1911, Oregon: The “Chinook choir” and more
Whoops ‘n’ hymns, mixin’ it up!
I’d give my eyeteeth to’ve heard this hoedown!
PIONEER ASSOCIATION CLOSES ANNUAL MEET
ROBERT A. MILLER SELECTED AS PRESIDENT
Society Will Ask Congress for $100,000 to be Expended in Building Monuments Along Old Oregon Trail.
With old-time music played by old-time fiddlers, with songs and dialogues in Chinook jargon and with patriotic music sung by the veterans’ quarter, the campfire session of the Oregon Pioneer association last night terminated the annual reunioin [SIC], in the Masonic Temple, says the Portland Telegram.
• • •
Cyrus H. Walker, the oldest white man, with parents living born west of the Rocky Mountains, and who was elected Tuesday as grand commander of the Indian war veterans, led the Chinook choir, which rendered the Chinook translations of hymns, Mr. Walker also emitting a few Indian war whoops.
— from the Pendleton (OR) East Oregonian of June 23, 1911, page 3, columns 1 & 2
If only we knew which hymns were sung, and whose translations they were? Might be some new discoveries for us there. Lots of Settlers took matters into their own hands, translating well-known White folks songs into Chinuk Wawa.
Cyrus H. Walker was the first child of pioneering missionaries Elkanah and Mary Walker, born in Spokane Tribe territory in 1838.
He was a lifelong speaker of the Spokane Salish language and Chinook Jargon.
He went on to live in what we can call the greater Grand Ronde region, with a home at Albany, Oregon, and teaching at the Warm Springs Indian Reservation.
