Voices on the Rise: Indigenous Language Revitalization in Alberta - Episode 1

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I'm fascinated with the way
language is central

to our world view as indigenous people.

I'm a Néhiyaw artist and curator living on
Lekwungen territory in Victoria, BC.

My personal research centers
around language revitalization

and how it connects us
to our cultures and lands.

Over the past few years, I've been
on a journey to learn the Cree language.

It's been a challenging and
incredibly rewarding experience.

Now I want to travel to Alberta,
where my ancestors are from,

to discover the ways that
different communities

are revitalizing their languages.

My mother and I both grew up
not knowing anything about our Cree family

because she was adopted out at birth
as part of the '60s scoop.

Twelve years ago, we met our Cree family,

and since then I have been in a process
of connecting with the community

in Wabasca, Alberta,

the place where my kohkom,
my grandmother Florence, was born.

I recently met Nora Yellowknee,
an administrator at the local school,

Oski Pasikoniwew Kamik.

After realizing that
we were second cousins,

she offered to help me learn
about my family tree.

[Nora] You have your grandmother, --

Florence.

And her mother is Isabelle.

And then, I'm here.

And your grandmother. And your mom?

Fancine.

[Nora] They are first cousins
or second cousins.

- [Eli] Okay.
- [Nora] And you're down here.

[Eli] I'm down there?

[Eli] Yeah, this is more than, --

a lot more than I knew
before I met you, before I came up.

[Nora] Yeah, that's Isabelle.

Nohkom Isabelle.

This means a lot to me to see this, --

again, --

because the more that I see it
the more that I hear about this

and talk about it.

It's going to stick and --

I now understand more and
know more through that process

[Nora] My dream for the language here,

starting with the school, is to have
our people who speak the language,

speak it every day,

because we are not getting that.

There are many Cree speakers working here,
but they are not speaking it.

For people, the young families now,

the young mothers
speak Cree to their children.

And all the rest of it will follow.

Seeing a photo of my kohkom Florence
as a young woman

created a sense of
healing and re-connection

after feeling disconnected
for most of my life.

Knowing more about
my family's history has allowed me

to connect deeper with my ancestors.

There is so much more to discover
but, like learning the language,

this will take time.

The Kapaskwatinak
Cultural Education Center

is a place for the Children of Wabaska

to connect to the land and their culture.

Knowledge Keeper Lorraine Cardinal

helps guide the children
through land-based education

including coming-of-age ceremonies.

I'm excited to learn about these teachings

since I didn't have the opportunities
to experience them,

growing up disconnected
from community and family.

[Lorraine Cardinal] The reason that --

I do these things, like the coming-of-age,

because it's also my responsibility
as a Néhiyaw school

to protect the children,

creator's children.

And when I'm protecting
creator's children, --

we need to teach them those protocols,
we need to teach those values.

They need to know them so that they don't
end up getting hurt in the future.

And that shame of our language,
and who we are, and our ceremonial ways;

losing those has caused
big destruction in our communities.

Because our children,
as they're growing up,

they know who they are, they came
with the gift of knowing who they are.

I have a responsibility to pass
those teachings on to other children too,

because they will experiment,
they will explore,

and we want to prevent them

from hurting each other
or hurting themselves, right?

[Drumming and chanting]

[Lorraine Cardinal] They call that
oskinîkiskwew ēkwa oskinîkîwiw,

young manhood and young womanhood.

I want to thank you and honour you
for coming into this world.

You are a blessing to us.

We are so very honored to have you
as part of us, nêhiyaw-iskwêw.

Always remember to hold your head up,
don't be ashamed and --

always accept yourself for who you are,

and honour those gifts
you brought with you, --

and welcome into womanhood.

Welcome.

It truly is a blessing
and an honour to have you

as a young nêhiyaw-iskwêw,

A young nêhiyaw woman.

Welcome.

[Children talking]

[Lorraine Cardinal] Somehow, someway --

fear got instilled in us
as indigenous people.

Shame got instilled in us
as indigenous people.

Our children, what they
experienced here today

taught them how sacred they are,

how important they are,

how beautiful they are,

and that they're not just
beautiful in physical form.

that they're beautiful
in spiritual form too.

