Module 14 - Language Repatriation

In Module 14, there was an introduction video to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. This act, although primarily focused on human remains, can be applied towards other cultural materials such as languages.

Enacted in 1990, the NAGPRA’s purpose was “To provide for the protection of Native American graves, and for other purposes”, according to their website. It provided ways for Native American tribes and Native Hawaiians to reclaim “human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, or objects of cultural patrimony”, as stated on their website. Only federally recognized tribes and Native Hawaiians are eligible to make requests.

The process consists of three major steps:

            -Federal agencies idenfity and catalog items that may be subject to be returned under NAGPRA

            -Federal agencies consult with Native American tribes and Native Hawaiians to determine whether the item in question should be returned

            -Federal agencies send notices to Native American tribes and Natives Hawaiians to notify them that the item can be returned. These notices must be published by the Secretary of the Interior.

To date, the estimate of items returned is over 50,000 human remains, over 1.1 million funerary objects, almost 5,000 sacred objects, and over 9,000 other items. These are just estimates, since agencies who return items are not required to report to a central authority, just record the requests on their own.

References:

National Park Service, US Department of the Interior. 2017. National NAGRPA Home. https://www.nps.gov/nagpra/

Module 13 - Language Revitalization

Module 13 discusses language revitalization. There are many methods and goals of language revitalization, including simply keeping a language alive instead of bringing one back. As for methods, in today’s world, people working on language revitalization have a new tool available to them: technology in the form of computers.

One example of a use of technology is the ATC Cree app, an app with Cree words related to medical uses, such as pain, doctors and medicine, to help elders to need to receive medical treatment. This app, launched in March, was developed by Byron Bates and the Athabasca Tribal Council, and is continuing to be developed with more words and audio pronunciations added to it.

The First Peoples’ Cultural Council developed a set of web-based tools called FirstVoices, with over 100 indigenous languages from several countries, including New Zealand and Canada. The website includes text entries in many of the languages, as well as online games to present the data in a different way. Out of all the languages, some are free for anyone to access, while other records have been password-protected by request of the native community.

There is also an app being developed for the Dakelh language (otherwise known as the Carrier language), which was based off a database, audio recordings, and a flashcard game. During my own research for the Heritage Language project, I stumbled across an online app for anyone who wanted to learn Ojibwe: available freely for iOS, Android and Windows.

Many people developing these apps and programs are younger, since they recognize that technology may be able to connect with members of tribes who live away from home and don’t speak their languages in a home situation or on a daily basis. Since these technological solutions are being developed by younger people, there is a chance that they will be around longer, capture the interest of people for longer, and ultimately give their respective languages a better chance of surviving.

References:

Malone, Geraldine. 2017. First Nations take to designing their own apps to preserve their languages and cultures. Financial Post. http://business.financialpost.com/entrepreneur/first-nations-take-to-designing-their-own-apps-to-preserve-their-languages-and-cultures

FirstVoices. FirstVoices. http://www.firstvoices.com/en/about

Module 12: J.P. Harrington

            John Peabody Harrington was born April 29^th of 1884 in Waltham, Massachusetts. His parents Elliott A. Harrington and Mary L. Peabody moved the family to Santa Barbara, California when John was still a young child. While growing up and moving through middle school and high school he showed a profound curiosity in languages and the local Mission Indians. By 1902, Harrington had attended Stanford University and began to excel instantly. He had focused academics in languages and anthropology and the fraternity Phi Beta Kappa had elected him as a member. In 1903, Harrington had attended Summer School at the University of California at Berkeley for 3 months where he became interested in California Indian languages. Throughout College Harrington earned money by using his skills “translating German for the Immigration Service in San Francisco and tutoring students in French and German” (Stirling 2009). Back at Stanford University, Professor H. R. Fairclough who was head of the Latin Department of the time was one of the greatest influences on Harrington’s career. At Stanford University, he graduated top of his class in 1905 and traveled to Europe that summer to study at the Universities of Leipzig and Berlin.

While continuing to study both Linguistics and anthropology, he is described by teachers as “a completely dedicated student with an exceptionally brilliant mind” (Stirling 2009). Instead of completing his doctorate at the universities, he decided to return to the United states in 1906. Harrington became a high school language teacher in Santa Ana, California. Along with teaching at the high school level, he also spent his time away from work documenting nearby languages including Mohave, Yuma, and Diegueño. He also dedicated spare time to deeply examine the surviving Chumash people. By 1909, Harrington devoted full time to anthropological work and took the position of ethnologist under Edgar L. Hewitt. This took place at the School of American Archeology of the Archeological Institute of America in Santa Fe. Around time Harrington gave lectures about Indians in the southwest in various schools throughout Colorado as well as Seattle. By 1915, Harrington received the position of Research Ethnologist at the Bureau of American Ethnology.

