In Search of Forgotten Names, part 1
Track #10 on handmade, “In Search of Forgotten Names,” is related to an earlier song I’ve discussed — the opening track, “Patterns in the Sky.”
As I said in this earlier post, years ago, when I was studying my tribal language, I indeed went in search of forgotten names — the names, in Creek, of the planets and the constellations. As far as I can tell, they no longer exist; they are forgotten. (See my previous post for the explanation.)
However, I have a long standing tradition of going off in search of one thing and finding something else I wasn’t expecting. In this case, I came to appreciate the beauty and complexity of the Creek language. Surely the centerpiece is the incredible expressive range of the verbs — you can almost fit an entire English sentence into a properly chosen single word. (Unfortunately, for someone like me who didn’t grow up speaking the language, this makes it seriously hard to learn.)
So unlike that first song, which had an undertone of sadness, this song is more about the journey I took in discovering something that had been taken away from my family for generations. If you want a play-by-play:
- The first part of the song was my investigations into the tribal language, searching many places with mixed results.
- Then, at 1:03, there is a long break where I am searching and searching for the forgotten names, but can’t find them.
- Finally, at 1:40, I discover what I’ve been looking at all along — a language meant for storytelling.
