volume three number2 1977

152 Pages·2010·7.41 MB·English

volume three
number2
1977
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Editor: Dennis Tedlock
Contributing Editors: David Antin, Kofi Awoonor, Ulli Beier,
Allan F. Burns, Stanley Diamond, Charles Doria, Everett Fox,
Dell Hymes, Robert Kelly, Harris Lenowitz, David McAllester,
William Mullen, Simon Ortiz, Gary Snyder, Nathaniel Tarn, Jeff
Titon.
Editorial Assistant: Marc Alan Widershien
ALCHERINGA: ETHNOPOETICS opens its pages and its
recordings to the transcription, translation, and discussion of the
spoken and chanted word. The voices heard are those of the
Fourth World (the tribal peoples who continue to resist cultural
and linguistic destruction by the nation-states of the other three
worlds), of the ancient world (through texts with oral roots), and
of modern literates who work back toward the oral. The name
ALCHERINGA comes from the Arunta of Australia; it refers to
dreams, to the mythic past, and to moments when a new song
makes itself heard through a singer.
ALCHERINGAis published biannually by Boston University, in
the spring and fall, and is designed by the Boston University
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als, $14.00 for institutions. Outside the U.S.A. add $1.00 for addi
tional postage. Single issue price of the current volume is $4.95.
For information on the prices and availability of back issues, see
the Notes section at the end of this issue, or write our SUbscription
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Subscription and single issue orders, text purchases, claims, and
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Department, Boston University Scholarly Publications, 775 Com
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Manuscripts, illustrations, and tapes (accompanied by a stamped,
self-addressed envelope) should be sent to ALCHERINGA,
Boston University, 745 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA
02215. Contributors are paid a nominal fee at the time of publica
tion. ALCHERINGA is published with the aid of a grant from the
National Endowment for the Arts.
Copyright@ 1977 by the Editor and by the Trustees of Boston
University
ISSN #0044-7218
Volume 3, Number 2
Contents
Victoria Howard / Five Short Narratives 2
Philip Kahclamat & Dell Hymes /Iyagiximnilh 8
Reverend John Sherfey, J effTiton, & Ken George / Dressed in the
Armor of God 10
Harris Lenowitz & Dan Chopyk / Fifty Sayings of the Lord Jacob Frank 32
Khams-Smyon Dharma-Sengge & Steven Goodman / Ocean Woman Who
Already Knows 52
Rufino Ochurte & Mauricio J. Mixco / The God-Child's Vengeance: A Kiliwa
Story from Baja California 55
Abdi Sheik-Abdi / '!\vo Somali Tales 63
Carol Rubenstein / Poems of the Sarawak Dyaks 70
Ulli Beier / The Position of the Artist in 'Iraditional Society 78
DavidAntin / and ive called this talk tuning 92
RobertKelly / Studies from the Mishnah III and [Of Poetics} 126
Ted Enslin / Ranger LXVI 128
George Quasha / Soma· Oneirika 15-22 130
Charles Stein / Dreams 135
Sarah Appleton / from Ladder of the World's Joy 140
Susan Stewart / These are the Quilts 142
AnselmHollo / gypsy poem 145
The Editor / Notes and Comments 146
Insert disc recording/side 1: "I'm Here and I Don't Know Why I'm Here" and two
excerpts from "Dressed in the Armor of God," by Reverend Sherfey; side 2:
"Debaghaale Arr Dilley aragten," a Somali tale told by Zahra Abdi Kareem to
Abdi Sheik-Abdi.
Illustration credits: cover photo, Ulli Beier; pp. 21, 23, 25-26, J effTiton; pp. 67-68, Abdi
Sheik-Abdi; pp. 79-88, 90-91, Ulli Beier; pp. 140-41., Sarah Appleton; pp. 142-44, courtesy
Susan Stewart.