At this time, Research Ethnologist was one of the most wanted positions in American linguistic anthropology. With this job “Harrington had virtually unbounded freedom to wander the North American continent carrying out his mission of linguistic and cultural documentation” (Golla 1994). He compiled massive data on Chumash, Mutsun, Rumsen, Chochenyo, Kiowa, Chimariko, Yokuts, Gabrielino, Salinan, Yuman, Mojave, and many other languages. Harrington was the only person to record languages such as Obispeño Chumash, Kitanemuk, and Serrano. His field work aided the continuation of various language studies. “The value of the documentation was especially great for languages like Chimariko, Costanoan, Salinan, and Chumash, considered lost by some scholars as early as the turn of the century, but for which the intrepid Harrington had discovered several aged speakers” (Golla 1994). All of John Peabody Harrington’s documentation can be found on the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History website here:

http://anthropology.si.edu/naa/harrington/manuscripts_microfilm.html

References:        

Golla, Victor. 1994. John P. Harrington and his legacy. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University.

Stirling, M. W. (1963). John Peabody Harrington, 1884-1961. American Anthropologist, 65(2), 370-381. doi:10.1525/aa.1963.65.2.02a00110

Module 15 - I want to be able to talk with my grandmother

There’s no question about it: Native languages all over the Americas are in serious trouble; most of them are steadily decreasing in numbers of speakers and are undergoing the process of language shift, wherein speakers are switching over to English, Spanish, or Portuguese and aren’t teaching their kids their heritage languages. But this isn’t something that’s unique to the Americas. This is happening all over the world, and it’s estimated that by the end of this century at least half of all living languages will be extinct. 

Alright. So what?

Well, if you’ve made it this far in the course and you still don’t see a problem with languages that can be saved going extinct, then there isn’t much I can say to change your mind. But there are things we can all do to pitch in and help in our own ways. It seems like a lot of us come from a variety of different backgrounds where some people in our families still speak our heritage languages. I know that’s the case for me; my paternal grandfather’s first language is an archaic dialect of Albanian that’s reported as “threatened” by the Ethnologue, and most of my other family members speak our other heritage language: Italian. While what we’ve learned in Module 15 about immigrant populations and Native populations switching over to dominant languages like English and Spanish is true, all is not yet lost. Those of us that are fortunate enough to have living parents and grandparents that still speak our various heritage languages can make an impact if we so chose. Yes, learning a second language as an adult is difficult, but it’s not like we can depend on other people to save our heritage languages. As we discussed in the previous modules, if linguists and academics alone could save the world’s various endangered languages, then they’d already all be saved. So if you’re somebody with a threatened or endangered heritage language and you care about what happens to it, talk to your family members and see if you can learn it and bring it back as the main language of your household. Again, doing something like this is actually a pretty daunting task, but I know for certain that if I don’t even try to learn my grandfather’s dialect of Albanian before he dies I’ll never forgive myself.

Reference: Hale et al. 1992. Endangered Languages. Language, Vol. 68, No. 1 pp. 1-42

                                                                          

Module 15: I want to be able to speak to my grandmother

Module 15 introduced Jessie Little Doe Baird's efforts to revive the Wampanoag language. Baird's efforts to revive hWampanoag began in 1992, and while the language has been extensively documented and a dictionary has been created since then, it is still not a fully-restored language.

Wampanoag was the first language in Massachusetts, but as settlers arrived in the Americas, English began to overtake it. In the 18th century, Wampanoag families were forced into debt and their children were taken as servants for English-speaking households to pay off this debt. As a consequence, the children only spoke English when they came out of the households, and by 1907 Wampanoag was dying. By the late 20th century, Baird only knew of a few slang words and geographical names that remained from Wampanoag.

In 1992, Baird had a dream where some of her ancestors were speaking Wampanoag. In 1993, Baird had earned a degree from MIT, and started the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project, aimed at documenting the language, teaching it to children, and eventually letting every member of the Wampanoag tribe be able to speak their language. They first had to produce a dictionary of words to use, and by using legal records, written letters, and a translation of the Bible, they created a dictionary with over 11,000 Wôpanâak words.

Although documented, a language must be spoken by children in order to be revived. That's why Baird set up a school to teach children the language: as we have learned, children and toddlers acquire language a lot faster than adults and teenagers do. The project developed classes for adults as well as classes for children. For children, there is a 3 week summer camp for ages 5-13, and there are no-English curriculums as well as immersion programs for all ages. In 2014, they proposed a charter school taught entirely in
Wôpanâak, and began to create new words for modern objects such as telephones and computers.

Currently, Mashpee, Aquinnah, Assonet, and Herring Pond tribal members are eligible to take classes. The classes are offered free of charge for tribal members and their families, and there are fifteen teachers and several different locations that offer classes. The
Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project also offers translation services, with a fee depending on how complex the translation is. There are also some restrictions on translation services, mainly for some non-native uses such as tattoos and pet names.

