Seattle (chief)
Chief Noah Seattle ( Chief Seattle (English corruption of Lushootseed Si'ahl )) also Sealth , Seathl or See-ahth (* probably 1786 on Blake Island , Washington ; † June 7, 1866 in the Suquamish reservation Washington) was a chief of the Suquamish and Duwamish , two tribes of the coastal Salish . As a well-known Indian leader and important speaker, he pursued a strategy of adaptation to the white settlers. His close personal relationship with David Swinson Maynard was instrumental in the successful founding of the city of Seattle that is named after him.
Seattle is credited with a widely publicized speech that has played some role in the Western ecological movement . The best-known versions come only to a small extent from Seattle itself, essential statements are false and anachronistic.
Life
Born near or on Blake Island, the son of Shweabe of the Suquamish and Wood-sho-lit-sa of the Duwamish , he gained great prestige early on through wars against the Chimakum and the Jamestown- Klallam , his neighbors on the Olympic Peninsula . Like other Indian leaders, he kept enemies captured as slaves on his campaigns . At the time, he was tall, probably over 1.85 m, and was called Le Gros by the French in the Hudson's Bay Company . In addition, his powerful voice reportedly extended over a kilometer.
His first wife La-Dalia died after giving birth to a daughter, his second wife, Olahl, gave birth to three sons and four daughters. Both came from Tola'ltu on Elliott Bay (now in West Seattle).
Chief Seattle was baptized a Catholic around 1848. The settlers, who increasingly came to the country, ousted the tribe for reasons of collecting. He also increasingly lost ground to Chief Patkanim of the Snohomish . During negotiations in Olympia he met David Swinson Maynard , with whom he soon became friends. Maynard made sure that the settlers in the newly founded Seattle named the settlement after the chief and supported him.
As a result, Seattle kept its people out of the Battle of Seattle , but refused to lead Duwamish and Snohomish together on a reservation. Maynard persuaded the government to allow the old chief to return to his father's longhouse in the Agate Passage , known as the Tus-suc-cub or Old Man House . Seattle visited the city named after him and was photographed by EM Sammis in 1864. Two years later he died on June 7th in the Suquamish Reservation in Port Madison .
The alleged speech of Chief Seattle
Chief Seattle became known for the speech he gave in January 1854 at a hearing before Isaac Ingalls Stevens , the governor of the Washington Territory . The fact of the speech and its duration of about half an hour are documented by an article first published 33 years later, in 1887, by Henry A. Smith in the Seattle Sunday Star newspaper ; there are no other sources on this. Smith stated that he had reproduced parts of the speech based on notes.
Even with this text there were strong doubts about the accuracy of Smith's tradition. Although Smith credibly states that he was present at Seattle's speech, he barely understood Seattle as the latter gave the speech in his own language rather than English. There was probably only a partial translation - if at all - in English or, more likely, in Chinook . The flowery and heroic formulations are therefore considered the work of Smith. References to ecology and the destruction of nature are still completely missing in this version. A central point of the speech is rather the importance of the country for the ancestral and death cult of the Indians, a central and probably authentic sentence is accordingly: "Every part of this country is sacred to my people."
A second version of the speech was made in the 1960s when William Arrowsmith translated the first version into more modern English without changing its content.
The speech only became popular with the third version, which came into circulation in the 1970s and 1980s. It bears very little resemblance to the first version and was written in 1972 by Ted Perry for a television film about ecology ( Home ). Clear references to the unhistorical wording are details that occur in the speech that cannot come from the realities of life in Seattle, such as the goat milker or bison , which did not exist in Seattle's homeland, or the railroad, which was built long after the contract was signed . This version and a slightly shortened fourth variant based on it depict Chief Seattle imaginatively as an early ecological visionary who speaks about his people's insights into the essence of nature and man.
This modern version fascinated many people and thus gained great importance for the environmental movement , for which the speech of Chief Seattle as well as the alleged prophecy of the Cree became a modern myth . The Chief Seattle Speech was also set to music. Well-known German settings come from the group Poesie und Musik with René Bardet , Büdi Siebert and Joe Koinzer with the title Maybe because I'm a Wilder (1982) and by Hannes Wader Wir wird sehn on the album Glut am Horizont (1985). At the age of 22, the later General Secretary of the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK) Stefan Vesper composed the Canon Every Part of This Earth (1978). It can be found today in many church hymn books. The speech has also been translated into Spanish. In this translation it is the textual basis for the second movement, “Sin lamento”, the cantata “ Sueños ” by the Mexican composer Arturo Márquez . Excerpts from the speech translated into Spanish also form the textual basis for the hit “Latinoamérica” by the band “Calle 13”.
Remembrance day
June 7th on the calendar of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
See also
literature
- Chief Seattle's speech . Lamuv, Göttingen 1996. From English: Elli Gifford, R. Michael Cook (Eds.): How can one sell the air? Chief Seattle's vision. The Book Publishing Company, Summertown (TN) 1992
- Rudolf Kaiser (Ed.): The earth is sacred to us. Speeches by Chief Seattle and other Indian chiefs. 4th edition, Herder, Freiburg 1996, ISBN 3-451-04079-4 .
- Susan Jeffers: The earth is not ours. We belong to the earth. (Picture book with the message of Chief Seattle) Carlsen, Hamburg 1992, ISBN 3-551-51440-2 .
- Herbert Gruhl : Chief Seattle spoke. The authentic text of his speech with one clarification: Re-fiction and truth. (Herbert Gruhl provided the translation of Seattle's speech from English). With illustrations by Isolde Wawrin . 5th edition, Erb Verlag, Düsseldorf 1986, ISBN 3-88458-082-5 (also Rixdorfer Verlagsanstalt, Berlin 1989, without ISBN)
Web links
- The first version from 1887 (German)
- The four versions (English)
- Speech by Chief Seattle on YouTube (musically editedby Hannes Wader )
- Audio sample "Sueños" by Arturo Márquez
- Audio sample of "Calle 13" from Latinoamérica
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Chief Seattle, Section: Pronunciation of Seattle's Name , 2003-2007, HistoryLink.org Essay 5071 including a sound file
- ^ Albert Furtwangler: Answering Chief Seattle. University of Washington Press, Washington 1997, ISBN 0295976381
- ↑ Ted Perry in a letter to Rudolf Kaiser. Excerpts from: Rudolf Kaiser: Chief Seattle's Speech (es) - American Origin and European Reception. In: Brian Swann, Arnold Krupat (Eds.): Recovering the Word: Essays on Native American Literature. University of California Press, 1987, ISBN 0520057902 , pp. 497-536.
- ↑ Article The tricky game with authenticity. In: Coyote. No. 84 / Winter 2009. Journal of the Action Group Indians and Human Rights (AGIM)
- ↑ For example in the album At the Cross Roads by Red Hawk NAMA 10 WINNERS, which received the Native American Music Award as Best Historical Recording . Native American Music Awards , accessed April 21, 2009 .
- ↑ Second movement "Sin Lamento" from "Sueños" by Arturo Márquez Youtube. Retrieved January 8, 2018.
- ↑ Calle 13: Latino America. Retrieved March 20, 2018 .
- ↑ Lyrics of the song "Latinoamérika" from "Calle 13". Retrieved on January 8, 2018.
- ↑ June 7th in the Ecumenical Lexicon of Saints
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Seattle |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Sealth; Seathl; See-ahth; Si'ahl; Sealth, Noah |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American Indian chief of the Duwamish people |
| DATE OF BIRTH | around 1786 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | on Blake Island , Washington |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 7, 1866 |
| Place of death | Washington Suquamish Reservation |