Bands focus on preservation (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

Posted on Mon, Jun. 28, 2004

Bands focus on preservation
LANGUAGE REVITALIZATION:Groups work to save Minnesota's first languages
and cultures.

BY STEVE KUCHERA
NEWS TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthsuperior/9034294.htm

Minnesota's very name comes from a Dakota word meaning "sky-tinted
waters." Yet fewer than 30 fully fluent Dakota speakers remain in the
state, according to the Dakota Ojibwe Language Revitalization Alliance.

Things are little better for speakers of the Ojibwe language. A 1995
survey of reservations in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan found 418
fluent Ojibwemowin speakers, none younger than 45. Most were elders.

Alliance members want the numbers of fluent Dakota and Ojibwemowin
speakers to grow.

"We really need our language and culture," alliance member Jennifer
Bendickson said. "If children don't know their culture and their
language, then they become lost because they are missing that part of
themselves."

The Twin Cities-based alliance -- a gathering of elders, fluent Dakota
and Ojibwemowin speakers, educators and others from Minnesota's tribes
-- was formed last June at the Fond du Lac Reservation. It met Friday
with language educators and other interested people from Fond du Lac,
Leech Lake and Grand Portage.

"We're going to different communities to find out what is going on...
and what we can do to support them," Bendickson said. "Any effort that
is being made to preserve language is good, because we need that."

Linguists estimate that 500 years ago, American Indians in the
continental U.S. area spoke more than 300 languages. About half
survive.

Some were lost when tribes that spoke them were exterminated. Others
faded as schools and missionaries worked to quash native languages and
cultures.

Despite the oppression, there have always been people interested in
preserving Indian languages, said Rosemary Christensen, a Mole Lake
Ojibwe who grew up on Bad River. She was involved in the 1995 Ojibwe
language survey and teaches American Indian studies at University of
Wisconsin-Green Bay.

Today, however, there is more overt interest and action, she said.

"Now that the tribes have money, they are putting their money where
their mouth is," Christensen said. "Right now is the heyday of Indian
tribes trying various things to become successful in how to teach
language to fluency."

"The Mille Lacs Band, for example, has spent an incredible amount on
language," she said. "Even before they had a casino, they were spending
money to preserve and strengthen their language."

Many Mille Lacs Band youth experience Ojibwe traditions almost daily. At
the band's Nay Ah Shing Schools, courses in Ojibwe language, history
and culture are part of the curriculum. And in 2000, the band opened
the Ojibwe Language and Cultural Awareness Grounds near Rutledge.

Program director Larry Smallwood said it's important to preserve
Ojibwemowin because the language and Ojibwe culture are interconnected.

"We need to do our ceremonies in our language, because that's the way it
was given to us by the Creator," he said. "And we believe we do not
only need it in this world, but also after we leave here and go to the
spirit world."

Smallwood has seen a growing interest in Ojibwe language and culture,
especially among those in their late teens and early 20s.

"People are starting to get back to their own identity," he said.
"Something woke them up and said 'Hey, I'm an Indian person, and I
better get back to my own identity,' because for a while they were
pretty well lost."

The Mille Lacs band is not the only regional group working to preserve
Ojibwemowin. In Wisconsin, the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point
Native American Center has held a language immersion camp each of the
past two summers at Red Cliff, and offers another this week. Lac Courte
Oreilles sponsors a similar camp.

The Fond du Lac Band also is working to expand its language preservation
efforts. It offers regular language instruction at centers in Cloquet,
Old Sawyer and Brookston.

"If you put together all those little groups of people, then you have a
really large group of people trying to revitalize their language,"
Bendickson said. "That is very encouraging."

STEVE KUCHERA is an education reporter. He can be reached weekdays at
(218) 279-5503 or (877) 269-9672, or by e-mail at
skuchera at duluthsuperior.com.