Montanan meets Maori queen, works to save native tongue (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

Montanan meets Maori queen, works to save native tongue
http://www.greatfallstribune.com/news/stories/20040309/localnews/41147.html

Three Montanans working to revive Native American language on their
reservations traveled to New Zealand last month to see firsthand how
the Maori are saving their native tongue.

"All of our indigenous struggles are so similar," said Lynette Chandler,
project coordinator for the Speaking White Clay Program at Fort Belknap
Community College.

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation invited Chandler on the trip along with
Darrell Robes Kipp, of the Nizipuhwahsin language immersion school on
the Blackfeet Reservation, and Janine Pease, of Rocky Mountain College
in Billings.

They joined roughly 18 other educators from across the continental
United States and Hawaii.

Chandler spent time with Maori language teachers as well as students
ranging from six-month-old babies to college scholars.

A highlight was meeting Maori Queen Dame Te Ata, who has held the throne
since 1966.

But Chandler said her biggest inspirations were in the classroom.

At one school, students studied the Maori's traditional double-hulled
ocean vessel, called a "waka," in their native language, learning about
construction methods, history and how the boats were used.

As soon as she got home, Chandler enlisted tribal elder Elmer Main to
help her translate the different parts of the bison into Gros Ventre or
"White Clay" language.

Students will study how the bison, a central part of life for Plains
Indians, is used, from painting hides to telling stories to utilitarian
uses such as clothing or horns made into spoons.

In one New Zealand classroom Chandler visited, third-graders started off
the school year learning an ancient Maori proverb about respect.

"It shows that we have the answers within our own society and community
and education system and we need to go back to that in order to move
forward in this society," said Chandler, who has 12 children in her
White Clay Language Immersion School.

Only a handful of people speak White Clay fluently.

Restoring it "is going to be so long and so arduous," said Chandler, who
met an elderly woman in New Zealand who was a founder of the Maori
language movement 30 years ago. "I think I'll live to see the fruits of
our labor." -- K.O.