“Ten Years of Missionary Work…Skokomish” (Part 3 of 3)
Our juicy third installment of three!
By the way, the graveyard tents that you’ll be seeing below have a Chinuk Wawa name. You’ll see it in the article I release tomorrow about a neighboring tribe…
Today, lots and lots of wonderful stuff about how CW hymns were created. And, a CW hymn that’s a new discovery for us!
p. 123
In my visits among white people and in other Sabbath-schools I was often called upon to sing them, and was then often asked for a copy; so often was this done that I grew tired of copying them. Encouraged by this demand and by Major Boyle’s interest in them, I thought I would see if I could not have them published. I wrote to several other reservations, asking for copies of any such hymns which they might have, hoping that they also would bear a share of the expense of publishing them; but I found that most of them had no such songs, and, to my surprise, some seemed to have no desire for them. So I was compelled to carry on the little affair alone. I was unable to bear the expense, but fortunately then Mr. G[eorge]. H. Himes, of Portland, consented to run all risks of printing them, and so in 1878 a little pamphlet, entitled “Hymns in the Chinook Jargon Language,” was printed, and it has been very useful. The following, from its introductory note, may be of interest: —
“These hymns have grown out of Christian work among the Indians….The chief peculiarity which I have noticed in making hymns in this language is that a large proportion of the words are of two syllables, and a large majority of these have the accent on the second syllable, which renders it almost impossible to compose any hymns in long, common, or short metres.”
The following remarks were made about it by the editor of The American Missionary: —
“It is not a ponderous volume like those in use in our American churches, with twelve or fifteen hundred hymns, but a modest pamphlet of thirty pages, containing both the Indian originals and the English translations. The tunes include, among others, ‘Bounding Billows,’ ‘John Brown,’ and ‘The Hebrew Children.’ The hymns are very simple and often repeat all but the first line. The translations show the poverty of the language to convey religious ideas….It is no little task to make hymns out of such poor materials. Let it be understood that these are only hymns for the transition state — for Indians who can remember a little and who sing in English as soon as they have learned to read. This little book is a monument of missionary labor and full of suggestion as to the manifold difficulties to be encountered in the attempt to Christianize the Indians of America.”
p. 124
Since then I have made a few others which have never been printed, one of which is here given. The cause of it was as follows: One day I asked an Indian what he thought of the Christian religion and the Bible. His reply was that it was good, very good, for the white man, but that the Indian’s religion was the best for him. Hence in this hymn I tried to teach them that the Bible is not a book for the white people alone, but for the whole world — an idea which is now quite generally accepted among them. In all we now have sixteen hymns in Chinook, five in Twana, five in Clallam, and two in Nisqually.
Tune, “Hold the Fort.”
(1) Sághalie Tyee, yáka pápeh,
Yáka Bíble kloshe,
Kópa kónaway Bóston tíllikums
Yáka hías kloshe.CHORUS.
Sághalie Tyee, yáka pápeh,
Yáka Bíble kloshe,
Kópa kónaway tíllikums álta,
Yáka hías kloshe.(2) Sághalie Tyee, yáka pápeh,
Yáka Bíble kloshe,
Kópa kónaway Síwash tíllikums
Yáka hías kloshe.CHORUS.
Sághalie Tyee, etc.
(3) Sághalie Tyee, yáka pápeh,
Yáka Bíble kloshe,
Kópa kónaway King George tíllikums
Yáka hías kloshe. — Cho[rus].TRANSLATION.
(1) God, His paper —
His Bible is good;
For all American people
It is very good.CHORUS.
God, His paper —
His Bible is good;
For all people now
It is very good.(2) God, His paper —
His Bible is good;
For all Indian people
It is very good.(3) God, His paper —
His Bible is good;
For all English people
It is very good.By changing a single word in the third line to Pa sai ooks (French), China, Klale man (black men, or negroes), we had other verses. (Pages 244-249)
……..
As a literary curiosity I found that the old hymn, “Where, oh, where is good old Noah?” to the tune of “The Hebrew Children,” could be sung in four languages at the time time, and this was the only English hymn that I was ever able to translate into Chinook jargon, thus: —
Chinook Jargon. — Kah, O kah mit-lite Noah álta?
Twana. — Di-chád, di chád ká-o way klits Noah?
Clallam. — A-hín-kwa, a hín chees wi-á-a Noah?
Far off in the promised land.CHORUS.
By-and-by we’ll go home to meet them.
Chinook Jargon. — Alki nesika klatawa nánich.
Twana. — At-so-i-at-soi-i hoi klis-há-dab sub-la-bad.
Clallam. — I-á che hátl sche-túng-a-whun.LITERAL TRANSLATION.
Chinook Jargon. — Where, oh, where, is Noah now?
Twana. — Where, oh, where, is Noah?
Clallam. — Where, oh, where, is Noah now?
Far off in the promised land.CHORUS.
By-and-by we’ll go home to meet them.
Chinook. — Soon we will go and see [him].
Twana. — Soon we will go and see him.
Clallam. — Far off in the good land.These sentences can be mixed up in these languages in any way, make good sense, and mean almost precisely the same. I found no other hymn in which I could do likewise, but the chorus to “I’m going home” can be rendered similarly in the English, Twana, and Clallam. (Pages 253-254)
…
When hymns were first made in the Chinook jargon there were so many whites to sing in church, that the Indians did not seem to take hold. They would sing well enough at their camps, the boys would sing loud enough when alone at the boarding-house or outdoors, but when they came to church they were almost mum. The whites and the school-girls did most of it. It is only within the past year or two that a perceptible change has been made for the better. (Page 255)
Kind of nice to turn up yet another song in Chinook Jargon, huh?
