New Yup’ik songbook published

by K.J. Lincoln

Something amazing and incredible has transformed how Yup’ik church choirs and congregations and singers can now sing their Yup’ik songs.

Yup’ik singers, or anyone who wants to sing in Yup’ik, can now sing and also look at the notes that they are singing while performing church songs. Soprano, alto, tenor, and bass singers are now able to read the sheet music and sing in harmony in Yugtun at the same time with the newly published Yup’ik Hymnal.

The Yup’ik Hymnal contains the Liturgy and Hymns in the Yup’ik Language of the Kuskokwim District as used by the Alaska Moravian Church. It was published in 2022 by the Alaska Moravian Church in Bethel, Alaska. It is the brown songbook that has been revamped and redone.

Previously if you wanted to sing in Yup’ik, you had to rely on memory of how the notes go if you wanted to sing soprano, alto, tenor, or bass. Or you would even have to hold the English songbook the same time you’re singing from the text-only Yup’ik songbook. The only Yup’ik songbooks that have been used in the Alaska Moravian Church until now were printed text only – no notes, no sheet music – only words and those were written in the very old Moravian style writing system. Some older folks still read and write using  this old writing style.

Piano players can now play the songs along with the singers without having to look through many songbooks for the English songbook version. They can follow along with the Yup’ik singers while playing the piano. Some Moravian churches have made their own piano songbooks page by page with the sheet music that goes with the Yup’ik text-only songbook by making copies from the English songbooks, then piecing everything together and creating big bulky binders in sets of 2 that would stay by the piano ready for when congregations would sing from the old Yup’ik songbook.

Sometimes piano players would get nervous if they couldn’t find the sheet music for a particular Yup’ik song.

Some church choirs and some singing groups in the villages have been known to take the sheet music and white-out the English words for a particular song that they liked and wanted to sing and then write in the Yup’ik words by hand over the white-out using the old Yup’ik Moravian writing system or the new Yup’ik orthography or even a non-standard mixture of both – and then make copies for their singers.

The new Yup’ik songbook has everything – the notes for the piano players, the key signature, the parts for the singers to sing, and the words using the standardized new Yup’ik writing system.

Freda Jimmie of Kwigillingok and Bethel sings and plays the piano for the Moravian Church and she says that she loves the new Yup’ik Hymnal.

“Yes, I love it,” she said. No more looking for the sheet music for a song in the English songbook when the congregation or choir is going to sing a song in Yugtun. “That’s what I like. And I’m more confident about singing with the new songbook with the notes.”

If you’ve ever heard a Moravian church choir sing from the coastal areas (especially Kipnuk and Kwigillingok) in the late 1980s and early 1990s, they were really really good – they were very excellent moving hearts and souls. The choir members trained themselves as sheet music reading singers who knew their parts and practiced their songs to perfection. And their piano players are out of this world – they can read and play sheet music beautifully, its astounding. Most are self-taught and you might know a few of them.

One of those piano players, his name is Vernon Samson of Kipnuk and Bethel, worked on creating the Yup’ik Hymnal. Through his hard work, all the songs were converted from text-only to full sheet music with the words in Yugtun.

Samson said that back in 2019 a member of the Bethel Moravian Church congregation Clifford Jimmie, who is also President of the Alaska Moravian Church, showed him a song that he created using a computer program called Musescore 2.

“He asked me if I wanted to work on redoing the brown songbook, and I said yes,” he said.

At the time he did not know that it would be a massive undertaking. The project was immense, he spent hours and hours day after day working on it, first learning the music program and reading the manual and then recreating the sheet music song by song. The work was so strenuous that it began to affect his health.

“It was so slow, page by page,” he said. Sometimes the whole thing came to a halt if there were questions. As the project continued on, the work became faster towards the end.

There were two Yup’ik ladies who were highly skilled in the new Yup’ik writing orthography who helped with transitioning the words from the old writing system to the new – Elsie Jimmie of Kwigillingok and Sophie Enoch of Tuntutuliak. They helped keep the project going through their work and also through their encouragement.

“If it weren’t for their help, this project would never have been completed,” said Samson. “They encouraged me to keep going and I am grateful.”

Most all of the work Samson did was from his home computer and electric piano. The songbook is written in the new writing system that has been in existence since the 1970s and has been taught in our schools and universities. Yup’ik is our ancestral language, our mother tongue that binds us together as Yup’ik people. The Yup’ik Hymnal will help preserve the Yup’ik language as long as it is being used as well as fulfilling its intended purpose – the give God glory.

Samson started working on the project in 2019 – precovid, painstakingly recording and working on each song. And then in May of 2022 it was finished.

“When I hit that button for the last time, everything gushed out,” he said he couldn’t hold it in. “It was such a relief.”

The first shipment of songbooks arrived on November 3rd, 2022 – a very momentous and holy occasion. A songbook dedication service was also held in honor of the new Yup’ik Hymnal and Yup’ik church services at the Bethel Moravian Church have been using the new songbook filling the air with the harmony of song.

This past weekend the Moravian Church in Kipnuk held their annual church rally. The choir sang “Under His Wings” with the new songbook.

“Erinait niitniqpiarluteng,” said Samson who saw the singing online. “Their voices were beautifully harmonizing. I used to sing that song in the days before starting this project.”

So in a sense, Samson’s role and part in this work and project has come full circle from beginning to end.

All the Moravian churches in the region now have copies of the new Yup’ik Hymnal, except for three. Those will soon come. For folks who would a copy, the new Yup’ik Hymnal is available for purchase at the Bethel Moravian Bookstore.