All we need to do is believe in them,

to love them, and to tell them
they're important.

They'll start feeling good
about themselves.

I'm proud of them.
Their spirit is still alive and well.

What do you see being the way forward

so that these young ones
in the community --

can not only understand the language

and its relationship to their spirit,

and their relationship to the land

and each other and themselves,

but be speaking it?

How do you feel about --

the future of the language
in these next generations to come?

We have to believe in ourselves
to be able to do it, --

and we need to set our goal.

And if it's revitalizing the language,
then let's do that.

How did we learn Cree?

We learnt it sitting around
with the old people,

visiting each other and

our parents speaking to us, you know?

So we can get it back.
We just need to do it.

John Bigstone is a Wabiskaw elder

who carries vast spiritual and
ceremonial knowledge

He invited me to the land where
he holds sweat lodge ceremonies

to share teachings about the spirit
within our languages.

[Music]

[inhales deeply]

It clears your mind when
you breathe in this smudge

English language is inadequate

if you're going to describe spirit.

Anything of spirit.

Its inadequate.

They named it according to their
connection to that plant.

because they spoke to the plant

They had a connection.

They had a connection to all of life.

They understood their environment.

They understood that everything was alive,

and your spirtit has a connection
with that spirit

of mother earth, and everything
that grows on her body.

Prior to contact, everything was
described in a more spiritual way.

Mitos (?) you know,
has a spiritual meaning.

Sifta (?) as in spiritual meaning
that's the poplar and the spruce.

(...?) coming back to the language where
our families have had these interruptions

of residential school, the 60s' scoop

I'm curious what your thoughts are about
those of us with this blood in us

and whose ancestors have
spoken the language

and whether you think that
we have it inside of us

just waiting to come out,

this bone memory or blood memory
of the language.

Yeah, it's in yur DNA.

It's programmed in there already.

You just have to wake up that programming.

That's why you're here.
See?

It's that programming,
and your spirit guide -

you've got to remember there's
a spiritual aspect to this

You're never alone.
You never walk alone,

your ancestors, your Cree
ancestors, walk with you,

they're assigned to you to guide you
where you need to be

That's the beauty if this
understanding of spirit

It happens in spirit

We are the result of spirit in action.
We become material.

That's a deeper teaching.

But the reality is (that) everyone of us
have spirit guides around us.

I was on kind of a lost path
before I found my way to my first lodge.

And it's interesting to think of these

European modalities or academic
ways of describing

how things are working.

And the way that I explain it to people is

I don't know how it's working,
I just know it is working for me.

And it's not something I'm trying
to figure out up here ,

I just know it's working
down here.

And I think it has connected
my heart and my spirit

in ways that weren't happening before.

When I say a prayer
in the social gathering,

I say it in Cree

because it's an insult to my ancestors
if I pray in English.

It's the very thing
that oppressed me as a child.

I can't do that.

I have to speak and pray in Cree.

That's what I do and
I explain, you know, why.

Because I'm not praying to the people.

I'm praying to the spirits
that are guiding me.

They don't have to understand
what I'm saying.

Because as long as a spirit hears,
the Spirit will come.

And they understand my language,
the Cree language.

Once I identify myself, they say,

"Huh, our grandson is playing.
Let's go support him."

That's the beauty of our language.

What happened to our language --

came from the time of
the residence in school,

the first time it was introduced, --

not only the Cree
but the many tribes themselves.

When they took away the children, --

they took the children away
from the land, --

the language, their ancestors,

their grandfathers, their grandmothers,

their teachers, their parents,
their aunts and uncles.

That's when the separation happened.

They broke that connection.

So when he took us away, --

they severed that connection
to all of those things.

We were taught a foreign way of thinking.

I was programmed as a child.

Now, I have to deprogram myself,
sometimes referred to as decolonization,

as they gave us that colonized mentality.

And it just did not fit with our paradigm,
how we saw our place in creation.

At some point, somebody's got to wake up.

One day, you've got to say,
"Hey, there's something wrong here."

This is the time.

That's why we're here.

To wake the people up.

To wake ourselves up.

Still be the guiding light, you know.

There is a different way.

So, it's about connection.

That's what was severed --

in the time of the residential school.

We lost connection to our spirit.

It replaced the creator
outside of us instead of in here.

