Part 42 (2/2)
It is curiously in embryons and childhood, and among the illiterate, we always find the groundwork and start, of this great science, and its n.o.blest products. What a relief most people have in speaking of a man not by his true and formal name, with a ”Mister” to it, but by some odd or homely appellative. The propensity to approach a meaning not directly and squarely, but by circuitous styles of expression, seems indeed a born quality of the common people everywhere, evidenced by nick-names, and the inveterate determination of the ma.s.ses to bestow sub-t.i.tles, sometimes ridiculous, sometimes very apt. Always among the soldiers during the secession war, one heard of ”Little Mac” (Gen. McClellan), or of ”Uncle Billy” (Gen. Sherman.) ”The old man” was, of course, very common. Among the rank and file, both armies, it was very general to speak of the different States they came from by their slang names.
Those from Maine were call'd Foxes; New Hamps.h.i.+re, Granite Boys; Ma.s.sachusetts, Bay Staters; Vermont, Green Mountain Boys; Rhode Island, Gun Flints; Connecticut, Wooden Nutmegs; New York, Knickerbockers; New Jersey, Clam Catchers; Pennsylvania, Logher Heads; Delaware, Muskrats; Maryland, Claw Thumpers; Virginia, Beagles; North Carolina, Tar Boilers; South Carolina, Weasels; Georgia, Buzzards; Louisiana, Creoles; Alabama, Lizards; Kentucky, Corn Crackers; Ohio, Buckeyes; Michigan, Wolverines; Indiana, Hoosiers; Illinois, Suckers; Missouri, Pukes; Mississippi, Tadpoles; Florida, Fly up the Creeks; Wisconsin, Badgers; Iowa, Hawkeyes; Oregon, Hard Cases. Indeed I am not sure but slang names have more than once made Presidents. ”Old Hickory,” (Gen. Jackson) is one case in point. ”Tippecanoe, and Tyler too,” another.
I find the same rule in the people's conversations everywhere. I heard this among the men of the city horse-cars, where the conductor is often call'd a ”s.n.a.t.c.her” (i. e. because his characteristic duty is to constantly pull or s.n.a.t.c.h the bell-strap, to stop or go on.) Two young fellows are having a friendly talk, amid which, says 1st conductor, ”What did you do before you was a s.n.a.t.c.her?” Answer of 2d conductor, ”Nail'd.” (Translation of answer: ”I work'd as carpenter.”) What is a ”boom”? says one editor to another. ”Esteem'd contemporary,” says the other, ”a boom is a bulge.” ”Barefoot whiskey” is the Tennessee name for the undiluted stimulant. In the slang of the New York common restaurant waiters a plate of ham and beans is known as ”stars and stripes,”
codfish b.a.l.l.s as ”sleeve-b.u.t.tons,” and hash as ”mystery.”
The Western States of the Union are, however, as may be supposed, the special areas of slang, not only in conversation, but in names of localities, towns, rivers, etc. A late Oregon traveller says:
”On your way to Olympia by rail, you cross a river called the Shook.u.m-Chuck; your train stops at places named Newauk.u.m, Tumwater, and Toutle; and if you seek further you will hear of whole counties labell'
d Wahkiak.u.m, or Snohomish, or Kitsar, or Klikatat; and Cowlitz, Hookium, and Nenolelops greet and offend you. They complain in Olympia that Was.h.i.+ngton Territory gets but little immigration; but what wonder? What man, having the whole American continent to choose from, would willingly date his letters from the county of Snohomish or bring up his children in the city of Nenolelops? The village of Tumwater is, as I am ready to bear witness, very pretty indeed; but surely an emigrant would think twice before he establish' d himself either there or at Toutle. Seattle is sufficiently barbarous; Stelicoom is no better; and I suspect that the Northern Pacific Railroad terminus has been fixed at Tacoma because it is one of the few places on Puget Sound whose name does not inspire horror.”
Then a Nevada paper chronicles the departure of a mining party from Reno: ”The toughest set of roosters that ever shook the dust off any town left Reno yesterday for the new mining district of Cornucopia.
