Spilygy Tyrooo, W 3rm Springs, Oregon
Pgge 11
A ug u st 10, 2011
THE CONFEDERATED TRIBES LANGUAGE LESSON
AUTNIICHISHKIIN SAPSIKWAT
Applications available at the Culture and Heritage Language
Program for Ichishkiin Imersion Classes for Pre-School
children ages 3-4 years of age.
Our Tribal Government has made many plans for many things
and that includes the CTWS Culture & Heritage Language
program. While there has been discussion and storytelling
about how our people “once” learned, we have done very little
towards fixing that diagnosis. We defined what our commu
nity situation was but failed to take the next steps towards
remedying that situation. We have evolved from “oral”
learners of tribal languages to readers and writers of the
English language. We have become “imbalance” within our
community since we now have a group of people who “know”
(tribal language speakers) versus those who “don’t know”.
What exactly is the remedy to this seemingly insurmountable
situation? We believe it comes in the form of the learning
technique called “IMMERSION”. It was the way our elders
grew up and it’s the way our youth are growing up right now.
The difference is the language our elders grew up with was
“Ichishkiin” or “kiksht” or Numu” and NOT English! Our youth
are being “immersed” in English (not Ichishkiin, Kiksht or
Numu) but yet we expect them to Learn a language they are
not being immersed in then “wonder” why they aren’t learning
our tribal languages! Our elders learned everything they
needed to know about living life, at home and in their tribal
languages, not in a school. Our children are learning in a
school situation, or daycare environment, in the English
language, NOT in our tribal languages.
What exactly are we talking about? The “Autni Ichishkiin
Sapsikw’at” immersion for toddlers starting September 19,
2011. It is designed to address statements like:
1) “You don’t learn about tribal customs or traditions through
the English language: “You learn customs and traditions
through your own tribal language!”
2) “Our Tribal Beliefs come from our tribal languages.”
3) “Communal beliefs and the concepts of honesty, respect
and dignity come from our Tribal languages and are some
times not easily translated into the English language”.
Additionally, we believe that the categorization of language
separately from customs and traditions has lead us into a
learning style that’s not a good fit for our elders style of
teaching and places time constraints that are foreign to our
natural environmental surroundings. We have been slowly
“assimilating” our ways of thinking (beliefs) and learning to
English! We wanted our children to learn the “Shiapo” ways;
however, we also expected that would be accomplished in
addition to our own tribal ways an do instead of our own
ways! That was, unfortunately, what has happened and is
what we must also address now and for the foreseeable
future.
We understand that the “old way” of learning at home “im
mersed" in the family’s daily living through our native lan
guages was not practiced any longer.
We understand that many of our fluent speakers have left us
and no longer here to help us learn our languages. We also
understand that these truths didn’t provide any practical way
to “teach” our languages; and, unfortunately we didn’t take
the next step to remedy that seemingly obvious situation.
We must also now think in terms of the next 10, 20 and 30
years and how we address the following statements:
4) individual beliefs developed through the U.S. and State
Constitutions place more importance on the individual over
that of the band, family, tribe or local community.
5) Tribal Customs and Traditions originate from and within our
tribal languages; and the same should be true of our tribal
source documents.
6) You don’t need a college education to learn and teach our
own tribal distinct languages.
7) Your customs and traditions are found in your tribal lan
guages; not in documents like the Treaty of 1855, the tribal
Constitution and bylaws or the Tribal Corporate Charter
It is through the immersion of our tribal languages that we will
begin to address and remedy these and many other state
ments made by past and current elders.
Kiksht
ISHGAKWAL = EELS
IGAKWAL - 1 Eel
Ishgakwi - Eels
Kk'alama - Rocks
»flashlight - Flashlight
Agakwalxat - Small net for eeling
Ikamaq kwadau Ik’yakin - Pole with hook
Itausha - Gunny sack
Itfxlem - Food
Agakwal agiuyuksh alixtayabat axdix kwapt agakwal pachai
alixuxa.
Eels are out when it is hot weather, there is plenty.
Gigwal Htchkwaba aguishaxdix agakwal fakalatmitba.
They stick to rocks under the waterfall.
Xabixix agelgigaya ihagakwal.
Night time when people get eels.
Hkiwax »flashlight akbcuma engi.
A flashlight is used.
Amagelgaya gakal idmikshen engi awachi ikamnaq
kwaba ik’yakin.
You can grab them or use a stick with a hook.
Akdukchubadit »katcha atuxwaya.
Eels can be roasted until the oils run.
DATES TO REMEMBER
ICHISHKIIN IMMERSION ACADEMY
MEETING DATES
August dates
1:00 pm - 5:00 pm
15th
1:00 pm - 5:00 pm
16th
1:00 pm - 5:00 pm
17th
1:00 pm - 5:00 pm
18th
1:00 pm - 5:00 pm
19th
22nd 1:00 pm - 5:00 pm
23rd 1:00 pm - 5:00 pm
24th 1:00 pm - 5:00 pm
These meetings will be in the 1st Floor training room in the
Education Building.
August 25, 2011 from 10:30 am -12:30 pm staff will have an
informational meeting for the community.
September 9, 2011 from 5:00 pm - 6:30 pm another informa
tion meeting for the community
SEPTEMBER 19, 2011
AUTNI ICHISHKIIN SAPSIKWAT
BEGINS
TAMME S00 U MANEKWE
“W e a re ta k in g c a re o f i t ”
(in N u m u L a n g u a g e )
This group of Tribal Member students have been involved
daily since June 27th. Its an 8 week program with the help
and guidance and teaching from Evan, Skye, April and David
and
Numu Team: Gerald Danzuka, Shirley Tufti, and assistance
from Verleen Holliday
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front ta*
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r «atta*»«
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During this Summer 2011, the “Tammesoo u manekwe”
(TSM) program has been in the process of training 5+ tribal
member students 8 hours per day, 5 days per week students
will learn to build step-by-step language curriculum by
engaging in direct conversation with the fluent speakers.
