Origins: Hadjanek: The Snow That Comes (Bok)

Subject: Origins: Hadjanek: The Snow That Comes
From: GUEST,YF Mac
Date: 09 Nov 21 - 10:18 AM

Hi all, longtime appreciator here but my first time posting. I am currently memorizing for performance Gordon Bok's 'Hadjanek: The Snow That Comes' from the record Sea Djiril's Hymn, and I am wondering about the origins of the story? It sounds rather old, possibly connected to First Peoples. Am I wrong about that? Did Gordon Bok compose it himself? I have given my best general web searches to no avail. Haven't yet hit the academic journals, but this is my first stop on the way there.

More broadly, I am interested in his sources for other such things as Peter Kagan and the Wind, and also Another Land Made of Water. Surely those are worth their own threads.

Subject: RE: Origins: Hadjanek: The Snow That Comes
From: Joe Offer
Date: 09 Nov 21 - 12:55 PM

Hi, Mac -
All of the Folk-Legacy recordings are now being published by Smithsonian Folkways, and I think all the liner notes are downloadable at the Folkways Website. For the Seal Djiril's Hymn album, here are the download links:

• LP: https://folkways-media.si.edu/liner_notes/folk-legacy/FLG00048-LP.pdf
  
• CD: https://folkways-media.si.edu/liner_notes/folk-legacy/FLG00048-CD.pdf

Rather than start a thread for each song, maybe have one thread per album?
Hope that gives you a start.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: Origins: Hadjanek: The Snow That Comes (Bok)
From: robomatic
Date: 09 Nov 21 - 02:43 PM

Great to hear from a Gordon Bok fan/ cover artist. His voice resonates in my consciousness almost as much as Stan Rogers.

Subject: RE: Origins: Hadjanek: The Snow That Comes (Bok)
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Nov 21 - 09:49 AM

Thanks, Joe! That's incredibly helpful and beautiful. I would sure enjoy getting my hands on one of those original LPs some day. The links you provided bring more depth to the record for me. Here are some relevant passages from the liner notes:

From my mother's people, I think, I was given
that all things were always equal.
Though it might never appear so, all things
had equal weight: flowers, mountains, water,
wind, life and death and men and animals.
And that it wasn't so important what you were
But how you filled other things.

The Eskimo said that, in the old days,
the earth was filled with a presence called Sila.
The goodness in all things, the order between them,
and so, peace.
But, long ago, Sila began to draw itself together
and leave the lands and seas of men,
far and away to some remote corner of the sky.

[Indicating that these stories might be ancestral in nature from Gordon Bok's family on his mother's side. Seems to confirm my guess that Hadjanek could be a First Peoples legend]

Hadjenek was a man, then, and he lived in
the cold land, waiting for his people to come
and take him home.
He was not a good man; he tried to be,
but he was all alone.
But he had seen the woman Djiril,
and he wanted her.
He tried to make her come to him;
he didn't know she was a seal.

....

And, later, there is some good commentary by Bok on the meaning of the legend of Hadjanek and Djiril.


Hey robomatic, always a pleasure to know there's other Bok fans out there. If I did not love his recordings so, I would tire of spelling his name and spieling what kind of music he makes (still haven't nailed down a good way to describe it). I am going to tell Hadjanek at a community potluck tonight. Wish me luck!

Subject: RE: Origins: Hadjanek: The Snow That Comes (Bok)
From: GUEST,Don Meixner
Date: 11 Nov 21 - 10:24 AM

When I first heard Gordon Bok Seal Djiril's Hymn I wondered if there was a connection to his mythology and the Suomi people of Finland. Can't explain why other than my family has some in laws from Maine and they are Finns.

Don.