Episode 30 : Wyakin Songs : a historical study of Nez Perce [transcript]

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:29:19 Melda Williams: Welcome to the Subway Bitterroot Wilderness History Project, which is made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The University of Idaho, and Washington State University. Part of the project’s mission is to collect, preserve, and make public oral histories documenting the history and people of the subway. Bitterroot wilderness. For more information, please visit our website at SPW lib argue idaho.edu.

00:00:29:21 - 00:00:56:25 Nez Perce Singer/Narrator: And then I thank people. I think people get so much out of being in a wilderness setting. Once you take away cars and money and telephones, people are different and they are different to each other, I think. and and then they draw on things in themselves that maybe are a little rusty from our crazy life out here.

00:00:56:25 - 00:01:31:14 Nez Perce Singer/Narrator: Now, I think the ways that people get along when they’re isolated in a place like that, that they place that they want to be, are really it’s a wonderful thing.

00:01:31:16 - 00:01:55:20 Melda Williams: Thank you for joining us for this special 30th episode of the South Bitterroot Wilderness History Project. Any historical study of an area like the South Bitterroot Wilderness would be incomplete without inclusion of material from the first tribes to inhabit the land. In this case, the bands known as the Niemi Pou or Nez Perce lived in and near the area now known as the South, a bitter wilderness.

00:01:55:22 - 00:02:09:25 Melda Williams: Their spirit names and influence permeate the land which, thanks to preservation efforts, still retains its pristine inspiration, just as it once did when these native songs were first sung there hundreds of years ago.

00:02:09:28 - 00:02:37:19 Melda Williams: These recordings of Nez Perce Indians singing their native songs were made on the Nez Perce Reservation by Nelda Williams during the fall and spring semesters of 1966 and 67, in connection with her thesis entitled Historical Background and Musical Analysis of 30 Selected Nez Perce Songs. If background material was related by the singer or a friend of the singer at the time of recording, it is given after each song.

00:02:37:21 - 00:02:51:25 Melda Williams: Additional information relating to the songs is included in the written thesis.

00:02:51:27 - 00:03:04:13 Melda Williams: Song number one. Why a can song given by a male buffalo.

00:03:04:15 - 00:03:05:10 Nez Perce Singer/Narrator: we,

00:03:05:12 - 00:03:05:22 Nez Perce Singer/Narrator: Go.

00:03:05:23 - 00:03:12:10 Nez Perce Singer/Narrator: To, Norway. Yeah. And Norway.

00:03:12:12 - 00:03:23:05 Nez Perce Singer/Narrator: that to me. Oh. Oh, we don’t. And then we.

00:03:23:08 - 00:03:27:04 Nez Perce Singer/Narrator: no, we don’t.

00:03:27:06 - 00:03:29:03 Nez Perce Singer/Narrator: we.

00:03:29:06 - 00:03:32:25 Nez Perce Singer/Narrator: no, I, no, we.

00:03:32:27 - 00:03:39:06 Nez Perce Singer/Narrator: I know we didn’t.

00:03:39:09 - 00:03:49:20 Nez Perce Singer/Narrator: no. From Norway. no.

00:03:49:23 - 00:04:03:20 Nez Perce Singer/Narrator: no. Oh, no. No.

00:04:03:23 - 00:04:31:13 Nez Perce Singer/Narrator: My mother had a sister, Walla Walla. Her name was older than her, and she used to always sing her great in song that she got over in Montana. She was a little girl, about 12, who went with a party to Buffalo Hunt. And she got lost there many days. She landed in Missoula with the Flathead Indians. She just got lost.

00:04:31:13 - 00:04:59:26 Nez Perce Singer/Narrator: And this is where she got her guide in spirit, where you came from. male buffalo. Early in the morning when she got exhausted. That’s when we said it was easier to get that way. They couldn’t see. So that’s when she got. She saw the light coming from the east, and then she was just passed out. And whatever she was, it isn’t that thing, right?

00:04:59:29 - 00:05:31:09 Nez Perce Singer/Narrator: Just like. Electric light brighter than that. Then she saw immense then. And oh, and some men talk to her. Girl, I’m giving you all the power. You never will need anything through your life. You won’t be progressive. And this is the song I’m giving you. This song. We used to hear my mother sing this when we were little.

00:05:31:12 - 00:06:03:28 Nez Perce Singer/Narrator: She’d sing. Think of her sister. You know. And that’s the song my aunt used to sing when she grew up. Every winter they held those, you know, celebrations for medicine that she didn’t get up every evening to dance. No, she was kinda reserved. And young cousins, men would come and beg her cousin, you you want you to sing so she’ll agree.

00:06:03:28 - 00:06:32:16 Nez Perce Singer/Narrator: And she’d sing. No. Not often. Every night. No. It was too much for her for some reason. Then she’d become the week the rest of the week, and it affected her some way.

00:06:32:18 - 00:06:44:21 Melda Williams: Song number two. Why I can. Song given by a mountain goat.

00:06:44:23 - 00:07:03:16 Nez Perce Singer/Narrator: I’m going to sing another song that originates from the famous bend of this knee map. Who? They had lots of guiding spirit songs. And this one particular one. I’ll sing it for you.

00:07:03:19 - 00:07:45:12 Nez Perce Singer/Narrator: we, we are now all, I, me, me and, my, we, we and, Hey, hey, listen, I, I, yeah, Oh, yeah. the, he he, we, you know, he.

00:07:45:14 - 00:08:15:19 Nez Perce Singer/Narrator: Then he’d send out a word he tells the crowd it’s none other that presented this song to me or not anywhere around here. But all were in the Craigs near Old Man Lake. That’s where this all originated from. It. It was presented to me by the wild mountain goat.

00:08:15:21 - 00:08:39:09 Melda Williams: Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Selway Bitterroot Wilderness History Project, which has been made possible by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The University of Idaho, and Washington State University. The project coordinator is Debbie Lee, recorded and produced by Aaron Jepson.

00:08:39:12 - 00:08:42:21 Melda Williams: Which.