The aesthetics and politics of Ojibwe language revitalization [PDF]

University of Iowa

Iowa Research Online Theses and Dissertations

2012

The aesthetics and politics of Ojibwe language revitalization Chad Scott Uran University of Iowa

Copyright 2012 Chad Uran This dissertation is available at Iowa Research Online: https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/1780 Recommended Citation Uran, Chad Scott. "The aesthetics and politics of Ojibwe language revitalization." PhD (Doctor of Philosophy) thesis, University of Iowa, 2012. https://doi.org/10.17077/etd.g6vgmqzg.

Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd Part of the Anthropology Commons

THE AESTHETICS AND POLITICS OF OJIBWE LANGUAGE REVITALIZATION

by Chad Scott Uran

An Abstract Of a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in Anthropology in the Graduate College of The University of Iowa December 2012 Thesis Supervisors: Associate Professor Rudolf Colloredo-Mansfeld Associate Professor Scott Schnell

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This is an investigation into language ideologies, and the significance of same, among activists working to revitalize the Ojibwe language. Better inclusion of indigenous community members is necessary to spread the Ojibwe language. Improved competence in using—and strategically challenging—language ideologies is necessary by language activists. Matters of orthography, storytelling, Elder status, state institutionalization, indigenous leadership, and decolonization reveal underlying ideologies of language, any of which can help or hinder efforts to reverse language shift. This is shown through participant observation in and around an Ojibwe language immersion school in Wisconsin.

Abstract Approved:

_______________________________________________ Thesis Supervisor

_______________________________________________ Title and Department

_______________________________________________ Date

_______________________________________________ Thesis Supervisor _______________________________________________ Title and Department _______________________________________________ Date

THE AESTHETICS AND POLITICS OF OJIBWE LANGUAGE REVITALIZATION

by Chad Scott Uran

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in Anthropology in the Graduate College of The University of Iowa December 2012 Thesis Supervisors: Associate Professor Rudolf Colloredo-Mansfeld Associate Professor Scott Schnell

Copyright by CHAD SCOTT URAN 2012 All Rights Reserved

Graduate College The University of Iowa Iowa City, Iowa

CERTIFICATE OF APPROVAL _______________________ PH.D. THESIS _______________ This is to certify that the Ph.D. thesis of Chad Scott Uran has been approved by the Examining Committee for the thesis requirement for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in Anthropology at the December 2012 graduation. Thesis Committee: ________________________________________ Rudolf Colloredo-Mansfeld, Thesis Supervisor ________________________________________ Scott Schnell, Thesis Supervisor ________________________________________ Erica Prussing ________________________________________ Phillip Round ___________________________________ Sonia Ryang

To family, by any means necessary.

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If you wanna go wash, water you goes If you want good soup, water you goes If your head be hot, water be cool'n If water kill your child, water you goes -

Fela Anikulapo Kuti “Water No Get Enemy”

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Akawe sa nimiigwechitaagoziyag ingitiziimaag miinawaa akina indinawemaaganag. I only made it this far with the love of my family. My love and respect to Lowell and Barb Uran, for always supporting me no matter how weird things got. Thanks to the Uran family, which is far larger than the name indicates, for showing just how rich love can be no matter what. Zhaawenimisinaan ninjaanisag, Shaawanobinesiik, Binesiiwikwe, miinawaa Miskogwaan. Thanks to Terri Lynn, for finding me when I was ready, and to our Aunties and Uncles and cuzzins I would have never known without her initiating a family search after learning how my siblings and I were adopted. My love to my partner, Carol Warrior, as well as our family, her father Carl, our sons Bryce, Brett, and Sage, our daughter Lacey and her husband Bobby, and our granddaughter Lily. I would have dropped out of college if not for the support of Pauline Danforth, Pat Albers, Dave Isham, Bob Danforth, Bettina Arnold, Kathy Barlow, Mischa Penn, Jim Denomie, and my fellow student activists at the American Indian Student Cultural Center, the Progressive Student Organization, and the American Indian Student Asociation at the University of Minnesota. Special thanks to Adrian Liberty for recruiting me back to UMN through drum and song amongst brothers. I must express my gratitude to Ojibwemowin Zagaswe’iding and the participants in the Ojibwe Language Table for their support and contributions to this work. I must also acknowledge my Ojibwemowin teachers: Delores Wakefield, Alberta St. Clair, Jim and Jessie Clark, Margaret Sayers, Dennis and Lorraine Jones, Tobasonakwut Kinew, Melvin Eagle, Keller Paap, Rick Gresczyk, and Matt Patrick RedHawk Fettuccine MacWilliams. Honor and thanks, too, go to my fellow OZ activists: Brian Sago, Eric Haanstad, and Dan Freedman (Mitigemikwaanens!).

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Thanks to Rudi Colloredo-Mansfeld, Scott Schnell, Erica Prussing, Phil Round, Sonia Ryang, Nora England, Laura Graham, Mac Marshall, Jacki Rand, Virginia Dominguez, Cindi Sturtz-Sreetharan, Brigittine French, Mike Chibnik, Adi Hastings, June Helm, Steven and Mona Williams, Brad and Melissa Casucci, Jodi Byrd, Samantha Solimeo and Ernie Cox, Sydney Switzer, Gudrun and Ben Willett, Tracey and Nicole Peterson, Rachel Horner, Lexi Matza, Andria Timmer, Tim Raposa, Sara Ono, Judy Siebert, Stephen Tulley, Jerry Wever, Kenda Stewart, Betty Rodriguez-Feo, and Velana Huntington for contributing so much to my personal and academic growth at Iowa. Thanks to my friends at Bowdoin College, the University of Victoria, and the University of Washington—especially to participants in the Native American Students in Advanced Academia at UW. And thanks to JT, for keeping me relatively sane in Maine. Honor and respect to members of my many communities, especially the people of Lac Courte Oreilles and the Waadookodaading Ojibwe Language Immersion School. Thanks to drum society members, lodge members, the Minneapolis American Indian Center, the Native Arts Circle, colleagues within the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, the Native American Literatures Symposium, the CIC American Indian Studies Consortium, and the Minnesota Indigenous Languages Symposium. Portions of this work were funded by the Iowa Presidential Fellowship, the Iowa Graduate Opportunities for Minorities Fellowship, the Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship for Minorities, the American Indian Graduate Center, travel awards from the Department of Anthropology at the University of Iowa, and the Consortium for Faculty Diversity Fellowship.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ......................................................................................................... viii CHAPTER 1.

AESTHETICS AS ETHICS, OR, MAKING THE PERSONALLY POLITICAL POLITICALLY PERSONAL .....................................................1 Who Am I To Talk? ........................................................................................17 Status of Ojibwemowin ..................................................................................20 My Many Arrivals to the Field(s) ...................................................................21 The Structure of this Dissertation ...................................................................37

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STORIES AND THEORIES: TOWARDS AN INDIGENOUS POSTHUMANISM ........................................................................................40 Ojibwemowin Storytelling and Emergent Indigenous Posthumanism ..............................................................................41 Wading In .......................................................................................................44 Ripples, Eddys, Undertow ..............................................................................59 Learning to Swim ...........................................................................................65 Drowning ........................................................................................................66 The Archimedean Principle ............................................................................69

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AUTONOMY AND LANGUAGE IN COLONIAL AND MULTICULTURAL CONTEXTS ................................................................73 The American Push for Assimilation .............................................................76 American Indian Tribal Sovereignty ..............................................................80 Assimilaiton and Ameican Individualism ......................................................88 Language Revitalization in an International Comparative Perspective ..........97

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AUTONOMY, IDEOLOGICAL COMPETENCE, AND OJIBWE REVITALIZATION .....................................................................................102 Ojibwemowin Zagaswe’iding and The Ojibwe Language Table .................111 Language Ideologies: The Big Ideas About Ojibwemowin ........................115 Flows of Literacy ..........................................................................................119 “Let Them Burn the Sky” .............................................................................121 Ojibwemowin Teaching and Learning .........................................................133 The Ojibwe Langauge Table as a Model Program .......................................142

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STORIES AND ELDERS ............................................................................145 The Dog Council Story .................................................................................152

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WAADOOKODAADING OJIBWE LANGUAGE IMMERSION SCHOOL ......................................................................................................167

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LANGUAGE MOVEMENTS, STRUCTURE, IDEOLOGY, AND LEADERSHIP ..............................................................................................211 The Need for Reflexivity and Empathy ........................................................225

APPENDIX: FULL TEXTS OF LANGUAGE TABLE PARTICIPANT RESPONSES ................................................................................................243 REFERENCES ................................................................................................................246

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1

Epistemological Approaches For Work In American Indian Communities

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Figure 2

Operationalizing Social Layers of Representation

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Figure 3

A Structural Contradiction For Fieldworkers

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Figure 4

Navigating Contradictions For Ethnography

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Figure 5

Situating Identity Within an Ojibwe Universe

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Figure 6

Waadookodaading Cost per Pupil, using Total Budget

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Figure 7

Direct Cost per Waadookodaading Pupil

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Figure 8

Waadookodaading Funding Sources

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Figure 9

Waadookodaading Funding Sources, Actual Amounts

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Figure 10

Waadookodaading Budget by Academic Year

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Figure 11

Waadookodaading Expenditures by Category

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Figure 12

Staff Employment by Academic Year

181

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1 CHAPTER 1 AESTHETICS AS ETHICS, OR, MAKING THE PERSONALLY POLITICAL POLITICALLY PERSONAL

This study arose from the ongoing question of what is the best way to teach an indigenous language given its linguistic and social status, especially with its dire demographic condition and accompanying complicated language ideological terrain. The questions guiding my work here arose from over 20 years of awareness of, and various levels of involvement with, Ojibwe language revitalization, as informed by both personal experiences, professional and creative work, and academic study. Can settings and media that are organized around ideological competence rather than linguistic competence, or even communicative competence, foster the development of larger and more diverse speech communities than more formal, classroom-based language revitalization efforts? What ideological benefits and challenges are presented when the work of language revitalization is made more accessible to community outsiders who only share similar— or seemingly similar—ideological commitments but may lack the cultural competencies and social network supports to facilitate more than a lexical-semantic shift without a grasp of Ojibwemowin pragmatics? Finally, what are the consequences of informalizing language revitalization, such as taking these practices out of professionalized institutions, to the political economy of language revitalization and language activists? Through careful ethnographic description of these communities of ideological and linguistic reproduction, I hope to make the political consequences of this work more obvious, with the goal to encourage future communities of Ojibwemowin learning and instruction to

2 deal productively with competing, and sometimes contradictory, ideological underpinnings. The ideas that people have about language—their own language(s) and others’— “enact links of language to group and personal identity, to aesthetics, to morality, and to epistemology” [Woolard and Schieffelin 1994:56]. The ideological connections between language and identity converge within layered social distinctions of national citizenship, American Indian1 sovereignty, and ethnicity. These language ideologies also connect with internal group distinctions of gender, kinship, class reproduction and economic mobility. Most studies examine revitalization in terms of “ideology” or “language policy,” but these often underplay the practical exercise of power [Bourdieu 1991]. The historical relationships among the Ojibwes—both within reservations and offreservations, as well as historical relationships between Ojibwes and non-Ojibwes— continue to shape the activities of language learners and language activists working to maintain and revitalize Ojibwemowin2. Rather than taking language itself as an indication of sovereignty through its signaling of national distinctiveness, I use the work around and through Ojibwemowin as one site where activists struggle to achieve or 1

My use of the label “American Indian” is deliberate. Foremost, it indicates the difficulty of choosing a broadly encompassing categorical term that applies to a variety of distinct people groups who, while vastly different in terms of history, language, and what is called “culture” do share a similar officialized status within the United States. The label “American Indian” refers specifically to those groups who have entered into treaties and thus share a similar legal status vis-à-vis the colonial governments of the United States. I use the term to fold my community of study—the Anishinaabeg—into the larger political reality of treaty sovereignty. As appropriate, I refer to specific communities by more specific names. In other national contexts, I use a different label, such as in reference to Canada, I refer to “First Nations” or “Aboriginal people.” In international cases or comparison where an even larger category is necessary, I may use “indigenous” or “Native” interchangeably. Further, “American Indian” does not include Native Hawaiians or Alaska Natives unless I specifically add reference to them. 2

The terms Ojibwe and Anishinaabe (plural: Anishinaabeg) refer throughout to the same peoples, sometimes still known as the Chippewa (a mispronunciation of Ojibwe). The compound suffix –mowin indicates “the language of,” so Ojibwemowin means the Ojibwe language. References to particular subsets of the Anishinaabeg will be indicated by community or reservation designation.

3 maintain political autonomy. This attention to the political work of language revitalization reveal how “[n]ot only linguistic forms but social institutions such as the nation-state, schooling, gender, dispute settlement, and law hinge on the ideologization of language use” [Woolard and Schieffelin 1994:56]. The language ideological work necessary within language revitalization is signified through revitalization discourses and practices even as they are constituted through discourse and practices—perhaps especially at moments of disjunctive interaction within or about language itself [Meek 2010:52]. Because of this, my research examined the aesthetic distinctions of language activism arising from the challenges of policy and ideology. The aesthetic distinctions I refer to are evaluative Ojibwemowin practices— including but not limited to utterance, discourse, or performance in Ojibwemowin—by speakers, their direct audience/hearers, or indirectly through hearsay or repetition of another speaker’s practice that include commentary on how well the practice upholds, reflects, or extends Ojibwe language revitalization efforts, goals, and values. In the main, these evaluations highlight the motivations for Ojibwemowin revitalization at the individual and group levels, present commentary on what are perceived as the next steps towards revitalization, and afford opportunity for participants in revitalization efforts to mark their activities with community values. Given the uneven distribution of linguistic competence in Ojibwemowin, often these practices are metalinguistic; most, if not all, people involved in Ojibwe language revitalization spend more time talking about Ojibwemowin (usually in English) rather than speaking Ojibwemowin. These distinctions may be self-reflexive or even limited to self-evaluation, but such selfreflexivity is dependent upon a presumed outside standard. Meek takes such

4 metalinguistic moments as disjuncture, and points out how disjuncture create opportunities to intervene into the social structure of interaction wherein a speaker— either through leveraging the heightened self-awareness, or through further input from a more communicatively competent speaker—can begin to transform the ideological and practical space for language use and learning [Meek 2010:52]. Reparative performance, in the wake of disjuncture, mobilizes values underlying revitalization efforts such as cooperation, resistance to assimilation, and flexibility within tradition; as performance, these can be looked at aesthetically, with consideration of how the interactional forms of performance relate to social values [Bauman 1977, Bauman and Briggs 1990]. This focus on aesthetic dimensions highlights the politics of language as related to the practical matters of revitalization projects undertaken through community events, family language classes, and collaborative language curricula, including using new digital media to expand communities of learning. This focus is informed by Leuthold’s point that in indigenous aesthetic systems [1998], ethics, spirituality, and community values are inextricable from interpretation, use, and evaluation of Native media, performance, and creative products—all of which are found in Ojibwe language revitalization. By looking at Ojibwe language revitalization as, in a sense, art, I am (barely) extending the features of indigenous arts as being not only “useful, beautiful, or functional,” but also grounded in community values, produced by artists who are not above their intended audience, and shaped by “social rules for content, context, form, and personnel” [Leuthold 1995:49]. As the art of Ojibwe language revitalization is taken up by others within the speech community, thereby expanding inclusiveness of language revitalization through recognition of the shared need to rehabilitate not only linguistic practice but community

