Songs of Power and Prayer in the Columbia Plateau: The Jesuit, the Medicine Man, and the Indian Hymn Singer

Preface

vii Preface My first encounter with indigenous music of the Columbia Plateau region took place during a Native American music course at the University of Colorado, where I was laboring toward a PhD in ethnomusicology. I viewed the course as an opportunity to focus on music I wished to know but had for too long neglected. My initial search for information, fueled by an abiding interest in my own Native Plateau ancestry, continually led me back to Dr. Loran Olsen, a professor emeritus from Washington State University. Thirty-five years earlier, Dr. William Elmendorf, an anthropologist active in indigenous Northwest culture studies, had handed Dr. Olsen five reel-to-reel tapes of Niimiipuu (Nez Perce) songs he had recorded.1 From that point forward Dr. Olsen’s role as a professor of piano and theory took on a different hue as he gradually began to display characteristics common to a then fairly rare musical species known as the ethnomusicologist. Armed with a recorder and a notepad, he traversed the Columbia Plateau, conducting fieldwork and working alongside the Niimiipuu and other tribes to preserve songs that might have otherwise faded away. In addition to producing numerous articles that have illuminated central features of indigenous Plateau song, Dr. Olsen established the Nez Perce Music Archive, a collection of hundreds of songs recorded over the past one hundred years and a monograph on a Plateau song genre known as Qillóowawya (“hitting the rawhide”), which includes recordings of songs that have largely fallen out of use. After directing the focus of my dissertation toward indigenous music of the Columbia Plateau region, there was but one place to turn. I gave Dr. Olsen a call. It went something like this: HAMILL: [somewhat rehearsed] Hello, Dr. Olsen, my name is Chad Hamill. I am a PhD student in ethnomusicology at the University of Colorado doing research on traditional music of the Columbia Plateau region. I have Native Plateau ancestry myself and SONGS OF POWER AND PRAYER IN THE COLUMBIA PLATEAU viii would like to produce something that will be of value to future generations of Plateau people. OLSEN: Well, I’ve been waiting for you to call. I have a bunch of stuff here that I just don’t have time to get to, and I need someone to pick up on it. HAMILL: [a bit stunned] Oh . . . Okay, when can we get together? OLSEN: I’m here in Port Angeles, Washington. You can come anytime. As soon as I was able to wrap up courses that semester, I loaded the family (including the dog) in the car and drove from Boulder, Colorado, to Port Angeles. Early in our initial conversations, Dr. Olsen provided a long list of people I needed to contact during my research period. He labeled certain individuals as high priority—those “you need to contact as soon as possible!” Among them was Father Tom Connolly, a Jesuit who had been working within indigenous Plateau communities for half a century. After a few days I left with a list of names, numbers, and other materials, beginning the fieldwork phase of my research in earnest. During initial trips from Colorado to the Plateau region, I took the opportunity to do some genealogical research. My great-greatgrandfather was Spokan and went by the Indian name “Squ’elta” (Red Sun).2 At some point during the period of acculturation among the Spokan, he adopted the Christian title “James Elijah,” at times reducing the last name to “Eli.” He met my great-great-grandmother, Hattie Colsen, in Dayton, Washington, in 1889. Oral accounts within my family tell of two people drawn together by a mutual interest in horses. Dayton was well known for horse racing during the time, a history that predated Euro-American contact (after the introduction of the horse in the eighteenth century, Native people of the Plateau conducted horse races where Dayton now sits, on a course that would eventually become Main Street). During a fieldwork trip in March 2006, I headed up to the tribal office on the Spokane reservation and met with the tribal genealogist. During prior research, I had come across references to Gibson Eli, often referred to as “the last medicine man of the Spokan tribe.” Given the “Eli” surname, I suspected I might be related to him. Preface ix The tribal genealogist confirmed that we were: Gibson was the son of James Elijah and the half...