ojibwe music #7

Just another chunk of the article on Ojibwe music that I found in Gilfillan's scrap book. This section has the heading 'Specimen Lyrics':

"My Bark Canoe," to which reference has been made in the foregoing, is a lyric which is exquisite from any point of view, and the musical theme such as might have been composed by any of the precursors of Schubert in the last of the eighteenth century. It is cast in the usual mode, beginning upon the higher and ending on low notes, and the melody is at once so graceful and appealing that it is heard here as commonly among the visitors as among the Indians; both sing, whistle, and hum it incessantly, the Ojibway in his tepee or his canoe and the visitor on the piazza of the hotel. It possesses its native touch of barbarism, yet is as fluent as the tenderest thought of Schubert, and, for the paleface musician, its charm is unconsciously enhanced by the appropriate words which Mr Burton has adapted to it. The original Ojibway is:

"Kee-chi ga de beck, ondeydeyan,
Ah gu-ze be, ondeydeyan."

and this is the translation supplied by one of the native singers:

"I am out all night to seek my love;
I paddle all night long and seek for her."

I quote the English arrangement to show how delicately Mr Burton has transcribed the simplicity of the Indian idea:

In the still night the long hours through,
I guide my bark canoe,
My bark canoe, my love, to you.

While the stars shine and falls the dew,
I seek my love in bark canoe,
In bark canoe I seek for you.

It is I, love, your lover true,
Who glides the stream in bark canoe,
It glides to you, my love, to you.

As the reader no doubt has imagined, the same melody again is repeated with each stanza, but the theme is of a haunting quality whose repetition serves only to emphasize the plaint of the Indian swain.

I quite liked the comparisons with Schubert here and also the comparison of the literal translation supplied by 'one of the native singers' and the more 'delicately' translated version by Mr Burton.