5 practice. Such opportunities are not to be missed, because as Meek states, “language endangerment is not just a repercussion of colonial assimilationist tactics—it is an effect of contemporary sociolinguistic practices, ideologies, and disjunctures” [2010:52, italics in original]. Where identity is flexible enough that even the definition of “native speaker” is responsive to pressing needs for teachers of the language, the ideological terrain of language revitalization must be examined in terms of the goals of language revitalization. At its most basic, the drive is to get more people speaking Ojibwemowin. The paths toward that goal are shaped by ideologies that often remain more implied, or even unstated, because to debate them outright is regarded as unnecessarily political by those for whom indigeneity is an ethnic or racial identity rather than a political identity. I think the denial of politics as a necessary—and not just unavoidable—aspect of language revitalization is at best naïve and at worst destructive of the historical continuities that our Ojibwe ancestors fought to maintain for all of their descendants. This is why I chose in this study to highlight the political to show that addressing ideological concerns within Ojibwe language revitalization efforts can make such efforts more responsive and inclusive of individual and community voices and concerns. More inclusive efforts at language revitalization will increase language spread, and result in more people speaking Ojibwemowin. Increased inclusion, as is my hope, will result in more opportunities for dialogical processes within and around language revitalization efforts as a part of larger liberatory practices [Friere 1974], with benefits extending beyond the reversal of language shift. My concern is fueled by the contradictions uncovered in my Master’s research, where the space for learning Ojibwemowin was expressly egalitarian, yet

6 reproduced symbolic domination in practice, both consciously and unconsciously [Uran 2005]. This domination must be examined if language revitalization is to be identical with community revitalization. For the purposes of this project, I wish to distinguish liberatory practices from decolonizing practices. I take liberatory practices to be those that allow for individuals and collectives to maintain their self-determined senses of belongingness, identity, continuity, creativity, and personal and collective value. These practices do overlap with decolonizing practices, however, I see decolonizing practices as sometimes simply being reactionary and oppositional in character. In other words, decolonization depends for its definition upon colonization itself. This is evident in Dakota language activists, when formulating a goal for language revitalization, arriving at hipi itokab/ hipi ohakab (“before they came”/”after they came”) as their orientation to history [Wilson 2005:15]. Trask similarly binds decolonization to opposition when she defines it as “the collective resistance to colonialism, including cultural assertions [we are different from them], efforts towards self-determination [we will do it our way], and armed struggle [we will fight them]” [1999:251, bracketed text added by author]. This is not to say that I do not believe in the import of such oppositional stances, nor do I think that colonization should be taken lying down. I do think that the “decolonization” claim needs to be more critically applied, and that an underlying goal of liberation beyond what usually passes for self-determination in the post-Red Power era needs to be specifically foregrounded within decolonizing practices. As Winona Wheeler writes: A large part of decolonization entails developing a critical consciousness about the cause(s) of our oppression, the distortion of our history, our own collaboration, and the degrees to which we have internalized colonialist ideas and practices. Decolonization requires auto-criticism, self-

7 reflection, and a rejection of victimage. Decolonization is about empowerment—a belief that situations can be transformed, a belief and trust in our own peoples’ values and abilities, and a willingness to make change. It is about transforming negative reactionary energy into the more positive rebuilding energy needed in our communities [quoted in Wilson 2005:13-14]. In support of the second half of the above quote, I also do not oppose attempts at “indigenization” of externally-rooted or -oriented social institutions, but here again I take those efforts to task for sometimes enacting a simple reflection or reproduction of stereotype or mere token representation within the institution without calling into question the structural roots of racism, oppression, or privilege that underpin the institution itself. As a part of settling the treaty rights struggle in Wisconsin, public schools are now required to include Native history, culture, and treaty rights into their curricula, but such efforts are hamstrung on one hand being handed over to language and culture teachers who are not fully licensed teachers nor respected as such, and also by districts who have misinterpreted the spirit of the mandate to mean that they are supposed to only enroll Native students in these supplemental classes. Then there's the matter of the subjects not being included in the national standardized tests, making these supplements into distractions from the scripted curricula designed to teach students to the standard. This, of course, makes the content hard to cover within core classes dedicated to “general” or “core” subjects that must emphasize the de jure and de facto Euroamerican biases built into the national standards. These structural limitations result in an unsupported mandate at all levels, and Native history, language, culture, and even peoples are reduced in several ways to a substandard, thereby reinforcing the marginalization of indigenous peoples, histories, languages, and cultures.

8 The approaches taken by Ojibwe language activists reflect a commitment to balancing the contradictory pressures between self-determination and adhering to the demands and expectations of settler society. My goal through this work has been to argue for a more critical stance with regards to how we, as indigenous peoples or their allies, interface with settler society, perhaps especially through the imposed—however variously indigenized—systems, such as the forms of tribal government imposed through the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, community and social services, and statist educational institutions. In other words, I am a critical sovereigntist who stands against both the intrusions into tribes' inherent rights to self-determination and the potentially self-defeating imitations of our colonizers that are sometimes portrayed as evidence of sovereignty. My position is a result not only of my commitment to my own people, but is also informed by my experience as an environmental, language, and sovereignty activist and my anthropological training. I have included attention to the complex and sometimes contradictory intersections arising from efforts at self-governance within the structures of colonialism. Indigenous language revitalization efforts necessitate a certain engagement with the institutional/governmental relationships among tribes and other governments. My involvement with the Waadookodaading Ojibwe Language Immersion Charter School, as charted with the State of Wisconsin but receiving Federal funds and operating on tribal lands, gave me practical experience navigating the sometimes bumpy terrain of treaty federalism as shaped not only by the politics of social institutions but the aesthetics of identity performance and questions of authenticity and essentialism. As tribal sovereignty depends upon the recognition of national distinctiveness by the US, language and culture become politically salient. “When a language dies, the

9 culture dies along with it.” The truth-value of the preceding sentiment, which is echoed endlessly within several language revitalization movements, is not what I am concerned with here. What I am interested in is how such statements, which are shot through with a presumed formal stasis and continuity for language [Inoue 2004:1], interface with contemporary processes of language revitalization and collective action against, along, or parallel with State interests. How do efforts at language revitalization make use of State models and structures while maintaining local perspectives, values, and social institutions? How do language activists maintain themselves as alternatives to State agents when their efforts are often concentrated within State institutions? How are language activists presenting a more critical alternative to the place of language in social life than State-level diversity management frameworks in which minority languages are often stripped of their political potential? These questions are heightened for this study, given the legal construction of tribal sovereignty based upon national distinctiveness between tribes and the State [Cairns 2000, Cook 2002]. Strategic essentialism—which I take to mean deliberate mobilization of cultural features readily recognized (or even imposed) by outsiders in order to facilitate social criticism—has been useful in collective rights struggles, but I think that a more specific, realistic, and self-determined understanding of history, and identity, is necessary to include contemporary indigenous peoples. As the subjects and objects of colonization, however, I think that the colonized do themselves no favors by trying to return to some idealized past or idealized culture as imagined largely in direct opposition to their evaluations of and by the colonizers. Our heritages are rich sources of examples, knowledges, and images through which we can (re)imagine ourselves differently, often

10 through synthesizing across the presumed divide between colonizer and colonized in a creative, self-determinative way within contemporary contexts. This synthesis can take on critical self-reflection when, as a part of decolonization, individuals seek out how their ideas about themselves have been shaped by the experience of colonization. Conceptualizing internal colonization can, and perhaps should, disrupt the oppositional binaries of colonizer:colonized, us:them, tradition:progress, and even good:bad. Our continued existence stands as testament to our flexible, strategic management of social and historical changes; we have survived this long by not holding to a dogmatic definition of ourselves, our culture, that presumes all changes indicate a loss of tradition or that all interactions with our colonizers are inauthenticating. I am in no way saying that indigenous peoples should “go nonnative” or that maintaining indigeneity is easy. I am saying that our contemporary existence demands utmost care in negotiating historical continuity with the futures we imagine for ourselves. With the deck stacked against us by ongoing colonization, we must question everything and everyone (including ourselves), and we must never be satisfied with shallow, token, emblematic allowances expected of us and our culture. Under a hegemonic system that deploys multiculturalism to manage diversity through restricted—and demanded—forms of expression, something is not necessarily better than nothing. Language activists have argued that for revitalization efforts to grow, we need to let go of the idea that “something is better than nothing.” While I agree that this sentiment does support hegemonic tokenization of indigenous cultures, and I further agree that revitalization efforts are a very long way from the comforts of being able to take anything for granted, for revitalization efforts to succeed it is best to not set them up

11 as nearly insurmountable tasks. To say that the goal of revitalization is to get Native languages back into homes is difficult enough to achieve; to say that language revitalization should have as its goal the cultivated ability of speakers to engage in critical discourses about language and colonization in their Native language [Wilson 2005:12], or the desire to have novels written in Ojibwemowin, seems to me to be an unnecessarily off-putting standard by which potential language learners should not measure their progress. While perhaps such goals are not impossible, they seem quite a long way off. Worse, they seem to reflect particular emphases of certain types of Ojibwemowin language activists who wish to have their own roles validated, and these roles—critic, writer, scholar—map too easily onto Euroamerican valuation of the same roles within mainstream culture. This leaves open the question of how those roles, as deployed by Euroamerican society against indigenous peoples, have been rearticulated and repurposed, if much at all, for indigenous societies or cultures. We cannot afford to be so idealistic that we reject self-awareness and internal criticism. Often left out of an idealized definition of culture is how culture is a collection of non-heritable adaptations to an environment, embodied as habits, dispositions, and orientations, that are nonetheless passed on to the next generation. The environment includes material, social, political, ecological, and historical circumstances. Colonization, under this purview, becomes simply one (albeit radical, violent, and powerful) change to the environment of the colonized. That change must be addressed in order to survive. Simplistic oppositional reaction to colonization has a rather spotty history of success, especially considering how colonization is not an event with a clear beginning, middle, and end. Colonization is ongoing. By now, it is nearly impossible to

12 take indigenous cultures off the grid, so to speak, because indigenous peoples have become to varying degrees interdependent with other groups—including their colonizers. Selective adoption of practices from the colonizers, including technology, religion, literacy, academic inquiry, and language, has proven to be a positive tool for maintenance of social order for several indigenous groups throughout world history. I argue that this selective adaptation can be, as an ongoing critical process, more liberatory, more consciousness-raising, and more important than taking a shallow decolonizing approach rife with oppositional romanticism, stereotype, invented traditions, and all the accompanying mistakings and misrepresentations of how things were before colonization caused them to fall apart. My antiessentialism in this matter reflects a personal commitment to open up the matter of authenticity to account for, rather than close off, the inclusion of a wider range of potential language learners and make obvious the connections between language revitalization and community revitalization. The matter of commitment, at least within language learning circles, has mostly to do with the willingness to study the language. To learn a language well, a person must put in the time and effort to memorize vocabulary, to study grammar, to drill rules and exceptions to those rules into one’s mind in hopes of it becoming second nature at some point. This is a noble and necessary task. However, such labor is generally relegated to the role of student, and particularly the college student. Thus, it is of little surprise that of the ranks of newly proficient teachers of the Ojibwe language, all of them have at least some post-secondary study under their belts. We cannot separate this artifact of their personal history from the general history of education as it is differentially valued by American Indians, since the perceived value of education within Native communities

13 connects to the generations-long deployment of education as a tool of assimilation, cooptation, or outright genocide—a matter I address later. While the achievement of a college degree (or even a high school diploma from an off-reservation school) may be judged by some Natives and non-Natives as indicative of a loss of indigenous authenticity no matter what the academic focus of study may have been [Smith 1999:1314], there are a handful of academic fields that meet community approval, and allow a student to maintain his or her community identity recognition. These include fields that produce needed laborers in Native communities, such as education, social work, nursing, and the law3. The rise of tribal and community colleges has diversified the potential places for degreed Natives within those communities, but expansion of Native representation as faculty within fields such as economics, literature, and physical sciences has been slow. The increased interest within tribal communities in maintenance and revitalization of their languages must be considered in relation to changing attitudes towards education as well as in relation to changing attitudes towards the academic requirements of professional and graduate training—especially research. Such attitude shifts occur in response to a developing political economy around revitalization, including informal community-based institutions, formal immersion schooling, state chartered schools, Federally supported programs, private granting organizations, and the relations among professional, paraprofessional, and volunteer language activists and community members. All of these agencies and agents, and their labors, arise at the intersection of locally perceived, and externally recognized, needs for revitalization projects. 3

These are the only disciplines that my tribe at White Earth provides any financial support for at the postbaccalaureate level.

