TTT-Himnaro Cigneta ‎#514

514. Every part of the earth

1 Every part of the earth
2 is for us holy.
3 Every part of the earth
3 is for us holy.

Text Information

• First Line: Every part of the earth
• Title: Every part of the earth
• Lushootseed (via Chinuk W Title: Jeder Teil dieser Erde (Ĉiu part' de la tero)
• Author (attributed to): siɂał (Sealth, Seattle aŭ Seatlo)
• Translator: Leland Bryant Ross (1999)
• Language: English
• Scripture:
  Psalm 24:1
• Topic: Care for the Earth

Tune Information

• Name: JEDER TEIL DIESER ERDE
• Composer: Stefan Vesper

Tune Information:

Ekumena Diserva Libro 2, where I found this little round, says the text is "from the speech of the Indian tribal leader Seattle before the US Congress 1855 (according to Ted Perry 1972)". What EDL2 contains is a 1994 Esperanto translation, by Albrecht Kronenberger, of a German version which had appeared in Neue Lieder der Gemeinde, a songbook published in 1971 by the Catholic diocese of Speyer, Germany.) In fact, Chief Seattle never addressed Congress, and it is doubtful if he ever said these precise words. His 1855 speech was given before a Treaty Commission, headed by Territorial Governor Isaac Stevens, whose purpose was to convince the tribal peoples to abandon the greater part of their ancestral terrain and to move onto a few reservations, yielding the bulk of the territory to the immigrants of European ancestry who were overrunning the region. The commission had asked the tribal leaders to define the places which they regarded as holy so that they could be especially protected. Sealth, speaking on behalf of the Duwamish and Suquamish villages, responded that this was not possible, because the whole country was sacred. He spoke in Lushootseed, and his words were translated first into Chinook Wawa (or Jargon -- then the international language of the region) and then from Chinook into English (and thence into German and finally into Esperanto before I translated them back into English for us). But the frequently cited text of Sealth's speech (which has been published at least twice in Esperanto and countless times in English) is not based on contemporary records, but on the recollections of an English-speaking reporter, writing decades after the fact, who had attended the treaty council but probably had a scant grasp of Chinook and none of Lushootseed. Thus it is highly unlikely that the text we have faithfully reflects the actual details of the speech of si?ał (as Seattle, or Sealth, is spelled in Lushootseed)... Nonetheless it is true that:
Every part of the earth
is for us holy.