A BC Coast song to back-translate into Chinook Jargon
Collected, where else, at the hop fields of Chilliwack in September 1926 from members of numerous First Nations, we have a really precious set of 98 (!) Indigenous songs here.
The ethnomusicologist Frances Densmore published these in 1943 as “Music of the Indians of British Columbia” via the Smithsonian Institution / Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 136, Anthropological Papers No. 27.
Henry Haldane, page “100”
Among the excellent features of this publication are the numerous photos of the people involved, some during slahal games. The collection includes slahal songs, canoe songs, social songs, love songs, and a good deal more.
On page 82, we have the following clues towards tracking down, hopefully, an audio-recording and the original lyrics of yet another in the amazingly huge genre of Chinook Jargon songs that’s unique to coastal BC:
A love song recorded by Henry Haldane [Tsimshian, cf. page 75] of Port Simpson was not transcribed. The rendition was preceded by the words, “I am going to sing a Haida love song,” these words being recorded by the phonograph. The first verse was in the Indian language, and the words were translated, “O, my heart is broken because I did not see my girl, so I always cry.” The second verse was in Chinook, and was translated, “Show me your kindness. Give me a drink and I will do the same for you in return.” The singer said, “the Hudson’s Bay people came among these Indians in 1862 and brought the Chinook.” This suggests that the Chinook words may have been added to an older, native song.
Densmore didn’t take down the lyrics of any songs, it seems, as she wasn’t linguistically trained; at most she tells us translations in English. Darn. There were surely other bits of Chinuk Wawa among them, for instance in the song presented to us as No. 82, “Give Me a Bottle of Rum”.
I should mention that the English translation given to us resembles a known Tsimshian people’s song in Chinook Jargon, which they attributed to Tlingits, which I think came from Victoria: Kanaweesan.
Maybe one of us will be able to track down the original wax cylinder containing this song (which Densmore, with her Salvage Ethnography point of view, wrongly considered not important enough to transcribe)…?
