Page 32 - ARUBA TODAY

A32 FEATURE
Wednesday 22 november 2017
Thanksgiving tribe reclaims language lost to colonization

By PHILIP MARCELO California Los Angeles.
Associated Press “Imagine learning to speak,
MASHPEE, Mass. (AP) — The read, and write a language
Massachusetts tribe whose that you have never heard
ancestors shared a Thanks- spoken and for which no
giving meal with the Pil- oral records exist,” she
grims nearly 400 years ago says. “It’s a human act of
is reclaiming its long-lost brilliance, faith, courage,
language, one schoolchild commitment and hope.”
at a time. Jessie Baird was in her 20s,
“Weesowee mahkusuna- had no college degree
sh,” says teacher Siobhan and zero training in linguis-
Brown, using the Wam- tics when a dream inspired
panoag phrase for “yel- her to start learning Wam-
low shoes” as she reads panoag in the early 1990s.
to a preschool class from Working with linguistic ex-
Sandra Boynton’s popular perts at the Massachusetts
children’s book “Blue Hat, Institute of Technology and
Green Hat.” other tribal members, Baird
The Mukayuhsak Weekuw developed a dictionary of
— or “Children’s House “ Wampanoag and a gram-
— is an immersion school mar guide.
launched by the Cape She and others drew on
Cod-based Mashpee historical documents writ-
Wampanoag tribe, whose Cedric Cromwell, left, chairman of the Mashpee Wampanoag Native American tribe, leads those ten in Wampanoag — in-
gathered in a traditional song during a Thanksgiving reception Monday, Nov. 13, 2017, in the
ancestors hosted a har- Great Hall of the Massachusetts Statehouse in Boston, Mass. cluding personal diaries of
vest celebration with the Associated Press tribal members, Colonial-
Pilgrims in 1621 that helped but it’s not the only way sion school — tribal elders in the 1990s and today, era land claims and a ver-
form the basis for the coun- the tribe is ensuring its lan- gather twice a week for most of country’s more sion of the King James Bible
try’s Thanksgiving tradition. guage is never lost again. an hourlong lesson before than 550 tribes are en- printed in 1663 that is con-
The 19 children from Wam- At the public high school, lunch. gaged in some form of lan- sidered one of the oldest
panoag households that seven students are enrolled “Sometimes it goes in one guage preservation work, ever printed in the Western
Brown and other teachers in the district’s first Wam- ear and out the other,” says Diana Cournoyer, of hemisphere.
instruct are being taught panoag language class, confesses Pauline Peters, the National Indian Educa- To fill in the gaps, they
exclusively in Wopanaoto- which is funded and staffed a 78-year-old Hyannis resi- tion Association. turned to words, pronun-
oaok, a language that by the tribe. dent who has been attend- But the Mashpee Wam- ciations and other auditory
had not been spoken for Up the road, volunteers ing the informal sessions for panoag stand out be- cues from related Algon-
at least a century until the host free language learn- about three years. “It takes cause they’re one of the quian languages still spo-
tribe started an effort to re- ing sessions for families us elders a while to get few tribes to have brought ken today.
claim it more than two de- each Friday at the Mash- things. The kids at the im- back their language de- The work landed Baird at
cades ago. pee Wampanoag Indian mersion school correct us spite not having any sur- MIT, where she earned a
The language brought to Museum. all the time.” viving adult speakers, says graduate degree in linguis-
the English lexicon words And within the tribe’s gov- The movement to revitalize Teresa McCarty, a cultural tics in 2000 and a presti-
like pumpkin (spelled ernment building — one native American languag- anthropologist and applied gious MacArthur Founda-
pohpukun in Wopanaoto- floor up from the immer- es started gaining traction linguist at the University of tion genius grant in 2010.
oaok), moccasin (mahkus), Nearly three decades on,
skunk (sukok), powwow the tribe is still in need of
(pawaw) and Massachu- more adults fluent in the
setts (masachoosut), but, language to continue
like hundreds of other na- expanding its immersion
tive tongues, fell victim to school and other youth-
the erosion of indigenous focused language efforts
culture through centuries of — the keys to ensuring the
colonialism. language’s survival, says
“From having had no Jennifer Weston, director
speakers for six generations of the tribe’s language de-
to having 500 students at- partment.
tend some sort of class in The school currently enrolls
the last 25 years? It’s more pre-K and kindergarten-
than I could have ever ex- age children but hopes to
pected in my lifetime,” says ramp up to middle school
Jessie “Little Doe” Baird, the within five years.
tribe’s vice chairwoman, “The goal is really to have
who is almost singularly re- bilingual speakers emerge
sponsible for the rebirth of from our school,” Weston
the language, which tribal says. “And we’ve seen from
members refer to simply as other tribal communities
Wampanoag (pronounced that if you want children to
WAHM’-puh-nawg). retain the language, you
Now in its second year, the In this Thursday, Oct. 19, 2017, photo Massachusetts Institute of Technology archivist Nora Murphy have to invest in elemen-
immersion school is a key places a second edition of the Eliot Indian Bible on a table at the MIT rare book collection, in tary education. Otherwise
milestone in Baird’s legacy, Cambridge, Mass. the gains just disappear.”q
Associated Press