Fwd: [NativeNews] Language key to preserving native culture
Carol
From: Senior Staff <senior...@nativenewsonline.org>
:
Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2001 11:22:16 -0500
Reply-To: NatNew...@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [NativeNews] Language key to preserving native culture
:
story lead from Victor Rocha...thanks!
www.pechanga.net
Language key to preserving native culture
February 10, 2001, 12:09 PM
http://www.freep.com/news/statewire/sw28253_20010210.htm
HANNAHVILLE, MICHIGAN . (AP) -- A dozen giggling third-graders
introduce themselves to a visitor at the Hannahville Indian School.
"Bo zho, Bodewadmi ndaw," they say, which translates as: "Hello,
I am Potawatomi."
These few words are the children's first steps toward what leaders
of the Hannahville Indian Community hope will become a basic
knowledge of their native language -- and, for some, fluency.
"Sooner or later it's going to be a lost language if we don't preserve
it," says Marilyn Shawano, a school board member whose 18-year-
old son, Shawn, is studying Potawatomi with others in the senior class.
For tribal leaders in Michigan working to preserve native culture,
nothing is more crucial than teaching the Indian language to younger
generations.
Scholars believe some 300 native languages were spoken in North
America when European colonization began. That has dwindled to
about 155 languages today.
As economic growth has enabled tribes to fund education programs,
language classes have become a fixture in tribal schools at Hannahville,
Mount Pleasant and Sault Ste. Marie. Several other tribes provide
access to instructors.
Some tribal members call their historical language "Anishinaabemowin,"
or "language of the first people."
"Culture is language, and language is culture. They are bound together,"
says Kathy LeBlanc, cultural services director at Bay Mills Community
College, the only tribal college in Michigan.
Operated by the Bay Mills Indian Community, the college in the
eastern Upper Peninsula village of Brimley offers courses in Ojibwe,
one of three historical languages of the Great Lakes tribes. The others
are Odawa and Potawatomi; all are dialects of the Algonquin tongue.
Bay Mills also sponsors a summer immersion program for prospective
Ojibwe teachers. "We're training people to get out in the streets
and teach it to prevent it from dying out completely," LeBlanc says.
One of the summer program graduates, Chris Gordon, is language
instructor at the Bahweting School on the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of
Chippewa Indians reservation, which runs from kindergarten through
eighth grade.
"Our goal is to have the kids be able to communicate by the time they
leave," Gordon says. "They're concerned -- "Who do I talk to? My
friends aren't talking the language.' We need to have community
support, because it's attainable but it's a lot of hard work."
For the Hannahville tribe, the task is particularly daunting. It has
only about 700 members, 500 of whom live on the reservation in
northern Menominee County. None is fluent in Potawatomi, Superin-
tendent Tom Miller says.
The school's language teacher, Don Perrot, says there are about
32,000 Potawatomis scattered across Canada and the states of
Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, Kansas and Oklahoma. He knows of
only 58 people -- including himself -- who speak the language.
The Hannahville school opened in 1975, but didn't start teaching
Potawatomi until Perrot arrived in 1996 because no instructor was
available. The school now offers the language in all 12 grades
and adult education classes.
The school also is developing books, visual aids and even a CD-ROM,
evidence of how high-tech and ancient tradition coexist in many
native schools. Seven books have been published since Perrot's
arrival, two of which are available online -- a step that made some
tribal elders uneasy.
"They were a little afraid at first of ... making it too available to
people who might not have the background to appreciate the
sacredness of it," Perrot says. "But we convinced them that we
were losing elders far too fast, and we needed to do this so as
many people as possible can learn."
Grasping a native language is no easy task, says Larry Martin,
director of the Center for American Indian Studies at the
University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire. "There's been a revival of
interest for the past couple of decades, but relatively few
speakers are being produced," he says.
The colorful, spiritual character of Indian languages presents
another challenge to would-be speakers.
Natives often use descriptive phrases to identify objects that in
English are labeled with a single noun. For example, the literal
meaning of "maung," the Ojibwe word for "loon," is "thunder bird
of the water."
Similarly, the Potawatomi word for deer is "seski." But the word
for whitetail deer, "wawashkesh," is a phrase whose literal
translation is "flash like lightning indicating danger" -- a verbal
portrait of the frightened deer streaking through the woods.
Many such expressions have spiritual dimensions, LeBlanc says.
That is why language and culture are inextricably linked, a point
emphasized at the Hannahville school, where the school week
includes ceremonies and instruction in native history and traditions.
Molly Meshigaud, a senior, is an accomplished traditional dancer.
She makes her regalia, including an elaborate "jingle dress," and
takes part in competitions that require knowledge of language as
well as culture.
Sporting a "native pride" headband, Meshigaud says she's grateful
to learn the language and customs of her ancestors without having
to worry about government suppression as in the past. But plenty
of stereotypes remain, she says.
"If you say you're Indian, lots of people think it just means you
work at the casino," she says.
Classmate Aaron Donovan says he wants to teach Potawatomi someday.
"I hope to be able to hold a conversation by the end of the year,"
he says. "Being a Native American is a special thing to me."
Reprinted under the Fair Use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
doctrine of international copyright law.
<<<<<>>>>>
Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit)
http://nativenewsonline.org/