FAQ - Chief Seattle speech

At 08:57 PM 7/20/98 -0700, Liland Brajant ROS' wrote:
>>On Fri, 17 Jul 1998, Mike Cleven wrote:
>>>=20
>>> Even the Jargon term for "God", by the way - Saghalie Tyee - is
>>> thought to be a term invented by missionaries as a reference to the
>>> Christian deity, and it would be difficult to refer another deity in
>>> the Jargon.  Natives of the region did have an idea of a supreme or
>>> omnipotent over-deity prior to Christianization, but I doubt the
>>> converted Seatlh would (or could) have made such a comment.
>>>=20
>>....It seems to me that Jay Miller, in his prefatory notes to "Coyote
>>Stories" by Mourning Dove (Bison Books) states that the natives of the
>>Pacific NW region did have a concept of a supreme "chief" spirit.  (I
>>can't seem to find this comment in the book right now, though.) =20
>>
>>Personally I suspect that saXali tayi could easily be a Christian term.
>>Indians whom I've heard talk have never referred to a "sky chief" or =
any
>>such!  Terms like "creator" seem much more prevalent.  Anybody else =
have a
>>notion?
>
>Personally, I always figured "Saghalie Tyee" was a sneaky attempt=20
>(whether by missionaries or "Siwash" seems not terribly relevant)=20
>to preempt a Texaco trademark.

Sorry - that went right past me.  Could you translate from Americanese,
please?

>It seems just possible that terms themselves might be culturally =
neutral,=20
>and that NW Indians might have had a concept of a supreme "chief" spirit=
=20
>indeed--just as Christians had a concept of a "Creator".  It's even=20
>conceivable (in my opinion, conceivable from either an Indian or a =
Boston=20
>perspective) that despite differences of conception and description, the=
=20
>underlying referent of "Saghalie Tyee", "God", "Creator", etc. might be=20
>One and the Same.  Of course, conceivability don't necessarily make it=20
>so.  After all, the English word "God", the Latin "Deus", and the Greek=20
>"Theos" are all of pagan polytheistic origin, no matter how =
monotheistically
>Judeo-Christian some particular person's concept for which he or she =
uses=20
>one of those terms may be.

Can't remember which book it was that indicated to me that "Saghalie =
Tyee"
was of missionary coinage by way of an effort to indicate the Christian
concept of deity - i.e. - boss in the sky; maybe it was just Shaw.
Certainly the idea of a supreme being, or if not a supreme one then a
most-powerful one, was fairly commonplace as it was among most other =
forms
of paganism, including the various European ones; but the native concept =
of
the Creator is not sky-specific, but rather earth-based, or just immanent
throughout existence (which is what I gathered of the Stl'atl'imx
"Gwi'lchin" (sp?) when it was explained to me by a Shalalth elder).  Even
"Creator" doesn't quite capture the meaning of the word, apparently.....

>In Vi Hilbert's _Coyote and Rock_ audiotape of Lushootseed stories,=20
>incidentally a collection that could well be translated into Chinuk =
Wawa,=20
>one of the stories deals with the Creator's distribution of languages =
and=20
>with the people's efforts to raise the (fallen) sky to its rightful=20
>altitude, a story which bears comparison with the Biblical Tower of =
Babel=20
>story, and which makes me wonder whether the Lushootseed story is in =
some=20
>way reflective of Babel or whether it is wholly independent (it's=20
>certainly not wholly *dependent*, I just wonder if the Bible is part of=20
>its cultural background or something I brought to it as listener)...

Could be either; native legend was well-influenced by Christianity by the
time it was written down, much as the Voluspa and Havamal of the Elder =
Edda
emulate Christian ideas in their last verses.  The need for a myth to
explain why the immediately neighbouring peoples didn't speak the same
language seems to be pretty necessary, and may have some oral-history
connection to what actually happened.  A "fallen sky" that is beneath its
proper altitude speaks (to me) of heavy volcanic activity, which we know
had a major role in the history of the local peoples, and could well have
caused a linguistic dispersal.......

Mike C.