We're trying to mend that rift.

That's what you're doing.

That rift that was caught;

you are the stitch that is bringing
those two worldviews --

but to where they start
respecting our way,

the Cree way.

When you have love, when you feel love --

and somebody tells you something
that your spirit is looking to hear

like, "Welcome home."

Where do you feel it?

Right here. You're connecting.

You'll always have
that sense of belonging --

because you come home. Yeah.

So once you come home,
you know where to come

next time you're out there, wandering, --

you have a connection there.

You've made some connections already here.

You're no longer disconnected.

I left my conversation with John
feeling like I belong

in a way that I've never felt before.

It was an incredibly
powerful experience

that made me feel more
connected to my spirit.

Tell me again, like,
your family story with Wabasca.

My mother grew up there,
my father grew up in Grouard, --

a couple hours away,

and she didn't want
to raise me on the reserve.

So as soon as they found out
about me, they moved away.

And when we move to Edmonton,
through the teen years,

through my adult years, that's when
the reconnection really started to happen,

going home more happen.

Before that, I would only visit,
like, holidays, few times a year.

Dusty Legrand is the creator of
the clothing label Mobilize Waskawēwin.

Using the ancient writing system
of Cree syllabics and his designs,

he's making the language
visible to a new generation.

Yeah, so this was the --

- it has the --
- Oh yeah,

the different languages,
tribes of the north.

Yeah, it tells the story of --

a bunch of people.
And it was really special to hear, like,

the feedback from different people
that had never seen

their nation represented on a ....

There were certain people that;
this was like their first time.

They're like, "I'm just buying this just because
I've never seen my nation represented."

Yeah, then I put revolution down the arm
just to let them know what's going on.

[Laughs]

I've been always wanting
to create a clothing brand.

So to be able to create something that
can empower indigenous youth

and educate them
on the indigenous history,

on the future, on values
and what it means to be indigenous.

So Mobilize was a way that
I could give voice to the voiceless.

I could give a voice to the youth.

To do it in a different way
than I had seen being done, --

it was very important to me.

To do it completely different,

to represent the funky people,
to represent the different people,

to represent everybody
that's ostracized that way

and especially as indigenous people,
like, that's been done to us.

Okay.

So this is the first drawing of this shirt.

So, a lot of, like, the pieces will come,

and they'll come at certain times,
when I'm driving,

when I'm listening to certain things.

And they'll come and if I don't write it
the way it's supposed to be,

the idea won't stay.

I want to try to encompass all of Canada

and I'm gonna try to reach
as many as I can.

So for me this was like a lot of studying,

a lot of research to try to see
as far east as I could go

and see what nations are there.

And that's what is special
about the language I find.

It's that the stories, and the purpose,
and everything exists within the language.

That's in kind of a place
that it's been locked.

And it remains, and even though --

the assimilation
has taken a lot of, like, --

our connection to community,
our ceremonies, our practices.

The language has kept all of that.

How did you get the Cree word?

Yes, well, the Cree word is
on the back of this one here.

Okay.

So I just keep it as like Mobilize
is the English version

and then Waskawēwin,

which is the Cree word for movement,
is the Cree element that comes in.

Mobilize didn't have a translation.

But I also didn't want to
just translate mobilize,

I wanted to use movement
as the word.

So one thing that I really liked
about the word waskawēwin

was the presence of
the triangular symbols,

and for me these represented,
like, two tipis

and kind of represented
the tribe that way.

Being a part of Reuben's class
was really special to understand

the fundamentals of and to learn
the history of the star chart

and to learn the history of syllabics.

Yeah, it was like learning
indigenous history

through the spirit mechanism.

That was really special.

He kind of just takes you back
and he tells you the stories.

And he takes you
through a journey through story

of the significance of the numbers
of the grandfather directions,

the grandmother directions.

Yeah, înîw.

And what does that mean, înîw?

It's a collapsed word.

... actually is the way it's said.

From what I understand; --

talk a little bit about colonization --

and taking over lands,
the lands of original people; --

what I understand,
first thing you got to do is

you got to get rid of
those people's deity, the name,

and replace it with yours
when you're colonizing people.

So our dename for Néhiyaw people was aî, --

and we have a different paradigm
as far as a dogma is concerned.

