FW: [NativeNews] Language key to preserving native culture (fwd)

Sun Feb 11 19:23:38 UTC 2001

With all of the recent discussion of "Indian" vs "Native American", some
of you-all might be interested in this.
        Rudy

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From: Senior Staff <senior-staff at nativenewsonline.org>
Subject: [NativeNews] Language key to preserving native culture
Date: Sun, Feb 11, 2001, 9:22 AM

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, Superintendent 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.
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