Students will also learn how to teach curriculum building and
design to other students and neighboring tribes.
Priorities as they have gone on is to:
* Strengthen Numu before it is no longer a spoken lan
guage.
* Create teachers regardless of current fluency level (ACTFL
based)
* Create fluent, motivated, lifelong speakers.
Create a community of learners who can “pull” language in
immersion conversations.
* Create a community of teachers/learners who understand
and apply the ACTFL language proficiently test and scale.
* Create a community of teachers who are trained in the
development of buildable, teachable, bite sized language
lessons who will carry the program after this summer.
* Create a team of players who can train other teachers in
the art of “language hunting”
* Create a team of educators who an capture, edit, and post
video as well as train others in video production techniques.
* Create a team of language revitalization experts who can
help the other Warm Springs languages.
Our departments language instructors are very proud of
this group of young people for their commitment to
being involved and learning the “Numu Language”
PRESS RELEASE - 2ND SEGMENT OF ARCHIVE INFORMAITON
Current Programs:
* Culture & Heritage/Language Education
= Collection of materials relating to culture, history and
languages of the people of Warm Springs.
- Variety of fomats: paper, photographs, slides, reel-to-reel,
cassette tapes, VHS some digital.
- Estimated 256 reel-to-reel tapes and 550+ cassettes.
- Retrieval of lost digital data an issue: crashed computers
and out dated computer software now unreadable, need to
retrieve data saved with custom fonts.
- Oral histories, recordings of native language speakers,
traditional songs and stories.
- There is a need for transcribers who speak native lan
guages so that they can get written documents of oral
histories recorded of tribal elders.
= No pemanent home or secure storage for collection
= Current storage space not currently climate controlled or
shielded from sunlight, variations in heat and humidity.
= Digitization and preservation of audio/visual material #1
priority, especially reel-to-reel tapes.
- Working in partnership with other universities as well as
OSU and U of O to do this.
- Concerns about intellectual property rights and culturally
sensitive information contained on the tapes, content needs
to be preserved, but also secured so that ony tribal members
have access.
= Hosting film festivals to share recently digitized films with
the tribal community
= Goal is to make materials available to the tribal community,
but currently do not have the facilities or means to practi
cally do that.
- Would like to have an interface for historical research on
line, but there are concerns about security of information
and ensuring that tribal members only would have access.
Areas for Future Development
* Develop partnerships and collaboration between the
different departments that work with records.
= Training in records creation and management for staff
creating records in the various departments who send boxes
to the records center.
= Closer collaboration between records center, museum, and
culture & heritage department
= Completion of departmental records inventories to gain a
sense of what items are held in each location and the
conditions in which they are stored in order to get a sense of
priorities for future archival and records center development.
= Consistency and unification of formats and filing practices
for easier transfer between departments.
* Conversion and preservation of old media
= Developing a prioritized, systematic process of converting
old media (reel-to-reel, cassettes, VHS, etc.) to a stable and
standardized digital format
* Development of a temperature and humidity controlled
facility capable of properly housing archival records
= Culturally important collections lost and dispersed to other
archives because there were not adequate facilities on the
reservation to house them.
= Would allow for the preservation and expansion of current
archival holdings.
* Digitization of historical records
= Development of an interface that would be searchable for
tribal members to use for research.
= Need for a program that will recognize language fonts for
tribal languages.
* Development of a disaster recovery plan.
= Museum in flood plain
= Records center in fire risk area
= Establish ‘salvage priorities’
TIMING FOR THE INSTITUTE
* Museum: Anytime after August. Open summer exhibits in
early June/July
* Records Center: July is best. August - September working
on annual budgets.
* Cultural Education: July is best.
POTENTIAL CURRICULUM TOPICS
* Disaster planning for archival preservation
* Developing techniques to manage differential access to
materials
* Filling in the missing pieces of an archival - census records,
etc.
* Archives and tribal council, state and federal laws
* “ More Product, Less Process” (MPLP) training: quick,
collection level processing of donated collections to help
make materials accessible while full processing is being
completed.
* Writing grants to develop archival programs.
= Finding grants that do not require the results to be made
available to the public.
* Proper care and storage of archival materials
= Best practices for materials used (boxes, folders, etc.),
inventories, and organization.
LETTER OF INVITE
JULY 20, 2011
GREETINGS WARM SPRINGS TRIBAL MEMBERS:
MY NAME IS KIRK HANNA, I am the owner of Mt. Hood Ski
Bowl and various other businesses in Government Camp,
Oregon.
In honor of your upcoming Huckleberry Feast I would like to
extend an invitation to all Warm Springs Tribal Members to
visit your ancestral lands and pick
huckleberries.
After your huckleberry feast, I will instruct my staff to
accommodate all Warm Springs Tribal Members who
present their Tribal Membership ID’s. Those members can
have access to our ski lifts for rides up the
mountain and back down
We will also make our trails available to those Tribal Mem
bers who choose to walk in order to collect
berries.
In addition we will be providing shuttle vans to and from Ski
Bowl and Warm Springs for those members who choose not
to drive themselves. Schedules will be available after
August 8, 2011.
I look toward to meeting many of you and I hope that this
small gesture of good will is only the beginning of a long and
healthy fiendship between us.
REGARDS,
KIRK HANNA
If you are interested in the huckleberry field trips
be sure to call Josie or the Culture and Heritage
Staff to sign up!