Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan (Akiing)

The first Anishinaabemowin Teg, Inc. conference in 1994 had approximately 200 attendees. This year, the 12th annual conference, held March 30 – April 2, attracted close to 1,000 registrants from several states in the U.S. and at least three provinces in Canada.

Natives from California, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Oklahoma, California, Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario attended this year’s event held at the Kewadin Casino and Conference Center in Sault Ste. Marie. Isadore Toulouse, President of the Anishinaabemowin Teg, Inc. board of directors, said many people who came brought family members as well, so he estimated that there were a little over 3,000 people enjoying the cultural atmosphere and visiting the vendor tables that were set up outside the conference rooms. He also estimated that approximately 80 percent of the attendees are fluent in the language.

Toulouse is a fluent language teacher for the York Region District School Board located north of Toronto, where he has been teaching for 26 years. He also teaches The Pedagogy of Teaching the Language at Lakehead University during the summer. He is active at various language camps and events such as the Anishinaabemowin Teg Annual Conference.

“Our language is slowly disappearing and we as the speakers must take the appropriate steps to keep it alive,” said Toulouse in his welcoming comments.

The theme for this year’s conference was “kwii-anishinaabemtoowag na gdi-binoojiimag nongo” – “Will you speak the language to your children today?”

If Shirley Ida Williams has anything to say about it, you will. Williams is Professor Emeritus at Trent University in the Native Studies Department. She teaches the language and the culture and has also been active in revitalizing and protecting the language to preserve it for future generations. She makes language materials for elementary and post secondary school systems.

As this year’s Chairperson for the Conference Planning Committee, she observed that “one of the highlights of the conference is the recognition of the scholarship recipients to acknowledge and honor these young individuals who are learning the language. They have made great efforts to read and write in the language for us to hear.”

Over the years, Anishinawbemowin Teg, Inc. has awarded more than $60,000 in scholarships to promising young language learners. This year, Harvey Trudeau, a member and Councillor of Sagamok First Nation and A-Teg board Secretary since 2004, served as Master of Ceremonies at the annual banquet where language scholarships were awarded to sixteen recipients. Although Trudeau attended a residential school in Spanish Ontario, he describes himself as “a residential school survivor” and is proud of his retention of the language as a fluent speaker. He looked on with pride as all scholarship recipients made acceptance speeches in Anishinaabemowin. A total of $3,800 in scholarship awards went to young speakers from the elementary grades on up to the university level.

Elementary Scholarships of $100 each were awarded to: Wynonna Victor, Zachary Pregent, Anthony Pellietier, Kain Big Canoe, Kenny Southwind, Giles Bondy, and Terri-Lynn Kaboni.

Secondary Scholarships of $200 each were awarded to: Erica Hare, Paula Swift, Brandy Owl, and Emily Big Canoe.

College Scholarship of $300 was awarded to Tammy Burke.

University Scholarships of $500 each were awarded to Juliet Ozawanimki, Tracy Jacko, Adolphus Trudeau and Anna Nelson.

The annual Frank Hugo Award went to Michael Willis of Bay Mills Community College.

The conference focused on the group’s mission statement: maanda anishinaabemowing-ezhi-anishinaabem’ying, aabideg wii-bemewdooying anishinaabenowin; wii-niigaanziik’ndamang. aabideg aasigaabwitaagewin wii temagak, wii-mino-maajiishkaaying. (The Native language; how we speak; Native people have to carry their Native language – to take on its leadership. There has to be support in order for growth.)

Anishinaabemowin Teg, Inc. began to take form in the early 1990s out of a growing concern over the dwindling number of speakers and the lack of a workable plan to revitalize the language and preserve the culture for future generations.

Supported by the Union of Ontario Indians Restoration of Jurisdiction Project, from the recesses of the beautiful Canadian countryside, the guardians of the language arose and joined their voices together in the ancient Algonquian tongue now called Anishinaabemowin.