14 Language revitalization efforts often arise from previous educational reforms. Culturally responsive curricula, promotion of diversity, and attention to fostering a broader understanding of local history (such as treaty rights) are mandated within Wisconsin and other States. These have opened spaces for the expansion of selfdetermination of Native-focused educational interventions intended to benefit children and their communities—both Native and non-Native. The ongoing legacy and continuing disparities as experienced by American Indians remains an interest of recent literature and current research. However, the focus seems to be upon how to deal with the ongoing problems of success and achievement by Native students at all levels of education, especially as measured by state standards. Statistics related to standardized testing as broken down by race, the prevalence of low rankings of schools that serve Native communities, and the problems of recruitment and retention of Native students in higher education, do provide ample opportunity for direct engagement in addressing the structure of these institutions to improve student outcomes; or at least give plenty of chances to feel badly about the situation. Rather than focusing on such measurements, as a linguistic anthropologist my concern lies more with how these disparities are responded to, or reinforced by, concomitant ideologies of language and culture, and how these interventions reinforce or problematize belongingness to and inclusion within and across Native and non-Native communities. If Ojibwemowin revitalization is viewed foremost as an ideological project rather than a linguistic one, then the primary measurement of its spread and presumed success changes from noting increased linguistic competence to communicative competence. Taken in this way, the fate of the language depends upon the ideological as well as

15 practical commitments by speakers, teachers, and learners of the language. However, these commitments lie within a sea of often competing and contradictory ideologies and practices. Thus, I attempt to locate these commitments to the language within the ideological currents that surround most anyone with even a mild interest in preserving the language at any level of expression and competency. My goal is to highlight these contradictions as embodied in practice so that my readers will see the importance of addressing these competing ideologies in their efforts at educational and policy reforms, thereby maintaining a level of responsiveness to the diversity of ideologies present within and around Ojibwe language revitalization. I focus critical attention to activities that can maximize aspects of the community revitalization necessary for successful language revitalization. In my efforts, I request the indulgence of my readers if at first I appear to be too imposing in my analysis or too prescriptive in my recommendations. Wallace defines revitalization as “a deliberate, organized, conscious effort by members of a society to construct a more satisfying culture” [Wallace 1956:265]. Language revitalization is one aspect of cultural reorganization. Cultural reorganization “involves the modification, addition, or elimination of the content, practice, or transmission of material or ideational culture” in response to threats against group and/or cultural survival [Nagel and Snipp 1993:221]. Tribes tend to towards emphasis of cultural differentiation in an effort to “validate federal policies that guarantee native rights, seen as unfair by non-Indians who feel that Native American people integrated into modern society no longer deserve ‘special treatment’” [ McMullen 2004:270]. This justification fits with modernist nationalist discourses that “generally claim to be the opposite of novel, namely rooted in the remotest antiquity, and the opposite of

16 constructed, namely human communities so ‘natural’ as to require no definition other than self-assertion” [Hobsbawm 1983:14]. Language, as a nationalist symbol, affords an attractive level of objectivity and continuity to assertions of distinctiveness. Since revitalization movements “are given their characteristic form only in the interplay between cultures, usually colonial and indigenous ones, and meanings” [Harkin 2004:xxvii], one objective of this study is to problematize the presumably self-evident continuities that have come to be relied upon when making claims to national distinctiveness. Such claims can only stand up to criticism when they are built with recognition of disruption and discontinuity. Social action coordinated in response to those disruptions must draw from both sides of the cultural interplay. For revitalization to reflect a vision of autonomy, it is not necessary, or even desirable, that revitalization only make use of indigenous concepts, practices, and meanings that predate contact; I suggest that strategic adoption of colonial methods can, with careful self-consciousness and critical reimagining, contribute productively to the type and level of selfdetermination informing language revitalization efforts. Such a critical commitment to self-determination also circumvents a rigid sense of cultural determinism by placing the indigenous “side” of the equation into a social and historical context that highlights the processual, situated, and dynamic features of indigenous cultures. It also points out the difficulty in maintaining resistance in strategic balance with accommodation because, when it comes to colonialism, compromise is often a slippery slope towards assimilation or cooptation. This level of self-reflection and critical engagement is a daunting demand, but I contend that it is of utmost importance if revitalization activists are to be “canny about conflict” [Wallace 1956:279].

17 Who Am I To Talk? I am an enrolled member of the White Earth Ojibwe Nation, and began studying the Ojibwe language in 1995. Starting with my interest in ethnic mobilization by Natives in urban areas, my intellectual pursuit was shaped by my experiences as a Native activist and college student in Minneapolis, as well as my growing involvement in Anishinaabe cultural life. As my anthropological training grew, my awareness of the ideological connections between language and identity grew more serious and more critical. Over the years, as awareness of the issues of Ojibwe language and other indigenous languages increased in visibility, I have witnessed and participated in several debates over Ojibwe language representation at the levels of style, discourse, content, audience, and orthography, and how these considerations matter to language revitalization efforts. While I was an undergraduate student at the University of Minnesota in 1995 I was part of a small group of students of Ojibwe language who wanted a more social, less hierarchical setting for language instruction. We revived the Ojibwe Language Society, or Ojibwemowin Zagaswe’iding, and initiated weekly potluck gatherings off-campus at All Nations Church within a nearby urban American Indian community. We wanted to meet off campus in order to be inclusive of community members in the Franklin Avenue neighborhood, where there has been a strong American Indian presence for decades, as well as to include students and teachers of Ojibwemowin from other institutions. The attempt to de-institutionalize Ojibwemowin instruction was also an attempt to avoid privileging certified, professional language teachers over language learners and Elders. As Barbra Meek points out, heirarchization can go against language revitalization by discouraging potential speakers, and differential privilege “may work in tandem with

18 feelings of shame, incompetence, or shyness, further discouraging other, usually younger, potential speakers from conversing in the endangered language” [2010:40]. We worked hard to both include as many people as possible in our meetings through encouraging openness and discouraging (as best we could) domination, as well as instructing everyone involved in basic ethics and protocols so that Elders and the language itself were central concerns, while institutional affiliation and ranks were consciously ignored. Through these activities, I learned how contemporary Ojibwe leadership and collective action around the issue of Ojibwemowin moves in complicated ways. I saw how language activists have worked within and around the educational and political systems in order to promote Ojibwemowin—and enact a specific set of social values that may be at odds with more official systems found in Liberal state institutions or other local community values. In this, I began to learn what leadership qualities are valued and effective in revitalization efforts. Some of these are: humility, strength, integrity, honesty, kindness, inclusiveness, educational achievement, flexible traditionalism, and respect. Upholding these qualities necessitates a reevaluation of gender roles, class consciousness, intertribal politics, and even kinship systems as elders and speakers forge new relationships with language learners and other language activists to create a social network of Ojibwe activism. These issues and qualities surround Ojibwe language activists. I found that there is a great deal of similarity amongst Ojibwemowin activists in terms of their internal and external states as shaped by historical, social, and economic circumstances. The typical Ojibwe language activist who has attained a high level of linguistic competence and an institutional leadership position is a college educated male, not a first-generation college

19 student, well-traveled and cosmopolitan, likely living and working outside his home territory, and comes from a relatively higher socioeconomic background than is average within the communities he serves4. I attempt to present these similarities in a critical yet empathetic enough manner so that language activists, and language revitalization itself, can become more inclusive of a wider range within the categories of class, gender, age, level of education, or other social distinctions. This speaks again to the qualities of leadership mentioned before, as well as touches on several questions surrounding identity and identity politics, both generally, and at the levels between ethnic, or indigenous, and specifically Ojibwe consciousness. Admittedly, it is my hope to raise consciousness of privilege begetting privilege in the formation of Ojibwe language activists. I argue that language activists more broadly must be aware of their own positioning when presenting their cause to others who do not share in this privilege—such as many parents of the children they teach. This awareness is necessary when working to include a wider variety of community membership into direct participation in the movement for Ojibwemowin revitalization. The performances of Ojibwe language activism, with more conscious response to community realities and concerns, would become more empowering and inclusive than taking the approach that “If I could do it, then so can you”—that approach ignores unevenly distributed privilege and is more shaming than encouraging because it implies that one individual is somehow better than another, personally or inherently, no matter what circumstances are at play in people’s lives.

4

Other than my being a first-generation college student, I share these features. We also tend to be really good looking.

20 Status of Ojibwemowin Ojibwemowin is spoken in an area spanning Quebec to Saskatchewan, and from Michigan to Montana. It is a part of the Algonquian language family, which spreads further north and south, especially along the Atlantic seaboard. There are many Ojibwemowin speakers, perhaps numbering 50,000, making it the fourth largest North American indigenous language [Nichols, in Baraga 1992], with by far the most speakers living in Canada. According to the 1990 Census Bureau, there are 103,826 self-identified Ojibwe people in the United States. Of these, some 8000 are self-identified speakers of Ojibwemowin [Gordon 2005]. These census figures, however, do not specify a level of proficiency. In 1995, research found less than 500 fluent Ojibwe language speakers in the tri-state area of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan [Peacock & Wisuri, 2002:32]. There are currently over 70 schools and other organizations offering Ojibwe language instruction [www.first-ojibwe.net], with 30 in the US. Twenty-four of these are American Indian Studies departments or academic programs offering Ojibwemowin instruction in universities. Four liberal arts colleges in the US offer Ojibwe language instruction, as do 17 state and community colleges in Minnesota, Michigan, North Dakota, and Wisconsin. There are also 8 tribal colleges offering Ojibwe language instruction. In addition to these, many tribal schools offer Ojibwe language instruction at the secondary and elementary grade levels, including three Ojibwe language immersion schools in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Many school districts near or including Ojibwe reservations, such as Detroit Lakes, near the White Earth Nation in Minnesota, and Hayward, near the Lac Courte Oreilles Reservation in Wisconsin, offer Ojibwe language classes as well. Beyond reservation communities, more than half of all tribal members

21 live in urban areas. In many urban and suburban schools with high populations of Ojibwe people, there is a growing interest in Ojibwe language instruction. Within and around the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, the urban Minneapolis School District offers Ojibwe language instruction, as do the suburban Osseo, Edina, and Anoka-Hennepin School districts. Some of these communities also offer adult education programs for the parents and other community members interested in learning Ojibwemowin. This geographic spread of the Ojibwes, combined with the spreading interest in indigenous languages, has opened new avenues for language revitalization, as well as opened debates over how the language should be spread. My fieldwork centered around the Lac Courte Oreilles Reservation in northwestern Wisconsin, but followed local language activists as they worked in communities such as Duluth and Minneapolis in Minnesota, and other reservation communities such as Mille Lacs and White Earth, also in Minnesota. My Many Arrivals to the Field(s) It is impossible to present a single point of arrival to my research. In many ways, I am caught up in several expectations as an Anishinaabe and as an anthropologist. The label “Native native anthropologist” glosses many complications arising from these identities [Narayan 1993]. As an Anishinaabe, I carry an insider’s sense of responsibility to my communities, in how I represent them in my work and how I represent myself when I am moving among our communities. As an anthropologist, I carry an outsider’s sense of responsibility to uphold an ethical engagement with Ojibwe people, and the Ojibwe language, that does not impose prescription or description from a place of absolute authority and privilege. My connections as an Anishinaabe are at least lifelong,

22 and have unfolded over four decades of interactions across associations of kin, affinity, tribe, nation, and ethnicity. While my self-identification as an anthropologist is not nearly as old as I am, like every other human being I have a lifetime’s worth of informal and formal training in social theories, many of which always have been decidedly anthropological as they have served to explain, predict, and excuse a variety of human interactions that I have been a part of directly and indirectly, as a participant observer with varying levels of agency as both an object and a subject of social and historical circumstances. The tensions between “insider” and “outsider,” too, are not exclusively articulated in a fashion that maps cleanly onto “Anishinaabe” or “anthropologist.” For each of these two, I embody tensions between “insider” and “outsider” senses and sensibility, thereby highlighting a liminality unavoidably constructed into who I am, and how I can be, an Anishinaabe distinct from as well as simultaneously an anthropologist. My connections to Ojibwe language revitalization are connected to the recent history of the White Earth Nation. In1978, the Minnesota Supreme Court heard a challenge to a former trust allotment title transfer from Clearwater County, who took possession of the land for tax liability, to a non-Native family in a public sale. The grandson of the original allottee challenged both the taxation of the land and the sale, and won. This case opened the floodgates to thousands of land claims within the White Earth reservation, forcing a Federal investigation into land transfers and title that impinged upon further questions of tribal membership rolls, censuses, and enrollment tampering as connected to intentional dispossession by timber companies working in apparent collusion with the US Federal government. By 1982, it was determined that some

23 100,000 acres of lands within the White Earth boundaries, lands in three different counties, had clouded title going back several decades. Local White Earth activists, and not limited to the descendants of the original allottees whose lands had been illegally expropriated, fought to litigate these land claims with the goal of returning these lands into trust status for the tribe. That goal would, of course, never be realized, since many of the lands were by then in possession by nonNative families for as long as three or four generations. In 1986, the US Congress passed the White Earth Land Settlement Act (WELSA) in an effort to end further litigation, and pay heirs compensation for their stolen lands. As a teenager hanging around the reservation in those days, I would see many bumper stickers stating that “WHITE EARTH IS NOT FOR SALE” in support of activists still seeking to get the lands back. These activists fought WELSA, and fought against the then current Reservation Business Committee and its chairman, Darrell “Chip” Wadena, who looked forward to receiving the WELSA compensations for their own corrupt purposes. WELSA compensation rolled into White Earth, and much of the funds did not go to heirs of allottees, but went instead towards financing the construction of a casino. Ostensibly, gaming operations were intended to foster the shared economic development of the entire tribal membership of White Earth. However, a considerable amount went to support the seemingly endless greed of the Wadena tribal council. I was 16 years old when I first went to Camp Justice in 1987, an encirclement of tents, trailers, vans, and anything else that could serve as shelter for activists occupying the area outside the White Earth tribal offices. It was there that I first heard the Ojibwe language. Old men would use it in prayers, younger people would sprinkle words here

24 and there in conversation, and I saw it then as a marker of historical continuity, social unity, and ethnic pride. I saw the Ojibwe language as simultaneously political and spiritual, both as a sign of protest against continued dispossession and ongoing greed from both outside the reservation and within—especially coming from the entrenched Reservation Business Committee, and as a sign of the continuing traditional community values of White Earth. Eventually, after 20 years as tribal chairman, Darrell “Chip” Wadena and several other council members were convicted in 1996 of conspiracy, theft, and embezzlement of tribal funds and forced out of office. It has been 16 years, and my tribe is still struggling to clean up the mess of their corruption, most recently with the still outstanding 2010 court award of $18.6M to the White Earth Nation from Angelo Medure’s Gaming World International, Ltd., who conspired with the Wadena tribal council to misappropriate the monies from the White Earth Land Settlement Act and other tribal sources. I started college at the University of Minnesota in January of 1991, first majoring in physics. Then the first Gulf War started, and I noticed that with just a few weeks of bombing and only 100 hours of a ground invasion the US “liberated” a country on the other side of the world, yet since 1977 was unable—or unwilling—to sort out a land claims case on a reservation in northern Minnesota. This was when I stopped out of college, and became more involved in White Earth politics. In 1994, I returned to university studies, but this time as a social scientist, declaring a major in Anthropology and American Indian Studies, with a focus on Ojibwe language. My intention then was to contribute to rebuilding the nation of White Earth through academic study of the history and politics of White Earth in particular, but with close attention as well to the

25 ethnic consciousness of American Indians in urban areas such as Minneapolis. As I matured as both a scholar and a human being, I became less committed to ethnic nationalism as a prime motivation, and have since adopted a more critical relationship with nation-building efforts. This is not to say that I am against ethnic nationalism per se, but have learned to recognize, and appreciate, the complicated ideological and practical considerations of nation-building. Language politics became my focus, perhaps as a result of witnessing, and instigating, language revitalization efforts intended to foster a community in an urban setting away from White Earth. Language revitalization requires (re)creating a community of speakers, and must therefore seek to include a variety of potential speakers as both language learners and linguistic resources. While several centuries of colonization has left all American Indians to some degree alienated from our cultures, and because my work includes an urban population comprised of peoples with a variety of tribal backgrounds—including non-Natives—this necessitated accommodations and compromises that make it difficult to characterize the work as exclusively “nationbuilding,” though certainly Ojibwe nationalism remains an obvious focus on the part of many of the stakeholders. Instead, the focus became in many respects an effort at wider inclusion in recognition of the varying biographical connections between individuals and Ojibwe heritages. During my first year of Ojibwe language study at the University of Minnesota, the undergraduate teaching assistants were Keller Paap, an Ojibwe enrolled at Red Cliff Reservation in northern Wisconsin, and Matt MacWilliams, a non-Native. As an extension of a shared interest in growing connections between American Indian students

