![]() The original text, beginning with "Wakantanka taku nitawu," was paraphrased in 1929 by Philip Frazer (1892-1964) for a national YWCA meeting in 1930. When he uttereth his voice, there is a multitude of waters in the heavens, and he causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth he maketh lightnings with rain, and bringeth forth the wind out of his treasures." (KJV) What is beyond dispute is that Joseph Renville was a significant political and economic presence in this community, a bridge-builder between cultures, and a partner with Protestant missionaries in the expansion of Christianity in the region.Ĭarlton Young, editor of The United Methodist Hymnal, notes that the original hymn had seven stanzas and is a paraphrase of the creation hymn in Jeremiah 10:12-13: "He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heavens by his discretion. Raymond Glover, editor of The Hymnal 1982 Companion (Episcopal), suggests that the melody is a funeral song to be sung in procession, existing before the text was written. Mason notes that "six of the 108 hymns are of Dakota derivation and the missionary journals proclaim they were written by Joseph Renville himself." Additional research indicates that these six hymns may have been arranged from pre-existing Dakota sources by Renville. A more recent printing in 1969 confirms the hymnal's continued use and includes photographs of the Dakota community. It contains primarily 19th-century English hymnody in translation, hymns that the Presbyterian missionaries would have known.Ī words-only edition appeared in 1841, and a music edition appeared sometime after 1854. Mason, the results of the encounter between the missionaries included a Dakota/English dictionary, Dakota translations of the Bible, a Dakota grammar, a Dakota translation of John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, a Dakota newspaper and school curriculum, and most important for our purposes, a Dakota hymnal, Dakota Odowan (Dakota Song), produced by the missionaries - minister Stephen Riggs, physician John Williamson and composer James Murray.ĭakota Odowan is still used today. Martin's by the Lake, Minnetonka Beach, Minn., "took part in an experiment in cross-culturalism the likes of which the prairies had not seen."Īccording to Mr. These missionaries, according to scholar Monte Mason, organist and musical director at the Episcopal St. Taliaherro, an agent at the fort, persuaded Renville to permit a missionary presence at Lac qui Parle, perhaps as a way to deal with the ongoing conflicts between the Ojibway and Dakota in the region. From a settlement at the southeast foot of the lake, Renville made annual treks to Fort Snelling at Mendota at the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers, near what is now Minneapolis and St. The tune name LAC QUI PARLE (lake that speaks) comes from a long, narrow lake running northwest to southeast near the present border of Minnesota and South Dakota. Having founded the Columbia Fur Company in 1822, he sold it to the larger American Fur Company in 1827. In addition to serving as a guide, he also became a British captain in the War of 1812. He received a Roman Catholic education in the French language. The author and composer of the text and tune, Joseph Renville (1779-1846), was an Indian guide and fur trader of French-Dakota lineage. ![]() "Many and Great" is perhaps the only Native American hymn to be sung broadly in North America beyond its original Dakota culture. ![]() Thy fingers spread the mountains and plains. Thy hands have set the heavens with stars ![]()
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