A rap song aims to save a rare Native language (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

A rap song aims to save a rare Native language

MONICA LABELLE
mlabelle at argusleader.com

October 23, 2005
http://www.argusleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051023/LIFE/510230348/1004/LIFE

Dakota used to be a forbidden language among Native American youths.
They could be punished if they spoke it.

"When they went to different (English-speaking) schools, if they talked
Dakota, they got beat," says Orsen Bernard, a Dakota who lives on the
Sisseton-Wahpeton reservation.

Bernard, 70, wants today's youths to know their Native language and take
pride in it.

He helps translate children's stories from English to Dakota and is part
of the Association on American Indian Affairs' efforts to keep the
language alive. The group recently added a rap song, "Wicozani Mitawa,"
or "My Life" to its growing stock of youth-oriented Dakota media.

"It defines you as who you are," Bernard says of the importance of
handing down his Native language.

America's "melting pot" effect - the combination of countless cultures -
threatens to drown this rare language, he says.

"When you melt a bunch of stuff, do you know what comes on top? A lot of
crud," Bernard says, laughing. His Dakota name, Iha Way Akapi, means
"When you see him, he is always laughing." His grandma gave him the
name when he was a small child.

"That's the way I am," he says.

Bernard knows others in his generation who didn't speak Dakota in
English-speaking classrooms for fear of being beaten and ostracized. He
says his 78-year-old brother still hesitates to speak the language
around white people because he has painful memories of being shamed.

"Our speakers are primarily elderly. Young teens and young adults don't
always have opportunity to hear the language anymore," says Tammy
DeCoteau, director of the AAIA's language program.

But today's generation of Native American youths don't want the language
to be shamed into oblivion.

"We're trying to get the language where you wouldn't ordinarily see it
through music or games, anywhere we can get their attention," she said.

"I feel sad about it, just the thought of it," says Tim Laughter, 23,
who created the music on the AAIA's recent rap song. "I hope that
doesn't happen."

The song gives him hope.

"I have a strong feeling that if we try to get it out there more, I feel
like we can accomplish something, strike a light in people's heads,"
says Laughter, of Crawfordsville.

The rap's lyrics were written by Tristan Eastman. One of the song's
messages, from the point of view of a young man who fights despair, is
to embrace Native pride and stand up for traditional culture.

"I am not the type of person to ever put on a fake smile / I don't feel
but somehow I am cold / and at times my heart and soul aches."

It is rapped in Dakota over an even beat.

"The farther we get from our languages, the more confused our young
people get about who they are and their place in the world," says
William Harjo Lone Fight, president of Sisseton-Wahpeton College.

"In our language is embedded the instruction on how we treat one another
and how we survive."

"The lyrics, in my mind, kind of speak about each individual's life
around the reservation," Laughter says. "I think everyone can touch
base with it on some level."

More than 250 compact discs containing the song, recorded in late
August, had been distributed free of charge as of early September to
young people on the reservation, with its tribal headquarters at Agency
Village near Sisseton.

The sleeve of the CD has a translation so people might study it and
become familiar with the language.

"By doing this, we're saying, 'Hey, our Dakota words are just as good as
any other language,' " Bernard says.

Reach reporter Monica LaBelle at 977-3909. The Associated Press
contributed to this report.