26 and the surrounding Native community in Minneapolis, I was among a handful of Ojibwe language students who reestablished the Ojibwe Language Society in 1995 as a student organization that sponsored informal language study open to community members. We wanted a non-institutional setting for language instruction and practice. We held weekly potluck dinners followed by breakout sessions of Ojibwemowin practice through which participants would rotate every twenty minutes or so. I describe this further in my later chapter on Ojibwe language ideologies, where I describe work conducted in 2001 when I returned to Minneapolis as a graduate student researcher. Keller continued his post, both officially in title and as a matter of personal commitment, when Pebaamibines Dennis Jones took over from Delores Wakefield as the Ojibwe language instructor. Dennis comes from a family of language activists, and along with his mother, brothers, and their relatives, they operate Ojibwe language immersion camps on familial lands on Ninigoonsiminikaaning reserve in Ontario—where I did my Master’s research. From their connections with other language activists, as facilitated by support from their institutional connections in both the US and Canada, these language activists have established an international presence within global indigenous language revitalization efforts. Through these connections, they have drawn from the methodologies of other heritage language efforts such as Maori language nests in New Zealand, Blackfeet language revitalization at the Piegan Institute, and the immersion schooling in Hawai’i. They have served as bridges between the grassroots efforts at Ojibwe language revitalization within several communities and these international examples. I describe this international awareness in a later chapter. After his graduation, Keller, his wife Pebaamaashikwe Lisa LaRonge (enrolled at Lac Courte Oreilles and who

27 also studied Ojibwe language at the University of Minnesota), Dr. Mary Hermes from the University of Minnesota-Duluth, Zhaangweshi Rose Tainter (enrolled at Red Lake in Minnesota but living on Lac Courte Oreilles), and Monica White (enrolled at Lac Courte Oreilles) helped found an Ojibwe language immersion school in northwestern Wisconsin, first on the Lac Courte Oreilles reservation, later as a Wisconsin State charter school in the town of Hayward, and now located within the Lac Courte Oreilles Reservation school. Waadookodaading, literally “The Place Where We Help Each Other,” was created in 2001 by young parents who were committed to learning the Ojibwe language and wanted immersion education for their children. The original pilot program was housed within the Lac Courte Oreilles Tribal Elementary School. From this basis of community support from local elders, language activists, their local school district, and the Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe Community College, these parents developed Waadookodaading into a State Charter School later that year. This charter school structure gave Waadookodaading relative autonomy over its budget and curriculum while granting access to many district services such as transportation and facilities. While this charter school status allows Waadookodaading to create its own path towards meeting State and Federal education requirements so long as high academic standards are maintained, it is not an unproblematic structure, a topic I will return to later. According to research carried out by Waadookodaading’s staff, at LCO, the Ojibwe language is in decline. They placed the language at level 7 or 8 of Fishman’s Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale for Threatened Languages in 1999. At that time, they identified only 10-15 fluent speakers living on the reservation, including those

28 who learned it as a second language (that incudes the Waadookodaading staff). Nearly all of the fluent speakers were Elders, and between 1999 and 2005, seven of them passed on. Most of the speakers on LCO are, as measured by the American Council for the Teaching of Foreign Languages guidelines, are at the Novice level, knowing only a handful of simple phrases and single words. Many are able to carry on short dialogues, if only by the exchange of memorized statements of being or questions and answers, while others know the Ojibwemowin words for a number of animals, plants, fish, natural medicines, and foods. Very few can carry on extensive conversations in Ojibwemowin, and thus unable to talk about the world around them in the language. Nearly all of them are unable to teach their children how to speak Ojibwemowin. In 2003, through a travel award from the University of Iowa Department of Anthropology, I served as a volunteer for Waadookodaading’s summer immersion program. Despite my proficiency in Ojibwemowin, I learned first-hand just how timeintensive and difficult it is to develop and deliver immersion curricula. Even after weeks of preparation of content, I found that I could easily spend eight or ten hours creating an activity, including gathering the necessary vocabulary to fill in gaps not just in the content itself but in the instructions necessary to carry out the activity, only to blast through the unit in under an hour in the classroom. For example, for one activity I designed to teach students vocabulary related to clothing, I made paper dolls and a variety of items for them to “wear.” While I had reasonably mastered the words for the clothing items, such as wiiwakwan for “hat” or makizin for “shoe,” I still had to master all of the possible verbs necessary to describe how to look for each item, how to manipulate and display its paper representation, how and where to attach it to the paper doll, and then

29 for all of the associated actions necessary for real-life use of each item, such as buttoning, tying, zippering, folding, hanging, and so on. Stress levels and coffee consumption were high, and many late nights were spent preparing for the next day’s sessions. Clearly the level of commitment required to carry out the job is beyond what is required of most people, and I developed a high level of respect for immersion teachers. I hope that none of the criticisms I offer in this dissertation are taken to indicate any disrespect of their accomplishments. I moved with my family to Hayward, Wisconsin in 2005, and enrolled my 2 eldest children into the Ojibwe language immersion school. My youngest, a son, was not old enough to enroll. My oldest daughter thrived there, while my other daughter became electively mute once she started immersion preschool. At home, and anywhere other than school, my middle child was the most loquacious, loudest, and bossiest speaker in both English and Ojibwemowin. With everyone in the household striving to use and learn more and more Ojibwemowin, the middle child became our linguistic resource. By the time of the winter quarter, her vocabulary and fluidity of grammar outstripped my own skills, even after my many years of study. Most of this was because the type of language she was learning was immediately practical: phrases and words related to selfcare (i.e., ani-giziibi’aabide’on! “Go brush your teeth!” and Awegon waa-wiisiniyan? “What do you want to eat?”), while my own language learning consisted of the usual artificial dialogues in unrealistic social situations (such as getting a haircut) that comprise many second-language learning texts. Also, my own language usage was largely relegated to monological speech production, such as introducing myself or reciting some emblematic or ceremonial speech. Thus I recognized an immediate benefit of immersion

30 schooling: that is, contextualized and interactive use of Ojibwemowin. Both my children came home immediately able to produce Ojibwemowin related to their everyday activities, as both commentary upon their activities as well as in dialogue with others. Their proficiency grew, their confidence grew, and obviously both of them were learning a lot rather quickly at the immersion school. But this left the matter of my daughter’s elective mutism a mystery. Despite her assertive command of both Ojibwemowin and English at home, my daughter was completely silent at the immersion school. On school days from 8:00 AM until 3:00 PM, for the entire school year, no words in English or Ojibwemowin passed through her lips. This caused her teacher no end of stress, and that anxiety carried over throughout the school. Given it was an immersion school, and thus focused on language, how could the teachers report on my daughter’s progress as a student if she refused to speak? Her teacher, Lisa LaRonge, knew she was capable of speaking, and that she was at least a proficient listener of Ojibwemowin, because of their interactions outside of school. One strategy I used was to video record my daughter at home going through the Ojibwemowin materials being covered in the classroom. This gave the teacher something to evaluate. While that helped alleviate some stresses, the pressures coming from administrators, fellow teachers, and external evaluators arising from my daughter’s refusal to speak grew steadily throughout the year. Finally, during her kindergarten year, and with Maajiigwaneyaash Gordon Jourdain as her new teacher, my daughter began whispering into her classmates’ ears during recess, and eventually in the classrooms. It seemed that her elective mutism was aimed more at excluding the teacher and perhaps intended to avoid evaluation of her

31 Ojibwemowin proficiency, or to avoid detraction from the immersion environment with her English utterances. At times it seemed to me that she was simply unwilling to produce speech solely for the purpose of grading by someone else, either out of fear of failure, her own perfectionism, or perhaps an outright resentment of the pro forma, obligatory nature of the discursive exercise5. Finally, during a field trip, her kindergarten teacher noticed my daughter and a classmate conversing on the bus in the seat behind him. He did not call attention to them, but he did turn and watch them until she noticed him. Upon seeing him listening to her conversation, she paused only slightly before continuing, and her days of elective mutism came to a close within that week. This reticence was completely absent when she was at the sugar bush, even during immersion school field trips. As I continued my volunteer work for the program, and since I looked forward to enjoying hand harvested and processed syrup, I spent many days at the sugar camp. The Ojibwe language instructor at the Lac Courte Oreilles Tribal and Community College owned the land with his family. He would encourage Ojibwe language students and other community members to share in the work required, and opened access to students in other classes at the college—especially the classes related to Ojibwe culture and history. This provided some laborers as well as more opportunities for linguistic and procedural practice. Each year we would tap at least 200 trees, and on a good day we could harvest almost 100 gallons of sap. We boiled this over an open fire in converted metal drums hung by chains over a frame made of ironwood. While that would boil, sometimes for 6 hours or more, we would collect sap from the coffee cans and buckets attached to taps sunk an inch or so into maples. That first season, I brought 5

Or perhaps I was projecting onto her my own anxieties related to writing this dissertation.

32 my daughter out to tap trees, and her administrative skills in the endeavor surprised me greatly. She was quite opinionated as to what tree to approach next, where to drill, and how to best prepare the hole to receive the tap. She was also insistent upon precise protocols for making the necessary tobacco offering to each tree before drilling. In short, outside of school walls, she was a leader, while under the power-laden, evaluative gaze in school she remained unwilling to perform. This served as a lesson for my own research, concerned as I was with not just the practical intellectual and methodological aspects of language revitalization, but the emotional and spiritual aspects as well. I carried these concerns not just into my research, but also into my role as a parent representative on the Waadookodaading school board. I drew upon my academic training, community competencies, and familial experiences to bring a humanistic perspective into administering the immersion school. Admittedly, this led to some conflicts with board members, especially immersion teachers who were insistent upon monolithic, even authoritarian, pedagogies that marshaled an exclusivity and dominance unto themselves that I was not alone in finding discomfiting. For example, one teacher insisted upon absolute perfection of Ojibwemowin production, fearing that exposure to mistakes would lead to what he (somewhat inaccurately) called “language fossilization,” whereby the children would only learn and retain the incorrect forms if they were presented prior to correct forms. While no one would disagree about the importance of consistency and propriety in language instruction, it is clear that such a perfect standard could discourage committed language activists, or even just the parents of immersion school children, from taking up the role of language teacher, even in informal settings. My daughter’s elective mutism, after all, arose from a fear of falling short of just such a

33 standard of perfection. This absolutism also underestimates the flexibility of children’s abilities to improve their mastery of anything, even language, by unlearning or adjusting prior understandings through later exposure, correction, and effort. Under the terms of their Federal funding, Waadookodaading held a variety of community gatherings to report on their efforts, recognize their local supporters, and request renewal of tangible, practical, and endorsemental supports. As a parent representative on the Waadookodaading board, I was asked to contribute a presentation as part of a panel held at the Lac Courte Oreilles Tribal and Community College. For this, I prepared remarks that intervened upon a variety of language ideologies I found in play around LCO. One ideology in particular I addressed was the idea that somehow Ojibwemowin is not a complete language because it (to exemplify in a paraphrase) “doesn’t have words for ‘computer.’” I took this example to speak for the completeness of Ojibwemowin by drawing parallels to English as well as by calling attention to the agglutinating nature of Ojibwemowin. Since Ojibwemowin words are comprised of several descriptive morphemes, for example, often precisely labeling the nature of actions, the use of objects, or specifying the type of material an object is made from, Ojibwemowin is as complete as any other language in the world and fully capable of expressing any idea that a person might have. As a pointed aside during my talk, I pointed out that the English language, when faced with new technologies, new concepts, or a new need for specificity, also “makes up” new terms in much the same way, or can borrow terms from other languages wholesale, or has arbitrarily imposed a label onto a concept such as deciding to name certain elements on the periodic table after the person who discovered it or in honor of some other person of importance. I intended my

34 presentation to describe these sorts of judgments as ungrounded in reality and as creating an unrealistic double standard by which to evaluate Ojibwemowin. In other words, by saying Ojibwe is somehow incomplete on this basis forecloses the creative potential of Ojibwemowin, and also ignores how the language of power, English, has responded to the very same “incompleteness” without any seeming detriment to its esteem. There was rather little response from the audience to my presentation, but echoes of my content arose from subsequent panelists and in later conversations. In the summer of 2006, I was asked to step in as Interim Director of the immersion school. As a condition of my service, I requested permission to include my experiences in my research and future publications. The position was a stressful one, as it includes administration of the school itself in all its day-to-day operations, supervision of teachers, interactions with the host school district and state Department of Instruction, and duties of Principal such as student discipline, as well as grant writing and compliance, budget administration, and tracking program outcomes. These are all, of course, in addition to public relations both locally and internationally, including media appearances and professional presentations. It was the longest two months of my life, which made the total surprise I encountered from others as I sought to hire a replacement for myself rather hard to understand, even though I am quite familiar with both the scarcity of well-paid employment in northwestern Wisconsin and the sometimes remarkable tenacity (or is it inertia?) that keeps people in positions permanently that were ostensibly temporary, and sometimes without even the pretense of an honest search to

35 find a qualified replacement to fill the job6. I return to some of these experiences in a later chapter. In 2007 I attended a convention of Ojibwe Elders and language teachers held on the Mille Lacs Reservation. This meeting was called to attempt to settle disputes and confusion over teacher certification, meeting state standards through Ojibwe language instruction, maintaining the cultural and spiritual significance of Ojibwemowin throughout language learning practices, and to settle debates over matters of literacy, orthography, and intellectual property. I report on this as a part of Chapter 5. After my time as Interim Director, I continued to serve on the Waadookodaading school board until 2008. Because of my directorial experience, I remained at the center of many of the school’s activities. I continued to be involved in institutional development, making presentations to potential funders, assisting with reports to the local school district and federal agencies, and speaking about language ideologies at community gatherings. This last activity continued my attempts at intervention against the reproduction of dominant language ideologies in our community, including the idea that Ojibwemowin is not a complete language, and other ideologies that reflected—and justified—the subordinate status of the Ojibwe language. Also in 2008, I began work with the Ojibwemowin Noongom! /Ojibwe Movies project. I was a field video and audio recordist, on-screen actor, and post-production sound recordist and editor for what would become an interactive Ojibwe language software program created in partnership with TransparentLanguages.com and funded through a curriculum development grant by the US Department of Education. Dr. Mary 6

We interviewed three fully qualified applicants to replace me as Director.