They came here from Virginia. Among the crowd were four New York c.o.c.k-fighters, two Chicago murderers, three Baltimore bruisers, one Philadelphia prize-fighter, four San Francisco hoodlums, three Virginia beats, two Union Pacific roughs, and two check guerrillas.” Among the far-west newspapers, have been, or are, _The Fairplay_ (Colorado) _Flume, The Solid Muldoon_, of Ouray, _The Tombstone Epitaph_, of Nevada, _The Jimplecute_, of Texas, and _The Bazoo_, of Missouri.
s.h.i.+rttail Bend, Whiskey Flat, Puppytown, Wild Yankee Ranch, Squaw Flat, Rawhide Ranch, Loafer's Ravine, Squitch Gulch, Toenail Lake, are a few of the names of places in b.u.t.te county, Cal.
Perhaps indeed no place or term gives more luxuriant ill.u.s.trations of the fermentation processes I have mention'd, and their froth and specks, than those Mississippi and Pacific coast regions, at the present day. Hasty and grotesque as are some of the names, others are of an appropriateness and originality unsurpa.s.sable. This applies to the Indian words, which are often perfect. Oklahoma is proposed in Congress for the name of one of our new Territories. Hog-eye, Lick-skillet, Rake-pocket and Steal-easy are the names of some Texan towns. Miss Bremer found among the aborigines the following names: _Men's_, Horn-point; Round-Wind; Stand-and-look-out; The-Cloud-that-goes-aside; Iron-toe; Seek-the-sun; Iron-flash; Red-bottle; White-spindle; Black-dog; Two-feathers-of-honor; Gray-gra.s.s; Bushy-tail; Thunder-face; Go-on-the-burning-sod; Spirits-of-the-dead. _Women's_, Keep-the-fire; Spiritual-woman; Second-daughter-of-the-house; Blue-bird.
Certainly philologists have not given enough attention to this element and its results, which, I repeat, can probably be found working every where to-day, amid modern conditions, with as much life and activity as in far-back Greece or India, under prehistoric ones. Then the wit--the rich flashes of humor and genius and poetry--darting out often from a gang of laborers, railroad-men, miners, drivers or boatmen! How often have I hover'd at the edge of a crowd of them, to hear their repartees and impromptus! You get more real fun from half an hour with them than from the books of all ”the American humorists.”
The science of language has large and close a.n.a.logies in geological science, with its ceaseless evolution, its fossils, and its numberless submerged layers and hidden strata, the infinite go-before of the present. Or, perhaps Language is more like some vast living body, or perennial body of bodies. And slang not only brings the first feeders of it, but is afterward the start of fancy, imagination and humor, breathing into its nostrils the breath of life.
AN INDIAN BUREAU REMINISCENCE
After the close of the secession war in 1865, I work'd several months (until Mr. Harlan turn'd me out for having written ”Leaves of Gra.s.s”) in the Interior Department at Was.h.i.+ngton, in the Indian Bureau. Along this time there came to see their Great Father an unusual number of aboriginal visitors, delegations for treaties, settlement of lands, &c.--some young or middle-aged, but mainly old men, from the West, North, and occasionally from the South--parties of from five to twenty each--the most wonderful proofs of what Nature can produce, (the survival of the fittest, no doubt--all the frailer samples dropt, sorted out by death)--as if to show how the earth and woods, the attrition of storms and elements, and the exigencies of life at first hand, can train and fas.h.i.+on men, indeed _chiefs_, in heroic ma.s.siveness, imperturbability, muscle, and that last and highest beauty consisting of strength--the full exploitation and fruitage of a human ident.i.ty, not from the culmination-points of ”culture” and artificial civilization, but tallying our race, as it were, with giant, vital, gnarl'd, enduring trees, or monoliths of separate hardiest rocks, and humanity holding its own with the best of the said trees or rocks, and outdoing them.
There were Omahas, Poncas, Winnebagoes, Cheyennes, Navahos, Apaches, and many others. Let me give a running account of what I see and hear through one of these conference collections at the Indian Bureau, going back to the present tense. Every head and face is impressive, even artistic; Nature redeems herself out of her crudest recesses. Most have red paint on their cheeks, however, or some other paint. (”Little Hill”
makes the opening speech, which the interpreter translates by sc.r.a.ps.) Many wear head tires of gaudy-color'd braid, wound around thickly--some with circlets of eagles' feathers. Necklaces of bears' claws are plenty around their necks. Most of the chiefs are wrapt in large blankets of the brightest scarlet.
