Our first singing was in English, as we knew of no hymns in the
languages which the Indians could understand. In the Sabbath-school
prayer-meeting and partly in church we have continued to use them, as
the children understand English, and it is best to train them to use the
language as much as possible. “Pure Gold” and the Gospel Hymns and
Sacred Songs, as used by Messrs. Moody and Sankey, have been in use
among the Indian children for the last twelve years. Two or three of the
simplest English songs which repeat considerably have also been learned
by many of the older Indians, who understand a little of our language,
as: “Come to Jesus!” and “Say, brothers, will you meet us?” Yet all
these did not reach the large share of the older Indians as we wished to
reach them. “What are you doing out here?” “Why do you not go to
Sabbath-school?” were questions which were asked one Sabbath by the wife
of the agent to an Indian who was wandering around outside during that
service. His reply was that as the first part of the exercises and the
singing were in English they were very dry and uninteresting to him.
Only when the time came for singing the Chinook song was he much
interested. That was in 1874, and there was only one such song, which
the agent had made previous to my coming; but the want of them, as
expressed by that Indian, compelled us to make more. The first efforts
were to translate some of our simpler hymns into the Chinook language,
but this we found to be impracticable, with one or two exceptions. The
expressions, syllables, words, and accent did not agree well enough for
it; so we made up some simple sentiment, repeated it two or three times,
fitted it to one of our tunes, and sang it. In the course of time we had
eight or ten Chinook songs. They repeated considerably, because the
older Indians could not read and had to learn them from hearing them,
somewhat after the principle of the negro songs. Major W. H. Boyle
visited us in 1876, and was much interested in this singing. He took
copies of the songs and said he would see if he could not have them
printed on the government press belonging to the War Department, at
Portland, free of expense; but I presume he was not able to have it
done, as I never heard of them again.
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. 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.”
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 Bible kloshe,
Kópa kónoway Bóston tíllikums
Yáka hías kloshe.