36 Hermes, who was also one of the key founders of Waadookodaading, directed the project. The core team consisted of Ojibwe teachers and Elders from Mille Lacs, Lac Courte Oreilles, White Earth, Leech Lake, Ninigoonsiminikaaning, and Red Lake, a graphic designer and videographer from LCO, and support from researchers affiliated with the University of Minnesota, the Center for Advanced Research in Language Acquisition, and the Computer Assisted Language Instruction Consortium. These interactions inform my later section on ideologies related to literacies. These arrivals are in addition to the variant interactions I have as I move through Anishinaabe and academic life, where matters of language and identity often arise. In viewing my field “site” as being constructed largely on ideological terrain rather than geographic territory, and given the prevalence of concern for language within many tribal communities, I have had to be flexible and cautious in negotiating my roles as language activist and academic. Where and when those less formal moments become important to illustrate points within this work, I provide some details. However, I have to point out that some of such moments occur within protected contexts, and as such I have to exercise discretion both in how I fulfill my roles as Anishinaabe and/or academic at that time, and how I make use of those moments in my written work. So while I do uphold a standard of verifiability of my claims as based on experience, and seek to provide enough description to support my arguments, I also aim to not be revealing of sensitive information, and I hope that I do not inadvertently expose topics, settings, ideas, practices, or attitudes that are best left where they belong.

37 The Structure of This Dissertation The next chapter situates my take on Ojibwe language revitalization in relation to both my anthropological training as well as within broader conversations about indigenous autonomy. This reflects, and expands upon, the internationalist indigenous perspective that has developed within Native language revitalization efforts in the United States. By extending the comparisons beyond English settler societies in the US, Canada, and the Pacific to include reference to language revitalization efforts in Europe, Latin America, and Israel, I will highlight the conundrums presented as such efforts unfolded within a variety of social and historical contexts that may be instructive to Ojibwe language revitalization and its connections to community revitalization. Chapter three places contemporary Ojibwe language revitalization in an international comparative context. It provides historical information related to the establishment of the LCO reservation. To focus this presentation, I use language and language policies to guide the trajectory of the chapter. Here I also highlight insights gleaned from comparison to other contexts of language revitalization—both indigenous and otherwise. Chapter Four describes the ideological work that surrounds participation in a (usually) non-institutional venue for language use and learning: the Ojibwemowin Zagaswe’iding, or the Ojibwe Language Table. This model for a more social, less hierarchical setting for language instruction was revived in 1995 at the University of Minnesota, while I was an undergraduate student there. Chapter Five analyzes a particular event, an act of storytelling, which narrates the expected and possible roles for Ojibwe activism and activists. Through narrative, an

38 Ojibwe Elder and survivor of Canadian Residential School abuse constructs a critical analysis of colonialism, with special reference to its imposition of a particularly foreign moral order upon Ojibwe children through residential boarding schools and their accompanying discourses. Within this story, the Elder identifies and instrumentalizes sites of rupture, contradiction, and irony with the goal of instilling into his listeners an appreciation—if not immediate recognition—of an alternative Ojibwe moral order as a place from which to revitalize not only Ojibwemowin, but Ojibweness itself. Chapter Six is centered around Waadookodaading, the Ojibwe Language Immersion Charter School in Hayward, Wisconsin. This expands upon the ideological work described in Chapter Four, through description and analysis of how language activists have worked within and around the educational and political systems in order to promote Ojibwemowin—and enact a specific set of social values that may be at odds with more official systems found in Liberal state institutions or other local community values. In this, I intend to foster discussion of what makes a leader, which will necessitate a reevaluation of gender roles, class consciousness, intertribal politics, and even kinship systems as elders and speakers forge new relationships with language learners and other language activists to create a social network of Ojibwe activism. Chapter Seven discusses the orientations, overdeterminations, and structured limitations built into Ojibwe language activists, with the express intention to serve as a cautionary tale against the sometimes unquestioned notion that indigenous language revitalization is inherently liberatory, or even necessarily decolonizing. This speaks to the qualities of leadership more generally, as well as touching on several questions surrounding identity and identity politics at the levels between ethnic, or indigenous, and

39 specifically Ojibwe consciousness. Admittedly, it is my hope to raise consciousness of privilege begetting privilege in the formation of Ojibwe language activists so that these activists are more sensitive and aware both when presenting their cause to others who do not share in this privilege—such as many parents of the children they teach—as well as working to include a wider variety of community membership into direct participation in the movement for Ojibwemowin revitalization.

40 CHAPTER 2 STORIES AND THEORIES: TOWARDS AN INDIGENOUS POSTHUMANISM

The strongest man who ever lived was once on a journey across the world. He ran through forests and over mountains, fearless and unstoppable. He neither tired nor tarried, until coming to a great river. The waters raged by in front of him. It gave him pause, until his own ego took over. As a man used to getting his way, he jumped into the river and fought his way into the current. Splashing and thrashing, the river kept pushing him back, forcing him to miss the far bank, though his mighty efforts kept him from going downstream. He would start back again, straight across, against the current towards his goal. Finally frustrated and nearly drowned, he ceased his fight and tried to get back to the bank where he started. After a brief rest, he began again, fighting his way straight across the river, only to fail again. "Do not fight me," the river spoke. “Though I am not your enemy, you cannot defeat me." The man stopped and thought. He walked downstream until, paying attention to the flow, he found a more suitable place to cross, and worked with the current to reach the other side.

41 Ojibwemowin Storytelling and Emergent Indigenous Posthumanism The performance of Ojibwemowin storytelling creates a conceptual, social, and physical place for participants to learn and grow through language and social interaction. It is a place connecting the present to the past and the future through Ojibwemowin—the language of the Ojibwe. Such discourses have the power to transform how we think about our relationships to our past [House 2005:45]. Sharing stories creates “alternative venues for the ongoing life of the language. Imagining alternative vitalities is a fundamental aspect of aboriginality” [Perley 2011:190]. Through this activity, which is viewed by language activists as caring for the language, participants are empowered by both connecting to a relevant history and working towards a more vibrant future. The individuals who participate in this activity often append, in English or Ojibwemowin, remarks on the importance of learning and speaking the language for their personal, spiritual, and political identity. For some, it is about taking control of a part of their lives that is not valued in the mainstream society and celebrating their unique identity. It is a ritualized activity aimed at cultural revitalization [Bowie 2000:151, Pels 1997:171] and (re)creation of social unity [Bell 1992:216]. It is also reframed [Smith 1999:153-155] in terms of health and healing, which can be read as individualized rehabilitation as well as part and parcel to broader revitalization of communities. Stories are theory as well as practice. In my previously published work on the ritual use of Ojibwemowin by leaders to foster a critical consciousness among their students as a necessary step towards enacting and embodying Ojibwe sovereignty [Uran 2005], I found that while there is a conscious attempt towards fostering an egalitarian anti-structure for the study and use of

42 Ojibwemowin, there remained a symbolic domination by (more) proficient Ojibwemowin speakers. This authority mapped onto, and interacted with, other markers of status such as profession, age, citizenship status, and gender in ways that must be examined further, but within this project I could not go into all of these. The gendered dimensions are something that I can only point out when they become most obvious or problematic; I cannot, for example, adequately analyze how masculinity shapes and informs Ojibwe language revitalization. This is a matter for future work, work that I look forward to taking on later. For now, this chapter represents my attempt to accommodate and explain the self-conscious egalitarianism—as idealized and only sometimes realized—in relation to (and sometimes through) anthropological theories. Partly in response to the rigid secularism or materialism sometimes ascribed onto social science by Ojibwes who point out that such a limited focus precludes or erases emotional and spiritual perspectives on reality, and partly because of the now obvious need to engage with more than the physical and economic experiences of ongoing colonization, I have tried to infuse the following with a more complete humanism along with a critical argument for more egalitarianism, less hierarchy, and, by this, more inclusivity within revitalization efforts. One important locus where all these goals and contradictions reveal themselves can be found in a storytelling performance. The aesthetics and ethics of storytelling productively and reflectively blend amongst the audience and performer(s). Storytelling as pedagogy entails more than listening. In order to understand story, the listener must translate the words, actions, indexes, and intentions, both as included or indicated by the storyteller, but as arising from the biography and extant associations carried within the listener. This is especially the case when the story is told in

43 Ojibwemowin, where the act of translation must occur beyond the level of lexicosemantics and into matters of pragmatics, social indexes, historical references, Ojibwe intertextualities, political consciousness, and humor. For Ojibwemowin storytelling to succeed as a learning tool, therefore, we must have a theoretical framework for storytelling itself—one that takes into account as much as possible the myriad avenues of interpretation and interpellation present within an audience. Ideally, this theoretical framework would not only inform the reception of Ojibwe narratives, but could be found within the performance of Ojibwe storytelling itself, as well as informing the later (re)production of Ojibwe stories. In my tutelage into the art and science of Ojibwe storytelling, Dennis Jones presented four stages to the act. First, one has to listen. Second, one has to translate the words to get at a basic level of meaning. Third, one has to, in his words, “interpret again” to find higher order meanings (e.g., “the moral of the story”). Fourth, and finally, the ultimate responsibility to the story lies in retelling in a manner that reflects completion of the first three steps, as well as respect for the specific protocols associated with each story as gleaned during those first steps or as instructed by the storyteller upon first presentation. A responsible storyteller must first explain why he or she is able to tell the story they are about to present. This involves giving credit to where the story was first heard, who told the story to the storyteller, and where the story itself comes from geographically and historically. This also involved the storyteller situating him- or herself with regards to the story and the audience, so that the audience can more successfully carry out the stages necessary for adequate interpretation of the story itself. In short, a good storyteller

44 must give the audience enough theoretical background to understand the story. My role and training as an anthropologist must, therefore, be addressed as a part of telling the stories within this dissertation. The story I tell in this chapter is a story of literacy among the Ojibwe. In this, I do not wish to wall off oral storytelling from literacy practices, rather, I argue that storytelling practices are one type of literacy that need not stand in opposition to alphabetically or otherwise written literacy. However, the story of literacy illustrates language loss as a systematic taking away of venues for Ojibwemowin use. After all, it was through the written literate practice of treaties that so many policies of social control were imposed. Beyond this, literacy is implicated in the loss of control over language use in social spaces due to less formal hegemonic forces related to nonwritten forms of literacy. Wading In It is difficult to present my own theoretical position without making reference to the history of anthropological theory as perceived by Ojibwes. This is more than placing my work in conversation with anthropological literatures; given the sometimes problematic and therefore always suspect relationship between indigenous peoples and social science, I cannot simply present my approach as being shaped by anthropology. My work is also shaped against, or at least in contradistinction from, anthropological works that have preceded me. As I am responsible and responsive to an audience of insiders and outsiders, both uncleanly bifurcated and fractally recursive, I must more explicitly place myself and my work in terms of theoretical developments within the discipline as well as perceptions of the discipline in my field[sites]. I must address the stereotypes of anthropology as held by some within my community, while striving to not

45 simply replace old overgeneralizations with new ones that are no more useful than the old. However, I also fully recognize that this is as much a rhetorical exercise as an intellectual one; it remains a continual process of convincing even myself before any others. This is representational grounding of my own theoretical positioning, which is yet another blend of aesthetics and ethics, written with firm awareness that all humans are theoretical beings. As a matter of engagement, not just as a Native native anthropologist but as a matter of respect for the fullness of humanity as experienced in participant observation, I have to not only acknowledge but deal with matters of affect—and not just effect—that are endemic to colonial contexts. Educational, psychological, and academic interventions into the “plight” of indigenous peoples frequently mention the emotional and spiritual needs of the colonized, and describe how their prescriptive measures can remedy the situation by addressing identity shame, historical trauma, internalized oppression, low self-esteem, or other barriers towards successful, self-actualized, or authentic participation in various social institutions such as school, work, or healthy family living. Historical shame and guilt, especially as a result of the boarding school experience, is an important consideration when describing or analyzing language revitalization efforts. Here, I try to present one way to include these affective aspects into my anthropological analysis of Ojibwe language revitalization. As a Native native anthropologist working among Ojibwe language activists who also wrestle with what are anthropological questions of identity, positionality, and social contextualization, when I refer to a “we” throughout, I mean it in a rather broad sense that includes these other Natives, other anthropologists, and not only native anthropologists.

46 I entered into the discipline of anthropology with trepidation. I had already taken several upper division anthropology courses before declaring my major. I had intended to become a historian, but found that the types of questions and issues I wished to wrestle with were more in play in anthropology. It was the encouragement and example of Dr. Pat Albers, a self-described "wasicu woman7" studying Plains Indians, that facilitated my commitment to the discipline. An old guard ethnohistorian, Albers taught her students that to do ethnohistorical work in American Indian communities, one had to respect four epistemological approaches. These were: the objective/empirical framework, the interpretive/hermeneutic framework, the experiential framework, and the reflective/spiritual framework8. This reflects an influence from Hegel, with the obvious addition of what she termed the reflective/spiritual framework. Her outline of epistemological frameworks introduced the possibility of a synthetic theoretical approach that could be characterized as a syncretized spiritual-ethnoscientific methodology, a type of ethnographic fieldwork that could fruitfully problematize the insider-outsider dichotomy built into participant-observation [Moore 1999:7], as well as allow for a critical consciousness to find expression on all sides. This could be diagrammed with several strategic parallels as shown in Figure 1 below. So there you have it: the ultimate “Indian” stereotype as a starting point9. This is a diachronic image in search of

7

Wasicu is now a Dakota slur used as a euphemism for "White."

8

I feel I must acknowledge Marcelo Fernandez Osco, Emma Cervone, and Joanne Rappaport for reminding me of this aspect of my own intellectual history. 9

I mean no disrespect those tribes or individuals who use medicine wheels in their spiritual practices. The medicine wheel has, as far as I can tell, only recently become pan-Indian and thus accepted by some Ojibwes.

47 synchronic application, an abstraction in need of concretion, perhaps a type in need of tokening, and—if I may tip my hand—theory in need of practice.