You are aîs, I am aîs,

so a diminutive of aî.

So aîsînîw.

But this is a collapsed version
of that ??? înîw.

o3d ???

Fantastic.

So we have a relationship with the earth,

and that relationship is that
we relate to her as mother.

So she when she brings forth
those different people --

the plant people, the different ones,

that's ??? coming
out of the trees, out of the grass.

And so she's showing us what love is.

It's practical.

So she'll give us all of this.

We will be nurtured by it.

The dandelion somewhere
and different grasses.

The four-legged people will eat from that.

We will, in turn, get our sustenance
from the four-legged people,

but she's giving us all of that,
showing us that love.

Now, ??? is the morpheme of that word.

And if I were to say to you,
"I love you," I would say ???.

Some people say ???,

and I say ???.

That's how I've been taught: ???.

I love you or you are loved by me.

So that's a good word to learn
to say to your loved ones.

That's one of the only words
that I know to say to my partner.

[Laughs]

Yes, and see how that
it's coming into bloom.

It's gonna start blossoming.

It'll continue to grow and then
it'll go through its cycle, --

just like we will come into
a relationship with others.

This really sticks out to me,
when I came here last summer, --

as a special place.

Not only Amy's piece, but the other artwork
and it's kind of perched over the river.

When did you begin learning about
syllabics and the spirit marker system?

When we were liberated
from residential school,

probably 1970 or 1971,
I don't remember.

I was just young.

and the late Rosana Hole and
late Caroline Hunter would come in

and teach us about them, me and my peers.

So that's when I started learning
the system that I know about.

And it was made so simply
for me to learn it --

that I passed it on
the way that was taught to me,

and I guarantee that people
will master that writing system.

I always tell the ones
that are coming in to learn,

"Take your page and go to the center."

I tell them, "That's where
we're gonna start off."

because we're used to writing
from the top to the right,

left to right, left to right.

But in this one, --

you go from the center
and you start from inside.

So there's the center there.

I'll go left of center
and write the first one, --

and that's this one here.

This one is a phonetic language.

So that one says ah.

And it's also the sound.

The first sound that people will make --

when they're praying and worshiping.

They'll say something like, "ah ???."

They'll describe that supreme being --

and the supreme being's name,
this part of this as well. ā.

Ā someone then will say, "???", --

describing again.

They'll endear themselves
to that supreme being

by calling that supreme being father of all.

Ā ???.

So I say, "???" in recognition.
There's you, me and the supreme being.

???.

A lot of people say, "???"

That's what I've learned.
That's probably how you've heard it quite a bit.

So that one near says, "???",
this one says "???"

There's that ???.

So who's ah ba la

And there's four of them, like I said,
going off into the east:

Miki nice ET wreath

And there's seven of them, like I said.
There's seven tectonic plates --

going off into the south,
is the same vowel sound.

And then into the southwest,
there's what I like to call the anomaly.

It's a a vowel sound.

???

A vowel sound ooh.

And thank you Dr. James Makokis
for correcting me on that.

I used to go o, borrowing from English.

He said that, "Oh isn't it ooh?"

and I said, "Hey yeah, that's right."
???.

And then they're smaller --

and these are way smaller
than the big ones, big spirit markers,

small spirit markers here.

To complete --

what Dr. Marilyn Shirt
has called the star chart.

So the one I told you --

??? --

that's, "You are loved by me or I love you."

???

Yeah, ???

So that's the writing system there.

My hope is that it will help
to instill pride in those --

for those young people --

because this is a racist country --

and it was born out of racism.

And of course racism disconnects people.

This one connects us.

And all have access to it, --

whatever ethnicity you are from.

It all makes sense to everybody.

It can make sense to everyone
and we can start connecting.

What they taught us
in the residential schools

is that we were worth less than Europeans.

And this one teaches us that ??? --

will have the same measurements
as far as humanity.

Our DNA says that we're all the same.

I want to thank you so much
for sharing about this because --

I can see the the brilliance
and sophistication --

within the way you've shown and explained,

and it piques my interest
and makes me want to learn more.

It makes me want to move out here
so I could take one of your classes.

Yeah.

Thank you so much for sharing this.

An honor and a privilege.

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