Victoria Howard
Five Short Narratives
These texts were transcribed by Melville Jacobs in Notes
1929 and 1930 from the Clackamas-Chinook dictations
of Victoria Howard. 1 Although ancillary to the longer 1. Melville Jacobs, Clackamas-Chinook Texts, Part II,
traditional myth recitals of the Howard-J acobs collec Research Center in Anthropology, Folklore, and Linguistics
Publication 11 (Bloomington, Indiana, 1959), pp. 495, 534,
tion, these short poems and jokes display the mea
560,563. .
sured verse patterns which are being demonstrated
for Chinookan narratives. 2 The line and verse 2. Dell Hymes, "Louis Simpson's 'The Deserted Boy'," Poet
arrangements here have been made by Dell Hymes
ics, 5, No. 2(1976), 119-155. "Discovering Oral Performance
and Charles Bigelow. The texts have been written out
and Measured Verse in American Indian Narrative," New
by Kris Holmes in a calligraphic adaptation of the Literary History, VIn (1976-1977), pp. 431-457.
Americanist phonetic alphabet. This adaptation has
been developed in the Bigelow & Holmes studio as 3. This work has been supported in part by the National
part of a continuing program in the design ofletter Endowments for the Arts and Humanities (Youthgrants and
forms, printing types, and books for American Indian Folk Arts programs), the Oregon Arts Foundation, and the
Melville and Elizabeth Jacobs Research Fund.
literature. 3
Basket Ogress
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(ij SHEWILl TAKE' 'YOU.
2
Whistling
tgusgiwaL
a1xJIs~l{sl{,
wlUn someyersong oes aroundw htsdi,:(,
aqlulxama,
t/Uy w(Jufls'lY to him,
,3. tgusgiwal Nj-wifalapas-dfwi,
"yeh. 9fe fife
isb Ol~ aroundjust ('?rote,
s~lls~lls~I{.),
whista~ erwhistfi~"
Atgima,
Such ap erson mJfht r!J'fY;
ifilapas?»
\\~JXqlCi nixu~a~
':!Is that the Wt9'" (""ott' was?"
'3· .K"'aXqi
nu~agim~)'
"yes. ~tis whatthor use!t o sqr."
"71. Ganta mayka
1&"3 gamilc~mlid~mx
"oh.EI tfWuptt itwas ymi !Uari~
~l{sl{ niW~aX-)'
him 'Whi5tli1ff"
3
wakaytm.
6iyaXJll{twll~t tca~nw Moons
Nakim,
"Nayka ltlutt'ida
Kanawi din
adi~~lbayaya~dtxa,
ttKiWlX,
i~a~a, waCg~ti.
NiiWit
dan
~uuuya nhf~lbayx."
Gaqfllxam,
"Mayka
inU~liw 6iyax~1l(iwlt~t"
She Is Going is the name of the moon.
She said,
"When I will stand
Everything will be sprouting,
flowers, leaves, grass.
When I came
Nothing at all was growing."
They said to her,
"Your name is She Is Going."
Aga nu-wtt diwax walciyim,
i(a~liwWacg~l1.
gadlq danmax.,
~al1wi ~lbayx
wacgn-i,
tt~lwax, it~a~a.
aga
Danma~ diq~l~tx.
Aga aquP&n1ya
~jXqf Wacg~l1.
4
Now this moon stood, her name is Little Shoulder.
Then indeed everything was growing,
flowers, grass, leaves.
Everything now is growing.
Now that is what they named her, Little Shoulder.
Nuwil wakayim.
~ayX
NUC'agim~,
qf(ayaq wHx ayaku(
~A~a al~akx.aymat.
lwad
alxagUlma(~ida,
aga cagwayxyamt."
l~uwit
Ie-aXqf alugwaglma.
A large moon stood.
They used to say,
"Now we are lying in the middle ofthe backbone ofthe land.
We will be going down the other way,
Now we are going toward summer."
That is what they would say.
wakayim, lcalamayxn.
6alu~it agiina~ ica~liw
Nuwit aga wHamayxn
idya~a~a ga-qnU~.
Ag'a ~a'Xqf ica~liw.
l1ugwagfmx..