Figure 1: Epistemological Approaches For Work In American Indian Communities

Body Self Objective/ Empirical

Heart Family Experiential/ Empathetic

Mind Community Interpretive/ Hermeneutic

Soul Universe Spiritual/ Reflective

But first, some narration of the image is necessary. First, I must disavow any knowledge of what, concretely, the top two items in these four lists exactly mean. Bodies are undeniable, as both individual and social bodies are necessary for the maintenance of any language. Perley’s discussion of how language death is really a matter of language disembodiment is relevant here, as he views “’language’ as incorporeally inert and as requiring speakers to activate all the potential tools that languages provide to facilitate intersubjective relationships” [2011:122]. Upon considering language as being embodied as well as abstracted, I can no more delimit "body" than I can delimit the others, hence the dashed lines instead of impermeable containment. I can, however, fall back on the

48 old standby of each of these items as existing only in dialectical process, and that it is these processes that matter most. Body/mind is a classic structural binary, as is body/soul, but the latter may rankle some secular academics or those who prefer to conflate mind and soul—or would rather ignore soul altogether. As ideologies related to Ojibwemowin mobilize “sacredness,” I have to distinguish between mind and soul. Heart/mind is less canonical as a structuralist binary, but certainly relevant within many discourses; one of my principal teachers, Tobasonakwut, regards Ojibwemowin as the best language to make the connection between the heart and the mind as both a speaker and a listener. Heart/soul oppositions are largely relegated to romanticized discourses; tragedies arise where commitments between earthly love and spiritual love conflict, while the consonance between heart and soul is celebrated as attainable perfection, or at least as the perfect introduction to learning to play the piano10. These items (I cringe at the implied objectification) exist in relation to one another, as well as in relation to others of the same order within individual and social bodies, and among societies of persons both human and not that populate the Ojibwe world [Hallowell 1960]. Each of these aspects has a complicated social history, and here I will attempt to justify how I am using these groupings and oppositions. I place Body and Self together with the Objective/Empirical framework because I connect Popperian scientism largely with sensory observation, and its attendant "objectivity" seeks to minimize interference from the other realms. I place Mind and Community together because I recognize that knowledge is nothing if not shared. Ideas and discoveries require communication, which necessitates some form of community. 10

The 1938 Hoagy Carmichael/Frank Loessner song “Heart and Soul” is often taught to beginning piano students.

49 Interpretation, too, requires shared knowledge, even as it creates both knowledge and sharing. Of course, such shared knowledge does not entail uniformity of thought; opinions and interpretations will vary. Ideally, perhaps necessarily, for a community to exist it must have some shared frameworks through which to agree or disagree. I place Heart and Family together with the Experiential/Empathetic because it is at the level of kinship that emotional understandings develop; concomitantly, amplification of emotional experience shared among people often, if not always, leads to kin and kin-like relationships. The ongoing experience of colonialism, the struggles to attain an education, and the pressures to revitalize indigenous languages and practices are all richly emotional experiences requiring empathy to understand and undertake. As language revitalization efforts focus on the home and family, and are carried out by small groups operating in many ways like a kin-group, we must be sensitive to the affective aspects in order to respect the full humanity of participants. I place Soul, Universe, and the Spiritual/ Reflective frameworks together for (hopefully) obvious reasons. Within Ojibwemowin revitalization efforts there is a strong focus on the spiritual dimensions of their practices, including how they theorize and enact linguistic interventions and instruction. Further, each quadrant of Figure 1 has been the target of colonial forces intended to replace indigenous conceptions of these aspects of self at both the individual and collective levels with Western constructs intended to foster incorporation into the settler state. This incorporation is more than assimilation and, in some ways, depends upon dissimilation in order to maintain domination. Language is targeted for assimilative ends, even as national distinctiveness is required for the continued recognition of tribal

50 sovereignty. Resistance to assimilation and domination, therefore, can also be analyzed through the terms of Figure 1. I think it important to point out the possibility for this nonlinear, perhaps idiosyncratic, representation of mutually constitutive ideologies and practices to not contradict the classic, linear, and hierarchical barrel model of Marxist thought; Voloshinov points out that while ideology is superstructural, in the realm of practice (even beyond semiosis proper), ideology reaccentuates base and structure in important ways that must be accounted for beyond the implied unidirectional linearity of the basestructuresuperstructure model. Ideology can reshape base and structure, allowing for individual and collective agency, and without merely masking the hegemony of the ruling class, but only insofar as ideology is consciously directed towards resistance of hegemony. So, too, I must point out, this representation of an idealized nonlinear model can, despite its deliberate circularity, collapse into the very same linear hierarchy represented in Marxist theory—and can even reproduce the very same hegemonic domination that Marxism attempts to overturn. Fully aware of this danger, I attempt to depict the relationships in Figure 111 as non-hierarchical. Perhaps the explanatory power of this model is best revealed through attention to the ongoing labor needed to avert the aforementioned collapse. It is my conscious choice to subvert the classically Victorian mind-body-soul chain of being, as well as to infuse a more complete humanism into the picture. Figure 1 reflects a political choice, but one that is supported by my own fieldwork, wherein the import of language

11

Redfield's map [Stocking 2001:306] can fit this diagram. Place "Biological" on the left segments and "Cultural" on the right; place "Scientific" on the top, and "Historical" on the bottom, and it fits with only minor reaccentuations.

51 revitalization draws creatively and critically upon physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual rhetorics. I present the diagram here as a critical reproduction of ideologies I found in the field, and (hopefully) not the sort of problematic reproductions warned against by Handler 1988 where social theorizations can tend towards tautology and objectification. The permeability of the diagram itself also indicates an orientation that may be described as posthumanism, in that the relationships and values represented therein are not intended to be exclusive to human beings, either as individuals relating to one another or as groups relating to other groups. I have attempted to represent a social theorization that includes environment, material culture, animals (and not just animal totems), plants, water and other elements, people not only present but also people past and future, as well as other than human persons—what Hallowell called “reified personobjects” [1960:24] –including spirits, animate nouns usually considered to be inanimate objects in English, and nonmaterial yet valued features and phenomena that are regarded, and related to, as living beings. This is a different type of posthumanism than one which takes the post- part to mean “after.” This posthumanism is neither fully celebrating nor absolutely lamenting the next evolutionary step for humans and human societies as facilitated by increased cyberneticization of bodies both individual and social. In fact, this posthumanism deeply questions the equivalence of evolution with progress. This posthumanism is attempting to decenter a romanticized individual human agent by placing that agent into interdependency with other agents, or actants [Latour 2005], existing across time(s) and space(s). It seems that an indigenous concern with our own humanity needs to engage with the Foucauldian concept of subjectification—the constructed hierarchical degrees of

52 humanity and their relationships to power [Foucault 1978:140-142]. The concept of race and racism that Foucault derives from Ahrendt are serviceable in that they do not depend upon biology per se. However, the use of “race” and “racism” requires qualification to capture what seems to be now different within indigenous identity politics, or at least in a way that takes into account the realities and concerns of indigenous peoples who must uphold their identities not as “races” or even “ethnicities” but as political entities both self-determined and recognized by colonial law. Norris, in his elucidation of connections and resonances between Foucault and Aristotle as found by Agamben, tells a tale of how the supposed inherence of politics within humans has been used to not only differentiate degrees of humanity along biopolitical lines, but to justify the imposition of self-serving definitions of “The Good Life” from one concentration of power onto a subordinated population [Norris 2000]. This is “The White Man’s Burden” woven all the way back to the mythic classical origins modernity imagines for itself. Mbembe adds to Foucault a consideration of the colonial frontier as a necessary—and I would say ongoing—state of exception in which the humanity of indigenous peoples is especially denied so that colonial policies can be deployed against them, even against the rule of law [Mbembe 2003]. I would like to avoid the cold intellectualization of colonial encounters while at the same time not depend upon pathos to represent the very real, very emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical consequences of coloniality. I strive for balance, and in that balance to take seriously a human completeness that does not privilege mind over soul, heart, or body, except as required by the contingencies of human need.

53 Given the high stakes, and given indigenous peoples’ concern with asserting their own sovereignty, we have to give proper respect to the by now centuries-long efforts by indigenous peoples to uphold their own humanity against the dehumanizing forces of colonialism. Our ancestors sacrificed too much for us to allow anyone to digitize, cyberneticize, zombify, or otherwise abstract us into mere data streams [Rogers 2011]. Anthropology and other sciences have done that enough already. Posthumanist interventions into humanity, as both real and imagined, require high levels of economic and other privileges to operate. As such, it causes a reinscription of hierarchy, repeating the same subjectification Foucault decried. At the upper end, posthumanism reaches for the ultimate fantasy state of what is basically unilinear evolutionism in disguise [Pyyhtinen and Tamminen 2011:147 references Hales, Fukuyama, Badmington, Rabinow, and Rose as exemplars]: an antiavatar, or the disembodiment of a person, absolutely portable and seemingly transcendent of all primordial ties12. At the lower end, subordinated peoples become further subject to bodily and informational controls in panoptical forms—including, undoubtedly, the sorts of experimentation panopticism normalizes13. Along each step, in either direction and throughout the levels of subjectification, collective sovereignties will be systematically replaced with Western-idealized technologicization and endatament, their social and political agencies reduced further and further into impotent virtuality within an individualist, androcentric multiculturalism focused on depoliticizing culture through

12

It’s tempting to say this would make for the perfect ethnographer-fieldworker.

13

This, too, has precedents and continuations in anthropology.

54 aestheticization and incorporation. Indigeneity, under that sort of posthumanism, will become untenable in both theory and practice. That said, posthumanism does offer something to indigenous peoples, in that consideration of other-than-human persons as agents of history is a posthumanist perspective. But posthumanism itself requires rehabilitation and constant maintenance to make it useful—and at least less offensive—to indigenous perspectives. The definitions of humanity Foucault calls attention to are, as in Agamben and Mbembe, overdetermined to place indigenous peoples into the less-than-human categories; so, too, it seems, would posthumanist theory place indigenous posthumanism into a less-than category—most likely by reducing it to romanticized animism or noble savage mysticism rather than as actual, workable, explanatory theory. Indigenous posthumanism must, therefore not give up any of the hard-won recognition of our humanity even as it decenters human beings as the presumed ultimate embodiments of power in the universe [Pyyhtinen and Tamminen 2011:147 uses Serres and Barad as examples to follow]. This requires a critical (re)assessment of authority within revitalization efforts, both in how authority is constructed and deployed, and especially how authority mediates the relationships among language activists, language learners, and the language itself. One strategy for decentering authority is for Ojibwe language activists to grant agency to Ojibwemowin itself. Many Ojibwe language activists treat Ojibwemowin as a living entity, an entity that must be cared for by Ojibwe people so that it can remain strong. This relationship to the language is established by making material offerings of food and tobacco, as well as less tangible offerings of time, effort, respect, and prayer. The Ojibwe language table, an institution I describe later, would always begin with

55 participants making a small plate of food for the spirit of the language, and at least yearly they would conduct a pipe ceremony. At the immersion school, the students would make daily offerings of tobacco in the mornings before instruction began. The weekly family language classes held for the parents and other community members would also begin with offerings. So, too, when the Ojibwemowin Noongom team, whom I assisted with producing Ojibwe language learning software, began their work we traveled to request a Mille Lacs Elder assist us by accepting our offerings of food, tobacco, and gifts and to carry out a pipe ceremony asking the spirit of the language for permission and support in our efforts. These offerings are intended to open and maintain a reciprocal relationship with Ojibwemowin itself. In return for these offerings, it is reported by Ojibwe language activists, Ojibwemowin grants speakers access to deeper realms of understanding, providing the basis for full exploitation of the various epistemological frameworks diagrammed in Figure 1. Attention to the relationship imagined and enacted by Ojibwe language activists with the Ojibwe language opens up a conceptual space for consideration of how increasing language proficiency can be seen as a path towards decolonization, but simply saying the “D word” often masks the difficulties faced in undoing the by now centuriesold overlay of colonizing practices—linguistic and otherwise—upon Ojibwe people and their language(s). Language ideologies related to both Ojibwemowin and English, after all, reflect the ongoing relationship of dominance between the colonizer and the colonized. Hegemony is the (often) unstated monopolization of the power to define what is normal, what is natural, what is different, and what is valuable. Colonial hegemony holds sway over the very definition of the identities of the colonized, as well has how

56 colonized peoples—including their images, ideas, and behaviors—are incorporated into social institutions. This power, this drive, to incorporate multicultural differences inflects all aspects of social life, and is not limited to mainstream, or even official, social institutions. In many telling ways, Ojibwe images, ideas, and behaviors reflect the accommodation or even outright acceptance of colonially-imposed standards and values [Wilson, in Wilson and Yellow Bird 2005:116]. I do not see this work as policing the authenticity of presumably indigenous efforts at revitalizing indigenous life, nor do I see this work as outright condemnation of everything non-indigenous. Rather, I am calling attention to the contradictions and complications of Ojibwe language revitalization that is, on one hand, intended to be an act of indigenous self-determination, but on the other hand, is enmeshed in the larger political economy of multiculturalism—especially the statist mechanisms of diversity management [Meek 2010: 109]. Under the present system, there is a need to be wary of how interventions aimed at revitalization, even if they are presented in and through Ojibwemowin, often do little more than reinforce the linguistic, ideological, and thus practical domination by non-indigenous forces over Ojibwemowin and the people themselves. As a bearer of history, spirit, and identity, Ojibwemowin fluency is seen as required for maximal access to Ojibwe knowledge and practices. This can be seen as an extension of Whorfianism, but I remain agnostic as to whether or not this derives from social scientific discourses, be that externally imposed anthropological theory, internally developed responses to colonization, or a mixture of both14. When deployed to construct

14

I must admit that I suspect it is both, however, like Deloria [1969, and many times afterwards], I think that the degree of influence that external social scientific discourses has on how Natives see themselves is underexamined.

