🚀 go-pugleaf

This topic was part of the The Washington Commission for the Humanities
'Inquiring Mind' series for 1994-95.

The presentation is available on videotape:
<http://www.seattle.wa.us/Inquiring-Mind>.

Copies should also be available from: Shoreline Community College, Lower
Columbia College, Grant County P.U.D. (Kathy Kiefer), Skagit Valley
College, Green River Community College, American Indian Community Center
(Spokane), University of Washington Libraries.

Herb Effron


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Chief Seattle's Speech: "the 5th Gospel"?
One finds it everywhere. In anthologies of Indian oratory, on dust jackets 
and on the New York Times best seller list. It has been called the 
environmental movement's "Fifth Gospel." Bob Keller looks at the 19th 
century oration by the Suquamish Indian named Sealth, or Chief Seattle, 
from a historian's point of view and asks questions such as: is it 
authentic, where is the original version, how many versions exist, are 
there internal inconsistencies and does the speech make ethnographic sense? 
After exploring how researchers in history answer some of the questions, he 
examines more complex issues about the nature of historical analysis and 
myth, of authenticity and romantic stereotyping. 


Robert Keller
Professor Emeritus of History
Fairhaven College
Western Washington University
Bellingham, WA  98225
206/734-9641 

Bob Keller is a specialist on United States Indian policy and has 
consulted, lectured and taught on this subject for over twenty years. He 
received a Ph.D. in Church History from the University of Chicago in 1967 
and taught at other colleges and universities in the Northwest before 
coming to Western Washington University in 1968 where he was a professor of 
history at Fairhaven College. He has received several awards from Western 
Washington University including an Excellence in Teaching Award.
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In article <uR/1w0O5Io4a084yn@teleport.com>, larryc@teleport.com (Larry
Caldwell) wrote:

> In article <30d516ee.16437404@news>,
> envirolaw@accessone.com (Roger Kluck) wrote:
> 
> > Quite some time ago I recall listening to NPR and hearing a story on
> > the famous Chief Seattle speech. The speech is the one that talks
> > about all things being connected, the white man fouling his own nest,
> > etc.  The gist of the story was that while Seattle was a great orator
> > he never made this speech. It included an interview with the writer
> > for a documentary film on Chief Seattle, who said he wrote the speech
> > for the closing of the film.  It has grown to urban legend status and
> > is non countless posters and smaller segments on bumber stickers etc.
> 
> The Chief Seattle legend is much older than the movie industry.  All the
> ringing quotes came from a newspaper reporter about 100 years ago.  He
> wrote a series of "noble savage" articles for papers back east, and the 
> stuff percolated back to the west years later.  Local papers ran a
> series of articles on the subject a few years back.
> 
> It seems that the reporter did in fact meet Chief Seattle.  That's about
> the limit of fact.  He only met Seattle for about half an hour, and 
> Chief Seattle did not speak English.  The only communication between the
> two men was by sign language.  However eloquent Seattle was in sign,
> the reporter knew only a few rudimentary signs.  There never was any
> "Chief Seattle speech."
> 
> Certainly the quotes attributed to Seattle are wonderful rhetoric, and
> fit well with the mythology of the old west.  People want them to be
> authentic.  If you're in an urban area you can go to your local library
> and look up the info.  I saw it published in the Portland Oregonian some
> time between 89 and 91, I think.  As I remember, it was a reprint of
> a Seattle newspaper (PI?) article.  
> 
> -- Larry

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