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Product code: SEPASS

Sepass Poems, Ancient Songs of Y-Ail-Mihth

$45.00

The Sepass Poems are ancient and date to a time, long before Europeans arrived in North America. The poems were translated from the Coast Salish language into English over a 4-year period, between 1911 and 1915 and represent the only work of ‘classic’ Coast Salish literature-in-translation.

The 16 poems documented in this book are told by Chief William K’HHalserten Sepass (b. circa 1840, d. 1943), Chief of Skowkale for over 60 years.

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Description

A long time ago, the songs of the ancient singer, Y-Ail-Mihth, echoed in the minds of all Coast Salish People. In the tradition of their oral culture, before English was ever heard on the land of the Stó:lō people, the songs of the ancient singer were heard over a four-day period during their sun ceremonies, narrated by the Golden Snake, K’HHalserten, Chief William Sepass. The Golden Snake always told them precisely, always the same way every time.
Sepass was born a few years after Simon Fraser travelled down the River to the Coast. It was not a good time for the Stó:lō People. Death was everywhere on the land. The Gold Rush saw 30,000 settlers move in during a single year. Following them: priests, pastors, farmers, disease…and then the Indian residential schools came and took their children away.

The Stó:lō people, through legislation, were forced to live on small lots of land and told to speak the King’s English, told to be farmers, told not to tell their own stories, told not to practice their own beliefs, their own laws, or the ways of the seasons, and even the ways of the Longhouse.

Siya:m Sepass worried. He worried for his people—those who were left. He grieved for his lost family. He worried about the traditional stories he carried—Songs of Y-Ail-Mihth. Sepass was the last storyteller who remembered them in the tradition of the great longhouses. Siya:m Sepass wanted the songs he carried published in the same way the stories shared by the Church were preserved.

Now, more than fifty years later, the long-awaited Songs of Y-Ail-Mihth, have been produced and published in its book format as well as in the oral tradition in which they were meant to be heard…but more importantly, remembered.

High quality book, printed on FSC approved high-grade paper, 16 themed watercolours accompany each poem, two Paul Kane oil paintings (courtesy of Royal Ontario Museum), linen hard case with debossed artwork by George Clutesi, (from 1963 edition, courtesy of George Clutesi family).

156 pp, ISBN: 978-0-9686046-4-9

Additional information

Weight .700 kg
Dimensions 18 × 26 × 2.2 cm