57 an alternative hegemony, Ojibwemowin is tied self-consciously to Ojibwe culture, forming the usual Herderian identity of language=culture=nation. This boundedness is just as untenable here as it became within social scientific studies of European and other nationalisms. An extreme Whorfian bent, however attractive as a justification for indigenous language revitalization, misrepresents the multilingual realities of Native North America, even as remembered by many of our Elders. Within my own family, for example, my grandfather is remembered for speaking six languages: three indigenous North American languages and three European languages. Knowing five languages other than Ojibwemowin did not diminish his Ojibwe identity any more than his Dakota language proficiency made him somehow Dakota. He is perhaps an extreme example, and his proficiency was a matter of economic need since he ran the trading post. While I recognize the desire, and even the need, to reimagine identity as a counterhegemonic part of language (and community) revitalization, I think replacing the language in anyone’s head does not automatically replace the worldview, patterns of thought, or identity of a person. Building an alternative hegemony requires much more work than swapping one language for another. I define hegemony as often unexamined practices that attempt to incorporate subaltern ideologies so as to prevent self-imagining in ways counter to the values of the ruling class. The power to define identity, practice, and potential is reserved to the dominant class, whose members are best served by the implicit nature of hegemony. As Bourdieu states, the strongest ideology needs no words. This is not to say, however, that in moments of even minor threat hegemonic forces do not enforce their values through oral, written, and nonverbal expression. This is the constant threat

58 facing Ojibwe language activists, and usually tempers their actions. Recognition of this threat guides the strategic use of consciously de-politicized rhetoric in the more public venues of language tables, conferences, and funding proposals. But for Ojibwe people committed to cultivating critical thought and action through Ojibwemowin, the alternative hegemony must be made explicit, even overstated at times. Lacking the privilege of centripetal normative forces, the potential for subversion is constrained by the sheer amount of ideological labor required. Thus, as I found in previous work, egalitarian values and practices are compromised by limited access to Ojibwemowin competence as well as contradicted by having to face the structural inequalities of a larger world and its sometimes silent but often salient ideologies. Further, if egalitarianism is linked with the values of harmony, humility, and tolerance, explicit critical action against non-Ojibwe hegemonic forces may be viewed with suspicion, as an unwelcome provocation of external authoritative powers, or even as a threat to the internal social order. So, too, can explicit critical action against those Ojibwe alternative hegemonies, including the critical application of theoretical tools of analysis drawn from non-Ojibwe intellectual traditions—like this dissertation. I feel a responsibility to describe, and to a certain degree defend, an anthropological approach to understanding the practices of Ojibwemowin revitalization. In order to do this, certain ideas held about anthropologists and anthropology must be dealt with. There is a great deal of mistrust and misunderstanding of anthropology, the academy in general, and research in particular among indigenous peoples [Smith 1999]. As a Native native anthropologist, I have to be able to situate myself and my work according to and against these stereotypes. I must do this not just to satisfy my

59 dissertation committee; I must also do so for the potential audience who may stumble upon this work outside of the academy, and with members of my indigenous communities firmly in mind as well. To that end, I now make a necessary turn to an evaluative historical sketch of anthropological theory. Ripples, Eddys, Undertow In its beginnings, not entirely unscientific, anthropology was a study of The Other. I shall dispense with the Cromwellian exhumation and lynching of Victorian evolutionist anthropologists and their intellectual progeny, except to remark that the hallmark of such description was an authoritative distance, re-presented as objectivity and detachment, concerned primarily with cataloging in as fine detail as possible everything that made The Other different. This was done to explain a “universal” human past as evidenced by so-called “primitive people,” with “primitive” intended to mean “inferior” in as full a sense as possible. Developing from this descriptive method, anthropological concern moved increasingly towards contextualizing those descriptions. Following the Natural History15 approach, the first salient contexts were ecological—how The Other made a living in a particular physical environment among particular flora and fauna. As contextualization grew in depth and breadth, and once the beginnings of a realization of the dynamic (if seemingly declining) ways that The Other interacted with still Others (and Empire), historicization arose as a necessary component of description. While it took long efforts

15

Foucault describes how Natural History depends upon a succession of concepts as statements arranged into "particular wholes; it was the way in which one wrote down what one observed and, by means of a series of statements, recreated a perceptual process" [1972:57]. Ames describes museum practices as moving from "cabinets of curiosities towards richly contextualized dioramas after Boas's curatorial work [Ames 1992:51-52].

60 for time depth sensitivity and intercultural givings and takings to undo the notion of a static "ethnographic present," the movement away from a billiard-ball conception of coherent, bounded, culture groups towards the postmodern idea of all identity being the processual, situational, and strategic intersection along several axes of distinction grew from the application of an increasingly social history. By “social” I mean more than interpersonal bonds or ties to human institutions. Following perhaps especially Latour, I take social to include all manner of connections—all associations—be they material, ideological, representational, or nonhuman. One current trope attempting to capture this new scale of historical and social interconnectedness is Globalization.

Figure 2: Operationalizing Social Layers of Representation

The Other

Description

Contextualization

Historicization

Globalization

This story is re-presented in Figure 2. I see an issue with the semblance of clear boundaries between the layers; I see the "line" between each layer as marking a shift in

61 the level of operative justification. In other words, the line is not fixed, not impermeable, but instrumental for making analytical distinctions between approaches and scales of those approaches. In one sense, this could represent increased rationalization, by which I mean the modernist preoccupation with hierarchical and compartmental organization of works and lives within a society. This can be seen, for example, within some archaeological considerations of statism and accompanying social inequality arising from increased urbanization, sedentarism, intensive agriculture, and economic specialization as a part of developing a market economy. In another sense, these lines map neatly onto the path of increasing professionalization of anthropological representation in (especially but not exclusively) museums as described by Ames [1992]; I see an arc from curio-cabinet anthropology at the center to more specialized, and complicated, engagement with those curiosities. Many associative developmental analogies can also map neatly onto this diagram: language acquisition and socialization in children, Foucault's "grids of specification" for the formation of discursive objects [1972:42], and the cultivation of a political consciousness are but three examples16. These last three examples reinforce how this diagram applies to consideration of Ojibwe language revitalization, yet I keep with Foucault’s warning that “These planes of emergence, authorities of delimitation, or forms of specification do not provide objects, fully formed and armed, that the discourse…has then merely to list, classify, name, select, and cover with a network of words and sentences” [Foucault 1972]. The point is to identify relationships, and the movements of relationships, across a range of scope, contexts, and applications surrounding Ojibwe language revitalization. 16

Gupta and Ferguson [1997:6-8] describe the legacy of natural History and the “Field.”

62 The preceding paragraph best describes a movement from center outward. If we turn this around to move from the outer rings to the center, the diagram fits Trubetskoy's markedness model. We move from a general, wide spread global context, through particular histories that unfold in specific environments, and into awareness of a variety of practices and attitudes as carried out by The Other. Each step to the center is a taxonomic distinction, a marked choice, resulting in a finer focus upon a single group, phenomenon, or individual as differentiated from some universal, some norm, or at least from something presumed. As we move to increased markedness, we enter increasingly risky territory. The unmarked categories are safer, based upon accepted practices and definitions that do not threaten our intellectual confidence in how we move and think through the world [Myers-Scotton 1993:75]. Thus, we must be careful how we mark these distinctions, because each distinction may reproduce problematic categorizations. Markedness serves to highlight categorizations that may challenge hegemony, if only by bringing in self-consciousness—a necessary condition for creation of doubt within an anthropologist as well as a critical agent or organic intellectual committed to social change. This path serves to justify a definition of The Other through filtering out the implicit demarcations of a single group, phenomenon, or individual as universal and leaving what is different. In other words, movement from the outside to the center can become a highlighting of a (highly problematic) authenticity propped up by exclusive focus upon distinctiveness. It approximates boundary-making, turning constructive distinctions into an analogy for coherent wholes at some imagined-to-be-real level. This succession of justification contains real power, either as potential enlightenment for the masses, or increased entrenchment of a privileged entitlement to know, to define, and to

63 control the masses by “informed” bureaucratic management of diversity. It also contains the ingredients for a further entrenchment of colonial definitions of indigeneity based upon imposed stereotypes [Huhndorf 2001], including the stereotypical image of indigenous agency only issuing from accommodation and resistance to a monolithic domination. Conceptual movement as charted across this diagram presents some ironies. If movement is from center outwards, then there is a tendency for the center becoming a metonymic Other set into an expanding network of increasingly abstract structures. Overattention to the global picture and its interactions with history and context, if for no other reason than constraints of time and page limits, creates a nearly bounded whole at the center that can be filled with a single narrative, a choice key informant, or even a fictionalized amalgam. If movement of analysis is from the outside to the center, whereby agents—whether informants or the ethnographer—are first examined as moving through a global structure which must then be historicized, contextualized, and then described in fine detail, then the central Other tends towards an essentialized, abstract "people." Of course, good fieldwork is not a unidirectional movement through a prefigured diagram. But as the fieldworker moves back and forth through these levels of interrogation, a fundamental contradiction arises, as shown in Figure 3 below. The movement on the right of Figure 3, which maps onto movement from diagram center to diagram periphery of Figure 2, results in the reification of the center. It "centers" The Other, and provides an equivalence of boundedness within a network of increasingly

64 abstract structures. The movement on the left, even if not agent-centered, explicitly problematizes boundedness by highlighting the processual nature of action within structure. But its core remains a circumscribed negative space, a problematic, refracted, disrupted intersection which somehow retains coherence by its total enclosure.

Figure 3: A Structural Contradiction For Fieldworkers

Essentialism

Agent

=

Inside

=

Metonym

=

Outside

=

Structure

While movement from outside to inside disrupts boundaries, it still provides a filtered (and therefore strategic, even hegemonic) commonality—one that can be universalized or particularized—that tends towards a negatively bounded essentialism. Put another way, while this approach works against imposed, coherent boundedness, the result is still a grouping of phenomena or people. This leaves an odd equivalency of agent to structure. This equivalency is in direct contradiction to how agency and structure are usually presented—as a dialectic requiring synthesis, such as a duality where structure and agency intersects, or a dualism in which structure and agency are mobilized through strategic opposition of one against the other. My purpose in pointing out this contradiction is to show the limits of both “agent” and “structure” as abstractions, as well as to show how focusing on this contradiction can give us a more fluid understanding of what is usually taken to be a fixed, mutually exclusive, intellectual construct. An

65 additional matter arising from this attention is how theorization of agency and structure must respond to concrete practices as well as account for competing abstractions of “The Other”—perhaps especially when these theorizations arise from indigenous interventions where distinctions between “self” and “Other” cannot be presumed, and neither can the surrounding structures be neatly mapped onto “insider” and “outsider.” Within the context of revitalization efforts, language activists must be careful in how “insiderness” and “outsiderness” is represented and deployed in both theory and practice. In other words, not only must theory be useful or explanatory, it must be ethical. Learning to Swim Since ethnographic inquiry must tack back and forth between these directions (no matter if the ethnographer leans to the Left or Right), then the bottom equivalency (which is not to say they are the same) of structure and agency arises as a paradox to be dealt with. How can this equivalent presentation of a classic binary be accounted for? If these are somehow equivalent, then what of reflexivity? What of positionality? Is this paradox the source of agentizing discourse as exemplified by Urban, or the assignment of will and intent to the culture industry by Adorno, or other sorts of weird anthropomorphizing of superorganic, emergent capacities (i.e., "language" and "culture") by some structuralists (and post-structuralists)? In some ways these concentric circles fit Carrier and Miller's characterization of "articulation between the microscopic and macroscopic" [1999:27]. Their call for careful ethnographic attention to both the microscopic/private realms and the macroscopic/public realms is well taken, and their description of the disjuncture between public and private noted. However, interested as I am in actual behavior as interacting with communitarian

66 values, I hasten to problematize the correlation implied by Carrier and Miller between the public and the general on one hand and the private and the particular on the other. I see such a parallel dichotomy as adding too neat of a boundary between the individual and the social. Articulation theory [Clifford 1997:477-479] offers a way to negate this boundary: articulation is a politically utilitarian assemblage of cultural forms, which allows for an examination of how “tradition” and change interact. I have not worked out if the arrows on both sides move across the Cartesian dualism from subjective to objective reality. On the left, which foregrounds agency as a starting point and winds up identifying underlying objective reality as a sort of (possibly strategic) essentialism, perhaps a culture core, or some other esprit de corps is more clearly demonstrative of this direction than the movement from some individual Other (e.g., a key informant) outward into abstract structures—after all, are informantethnographer relationships only either subjective or objective? However, this becomes a matter of defining objective reality as opposed to subjective reality, which is a difficult metaphysical project. Reyna, in his argument for a social monism, claims that both structure and our experience of it are material and interconnected. Thus, it is wrong to distinguish objective reality as social phenomena, material objects (like the body), or external (to what? I wonder) structures of constraint from subjective reality as individual experience, ideological realms (like the mind), or internal (again, to what?) structures of agency [Reyna 2002]. Drowning This seems far too abstract. I've attempted to present a story of theoretical positioning as arising from pre-theoretical assumptions and intent—two realms most

67 informed by ethical considerations as well as epistemology. In this story I have attempted to describe how theoretical positioning, both in terms of approach, development, and application of theory, feeds back upon ethics and epistemology. As a center to this, I have attempted to present how anthropological theories and methods have taken on local accents among a particular indigenous group, the Ojibwe. This is where I have only achieved a small beginning. I take Knauft's identification of Foucault's potential as a personal flotation device: The part of Foucault's legacy that is less explored in cultural anthropology—and greatly in need of exploration—is how indigenous forms of knowledge have reached out with their own brands of power and subjectivication to engage those intruding from outside. The relationship of subjectivity to power can be productively documented and analyzed across a world of late modern variation, not excluding more refined consideration of Western genres of writing and representation. In all these respects, Foucauldian insights on epistemic power can be productively complemented in cultural anthropology by greater and more nuanced attention to cultural and historical detail [Knauft 1996:282]. In looking again at the diagram, the placement of “outside” and “inside” begs a question: what of the potentialities of being an outsider or an insider? Adding a final ‘r’ to those labels, even after accounting for the absolutism of the labels “insider” and “outsider” as untenable, and the question becomes illustrative of an underlying tension in Figure 4 below, where an Outsider cannot approach an Insider directly, and vice versa. This is not to suggest that the only way an outsider can pretend to understand some Other is through the vehicles of essentializing or disintegrating conceptions of difference, though it was most certainly the usual practice of many early anthropologists to operate upon oppositional definitions of those studied Others. In such representations, moral evaluations and other value –laden

68

Figure 4: Navigating Contradictions For Ethnography Essentialism

Agent

=

Insider

=

Metonym

=

Outsider

=

Structure

judgments masqueraded as description [Berkhofer 1974]. The cumulative effect of such approaches was often a reinforcement of the ethnographer’s worldview rather than insights into the people of study. The Outsider cannot productively engage with the Insider without some theorization in place. To neglect agency or structure in that approach bypasses positionality and context, and is more a pretheoretical commitment than theory. “Insider” anthropology may fare no better at producing insights if essentialism and metonymic shallowness are not adequately accounted for during theorization. At the very least, attention to the location of “the insider” and “the outsider” in this diagram reveals the nonproductive move of an Insider trying to start his work from an essentialist position, because it denies many aspects of his or her agency. In short, it is too much of a culturally determinist position to arrive at a translatable representation of that culture. To continue the metaphor, essentialist insider anthropology ends up stuck in its own backwash; while going with the flow requires acceptance of at least some ascription by others—both “insiders” and “outsiders”—of metonymy

69 upon the insider anthropologist. Because this is unavoidable, it must be accounted for. My aim is to own up to being both an insider and an outsider, both by selfidentification and by ascription by others. Smith points out that indigenous research presents “multiple ways of both being an insider and an outsider in indigenous contexts” [Smith 1999:137], but this is true in non-indigenous contexts as well. In appearance17, name, behavior, and word I am recognizably Ojibwe, or at least Native, by both other Natives as well as non-Natives. In appearance, name, behavior, and word I am recognizably an anthropologist, or at least an academic, by both other academics as well as non-academics. The ability to synthesize between insider and outsider status is not exclusive to native anthropologists, it is a fundamental social skill, but here it is a strategy put towards anthropological ends. It is a way to feel as well as think my way through the ideological and practical currents that surround fieldwork. The Archimedean Principle All fieldwork is intervention, collaborative though it may be. Theory justifies practice, even as field practice conditions theory, and as Marvin Harris [1999] reminds us, facts can only be found through some illuminating theory. But theory is more than the auger we insert into a body of water in order to extract working flowage; a theoretical position is also an ethical position. Ethics is a complicated mixture of opportunity and constraint, of pre-theoretical commitment and dynamic, practical social conditioning. Ethnographers must choose a starting point (the degree to which one has already been 17

The consideration of appearance as an aspect of identity and identification within indigenous contexts is especially problematic and personally annoying.

