W ôpanâakTalk Leads Little Doe To Genius Grant (fw d link)

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Friday, October 1, 2010

Wôpanâak Talk Leads Little Doe To Genius Grant

By PETER BRANNEN
USA

Jessie Little Doe Baird was having a bad week. On Sept. 13 she went to a
ceremony to ask for cleansing, to ask for help and to give thanks for the
good and the bad in her life.

“We need both of those things, unfortunately. We do,” she said in an
interview at her home in Aquinnah, built by her husband, the medicine man of
the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah), Jason Baird.

When her six-year-old daughter, Mae, got off the school bus that Monday
afternoon — the child is the first native speaker of the Wampanoag language,
Wôpanâak, in over a century and a half — Mrs. Baird settled into her ongoing
work to resurrect her native tongue. Then the phone rang.

“There was a man on the other end of the phone and he said, ‘Are you Jessie
Little Doe Baird?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ He said to me, ‘Are you alone?’ And I
said, ‘Okay, you know something, I’ve had a long day, I don’t need to deal
with this.’”

The tone of the conversation changed dramatically, however, when the man
identified himself as a representative of the John D. and Catherine T.
MacArthur Foundation. Mrs. Baird had been selected for the fellowship, or
“genius award,” in recognition for her 17 years of linguistic work to
restore the long-dormant language of her ancestors.

Access full article below:
http://www.mvgazette.com/article.php?27539
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