Éy St’elmexw St’elt’ílém - GOOD MEDICINE SONGS - Chapter 1
Presented by Skwah First Nation and Artist Response Team
The Good Medicine Songs project team involved Sto:lo Elders and singers Siyamiyateliyot, Eddie Gardner, Ethel Gardner and Jonny Williams, Wilds band members Holly Arntzen and Kevin Wright, coordinator Valerie O’Connal from Skwah First Nation and eventually Cheyenne Gardner added her voice and Bon Graham graced the pages with her beautiful artwork. We created four bilingual songs in Halq’eméylem (traditional Stó:lō language of the Fraser Valley, British Columbia) and English, for children of all backgrounds to sing together. This fosters positive relationships amongst their families and creatively advances cross cultural understanding, respect and reconciliation. This project showcases the power of song and storytelling in bringing the Halq’eméylem language and culture alive. The traditional Stó:lō stories and teachings are directly connected to ecological issues that are being taught in schools today.
On this page are free downloads of the songs, audio glossaries on how to pronounce the words, the teacher's handbook and the student guide (which include the stories and the lyrics) and the videos (lyrics on screen!) Use the lyrics in the books for reference to the audio glossaries.
The project resulted in a 4-day school music program with McCammon Elementary and Chilliwack Landing Pre-School. The culmination was to be a language showcase concert at the Chilliwack Cultural Centre on March 12, 2020. We made it through the afternoon dress rehearsal (which did have an audience) but two hours prior to the evening concert it was cancelled due to COVID-19 restrictions. We had a 3-camera crew ready to shoot. Our audio tech was setting up to do a multi-track recording but it was not ready in time for the dress rehearsal, so the audio in these videos is only from the onboard mics on the cameras. Fortunately we were able to capture some footage of the entire dress rehearsal.
The Halq’eméylem/English songs were edited and are now featured here.
We look forward to when we can have the actual concert!!!
For more detailed info about the project please see inside the handbook!
Good Medicine Songs - PODCAST
Supported by the University
of the Fraser Valley
UFV Professor, Lolehawk Laura Buker, takes us on a Sto:lo journey through stories told by language and history holders T’ít’elem Spath - Eddie Gardner and Xótwes - Jonny Williams. In episode one, Lolehawk visits with the last remaining fluent Halq'eméylem speaker, Dr. Siyamiyateliyot. The shows also include science information from Dr. Marvin Rosenau of the University of British Columbia.
Each episode features one Good Medicine Song and one song by The Wilds with Holly Arntzen and Kevin Wright.