Ojibwe Song
 

"I Have Found My Lover"

sung by Julia Warren Spears,

William Whipple Warren's sister.

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Julia Warren Spears, who recorded this and one other song, was a sister of William W. Warren, historian of the tribe. (Cf. footnote p. 2) She was born in 1833 at La Pointe, the Chippewa village on Madeline Island in Lake Superior. When she was 17 years of age her brother William was employed to escort the first party of Chippewa that came to Minnesota. They numbered about 800 and she was the only woman. She never returned to La Paointe to live, and in later years made her home with her daughter, Mrs. Charles W. Mee, at White Earth, where the songs were recorded, probably in 1908. 

Mrs. Spears said that when she was a little girl on Madeline Island, about 15 years of age, her friend and playmate was a pretty Indian girl, the only daughter of a chief. This Indian girl "was always singing two songs." The writer heard Mrs. Spears sing them at intervals over a period of several years and the renditions never varied in any respect. One was a song of happiness and the other was a sad little song, said to be sung when the girl's love was leaving on a long journey. The first song is presented and expresses the girl's joy at finding her lover. Attention is directed to the compass of the melody which includes 12 tones, beginning on the highest and ending on the lowest tone of the compass, a melodic pattern noted in many Chippewa love songs. Nia is a woman's exclamation of surprise.

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