Song Lyrics

Upon the hillside
Policemen were climbing
The ghosts call the night wind
Their fantasies to tell
Dark on the snow
Where the blood drops a-drying
Slipped through cold fingers
The whiskey bottle fell

Ha-how-ya, mother
I leave you with your white man
I curse their church that tells us
That our fathers were wrong
And I'll hunt my own Mowich
And I'll drink my own whiskey
And I'll sing until morning
The old-fashioned song

Fires of the potlatch
Are all scattered in their ashes
Ma-sat-chie-ta-ma-now-wits
The evil ones remain
And our children cannot follow
The old nor the new ways

And the poles of their fathers
Are rotting in the rain

Ha-how-ya, mother
I leave you with your white man
I curse their church that tells us
That our fathers were wrong
And I'll hunt my own Mowich
And I'll drink my own whiskey
And I'll sing until morning
The old-fashioned song

Daylight came late
Over high coastal mountains
The renegade stood watching
With his rifle by his side
Then he emptied his gun
Up into the pale yellow sunrise
And he ran down the hillside
To the place where he died

Ha-how-ya, mother
I leave you with your white man
I curse their church that tells us
That our fathers were wrong
And I'll hunt my own Mowich
And I'll drink my own whiskey
And I'll sing until morning
The old-fashioned song

Sylvia Fricker, Ian Tyson