; correctly; direct; exact; definite; definitley; genuine; just; straight; plain; precise; real; really; sincere; sincerely; sure; thorough; true; truely; upright; undoubted; verily; very; without equivocation; without hesitation. Origin: Either a corruption of English, straight; or Norman French drette >…...

Photo by: Justin Culman...

HYAS [hy-AS’] or [hay-ASH]— adjective, adverb. Meaning: Big, great, vast, large, auspicious, powerful, important, celebrated, very. Origin: Of obscure origin. Possible corruption of Nuu-chah-nulth iyahish “many”, “much” While similar in use to the word skookum, hyas generally has connotations of greatness, importance, or auspiciousness rather than outright strength or power. “Hyas…...

In a “stick illahee” (forest) one could easily find both "mitwhit stick" (a standing tree) and “whim stick” (a fallen tree), as well as the occasional “koko stick” (wood-pecker)....

Historically, “klootchman” only referred to a First Nations adult woman, unless combined with another word, such as “Kingchauch klootchman” (Englishwoman) “Boston klootchman” (American woman), or some other descriptor, such as “tenas klootchman” (girl; young woman)....

The potlatch was the ceremonial distribution of property and gifts practiced among the First Nations of Cascadia along the Pacific coast, particularly the Kwakiutl, and were an institutional foundation of coastal society and economics....

MAHSIE [MAH-sie] — verb. Meaning: Thanks, thank you, thankful. Origin: French, merci ‘thank you’. Sometimes rendered as ‘masi’, ‘mausie’ and even as “masiem”, the world was adopted from French as a way of saying ‘thanks’ or ‘thank you”, or to show that one is ‘thankful’, “wawa mahsie” (to give thanks,…...