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[Richard Zane Smith]

MJ,
I commend you...you have done a major amount of work.
it seems no matter what the future holds
the best we can do is to follow closely the path we believe in.
>From your website Its obvious you believe in,and give honor to the people
whom oyu work with.
If anything will outlive current fragile technology,its the
immeasurable and lasting effects from caring people like yourself.

tizhamëh(thanks)
Richard
Wyandotte Oklahoma


On Sun, Nov 8, 2009 at 8:21 PM, MJ Hardman <hardman at ufl.edu> wrote:

>  Richard, you are entirely correct.  And even so, beyond the testing, I
> worry about an EMT pulse that could wipe out everything, and the work it
> takes to maintain the updates on the servers no matter what.
>
> Nevertheless, I sat one day in my office and looked over at the stack of
> materials from 21 years of teaching the Aymara language here at UF.  It was
> no longer taught; the Center had returned to me all the materials they had.
>  I am not young and it occurred to me that when I was gone those materials
> would most likely be tossed into the nearest paper recycler and the audio
> tapes into the dumpster.
>
> It was at that point that I started to think that maybe putting them online
> would make them available to later generations and/or to heritage learners
> and/or to others who might find them useful.  The view of garbage was not
> pleasant.  So I started, quite modestly at first, more like putting a book
> online; an administrator who did believe in my work stepped in; the rest is
> now history.
>
> After the Aymara was done it was obvious to me that the same would probably
> happen to my huge pile of notebooks and tapes from a half-century of field
> work in the sister languages.  This is a chance for current generations to
> read and to hear the Jaqaru and the Kawki of fluent, even monolingual,
> speakers.  None of the latter are left.  What they do with it will be left
> for them to decide, but, barring the disasters I know could happen or others
> not anticipated, at least they will have it.  We also plan to provide paper
> copies and CD of the audio.  May it all work.
>
> But, unless there is conversation, unless it is used in the school, it
> won’t work.  The politics of all of this is vastly the most difficult aspect
> — causing a Ministry of Education to understand that languages are worth
> respect and the small rural communities are worthy of good well-constructed
> schools.  Right now the school still lies in ruins from the 2007 earthquake;
> the library that we had donated and that the kids loved, is stored away (no
> place to put it), the kids study in tin shacks and the Ministry just
> declared that they will think about it all again in 2010!!!  But we will
> still be there, with the teachers that can still be with us (that don’t get
> transferred to areas that speak other languages), and with the Amigos de
> Jaqaru (mostly Tupinos who live in Lima and who have lost the language and
> some government and academic people who support us), and we will keep
> trying.  In today’s world, if the school disrespects the language the
> children learn that.  Home is not sufficient, not now.  Would that it were.
>  Especially since, as in the experience of most groups, there were a couple
> of generations who were forbidden to speak the language.  I proposed that
> there be a comfortable room in the new school where the elders could come to
> tell stories and histories to the children in Jaqaru, and where the children
> could converse in Jaqaru, together with munchies; an attractive place where
> *only* Jaqaru could be spoken.  But we can’t even get a school at this
> point.  Maybe when we do we can furnish some area as such.
>
> The children do love the language when given a chance.  20 years ago I
> taught a course to 4th and 5th graders in reading and writing Jaqaru.  They
> were the envy of the whole school!  And one little boy, too young for the
> course, hung out in the door where his brother (now a teacher and trying to
> get Jaqaru in the school) was learning.  This young man is now active in
> trying to write, and wants to be a linguist, and wants to rescue his
> language.  He writes what he heard from his grandfathers, based on what he
> heard from the doorway.  It can be done!  And it doesn’t take much.  The
> kids even brought me ‘pitanza’, a gift of edibles given to teachers who have
> caused learning.  I still treasure the day they came to my door.  This came
> about because one teacher *did* understand. He left the teaching
> profession, disillusioned. (the terrorism of Peru stopped that effort)
>
> Yes, technology as a tool, and maybe a tool that won’t be used until some
> of us aren’t, but at least that which we did will be there, when it *can*be used, and may that day be sooner ratherr than later, but mostly, may it
> come.
