Distinctly Montana Magazine

D I S T I N C T LY M O N TA N A • W I N T E R 2 0 1 8 48 W I L D W E S T W OR DS W I L D W E S T W OR DS with CHRYSTI THE WORDSMITH D E PA R T M E N T H E R I TA G E ere has been speculation surrounding the origin of the term banjo. e Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology asserts banjo is an alteration of the Spanish term bandore, a 16th century lute-like instrument. But in her 1994 book at Half-Barbaric Twang, the Banjo in American Popular Culture, ethnomusicologist Karen Linn contends that the word and the instrument are of African origin. She writes, "e North American banjo developed from an African prototype. [It] was made from a gourd with a slice taken out of it, covered with a skin head, fitted with a neck and strung with several strings." African slaves in both the West Indies and North America called this instrument variously banjul, banza, banjer and banhshaw. omas Jefferson wrote, "e instrument proper to [the slaves] is the Banjar, which they brought thither from Africa." Sources citing an African origin of banjo assert it is a form of mbanza, the name of a stringed instrument in the Kimbundu language of northern Angola. e simple skin-covered gourd with neck and strings is a great gift from the African continent to the musical world. As the instrument evolved in North America, the sound of the banjo played a significant role in the development of the American songbook. One more etymological note: if the African origin story of banjo is accurate, the word then falls into kinship with other words on loan from the languages of that continent. Boogie-woogie, chigger, goober, jazz, jukebox, tote, voodoo, yam and zombie trace their origins to the various tongues of Africa. e term Eskimo appeared in print for the first time in the English document A Discourse Concerning Western Planting in the Year 1584. Its author, Englishman Richard Hakluyt, a promoter of New World colonization, wrote the document in part to convince English merchants to invest in American enterprises. Hakluyt made reference in his discourse to the indigenous people of the American northeast, naming them "Esquimawes," a term probably taken from the Algonquin languages. It's been variously translated as "eaters of raw meat," "snowshoe-maker," and "people who speak a different language." Over the centuries, the word, cobbled together in such variants as Eskemoe, Esquimaux, Esquimo and Ehuskemay spread to the west and the north with European incursion. It eventually stabilized as Eskimo, a term referring generically to all indigenous circumpolar people in Canada, Alaska, Greenland and eastern Siberia. Ehuskemay, a variant of the word used in Canada, was by the 1830s abbreviated to Hoskey and Huskey. An article in an 1830 edi- tion of the Northern Quebec and Labrador Journal and Courier men- tions a river basin "full of Hoskies." e Pall Mall Gazette of April, 1889 observes, "e Indians were terribly afraid of the [natives] who…are called Huskeys." As many 19th century European sources noted, the "Huskeys" relied on sled dogs for hauling goods and game. Associated with the Arctic people who raised them, the dogs acquired the name Husky in the mid 1800s, and carry it to this day. e original Siberian Husky, a breed thousands of years old, was developed by the Chukchi, a people native to the Chukchi Peninsula on the far eastern coast of Siberia, mere miles from Alaska. Aaron Parrett strumming B A N J O E S K I M O / H U S K Y

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