The Anishinaabeg are a great family of related Algonquian speakers who today reside mainly in the Great Lakes area of the United States and Canada. The three branches of the Anishinaabeg are called Odawa, Ojibwe, and Pottowatomi.

The concerned speakers organized their first language conference in 1994 and held it very appropriately in Sault Sainte Marie. An older name for this meeting place is Baawaating, a historic meeting ground for the Anishinaabeg of the Great Lakes area. Baawaating was the fifth stopping place in the great migration of the Anishinaabeg and is acknowledged as a step in a spiritually-guided journey. In true tribal tradition, current-day speakers from the Canadian-based organization want to share what they have with all of the people, all of their “brothers and sisters,” not just the people in the land now called Canada.

It is known that during the migration, some of the Anishinaabeg traveled north into what is now Canada and others traveled on to the final stopping place in the migration, Madeline Island. But truly, we are all the same people.

In addition to the language workshops, a fair number of vendors from both sides of that imaginary line arrived, set up their tables, and provided a fine display of language books, CD’s, quillwork baskets, black ash baskets, beadwork, original Native artwork, and even a couple of beautiful hand-beaded full-size tikinaagans (cradleboards) that were all available for purchase.

Conference attendees shopped during 15-minute breaks from the workshops, but stepped quickly back to the conference rooms when the workshop sessions started. Thursday, Friday and Saturday workshops ran concurrently allowing one and a half hours for each presentation. The choices were an awesome 49 workshops presented for the main part in Anishinaabemowin, but with some English translation for novice learners.

A sampling of workshop titles and topics included:

10 Ways to learn

the language in the home

Presented by Doreen Peltier

and Cotnee Kaboni

Peltier talked about the importance of teaching the language to your children. She said there was a time when elders said, “only speak English to your son.” So she did. But over the years, she saw youth “walking around with rounded shoulders, their hands in their pockets, looking at the ground,” and she asked herself, “What have I done? I denied something to my children that it was their right to have. I was telling them that this language was not theirs. But I didn’t know any better. I was very young.

“[Now I know that] with that language, they’ll know who they are and they can walk tall again.” The 10 ways to teach the language in the home are: 1) Turn off the T.V., 2) Encourage fluent speakers to use the language in your home, 3) Listen to CD’s in the language and practice the words, 4) Pick a phrase of the day, like “aambe kzhkoozin (wake up now), 5) Play games in using the language, ie. aapiish gbiis-kaa’-aagan (where is your coat?), wenesh wii maaba (who is this?), wegnesh wii maandaa (what is this?), etc. 6) Use gestures – maampii behzhaan (come here), 7) List chores in the language – kiin tam kwii gzii-naagne (it is your turn to wash dishes), 8) Labeling: appliances, furniture and other things in the home, 9) Bring in materials that are visible, like calendars, list of food in the refrigerator, items in the bedroom, etc., and 10) Use children’s books that are written in the language to read to your children.

Culture Revitalization

Presented by Anton Treuer, PhD

Another workshop that stressed the importance of restoring a cultural birthright to children through the language was entitled “Cultural Revitalization.” Dr. Anton Treuer is from Leech Lake, Minnesota, and is an author and Associate Professor at Bemidji State University.

His presentation included a reference to boarding school days when the Carlisle Indian Boarding School clearly stated their mission in regard to Indian education. “Our goal is to kill the Indian to save the man.” Truer recounted some important cultural and spiritual practices, including rites of passage, that are still alive today, despite those attempts at eradication. He cited Hawaii, New Zealand and Blackfeet language revitalization efforts as successful efforts at bringing Native languages back to the culture. Teaching children the language, the cultural and spiritual practices are all necessary steps in “teaching the kids who they are to generate successful lives.” “Clans are at the center of who you are. They are your spiritual identity.” Treuer also mentioned the importance of elder females in the cultural support system. “Think of what the word ‘mindemoyenh’ means. It refers to elderly women, but literally translated, it means ‘one who holds things together.’ You can’t get much more important than that, ‘One who holds things together.’”