>
> MJ
> Dr. MJ Hardman
> Doctora Honoris Causa UNMSM, Lima, Perú
> website:  http://at.ufl.edu/~hardman-grove/
>
>
>
>
> On 11/8/09 11:19 AM, "Richard Zane Smith" <rzs at WILDBLUE.NET> wrote:
>
> Kweh Rolland, Potawatomi political refugee in Kanatah :-)
> *once upon a time in some galaxy somewhere there were no border lines....
> *wow..I'm glad you discuss this kind of stuff in the classroom.
> yeah,
> I think this is an important issue and i didn't want to offend anyone who
> is a believer in all these cool technologies for Language revitalization,
> I'm one of those who enjoys technology(email and my chain saw) but am a
> little
> concerned because these gadgets are so dang new and haven't been tried,
> tested for sustainability past a measly 100 years or less.
> They haven't a long presence and/or history on earth as say,
> the stone tool has and village life,nations and confederations....
>
> I mean ...can we even imagine *ten thousand years of chain saws*?
> maybe If we *think* that way...it gets more serious if not damn scary.
> I'm not sure we today we give ourselves time to consider that kind of cost.
> Otr maybe we've decided its impossible to deal with,so we shrug it off
> and keep going.
> But if we are to look to our 7th generation...we gotta do a little thinkin.
>
> about my signature; yes its my tribal affiliation, but its also the town
> nearest
> to where we live!
>
> ske:noh (peace/well-being)
> Richard
> Wyandotte, Oklahoma
>
>
> On Sat, Nov 7, 2009 at 11:50 PM, Rolland Nadjiwon <mikinakn at shaw.ca>
> wrote:
>
>
> Richard...I would really like to use some of your ideas as springboards in
> my classes for further discussion. I think you make an important point with
> the idea of 'gradual change....' A very important point tribal/indigenous
> peoples all over the globe are faced with and must somehow deal with. I like
> the identification of your people in your signature. I guess mine would read
> something like:
>
> Rolland
> Potowatomi - political refugee in Canada :)
> -------
> wahjeh
> rolland nadjiwon
>
>
> Richard Zane Smith wrote:
>
>
> Kweh omateru,
>
> (greetings friends)
>
>
>
>
> oh yeah,this "blood-quantum" issue is bound to come around ...kinda
>
>  like those panicky fwd.fwd.fwd. internet hoaxes that keep returning.
>
> What is said here is true though about assimilation.
> Most of our first nations peoples were great assimilators ourselves.
>
> Our ancestors recognized a new useful tool when they saw it,
>
> and even welcomed a good-minded strong young person ,regardless of race.
>
> But then our ancestors lived in an age of gradual change....
>
>
>
>
> Everything has its price
>
> In the past, with a crafted stone tool , a person could fell a tree.
>
> today it takes a million people to fell the same tree....
>
> when using a chain saw.
>
> but the effort and the resulting ease is   ....inescapeable
>
> and such a cost is really ....immeasurable
>
>
>
>
> In the past our adoptees(of other people) were given clan mothers and equal
> status
>
> as those "born in". Marrying outside became almost ....traditional, and it
> continues....
>
> Today "marrying outside" isn't the same as assimilating into the tribe as
> it once was
>
> so...yes, there there is a cost to that too. A "white" spouse is not an
> accepted tribal member and as a result there can be a split along a strange
> foreign line called "race"
>
> which fractures more and more tribal identity and its own infrastructure.
>
>
>
>
> What would our ancestors think? I guess i like to speculate....
>
> Would our ancestors look at future grandchildren becoming less and less
>
> grandchildren? and measure them by blood? or would our ancestors be more
>
> concerned about grandchildren (no matter their skin) becoming desensitized
>
> about their tribal identity and loss of their language?
>
>
>
>
> Our ancestors might be glad our children are hearing so many stories from
> so many people. But they might be upset knowing there are some people trying
>
> to *replace* our own traditional stories with some of those foreign or
> dominant ones.
>
> They would probably be glad the children are learning a good universal
> language,
>
> but they would be extremely concerned if that language was becoming
> dominant
>
> and edging out all the languages of the land.
>
>
>
>
> We live on a racetrack of instant and continual rapid change and this is
>
> disconcerting and difficult to study, or make any worry-free predictions.
>
> This plugged in greater society is becoming more and more "world dependent"
>
>  just as it is becoming more and more fragile and delicate in its own
> infrastructure
>
> But despite all that...sure,I can make a stone axe
>
> but it sure aint gonna be used for cutting firewood.
