Folks, do you realize that the youngest fluent speaker of Potawatomi is in their late sixties? We are losing our elders rapidly, and I wonder sometimes at the response to this crisis.
In their zest to preserve the language, the younger generation has begun writing grants and gathering materials in an effort to keep the language alive. An interesting thought occurred to me today regarding the ANA grants that are currently being used for language preservation and curriculum development: Why are some of our people dealing with elders as though they were already dead?
Why aren’t our elders asked to sit in on these planning sessions for grantwriting? They are asked only to send a letter of committment, agreeing to the plan already drawn up, but not asked for their suggestions or opinions. Our fluent speakers learned this language as children, wouldn’t you think they would have some valuable insight as to how to teach it????
Our various native cultures, in particular the Potawatomi culture, have a system of respect for elders and those who possess traditional knowledge. It seems that this business of getting grants to preserve this language has used money to bypass the respect due to these elders. Some language students have hinted at the attitude that the Language must be preserved at all costs, and through any means possible. Don’t you understand that the language and the culture are inseparable???? A language cannot exist without a culture! A culture cannot exist without a language! If you attempt to preserve the language while circumventing the cultural norms, mores, sanctions, and taboos, by disrespecting elders, stealing their materials, not compensating them properly for their time, not recognizing their place, and claiming that you have learned the language all by yourself and not giving credit where credit is due, then you have won the battle but lost the war!!
OUR ELDERS ARE STILL HERE. They have not disappeared, nor have the language they speak or the culture they practice. Don’t treat them like they are already gone. If we forget in our haste to preserve the Potawatomi language that we are NESHNABE, then we may forget to follow our cultural teachings. What is to stop someone from printing out webpages and passing the material off as their own, perhaps selling it in various places? What is to stop someone from taking classroom material from an elder, and using it elsewhere as curriculum in an unrelated grant, without credit or compensation to the elder? What is to stop someone from stealing office supplies, curriculum materials, or incentive materials, and selling them for their own profit? OUR CULTURAL TEACHINGS, THAT’S WHAT. WE ARE TAUGHT THROUGH OUR CULTURE NOT TO STEAL FROM THE PEOPLE, AND ESPECIALLY NOT TO STEAL FROM OUR ELDERS.
Wdetanmowen - Respect. We are taught to respect our elders. Not to steal from them in various ways, not to shunt them aside, ignore their input, forget to compensate them for their efforts.
Most elders are ready to share what they know, because they see over the wisdom of their years the immense loss to our people caused by the loss of our language and culture. Most elders are ready to pass on to the next generation these precious gifts that they received from their elders. THEY ARE WAITING FOR SOMEONE TO APPROACH THEM IN A CULTURALLY APPROPRIATE WAY, BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT THEY HAD TO DO IN THEIR YOUTH TO LEARN WHAT THEY KNOW.
We speak on and on about the Seven Grandfathers, but do we use them? Do we practice them? Or are they just words that we memorize so we can sound like we know something? Try approaching a Fluent Speaker with a little Respect once, maybe a little Humility, and you’ll learn alot more about language than you will with an ANA grant.
Granted, ANA grants are useful for funding projects, and are necessary in this day and age. It’s not ANA who is doing this to our elders. We speak of some of the people who have applied and used these grants but who have forgotten who they are as Native People. That money cannot replace the power of Respect, Humility, Wisdom, Bravery, and all those special gifts that once made the Native Nations great. Nor can it replace our Elders. In this time in which we live, we require money to kickstart our projects into motion. But we cannot forget that which makes us NESHNABE, and remember to include our Elders, in the planning, application, and implementation processes.
Some have complained that they cannot find Elders who will work with them. Maybe if you changed your approach and your attitudes, you might find the answers you seek.
Ahau, iw énajmoyak odo pi.
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