~aXqi
Another moon stood, her name is Her Cottonwood.
She came then as the leaves of the cottonwood came out.
Then that is what her name was.
That is. what they used to say.
5
Missionaries
Yaaaniwadix tga gatuyam diyaxba wilx,
ifa~igiwuludamit
gatgdulxam,
"~aaani5im ams~glwuludamlt,
lstamx
sa~Ux ac~msg~lglaya.
Yaxa ntsqt
amsgi~gisgiyda,
aga tdClm51ycx.ukS amsx.ux.a,
1ti-danmal dflmqubamalix
iq~awayiiC'al itqs~ilawks."
Aga waksdl,
nagim~
"Aaadiii! dangi kliyx
tu~an al~admu~umnira wa~lq~aq,
idflll.aycx.ukS adilxicfmnita!"
When the person who continually prayed first came to this land,
he told them,
I' "You should pray all the time,
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ofJl just like the animals that flee in the forests.
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'tii Our tails would be continually whipping us."
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Milt
tap
wlxat.
Id~ncaqw{
ltg'Jti Ix,
A{~l1c~X.iC'a
ak1s~lfrtga.
A~a allx.Kayaw~laml.
Alagima,
\'AdHiii itatl(abumitt "
-tii~an 15~qC~St!
Aga alaglalama.
alagima,
~aNTl
\'wnqc~sdHya! 6alln~idlulimidayal"
Our house was close to the road.
Some white person would pass by,
She would look at him.
Then she would laugh.
She would say,
"Dear-oh-dear, it is a light one! Maybe it is Milt!"
Then she would sing.
This is what she would say,
"Milt! I changed him into a man!"
7
Philip Kahclamat, performer
Dell Hymes, transcriber
Iyagiximnilh
Transcriber's Introduction
This speech was written down late in the night of give that summer, and at that after several beers. It
July 25,1956, in a booth of what was then the Rainbow was something he believed, I think, but he was a
Cafe, above the Deschutes River, Oregon, just beyond loner, half acculturated and intellectualized as a young
where the river marks the eastern boundary of the man through work with Walter Dyk and a semester
Warm Springs reservation on the road to Madras. It with Edward Sapir's seminar at Yale, reinforced by
was recited by Philip Kahclamat, who came to the that experience in his sense of the value of the old cul
Cafe many evenings that summer, after work in the ture, but disdaining the forms in which old ways con
sawmill on the reservation across the river, for dinner, tinued around him and disdaining other Indians. He
and to work with me on his language, Wishram (as the had no family, kept apart from kin ties, had some
Chinookan dialect of his home on the Columbia River income. In his heart, and in his nightmares, he was
has come to be called). Wishram (he said he abandoned his small house on
Formal oratory was important to the Chinookan Shitike Creek on the reservation because the ghosts
communities. That much is known, and I have tried to spoke; in Wishram) to him. The end of this speech
reconstruct a cultural pattern underlying the place of breaks into Wishram, I think, because at that point,
formal speaking in Chinookan life from various bits of and for that moment, he assumed the role in his own
evidence (Section VI of Dell Hymes, "Two types oflin person.
guistic relativity," in William Bright, ed., Sociolin Philip Kahclamat died a year later, as a result of a
guistics, The Hague: Mouton [1966]). Very little is blow on the head in an altercation with his brother,
known of the actual oratory. There are indications in near White Swan, Washington, where he had gone to
the Wishram Texts published by Edward Sapir (New live on property he owned at the Yakima reservation.
York, Publications of the American Ethnological Soci This report became known to anthropologists with
ety, 2 [1909], pp. 206, 210, 228-9). whom he had worked only some years later. A trunk at
This speech is the longest recorded one known to White Swan in which he was believed to have kept
me, and the only continuous and apparently complete papers was destroyed.
formal discourse that Philip could be persuaded to
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"This is Sunday morning. You people should know - I don't have to come
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round this morning to tell you - that you people should put on all your trappings;
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.~ When you hear the drum this morning, it's calling you to worship the Great
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