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About Spilyay tymoo. (Warm Springs, Or.) 1976-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 24, 2024)
E Coosh EEWA: The way it is Letters to the editor For Bingo with Seniors Library meeting in Warm Springs I would like send our deepest gratitude to Joni Wallulatum and the Preven- tion team, Taw Foltz, Scott Kalama, Jaycelene Brisbois and Farrellyn Bellanger, for taking the initiative to host a Bingo event in the Senior building for our local elders. It was a great opportunity for our elders who were able to attend, and the Bingo prizes were an added bonus for our elders. They were so appreciative of this event, expressing it loudly as they were leaving. They said they would like to see more of this type of event in the future. So thank you so much for the opportunity to host Bingo in the Senior building. We had a great afternoon! ~ Thanks again. Lavina Colwash, Se- niors program. The Jefferson County Library has plans to expand their building and want to get as much community input as they can before we have plans drawn up. They are having the architect come out to the Warm Springs Community Center Janu- ary 31 from 5:30-6:30 p.m. in the Social Hall. This is a community gathering, a chance to meet the archi- tect and give your input. (See page 3 of this publication for details.) Lincoln’s Powwow Due to unforeseen events over this past year, the Lincoln’s Bir thday Powwow Committee is step- ping back the official 2024 Lincoln’s Pow- wow. However, the committee will help with organizing a smaller traditional powwow this year, on Friday and Saturday, February 9-10. Little League Warm Springs Nation Little League registration is open through March 3. Reg- istration forms can be down- loaded online at wsnll.org They must be completed, signed and turned in with payment in person. For more information contact a board members or visit the W.S. Nation Little League website or Facebook page. Miss Warm Springs Pageant The Miss Warm Springs Pageant is now scheduled for Friday, February 16. And the Office of Tribal Council and Miss Warm Springs coordi- nator are seeking candidates who would like to take part in the 2024 Miss War m Springs Pageant. Candidates who are interested can stop by the Tribal Council office at the administration building for an application; or call 541-553-3257. Or for the application form and addi- tional information, email to: minnie.yahtin@wstribes.org sandra.danzuka@wstribes.org (see page 10 for more) Page 4 Spilyay Tymoo January 24, 2024 Musuem opening in February with brand new HVAC The Museum at Warm Springs has extended its public closure through Tuesday, February 13 for the installation of a new heating, ventilation and air conditioning system. The museum will reopen to the public on Wednesday, Feb- ruary 14. “We were originally scheduled to reopen on February 1 but due to some equipment supply chain delays we had to ex- tend the closure date a few weeks,” said Elizabeth Woody, museum executive director. “Our staff is working during this time,” Ms. Woody added, “So Warm Springs tribal members who need to purchase ceremonial items from the museum Gift Shop during the public closure will still be able to do that.” Major funders of the new HVAC system include the U.S. Congress through the Na- tional Park Ser vice, the Roundhouse Foundation, the Ford Family Foundation, Portland General Electric Foundation, the Spirit Moun- tain Community Fund, and Oregon Cultural Trust. When the museum re- opens, the Thirtieth Annual Warm Springs Tribal Mem- ber and Youth Exhibit will be on display through Sat- urday, March 2. Meanwhile, here are sev- eral levels of annual mu- seum membership, begin- ning at $25 for elders and students. All members re- ceive these benefits: Free admission for one year, a 10- percent discount in the Gift Shop, and special invitations to exhibits and programs. Members this year will have access to the 2024 Oregon Historical Society Recipro- cal Membership program, and free admission to a dif- ferent Oregon museums each month. Join by visit- ing: museumatwarmsprings.org Click ‘Join’ to see mem- bership levels and online payment information. Or send a check to: The Mu- seum at Warm Springs, PO Box 909, Warm Springs, OR 97761 - Attn: Membership. example, ‘We are going to the movies’ can cause misunder- standings, if the person you are talking to had no inten- tion of going to the cinema. When you enter the picture saying ‘We’re going to the movies’ it might have been interpreted as, ‘The person to whom I am speaking and I are going to the theater.’ Kiksht has a pronoun for that, the ‘Duals. Maybe your dilemma is that you want to inform the for example five people, plus yourself are go- ing to sing but it is just too time consuming and you just can’t be bothered to waste words… Kiksht has a pro- noun for that. It has pro- nouns for; ‘him,’ ‘her,’ ‘you’ and ‘me,’ for pairs and groups. It sounds confusing but when you really get in to it you’ll be like ‘Why don’t we do that in English?!’ It clari- fies a lot when speaking about nouns. Recently in class we covered: Angima, Amgima and Amshgima. You might not know what all that means but the 14-17 year-olds in my class do now, and we can help you to learn it at Culture and Heritage. We have already covered the first, second, dual and gender pronoun affixes for speaking Kiksht; so we fo- cused on the plurals for the two weeks we had in Decem- ber. You might be saying, ‘What do you mean Plurals? Aren’t duals “plurals?’” And Yes, they are in English but Kiksht is a bit more surgical in the pronoun game, and talking to or about three or more people involves the plural pronoun prefix. Axgima, Anshgima, Amshgima would be ex- amples of that… You might not know what all that stuff means but the students in my class would. December also brought the Kiksht students their first test on sentences. It was a PowerPoint slideshow with seven to eight questions, comprised of small sen- tences. The students were required to translation things like, ‘How are you,’ ‘Where are you going?’ from Kiksht to Bashtenemt, and vice versa as well as recall their vocabulary to complete sen- tences in other questions. Some of the sentences had blanks to fill in with the knowledge the students al- ready had in their toolbox. The lowest score was a C and I felt good about that. The largest hurdle we have in the Native Language Class is that we have no speaking community to hone our skills. In English we have that community, we are born into it; it is the required lan- guage of our country, it’s the global language of com- merce. I mean heck! The more ignorant ndn cuzzins we have say stuff like ‘If they come here they should speak English!’ Which, if you think that thought all the way through, it will really mess with your head. Think about all the times you’ve heard an indigenous-to-this- land person, who had their language and culture stripped away (that is, been intention- ally confined to plots of un- inhabitable land) made ille- gal, beaten out of them and then assimilated a whole gen- eration before they were born, say things that one typi- cally hears from old racist Americans in the 1950s, and advocates for the use of the language that made all of that acceptable under the law and erased their tribes identity away under the guise of in- clusion. At one time we had the community of speakers on the Warm Springs Reserva- tion, the different speaking groups knew at least some of their neighbor groups lingo but it’s not like that anymore. Our community hasn’t taken the time and effort to undo all of the dam- age the Americans caused in language erasure and we’re paying for it now. What this means is that the majority of our elders can’t really serve as mentors to languages any- more, so their grandchildren have to step-up and be that person. I am sure that you have had somebody in your fam- ily ask you questions about something they needed an- swers to but today that elder can’t even say K’aya enxulxat to them. This time I speak of wasn’t the ancient past either. My grandmothers’ generation could do that to some extent. MHS Language classes update ~ by Rain Circle Once again, from the 2023-24 Madras High School Kiksht Class, It’ukdi wigwa! Itgachaxlqwlimax aktmin is a 2023 memory, along with its language instruction inter- rupting holiday break, and ichachachaq aktmin 2024 is in full swing. Your Madras High School Numu, Ichishkiin and Kiksht students are still shaking off the Christmas break blues but they will soon be hard at work in the Native Language room at the high school. The continuing language year at the high school is still going well and the students continue to make long strides. These kids are still balancing essential required classes with their newest sports changes. They are still juggling their social and home lives and whatever challenges in their daily routine, new and old, on top of learning one of the hardest languages there is to learn. It might be hard to under- stand but I was looking for- ward to the holiday break just as much as I was annoyed by it. See, the holiday break ef- fects almost whole weeks. In December it is harder to teach because the student focus is on the most popular American holiday: “Christ- mas was on its way—Lovely, glorious, beautiful Christmas, around which the entire kid year revolved.” – Ralphie Parker. So, for as much as we needed a break from each other, the students and I re- sent having to give up two weeks of Kiksht instruction to do something that could be treated like Thanksgiving. The reason being, we only have 16 eight-hour days to teach Kiksht at the high school, and every class is im- portant. I am glad that most of my students don’t waste that time. Spilyay Tymoo (Coyote News, Est. 1976) Publisher Emeritus in Memorium: Sid Miller Editor: Dave McMechan Spilyay Tymoo is published bi-weekly by the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs. Our offices are located at 4174 Highway 3 in Warm Springs. Any written materials submitted to Spilyay Tymoo should be addressed to: Spilyay Tymoo, P.O. Box 489, Warm Springs, OR 97761. Phone: 541-553-2210 or 541-771-7521 E-Mail: david.mcmechan@wstribes.org. Annual Subscription rates: Within U.S.: $20.00 What we were able to cover and institute before the break were: Distils, sentence quizzes and plural prefixes. The pro- nouns in Kiksht are extensive but make so much sense when you really get into the weeds with them. Let me explain: A pronoun is a word that can function by itself as a noun phrase and that refers either to the participants in the discourse (for example, ‘I’ or ‘you’), or to someone or something mentioned else- where in the discourse (for example, ‘he, she, it or this’). Or as they taught me in the 80s, “It takes the place of a noun in writing and conver- sation. A noun is a person place or thing. The thing that ‘those people’ want you to focus on is: a third-person pronoun by which an indi- vidual wishes to be referred to in order to indicate their gender identity. Which, at the end of the day, is none of our business, and if prefer to be called by your nickname or some other title or rank that isn’t on your birth certificate, then turn around to judge oth- ers? You should probably fo- cus more on ensuring that your children, grandchildren friends and extended family are free from drugs and al- cohol, harm and abuse, and if they are being mal- treated… help them find the right assistance. Now, we English speakers are used to things like ‘confusion’ when it comes to telling people things. For Aquatic Center meeting today The Aquatic Center in Madras is holding a regular board meeting and work ses- sion this Wednesday, evening, January 24 at 6 p.m. at the MAC. The public may attend the meeting in- person or via Zoom. The district is committed to continuing access via Zoom to )make meetings more accessible and transpar- ent to the public. To schedule live com- ments via Zoom, please email your request to: executivedirector@macrecdistrict. com Or call 541-475-4253 by the afternoon of the day of the board meeting. All re- quests should include your name, phone number and address. If you have any questions, please contact Courtney Snead, executive director at the number or email above. Article continues on 5 Model of Billy Frank Jr. statue unveiled A model of a statue of the late Billy Frank Jr., the legendary Nisqually activist, was unveiled at the Washington state Capitol in Olympia in January, set to become the first statue depicting a contemporary Native American in the National Statuary Hall in the United States Capitol. By 2025, two 9-foot bronze statues of Frank created by artist Haiying Wu, who will be the first Chinese American to have his work featured in the National Statuary Hall, will be displayed to the pub- lic—one in the state Capi- tol, and one in the nation’s Capitol. “It truly is a blessing being here today,” Willie Frank III, Frank’s son, said. “My dad, he’s look- ing down on us and smil- ing at all of us.”