References:
Rosenbaum, S.I. 2017. How to revive Massachusetts' first language. Boston Globe.

Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project. http://www.wlrp.org/home.html

Module 11: BIA Boarding Schools

The Bureau of Indian Affairs was established in 1824 to provide services funded through contracts or grants. John C. Calhoun, known for starting the Civil War, was also the Secretary of War and founded the Office of Indian Affairs. In many ways, the creation of this department is an act of war. As any goal of war is to eliminate the enemy, the goal of the BIA is to eliminate all tribal cultures within the United States. In early development, the bureau had very little supervision or regulation. Therefore, federal policy better paralleled the ideals of the white immigrants than the Natives who are trying to preserve both their land and their culture. For example, Andrew Jackson retrieved vital information about the Indian lands through both the General Land Office and the Office of Indian Affairs. Then had the ability to buy out Indian lands for a very low price. Andrew Jackson soon after became President and activated the Indian Removal Act in 1830. This Act allowed the President to forcibly move tribes to land west of the Mississippi out of Indian lands that are within the states. Around 4,000 Cherokees died while being forced to relocate and is now known as the Trail of Tears. 

At the end of the Civil War the goals of the BIA had changed. Since the United States was tired of segregation and lack of unison, congress had decided to assimilate Native people into the white society to eventually become productive citizens and contribute to their communities. This change of focus seems of good intentions originally, none of this could occur if they did not take away the land, the culture, and the children of the Native tribes. The ultimate purpose of the bureau became to integrate American Indians into the white society. In the eyes of the BIA, the best way to assimilate the children of Native people was to create an education system. They created boarding schools all based on the integration methods of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. The Carlisle Indian Industrial School was the pioneer to all Indian boarding school. The school’s purpose was to become the “Ultimate Americanizer” by any means necessary. To assimilate the Native children into the white society the schools would cut their hair to better match that of a white person. Their native languages were forbidden to be spoken and they were given new American names. More recently cases have been found that discover occurrences of mental, physical, and sexual abuse. More importantly, many students died at Carlisle. Since they were exposed to the diseases of the white man such as tuberculosis, hundreds of students have died. This terrible treatment continued until 1924 when the Indian Citizenship Act gave rights to Natives as citizens.

Eventually The cruel methods and systems administered by the BIA had been exploited by the Meriam Report. This helped Congress get presented the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 that gave more power to the governments within each tribe. Although it seem progress had been made, congress passed The Indian Termination Act in 1953 that brought more harm to the Native tribes. Although BIA had closed their boarding schools during this period, each state continued to force integration of Natives into their public schools. It wasn’t until twenty years later that Native Americans saw a positive change such as the Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act. At this point tribes had the ability to contract with the BIA to have control over their curriculum.

References:

Hunt, Darek. 2012. BIA’s Impact on Indian Education Is an Education in Bad Education. https://indiancountrymedianetwork.com/news/bias-impact-on-indian-education-is-an-education-in-bad-education/

Indian Removal Act. 2017.https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Indian.html

Keohane, S. Keohane. 2008. The Reservation Boarding School System in the United States, 1870 -1928. http://www.twofrog.com/rezsch.html

THE BUREAU OF INDIAN EDUCATION (BIE). 2017. https://www.bia.gov/WhatWeDo/ServiceOverview/IndianEducation/

Module 14: Repatriating Languages

               In this module we’ve been covering the repatriation of materials on Native languages like dictionaries as well as the rights of a language community to restrict who has access to such materials or even an entire language in general. But what about John Peabody Harrington’s notes? We all know that Harrington collected almost a million pages of notes on over 130 native languages here in North America. Should his notes be repatriated as well? The Hopi aren’t the only indigenous culture with a strong tradition of secrecy, and it shouldn’t be a surprise to anybody if another native community didn’t want outsiders knowing the specifics of their language, especially considering some of the ways Harrington went about collecting his field notes. Furthermore, according to the John Peabody Harrington Collection’s home page, “Recognizing language as a key to understanding a culture, J. P. Harrington assembled information on a wide array of cultural practices”. There are many communities out there that would prefer to have the details of their languages not made public, but imagine how they must feel when some of their cultural practices are also available for anybody to see. All it takes is access to the internet and someone can see almost everything Harrington ever recorded on dozens of languages regardless of whether the people who identify with that language or culture approve. Should that still be the case when in the past language communities have been able to copyright their own languages and completely put a stop to the publication of language materials? But if not, then what can be done? Harrington’s notes are already in the hands of the Smithsonian, and if someone really wanted to, they could easily copy them for him or herself. In addition, it’s quite possible that a culture with a strong tradition of secrecy that Harrington may have collected notes on wouldn’t even know about the collection or know that anybody can see his notes. So, these are all things to consider when addressing the repatriation of his field notes, but should a language community ever decide that it want his notes for itself, it may have a hard time getting its way.

Reference: http://anthropology.si.edu/naa/harrington/index.html