Taping of Elders

from various communities

Presented by Orien Corbiere

Corbiere is working on a project to save the language. He tapes fluent elders and plans to translate what they said and put it in writing so learners can hear what the words sound like and eventually be able to connect that sound with the way the words look when written down in Anishinaabemowin. One of his workshops included the taping of two female elders, Mary Assiniwe and Virginia Henry, who told stories from their lives to a room full of attentive listeners. Elders are truly concerned and willing to give the gift of language to future generations, who are indeed the future leaders.

Gdaawimi ge-ni-niigaan jizijig: We are the future leaders

Presented by Margaret Noori, PhD

Dr. Noori, a Minnesota Ojibwe, is an Associate Professor at Eastern Michigan University where she teaches Native American Literature. She presented a workshop based on Curriculum Standards from the Indian Land Tenure Foundation, a Minnesota based organization dedicated to “[protecting Native] culture, history and relationship to the land and all that surrounds us in ways that will support and provide for each of us and for our future generations.”

Noori’s presentation included a story about Waynabozho and the Wild Rice, complete with props for a rice camp, a lake with wild rice to harvest, and two eight-year-old assistants, Shannon Noori and Winona Thompson, who acted out the story and helped recite in the language the rice camp activities.

Attendees were invited to join in the storytelling as well by providing them with index cards to read from. All levels of learners attended her workshop. There were no empty seats in this entertaining and informative workshop and it was presented four times during the conference.

Besides the workshops, there were evening socials including Karaoke, fiddle music and step-dancing, and the annual banquet that included a delicious dinner, dessert and coffee, and a chance to see our young scholarship recipients give their acceptance speeches all in the language!

This year’s conference contributors were the Union of Ontario Indians, and in Michigan, the Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa, the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa, and the Sault Tribe of Chippewa.

With so many other speakers yearning to learn the language, it is hoped that band members from the other Great Lakes states of Minnesota and Wisconsin will encourage their tribal councils to support the efforts of Anishinaabemowin Teg, Inc. so the language may be preserved for our future generations.

People like Martina Osawamick, Vice President of Anishinaabemowin Teg, Inc., and Helen Roy, workshop presenter and language instructor at Michigan State University, both fluent speakers and members of Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve on Manitoulin Island, provide strong leadership to this vital and viable language preservation effort.

Osawamick has been Vice President on the board of directors since 2004 and is well known and respected as a protector and teacher of Anishinaabemowin. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Native Studies from Laurentian University and has developed Ojibwe teaching tools including audio tapes, videos, CD’s and workbooks.

Roy is a well-known and respected language teacher in Michigan who is currently teaching the Ojibwe Language at Michigan State University. She has also created several model programs for students that have been implemented with the assistance of the Native American Studies Program at Michigan State University. In March 2006, she and her husband George Roy, also a fluent speaker, were honored at the Critical Issues Conference with a distinguished service award for outstanding community service.

All in all, the conference was a grand success this year! Sorry you missed it? Plans are already underway for next year’s conference, which will be at the same time, same place next year.

To join this important effort, send contributions to:

Isadore Toulouse, President

Anishinaabemowin Teg, Inc.

981 Glencairn Ave.

Toronto, Ontario M6B2A8

Canada

As the conference expands, plans are being made to form a sister organization where non-profit status may be put in place to help the Canadian-based Native organization offset some of the costs of a growing and gratifyingly successful effort at saving the language.

To get more information on the formation of the “sister organization” in the United States, send e-mail inquiries to fairbanksj@hotmail.com

Miigwech. Mii sa iw.

Contributed by:

Janis Fairbanks, board member , Anishinaabemowin Teg, Inc.

Member of Minnesota Chippewa Tribe,

Fond du Lac Band