Two or three have blue, and I see one black. (A wise man call'd ”the Flesh” now makes a short speech, apparently asking something. Indian Commissioner Dole answers him, and the interpreter translates in sc.r.a.ps again.) All the princ.i.p.al chiefs have tomahawks or hatchets, some of them very richly ornamented and costly. Plaid s.h.i.+rts are to be observ'd--none too clean. Now a tall fellow, ”Hole-in-the-Day,” is speaking. He has a copious head-dress composed of feathers and narrow ribbon, under which appears a countenance painted all over a bilious yellow. Let us note this young chief. For all his paint, ”Hole-in-the-Day” is a handsome Indian, mild and calm, dress'd in drab buckskin leggings, dark gray surtout, and a soft black hat. His costume will bear full observation, and even fas.h.i.+on would accept him. His apparel is worn loose and scant enough to show his superb physique, especially in neck, chest, and legs. (”The Apollo Belvidere!” was the involuntary exclamation of a famous European artist when he first saw a full-grown young Choctaw.)
One of the red visitors--a wild, lean-looking Indian, the one in the black woolen wrapper--has an empty buffalo head, with the horns on, for his personal surmounting. I see a markedly Bourbonish countenance among the chiefs--(it is not very uncommon among them, I am told.) Most of them avoided resting on chairs during the hour of their ”talk” in the Commissioner's office; they would sit around on the floor, leaning against something, or stand up by the walls, partially wrapt in their blankets. Though some of the young fellows were, as I have said, magnificent and beautiful animals, I think the palm of unique picturesqueness, in body, limb, physiognomy, &c., was borne by the old or elderly chiefs, and the wise men.
My here-alluded-to experience in the Indian Bureau produced one very definite conviction, as follows: There is something about these aboriginal Americans, in their highest characteristic representations, essential traits, and the ensemble of their physique and physiognomy--something very remote, very lofty, arousing comparisons with our own civilized ideals--something that our literature, portrait painting, &c., have never caught, and that will almost certainly never be transmitted to the future, even as a reminiscence. No biographer, no historian, no artist, has grasp'd it--perhaps could not grasp it. It is so different, so far outside our standards of eminent humanity. Their feathers, paint--even the empty buffalo skull--did not, to say the least, seem any more ludicrous to me than many of the fas.h.i.+ons I have seen in civilized society. I should not apply the word savage (at any rate, in the usual sense) as a leading word in the description of those great aboriginal specimens, of whom I certainly saw many of the best.
There were moments, as I look'd at them or studied them, when our own exemplification of personality, dignity, heroic presentation anyhow (as in the conventions of society, or even in the accepted poems and plays,) seem'd sickly, puny, inferior.
The interpreters, agents of the Indian Department, or other whites accompanying the bands, in positions of responsibility, were always interesting to me; I had many talks with them. Occasionally I would go to the hotels where the bands were quarter'd, and spend an hour or two informally. Of course we could not have much conversation--though (through the interpreters) more of this than might be supposed--sometimes quite animated and significant. I had the good luck to be invariably receiv'd and treated by all of them in their most cordial manner.
[Letter to W. W. from an artist, B. H., who has been much among the American Indians:]
”I have just receiv'd your little paper on the Indian delegations. In the fourth paragraph you say that there is something about the essential traits of our aborigines which 'will almost certainly never be transmitted to the future.' If I am so fortunate as to regain my health I hope to weaken the force of that statement, at least in so far as my talent and training will permit. I intend to spend some years among them, and shall endeavor to perpetuate on canvas some of the finer types, both men and women, and some of the characteristic features of their life. It will certainly be well worth the while. My artistic enthusiasm was never so thoroughly stirr'd up as by the Indians. They certainly have more of beauty, dignity and n.o.bility mingled with their own wild individuality, than any of the other indigenous types of man.
Neither black nor Afghan, Arab nor Malay (and I know them all pretty well) can hold a candle to the Indian. All of the other aboriginal types seem to be more or less distorted from the model of perfect human form--as we know it--the blacks, thin-hipped, with bulbous limbs, not well mark'd; the Arabs large-jointed, &c. But I have seen many a young Indian as perfect in form and feature as a Greek statue--very different from a Greek statue, of course, but as satisfying to the artistic perceptions and demand.
”And the worst, or perhaps the best of it all is that it will require an artist--and a good one--to record the real facts and impressions. Ten thousand photographs would not have the value of one really finely felt painting. Color is all-important. No one but an artist knows how much.
An Indian is only half an Indian without the blue-black hair and the brilliant eyes s.h.i.+ning out of the wonderful dusky ochre and rose complexion.”
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