Philip Frazier

FRAZIER, (Francis) Philip. b. Santee Sioux Reservation, Nebraska, 2 June 1892; d. Yankton, South Dakota, 28 September 1964.  Philip Frazier is best known in hymnology for his paraphrase, ‘Many and great, O God, are thy works’* (or ‘thy things’), of a Dakota-language hymn attributed to Joseph Renville* in Dakota Odowan (‘Dakota Hymns’). Frazier’s life and work are described in his own words in a typewritten letter which he sent to Paul Gordon Richter of Dartmouth College, dated 7 December 1959:  ‘Now about my story.  It’s just an ordinary life… I was born in a teepee.  My mother and father were full blood Sioux Indians.  My father was a Congregational minister for 35 years among his own...