>
> I'll grab my chain-saw
>
> and for now
>
> I guess my million helpers around the world will be glad I did.
>
>
>
>
> ske:noh
>
> Richard
>
> Wyandotte Oklahoma
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Nov 7, 2009 at 3:45 PM, Heather Souter <hsouter at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Taanshi, hello....
>
> Rolland, your words are very powerful!  Thank-you!  (I hope you will allow
> me to quote you....)
>
>
> I am presently trying to work out my dissertation proposal and am
> struggling with issues of identity, relation to land and language for our
> people.  Many in positions of power focus on genealogical connection and
> acceptance in a "community" as the most important markers of who we are.
> However, as indigenous peoples we did not come to be except through our
> relationship with the land and the practices that are based on that
> relationship.  Our languages express that relationship in their
> processes/structures/content....   The land is the place from which our
> languages spring forth and through our connection/symbiosis with (and/or
> impact on) the land  and then develop, change and--in many important
> ways--help reproduce the relationships many of our Elders enjoy and our
> ancestors before them.  I see the need to speak our languages, to practice
> the ways of our ancestors and to renew our relationship with the land while
> incorporating---when and where appropriate for our collective survival as
> distinct peoples-- the new technologies of the modern/digital age.  How do
> we promote co-present learning from/with Elders and other knowledge keepers
> as well as best use digital technologies to promote the
> maintenance/stabilization/revitalization/renewal of our languages and
> communication practices? Can we do both?  Are they mutually exclusive?  How
> do digital technologies affect our relationship with the land and with the
> others (the plants, the animals, etc.) who inhabit it with us?  How does
> digital technology--especially computer mediated communication--effect our
> relationships in our emplaced human communities?  With Elders, family and
> friends who live near us?  Does digital technology promote the
> decontextualization of our relationships and therefore fundamentally change
> them and who we are as peoples?  Is there a way to balance the present-day
> "need" for digital technology with our need to be co-present with with
> others in order to maintain a sense of who we are as Indigenous peoples?  I
> have so many questions and no answers....
>
> Thanks for listening....
> Eekoshi pitamaa.  That is all for now.
>  Heather
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Nov 7, 2009 at 1:10 PM, Rolland Nadjiwon <mikinakn at shaw.ca> wrote:
>
>
>
> Thanks Jim...this one has been rattling around Indian country for a few
> days. I paid attention at first but the discussion itself is paradoxical, so
> if you read it 30 years ago, it is still the same oroboro... Some of the
> discussions along the lines of cultural alchemy are infuriating. Marriage
> does not threaten culture but what you do with culture after you marry can.
> It is one thing to take a foreign item and integrate it attaching our own
> cultural meaning. It is entirely something else when we take in a foreign
> item and bring with it its foreign cultural meaning...one is integration the
> other is assimilation. These are two very distinct and subtle processes. We
> can have any kind of blood that will keep us living but if that living is
> not the daily activities of our people/relatives which keep the living
> memories of our ancestors, culturally we have become something different.
> Blood be damned...it will not give the knowledge of where our people hunt,
> how they hunt, what the hunting medicine/rituals are, what medicines to use
> where, or the ancient knowledge of our own cosmology. All that is only
> possible though relatives and ancestors. What can a narrative, a recording,
> a video, a map tell us of how we relate to the 'little people' in ritual and
> prayer.
>
> Most of the language is gone from the communities where I now live, my
> mother's people. Few people remember the traditional geography of this place
> and the names that tell you what it is all about. Young people now go to
> places with snow machines, ATVs, four x fours and run rampant over places
> made sacred by the generations of our ancestors repeatedly and repeatedly
> doing offerings and ceremonies far beyond a single memory of that place.
> Without that knowledge there is not even the knowledge of violation by
> unknowingly urinating or defecating on a sacred spot where our people made
> prayer and talked with the spirits.
>
> And now we are going to discuss the age old  blood quantum, no longer
> because of the colonizers, but to identify amongst our own people to
> determine who qualifies for the largest payout.... In my opinion, I will
> stop here as I see this discussion having no solution...unless, of course,
> someone else can please post one.
>
> -------
> wahjeh
> rolland nadjiwon
>
>
>
>
>
>
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