Preservation of Culture and Identity

 Published on March 20, 2014

Directed by Sally Thompson 
More than half of the 300 indigenous languages of North America are now extinct. But a movement by Native peoples to resurrect and preserve these languages is thriving in many places around the continent. In this film, Native people from various tribes and languages discuss the heart-wrenching loss of indigenous languages and the importance of keeping what remains alive. An important film for any interested in linguistics, saving Native American Indian languages and saving global languages. 

For those interested in linguistics, endangered native languages, and Native American issues will find this short film valuable and educational. 
Language represented here are: Kainai (Blackfeet), Cuyuse- Walla Walla, Pikuni (Blackfeet), Lakota, Osage, Hidatsa, Yakama, Mandan - Hidatsa, Cayuse-Nez Perce, Couer d'Alene, Elwha Klallam, Mandan, and Wasco, to name just a few.

ABOUT THE FILMMAKER
Dr. Thompson has spent over thirty years working with native tribes of the West. She has worked as an archaeologist, ethnographer, and ethnohistorian. As founder of the Regional Learning Project, she oversaw a team of specialists with a focus on regional history, geography, and culture, interviewing over 200 elders of 37 tribes and used the results to produce several documentaries and three websites. More recently, she worked with traditionalists from the Kootenai and Blackfeet tribes on a book about their traditional seasonal grounds through the Crown of the Continent, with a focus on Glacier National Park. PEOPLE BEFORE THE PARK is due out in 2014. 

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In this powerful talk, Kwak'wala language teacher Joye Walkus passionately shows the cultural and spiritual significance of saving indigenous languages and culture for future generations. Joye Walkus, a member of the Kwakiutl Nation on Vancouver Island, is well known for wearing a 300-year-old indigenous blanket owned by her late grandfather to her University of Victoria convocation. She is well educated in the Indigenous Language Revitalization, earning a Bachelor of Education from the University of Victoria. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

In the 'Origin and Settlement Patterns' theme, we explored the scientific theories of how the First Nations people came to North and South America. It is important to understand that the scientific theories are not the only perspective from which world peoples understand their origins. Every culture in the world has distinctive narrations of legends and stories that create a sense of beginning and belonging. Every culture's stories and legends provide a strong spiritual foundation. Stories and legends provide a connection and a sense of being part of a whole entity. They enable the transmission of cultural values, of right and wrong, of good and bad, of the accepted and unaccepted in every culture. These stories and legends were transmitted orally but were also preserved through pictograms, music, dance and ceremonies. They were the cornerstones of cultural development and identity. 

11 Things you should know about Aboriginal Oral Tradition:

1. The Courts allow Aboriginal oral history as admissible evidence in rights and titles cases such as the Delgaamukw ruling.
2. Historically, storytelling was a seasonal tradition which was practiced in the winter when the hunting and gathering activities had slowed, food was processed and stored, and people had time to relax and share stories. Some cultures will not tell stories unless there is snow on the ground. Others will only tell stories at night. 
3. Aboriginal storytellers were the first performance artists. The drama of the stories is enhanced by the storyteller so that the audience can experience the drama. Enactment keeps ancient stories alive.
4. Stories, like songs and dances, are often owned. Hearing a story does not give one the right to retell that story, just as watching a dance or listening to a song does not equate as the right to perform them.
5. Certain stories are never written down, which preserves the tradition of sharing knowledge, culture, history orally. These stories are the fabric of the community’s history, knowledge and culture, and some are thousands of years old. In some cultures, if a story is written down it is degraded.
6. Certain stories are very protected and only retold to select audiences. This, and not writing them down, protects the story. If you are selected to be part of the audience, consider it an honour.
7. Certain stories are much more than mere entertainment - they are used as lessons and provide a moral, through the form of a traditional belief, that will help guide people through their lives.
8. Many communities had “memorizers” whose role was to memorize history, witness and memorize current events (including what happened, who attended, even what key figures wore), and identify and train up young people to become memorizers. In some of the Aboriginal cultures, only certain people were allowed to tell stories.
9. Knowledge is one of the greatest gifts an Aboriginal person has to give - the telling of oral traditions requires the storyteller to trust the listener to take away the proper message of the story.
10. When being told a story, do not interrupt with questions, do not seek or expect constant eye contact and do not ask questions - questions can imply disbelief, which is an insult - remember the saying “there’s a reason you have two ears and only one mouth”!
11. When being told a story, be sure the storyteller has finished speaking before saying anything.

The University of British Columbia has developed a Website as a project called Indigenous Foundations. The Oral Traditions page is well developed and contains information that explains the history of the oral traditions, the development of these traditions and the recognition of the importance of traditional stories as a legal precedence and evidence of land title. 

From: Working Effectively with Indigenous peoples

Oral histories provide a spiritual, cultural and emotional identity. But there are greater ramifications for the transmission of oral histories that impact Indigenous Peoples today. 

Aboriginal oral histories within a legal context

It happened at a meeting between an Indian community in northwest British Columbia and some government officials. The officials claimed the land for the government. The natives were astonished by the claim. They couldn’t understand what these relative newcomers were talking about. Finally one of the elders put what was bothering them in the form of a question. “If this is your land,” he asked, “where are your stories?

J. Edward Chamberlin, If This is Your Land, Where are Your Stories?

The use of oral histories as evidence in the court of law has become a topic of much discussion and debate in Canada. Perhaps the most famous example of oral history within a legal context is the provincial supreme court case Delgamuukw v. British Columbia. Delgamuukw was the first case in which the court accepted oral history as evidence, even though Justice Allen McEachern ended up dismissing this evidence as unreliable.

