Essential Song: Three Decades of Northern Cree Music

Appendix II. The Eighty-Six Songs, with Topics and Commentary, of the 1982 and 1984 Collections

132 [ Appendix II The Eighty-Six Songs, with Topics and Commentary, of the 1982 and 1984 Collections (original recordings in the Canadian Museum of Civilization) RECORDED IN 1982 1 Performer: William Jack Topic: goose This is a song about a goose. I am calling them to come near so I can kill them. I sang it after I got married because I was happy [joke] and when hunting . I learned this song from my grandfather a long time ago. Interpreter’s comments: “Here he lands; here they are very close.” It has other words but I can’t understand them. 2 (CD track 1) Performer: William Jack Topic: fox I used to love going fox-hunting. I saw a fox very well built, a healthy fox. He was orange; he had an orange-brown back. I went to check out my traps to see if the orange-back was there. He was caught in my trap, the orange-back. I sang this song when I started out hunting in the morning. Interpreter’s comments: In the song he repeats the colour of the fox. 3 (CD track 2) Performer: William Jack Topic: beaver I am going to sing about the beaver. I didn’t kill beaver too often but still I am going to sing about the beaver. But I killed a lot of foxes. I sing about how the beaver keeps his food under water. How the trees float down the water because of the beaver. I sing it before I start to hunt in the morning and any time when I want to sing, when I am happy. 4 (CD track 3) Performer: William Jack Topic: lake trout I’m going to sing about the lake trout. That’s it! A very short song 5 (CD track 4) Performer: William Jack Topic: rabbit I’m going to sing about the rabbit. You probably didn’t hear about the rabbit. That’s the bowels of the rabbit. Take that and rub it against the sinew. We used to say we’re going to laugh at the rabbit Because he’s going to eat his own insides. 6 (CD track 5) Performer: William Jack Topic: the seagull It is a funny song. I was a guide with my son who speaks English. The whitemen always had tape recorders and wanted me to sing or tell stories. And I saw this seagull flying along searching for food. Then I said to my son, “They always make me sing songs or tell stories. Here’s the song I’m going to tell him because white people eat seagulls.” The seagull, the seagull, the seagull. That eats, eats and eats the whiteman. That’s the one who always eats the whiteman Interpreter’s comments: We natives don’t eat seagulls—they’re junk eaters. William Jack turned the song around—the seagull ate the whitemen. Like many of the songs the Native people sing: they turn them around. 7 (CD track 6) Performer: William Jack Topic: winterbird I’m going to sing about the winterbird. Somebody was thinking as he was walking with his snowshoes. The person was thinking, I wish I could fly. Then he suddenly remembered the winterbird. He was very fast with his snowshoes. He was so fast that he thought he was flying like a winterbird. Then he thought he would steal the song of the winterbird. Appendix II 133 8 Performer: George Pepabano Topic: otter I was singing about an otter, the fur of an otter. An otter song from long ago. Interpreter’s comments: It is looking at me (repeats four times). The otter, the otter fur. I can’t get words at the end of the song 9 George Pepabano Topic: hunting (ducks, deer) Now I’m going to sing a hunting song. This is how the song goes. I am singing about making ducks [decoys]. It was in the water, then the deer came along. 10 Performer: George Pepabano Topic: beaver People used to sing different songs. They sang about almost anything that they hunted. Now here’s a beaver song. The person feels like the beaver is going so fast that it feels like tin rattling. The person who made up the song said It feels like the beaver just came out of this place. When he went out to kill the beaver It just came out in front of him. My...