Prayers in our Native Language

[adrian john]

I was apart of a pilot program that our nation sponsored that was based on learning language through Ceremonial and ritual practices. 

Just some background information; I am a member of the Seneca Nation of Indians located in Western new york state.  We have a school called the Ganososgeh Henondiesta Koh, or the Faithkeepers school.  The school was built to educate youth in the ceremonial ways of our Longhouse.  In 2007 the school was sponsored to have an adult program where participants were paid to learn the ceremonial language, protocols and songs of the Longhouse.  There were 6 of us originally.  

The learning process for this varied, some of us chunked information, memorized etc. In all senses we were constantly cramming as we were actually using this language to help perform ceremonies; either privately or in formal community ceremonies.  As you mentioned, language is held on to by those that practice traditional teachings, as is the case with our language.  Most if not all speakers of the language are members of the longhouse spiritual practices. 

There is no formal research as to our progress or the systems that we used, except for our daily journals and our actual involvement in putting what we learned to use.  That is probably the best assessment.  

I can tell you that it does work though, I came in knowing hardly anything to knowing quite a bit of language, songs and the meanings to our ceremonies.  This was done just over a year involved in the project.  The original 6 have moved on to other areas, but we remain a key component to taking care of our ceremonies in our communities.  There are 4 new participants involved now and if this continues we will have created a new pool of leadership in our longhouse.

I hope this helps a little.

Adrian John

Date: Wed, 8 Sep 2010 16:42:59 +0000
From: jieikobu at HOTMAIL.COM
Subject: Re: [ILAT] Prayers in our Native Language
To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU








Thanks for sharing that. I look forward to the youtube clip.

An area of interest for me is the role that religion and spirituality plays in both language shift and in language revitalization. 

It seems to me that language often hangs on in prayers and spiritual teachings and also plays a key role in inspiring people to learn, re-learn or teach their language. And, as much as religion of oppressors/ dominant culture has been instrumental in language shift, esp church run residential schools, it has also played a role in preserving language in Bibles, orthographies and so on, or in keeping it vital as is the case with Guarani in Paraguay.

If anyone knows of research related to the role that religion or spirituality plays in language revitalization, I'd be very grateful.

Best regards,

Jakob

 


Date: Tue, 7 Sep 2010 13:30:52 -0500
From: tdc.aaia at VERIZON.NET
Subject: [ILAT] Prayers in our Native Language
To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU

Han Mitakuyapi,

Throughout the years, our program has been visited by members of our community asking for help from them with prayers.  In fact, if you ask adults why they want to learn their language, to be able to pray to the Creator in their language is often either the reason or the secondmost reason.

We are in the middle of a project to create three CDs of everyday language in Dakotah and all year long I have struggled with the idea of creating the third CD as parts of prayers.  The time has arrived to make this decision and I have decided not to.  

Each time we have been asked for help, I have saved whatever the elders worked on ... in fact, I never throw anything away, even drafts because no one might remember that word or those words later on.  So I do have w
 hat I would consider a "general" prayer and I will be putting this on youtube in the next few days.

I want people to know, though, that we are not saying that this is how you should pray, but simply offering this as one way that a group of elders came up with to help people who have asked for that help.

Pidamayaye.

Tammy DeCoteau
AAIA Native Language Program 		 	   		  
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