In this court case, the Gitksan and Wet’suwet’en peoples argued that they had Aboriginal title to the lands in British Columbia that make up their traditional territories. In order to prove their title, they had to provide evidence that they had occupied their territories for thousands of years. Without written documents to make their case, Gitksan and Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs presented their oral histories in the form of narratives, dances, speeches and songs.

Their testimony, however, fell on deaf ears, and while he accepted their oral history as evidence, Justice Allen McEachern concluded that it held no weight. In his now infamous ruling, he concluded that the Gitksan and Wet’suwet’en’s ancestors were a “people without culture,” who had “no written language, no horses or wheeled vehicles."19 He even cited 17th-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes to support his views, calling the lives of the Gitksan and Wet’suwet’en’s ancestors “nasty, brutish, and short.”

The case did not end there. On appeal, the Gitskan and Wet’suwet’en won a precedent-setting victory for oral history to be given weight as legal evidence. Chief Justice Lamar of the Supreme Court of Canada concluded,

The laws of evidence must be adapted in order that [oral] evidence can be accommodated and placed on an equal footing with the types of historical evidence that courts are familiar with, which largely consists of historical documents. . . . To quote Dickson C.J., given that most aboriginal societies “did not keep written records,” the failure to do so would “impose an impossible burden of proof” on aboriginal peoples, and “render nugatory” any rights that they have (Simon v. The Queen, [1985] 2 S.C.R. 387, at p. 408). This process must be undertaken on a case-by-case basis.

After Delgamuukw, a number of court cases have further defined how to interpret oral histories as evidence in court. In Squamish Indian Band v. Canada (2001 FCT 480) and R. v. Ironeagle (2000 2 CNLR 163), the court accepted oral histories as evidence but stipulated that the weight given to oral histories must be determined in relation to how they are regarded within their own societies. In her ruling in the Squamish case, Justice Simpson also noted that she might not have given the oral histories that were presented before her much weight if she had found written records that held the same information which she could use instead. Simpson further noted that the oral histories were “sometimes contradictory.” Legal scholar Drew Mildon uses Simpson’s ruling as an example of how a judge’s “doubt and skepticism” challenges the very nature of oral history: “[Oral] evidence may be deemed inadmissible. . . . simply because there is other evidence available [to use instead]. Lastly, it is characterized as contradictory (which one assumes never happens in written history.)"20

In 2002, the Tsilhqot’in took the province of British Columbia to court to assert title to their lands. Justice David Vickers found that the oral histories presented to him by members of the Tsilhqot’in Nation were sufficient to prove their Aboriginal title. He also rejected the Crown’s claims that oral tradition was unreliable or should be measured against written documents, as it was equally impossible to determine the accuracy of historic fieldnotes or, more specifically in the Tsilhqot’in case, a 1900 ethnography on the “Chilcotin Indians."21 More broadly, Vickers observed that “disrespect for Aboriginal people is a consistent theme in the historical documents."22

Delgamuukw and subsequent court cases have forced Western legal systems to reconsider the validity of Aboriginal oral traditions and their continued significance and relevance in Aboriginal societies and cultures. The Canadian legal system has begun to make adjustments to incorporate this reality, though courts still struggle to fairly consider evidence that is from a different cultural context without forcing it into a Western framework. Reception to oral history in mainstream Canadian society has begun to grow too. As law professor John Borrows suggests in the title to his article on the subject, perhaps the courts as well as mainstream society are now “listening for a change."23

By Erin Hanson.

Endnotes:

From: Indigenous Foundations.arts.ubc.ca 

¹ - Click on the link to hear the Elder narration.

¹Four Directions Teachings.com

Dynamic Culture

It is impossible to describe a common cultural reality for all First Nations people. The various nations traditionally manifested cultural practices, symbols, and belief systems coloured by their unique experiences on the land and with each other, always conscious and connected with the Spirit world. Thus, culture expressed by sea people such as the Haida is unique compared to the culture expressed by the grasslands people of the Secwepemc. Still, all First Nations people from all over Mother Earth share the critical tenet of Relationship as central to their expressions of culture.

Culturecide

During the past two centuries, a serious disenfranchisement was forced on First Nations peoples, where the annihilation of their culture was a common and merciless goal of colonizing nations. This disenfranchisement was widespread and sinister - aimed to extinguish the power of the First Nations people. Due to the resiliency of the peoples' Spirit, cultural practices have endured, although the time-honoured oral transmission method was interrupted for more than two generations. The displacement that resulted from forced reservation relocation also had a serious influence on the cultural propagation and transfer to the next generation. Cultural practices were often forbidden, resulting in some becoming lost or forgotten, while others were adopted as nations came into contact with other nations.

Renewed Culture

Ultimately, to the Indigenous peoples of this planet, culture is living, growing, and ever evolving. The resiliency of the aboriginal peoples has enabled them to preserve the best of their traditional culture, despite generations of oppression, and to combine their own ingenuity to the knowledge of the mainstream to create new cultural rituals, artifacts, tools and objects of art.

Thus, for many aboriginal people, culture is expressed with a foot planted in the world of today and the world of yesteryear - presenting new ways of expression for the seven generations to come, yet honouring the seven generations of ancestors that came before them. There are also many First Nations peoples dedicated to restoring ancient cultural objects and art to the people - many are currently "owned" by museums, cities, and private collectors.

From: First Nations Pedagogy Online

Published on Jun 22, 2015 Grade 7/8 students at First Nations School of Toronto created the beat, wrote the lyrics, and recorded this music video on the Seven Grandfather Teachings in partnership with a.k.a. SUBLIMINAL and J-Rebel from Right to Play Canada.