DCHP-2

kloochman -mans or -men cloo(t)chman, klu(t)chman [< Chinook Jargon klūtchman female, wife < Nootka lhūtsma] Pacific Coast and Northwest DCHP-1 (pre-1967)

• 1 n.

  an Indian woman; wife; squaw.

  See also: klooch  white kloochman  

  • 1849  [Mixed dialect . . . Woman Tlutchè-men.]
  • 1860  About 75 Cape Flattery Indians arrived in canoes yesterday, from their home, on a visit to the Songish tribe, for the purpose of buying a clootchman for their chief.
  • 1872  I had found sleeping utterly impracticable on account of the four Klootchmen (Indian women), who chattered and quarrelled unceasingly.
  • 1895  I found it hard to believe difficult that the enormous mass of shell-fish whose remains enter so largely into the composition of these piles had been laboriously brought up against the stream in canoes or "packed" on the backs of the patient "klutchmans."
  • 1915  Peter got married, and then the trouble began, because they both wanted the same klootchman.
  • 1964  . . . one or two of his Indian seamen had brought along their Indian wives. Usually as handy as men aboard ship, one was a young klootchman called Amy.

• 2 n.

  a white man married to or living with an Indian woman; squawman (def. la).

  See also: squawman (def. 1a)  

  • An erroneous usage resulting from folk etymology--klooch + man.

  • 1938  A "kluchman" is a man with a squaw.
  • 1942  The Kloochman's was an even grander race than the Indian men's.