TRACKS THAT SPEAK
by Charles Culter
Wherever English has been carried by explorers and conquerors, it has picked up words from local languages for things found nowhere else: kangaroo in Australia, taboo in Tonga, bungalow in India, gutta-percha in Malaya, and so on. North America is no exception, and English has imported many words from its native languages.
The late Charles Culter’s book brings together about 75 of them, arranged thematically under 15 headings such as “food”, “clothing”, and “artifacts”.
What is unusual about his book is that he goes well beyond etymological explanations to discuss the cultural and technical background of words. He isn’t content to explain where the words parka and anorak come from, for example, but describes the differences between them, why and when they were worn and by whom, and even expands on their modern descendants. In his essay on the pipsissewa plant, he describes its medicinal uses, not only by Native Americans but by colonists and today’s Americans too.
He explains how wampum, from a Massachusetts word, came to mean money to incoming Europeans in the 1630, how potlatches got so much out of hand that Canada had to ban them in 1885, and the background to the way that a Hutsnuwu word became the English hooch.
Mr Culter says in his introduction, “Words are signs, pointing to an elaborate web of cultural practices, each with its own unique tradition, extending into and influencing the present.” He has followed the word tracks of the title into some surprising places to produce an intriguing set of vignettes. They help to illuminate relationships between settlers and native peoples in North America from the earliest times on.
[Charles L Culter, Tracks That Speak: The Legacy of Native American Words in North American Culture, published by The Houghton Mifflin Company on 3 Apr 2002; pp255; hardback ISBN 0-618-06509-1, paperback ISBN 0-618-06510-5; publisher’s list prices are US$21.00 and US$14.00 respectively.]
SHARE THIS ARTICLE
