A discussion on Blackfoot language rejuvenation

On an evening in January 2016, Robert Hall was at my home and as our discussions almost always turn to language when we are around each other, I asked him what he thought was the connection between language and culture. The following conversation then took place: Robert

Everything we do is conducted within language and without language we don’t have human culture, as we know it. So I would submit that language, as a byproduct of culture, is the tool for culture. From my experience I would say that language develops in ways that describes what is culturally import to individuals. For instance where in the Blackfoot culture we have five words for ghost, in English there is only one word.

Neyooxet

In my book A Will to Survive, ¹ Bonnie Heavy Runner wrote about being at a Thunder Pipe ceremony as a child. What are your thoughts in general about ceremonies from a cultural perspective?

Robert

When Bonnie was growing up in the 1960s and went to a ceremony she had direct contact with people who spoke the language and ceremonies that were conducted in the Blackfoot language, which made those ceremonies true to how they were originally conducted. Nowadays the ceremonies that I am most familiar with have almost always been conducted by people primarily speaking English, which has always raised an eyebrow for myself because I always know that they should have been conducted in our language. This has left me feeling like I have never experienced a ceremony in the way that my ancestors did. The sad thing is, when this last statement becomes public and is read there will be other tribal members who will feel hurt by this statement, but in the end it is true to how I personally feel and I can’t deny the fact that our language is that important that if you are not speaking the language those ceremonies are not as powerful as they could be.

Neyooxet

The Pikani Institute started back in 1993 and followed the approach, as I remember it, of bilingual education. Then, after the Native American Language Institute (NALI) conference in Hawaii, May 1993, there was a shift to language instruction through immersion at the Moccasin Flats language school. I would like to know what you have to say about the Blackfoot language revitalization efforts at the schools that were built during the 1990s. 229

Robert

Well, first it is good to have a building so people will know where to go if they want to learn language but, you need to fill that building with competent speakers and people who are willing to share their knowledge; whose main objective is the language. And I felt very happy about them and a good number of my younger cousins attended those schools, and they actually came out of those schools with a lot of confidence, and, although Cuts Wood School has been a success in developing young bright minds, two areas where the school didn’t do enough for language is, first, the majority of the students who came out of Cuts Woods are not fluent Blackfoot speakers and, second, is not informing the students that when they done with Cuts Wood after eighth grade that their pursuits and journey within the language is not over. As a result of this not being emphasized, when a lot of those students got out of that school that was it and they were done with the language. They didn’t have a program established so these students could go back to a place, learn more or continue to speak with others. So where the school has remained as a symbol it hasn’t gone much beyond us having a pretty ribbon on the reservation.

Neyooxet

As one of Darrell’s ² dreams and inspirations for the school was to mirror the language success of the Hawaiians, given what you know of Hawaiian language efforts, what do you see is needed for the continued growth and success of the immersion work at the school?

Robert

What is needed is vision and innovation and also what I think was needed is that we get real with each other and stop patting each other on the back when we hear someone say a prayer or say five words; we praise them. We need to have higher expectations of ourselves for the sake of our language. For example, when I walked into a Puna Leo school in Hawaii I was blown away. You walk in the school and everything is in Hawaiian. I remember what really hit me hard was how deeply Hawaiian that place is. When I recognized that their language efforts were not just for appearances was when I saw this word on the board and, out of stupid curiosity, pointed to it and asked the young girls who were giving us a tour of the various classes, ‘What’s that word?’ The youngest one looked at it and she looked at her friend and she looked at it and then they looked at me and said, ‘We don’t know; we don’t know the English word for it.’ Just then their teacher came by and they asked what that word meant in English and he said, ‘Oh, it means riddle.’