70 chosen for the ethnographer is a matter of theorizing reflexivity, which is a matter I turn to in Chapter 6). Knauft [1996] tells us the ways in which certain theoretical orientations prefigure results through ethical constraint; Gupta and Ferguson write of how fieldworkbased knowledge foregrounds the experience and presence of the participant-observer, often at the expense of less local epistemologies [1997:15], including theory. We must also remain aware that the application of any theory is both privileging of certain phenomena (and agents) and polarizing of certain agents (and phenomena). The difficulty of a holistic approach to ethnographic inquiry leads to many gaps, gaffes, and voids, if for no other reason than funding and time is limited. Choices must be made; filtration happens. Theory draws up water, begins to contain portions of it while directing the flow of other portions of it, and results in direct use through an irrigation of growing knowledge or the creation of a reservoir for future contingencies and applications. Thus, the auger of theory is a technological prosthesis, fostering and directing the path of development. The best we can hope for is to not spill too much, and not to have our water sources come under tyrannical control or privatization. I am inspired by Sahlins' focus on how sensitivity to the nuances of historiography helps to reveal the complicated interactions between structure and agency, and between tradition and change [2000:492]. As I work with a group who is critically aware of their own history, especially as it relates to Ojibwemowin maintenance and instruction, his warning is important to me: "We cannot equate colonial history simply with the history of the colonizers. It remains to be known how the disciplines of the colonial state are culturally sabotaged" [Sahlins 2000:486]. This is echoed by Ortner, who valorizes practice theory as "rather than fetishizing history, a practice approach

71 offers, or at least promises, a model that implicitly unifies both historical and anthropological studies" [1984:159]18. But, again, I do not want to unproblematically valorize alternative cultural practices as inherently liberatory. Ojibwe language revitalization, as I will show, is intimately connected to colonial state disciplines, both formal and informal. To deny this fact only obscures—and thus empowers—colonizing constraints, pressures, and impulses. As anthropologists, in ways more artificial and reflexive than ordinary humans less professionally burdened with abstract theoretical concern, we are faced with the task of giving interpretation to cultural forms. Like water, the material we work with is only useful insofar as it can be directed and, for a strategic amount of time, contained. Also like water, we can choose how to best approach, manipulate, and utilize our materials. But we must not forget that, as with water, we must be careful with our interpretations— we do not want to waste them or find ourselves in over our heads and unprepared for the currents. However, as we must respect the water with all its power and usefulness, we cannot make it into an enemy, because we would surely lose. Even if our aim is cultural critique, an anthropological intervention against inequality, or a commitment to activism of any stripe, we must remain aware of and even work with the flow that shapes our paths. We must own up to our theories and try to keep them clear. What this work intends is an application of a modified practice theory approach that pays attention to intersections of structure and agency beyond a reductionist materialism or intellectual abstraction. After all, living life is more than thinking and 18

Ortner's footnote differentiating practice theory from Sahlins by saying: "But the point in Sahlins is that the nature of the reaction is shaped as much by internal dynamics as by the nature of the external events" [1984:159:Fn 19]. In response to this, I restate my discomfort with cleanly demarcating internal and external reality.

72 doing, it is at least as much about feeling and reflecting. As my work focused on ideological labor and regimentation, from both sides of the colonial relationship, I aim to point out emotional and spiritual consequences of the ideological conflicts and reinforcements present within these examples of language revitalization work. If revitalization efforts are to succeed as liberatory practices, I think it is necessary to critically engage with these practices at more than a strictly material or intellectual level. This stance is necessary because, at its most basic, colonization depends upon domination of definitions of self, community, and of course domination itself. Colonization is a denial of the full humanity of the colonized; it rules out of bounds serious consideration of emotional and spiritual needs of its objects—as well as its subjects. For revitalization to be a part of liberation, it must rehabilitate and recover the fullest scope and potential of its human agents in relation to other agents. This is necessary for revitalization to really be a part of community healing. This, to put it glibly, puts the vitality into revitalization. This is an attempt to reflect the reality of language revitalization, which is—like ethnographic fieldwork—more than thinking and doing, it is also feeling and reflecting among other thinking, feeling, doing, and reflecting people.

73 CHAPTER 3 AUTONOMY AND LANGUAGE IN COLONIAL AND MULTICULTURAL CONTEXTS

Contemporary efforts at language revitalization unfold within the context of ongoing American Indian political history. After the various waves of activism that occurred locally, nationally, and internationally in the last century, there is now a critical mass of indigenous peoples who share a common understanding and common vision for what is needed to uphold self-determination of their futures. The social, political, and educational gains made during the US Civil Rights Era and parallel Red Power movement, developed from protest into more community-focused, proactive efforts at transforming shared social spaces into places more reflective of their community identity and values. With the onset of increased tribal gaming revenues after the passage of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1990, some tribes were able to assume fuller practical and financial control over social and educational services provided to their members. This new visibility, and contentiousness, of gaming as an economic development model also gave rise to more pressures upon regulating tribal citizenship requirements, with some tribes seeking to expand their enrollment and others who sought to limit, or even decrease, their enrollment base in order to maximize benefits to their members. These discussions have played out publicly in the press as well as within American Indian literatures, but often without a clearly articulated—or even well grounded in research— connection to local or national American Indian history. It is this sort of history that I will sketch for this chapter. I do so with the goal of placing language revitalization

74 firmly into a context of historical and ongoing issues of American Indian sovereignty, treaty rights, and matters of Federal recognition. The Lac Courte Oreilles (LCO) Tribe is one of six bands of the Lake Superior Band of Chippewa Indians who entered into treaties with the United States in 1837 (the “Pine Tree Treaty,” which was at the center of the spearfishing rights struggle of the late 20th Century), 1842, and 1854 (this second Treaty of LaPointe established the reservations of Lac Courte Oreilles, Red Cliff, Bad River, and Lac du Flambeau in what is now Wisconsin; Grand Portage and Fond du Lac in what is now Minnesota; and L’Anse/Keweenaw Bay Indian Community in what is now Michigan). Total tribal enrollment in the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe is just over 6,000 members, of which 40% live on the reservation in 23 community villages. The reservation is approximately 90 miles southeast of Duluth, Minnesota; 160 miles northeast of Minneapolis; and 11 miles southeast of the town of Hayward, Wisconsin. The tribe occupies approximately 69,000 acres and has been expanding its land holdings, recently purchased 8,000 acres adjacent to the Chequamegon National Forest. The tribe is also reacquiring lands within the original reservation boundaries that were lost after allotment and other expropriations, including the purchase of the 400-acre former hideout of Al Capone. Much of the local and tribal economy is supported by tourism. The LCO tribe is the largest employer in Sawyer County, Wisconsin [Wisconsin Department of Administration 2007:8]. The tribe owns and operates two casinos, the largest with over 600 slot machines, 12 gaming tables, a 300-seat bingo facility, a 75room hotel, a convention center, and a gift shop. The smaller casino has 60 slots and does not serve alcohol. In addition, LCO operates the LCO Ojibwe Tribal and

75 Community College (established in 1982), two gas stations, a grocery store, a 40-acre cranberry marsh, a health clinic, a K-12 school, various youth centers, a lakeside resort, a hydro-electric plant, a construction company, a credit union, a lumber mill, funeral services, a radio station, a smoke shop, and a forest products showroom [Wisconsin Department of Administration 2007:54-55]. The LCO tribe pays over two million dollars in Federal taxes and one million dollars in State taxes each year. Many LCO people continue to practice traditional subsistence by hunting, fishing, and gathering throughout the seasonal round, and, after re-recognition of their treaty subsistence rights in 1983 and the ensuing legal battle that ended when the State of Wisconsin gave up its appeals in 1991, currently enjoy usufruct in the ceded territories outside the boundaries of the reservation. The area defined under the Treaty of 1837 was under French control from 1671 until 1763, when the Treaty of Paris officially granted control over the region to the British. These lands came under the control of the United States in 1776. The level of control by the French, British, and later American was more de jure than de facto as practical sovereignty over the area remained with the Ojibwe, negotiated among the Ojibwe and traders from the British Canadian Fur Company until the War of 1812, and later among the Ojibwe and the American Fur Company, until the increase in American military presence following the establishment of Fort Snelling in 1819 allowed for tighter hegemony by the US government [Hickerson 1974:16]. Ojibwe settlement of the area of LCO began in the 18th Century. During the early 1700's, the Ojibwe of Madeline Island, a major Ojibwe center located off the southern shore of Lake Superior some 70 miles north of LCO, began

76 applying pressure on the Dakota who lived in the regions to the south and west. While some interactions were peaceful, with the Ojibwes parlaying for hunting rights upon Dakota lands, increasingly battles between the Ojibwe and Dakota happened throughout northern Wisconsin. Tourist sites in the area mark several of these. According to official LCO history, in 1745, Ojibwe hunters moved against the Dakota by building their wigwams on the shore of Little Lac Courte Oreilles Lake. That winter, a child of the band died, and “the parents were so bereaved they would not leave and defied the dangers of their enemies” [St. Germaine, ND]. As other Ojibwes settled with them, the Dakota were slowly driven out of the area. By 1765, historical accounts indicate that the Ojibwe were clearly establishing a permanent village at Court Oreilles Lake [Hickerson 1974:52]. By 1783, the Ojibwe had full control of the upper Chippewa River region, such that “We might now perhaps speak of an autonomous Court Oreilles Lake Village” [Hickerson 1974:59]. The American Push for Assimilation Between 1785 and 1876 the US Government signed 42 treaties with Ojibwe nations requiring tribes to cede huge tracts of land. The Ojibwe were concerned about their right to hunt, fish and gather wild plants for food and medicines in order to survive and maintain their culture; these rights were never sold (GLIFWC 1993 and 1994; Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, 1995). Such treaties remain central to the relationships between tribes and the United States, and shape the legislative as well as popular discourses surrounding American Indian sovereignty. Within American Indian academic discourses, treaties are pointed to as evidence of the nation-to-nation relationship between the colonizer and the colonized. This is perhaps too romanticized of a conception of inherent

77 sovereignty since treaties are, in fact, evidence of an immediate intent to dominate American Indian peoples. While wrapped in the appearance of diplomacy, with the presumed countervailing force informing negotiations absented in a colonial context, “the whole treaty system becomes a weapon in the arsenal of the stronger power” [Jones 1982:xii]. The United States government entered into treaties with American Indian nations, following the examples of previous European nations, and were thus already well aware of how easily those agreements were turned from ostensible contracts between sovereigns on an equal footing into facilitation of further intrusion onto indigenous lands and into indigenous lives. Treaties were generally cessions of land ownership to non-Indians in exchange for protections of American Indian general welfare, health, and education. Importantly, these cessions of lands did not necessarily trade away continuing land usage; American Indian treaties often contained provision for ongoing rights to hunt, fish, and gather within the ceded territories. For indigenous peoples, treaties represented plans for the future made with the best interests of their tribes in mind. These plans, it must be remembered, were made under the major threat of United States political power, both immediate and implied. While the welfare, health, education, and other categorical goals provided for under treaty were ostensibly agreed to by both parties to the process, the underlying intentions were vastly different. Throughout the treaty-making process, American Indian nations sought to hold on to as much as possible, while the United States, like their European exemplars, used treaty provisions to concentrate and extend their control over indigenous lands, peoples, and resources. Provisions for the general welfare of tribes were aimed at creating economic dependence upon the federal

78 government as massive land expropriations severely curtailed traditional subsistence practices [Dillingham 1999, Reitze and Reitze 1975]. Health provisions became mechanisms of bodily control of tribes, first feeding racist pseudoscience intended to prove the “natural” superiority of Europeans, and later as a source of practice subjects used in the training of surgeons in the removal of “unnecessary” organs from indigenous peoples such as tonsils, appendixes, and uteruses [Smith 2005]. Provisions for education were used to disrupt the spiritual and intellectual traditions of tribes and pressure American Indians towards assimilation into mainstream economic and cultural practices [Pfister 2004]. Towards that end, many treaties funded missionary outposts, including an allotment of lands to a sponsoring church for the establishment of religiously oriented schools on reservations [Tinker 1993], and later funded boarding schools intended to separate children as far as possible from their homes and traditions [Child 1993; Lomawaima 1995; Adams 1995]. These designs were not subtle in their stated goals, and thus reveal the level and scope of domination to be deployed against American Indians. This historic collusion between the United States government and Christian churches also speaks to current debates about the separation of church and state in 21st Century America. First imagined as a way to better manage tribes by facilitating the delivery of consistent and formulaic Federal Indian policy, assimilative forces were aimed towards the full, if unequal, incorporation of indigenous peoples into American society. The destruction of the national identities of tribes would, of course, eliminate the basis for treaties as agreements between distinct sovereign nations. Language quickly became a central focus in the push towards assimilation. An erasure of linguistic differences, as

79 viewed from anywhere along the political spectrum of mainstream America, would facilitate the incorporation of American Indians into modern life, especially into the then agrarian and now the service economy. American Indians would then be completely subject to domination by the majority system of capitalistic competition [Pfister 2004, Thornton 2002]. This focus upon the economic underpinnings—which is not to say that they are all that submerged, but are, in many instances, explicit—is the only way to make sense of the colonizers and their relationship to, and representations of, the colonized. The assimilative aspects of colonization fit the United Nations definition of genocide, which Tinker further elaborates “as the effective destruction of a people by systematically or systemically (intentionally or unintentionally in order to achieve other goals) destroying, eroding, or undermining the integrity of the culture and system of values that defines a people and gives them life” [Tinker 1993:6]. The dynamic of intent, here, as not being necessary, gets at the matter of cultural genocide—which need not be explicit in its destructive intentions. Cultural genocide also operates at a systemic level that erases destructive intent or obscures that destructiveness behind ostensibly good intentions. Religious missionization [Pettipas 1994], educational interventions, and economic development schemes come wrapped in the promises of benefit, or at least opportunity for benefits, but carry with them disruptions of indigenous traditions, relationships, and practices. Early American governmental practices regarding American Indian protection, control, education, public health, and economic development immediately demonstrated how these good intentions were put into service of assimilation. In pointing these out, I must say, I do not intend to argue these good intentions were genuine or disingenuous. I leave the matter of whether religiously

80 informed or “progressive” ideals underlying governmental administration are mobilized in good faith to other thinkers who are more tightly focused on the history of specific policies, but the legacy of “progressive” establishment of boarding schools will return as a topic in Chapter 5. The development of interest in language revitalization could not have been as productive an endeavor prior to the settling of other matters of treaty and civil rights. With the gains made during the second half of the 20th Century, including educational reforms, increased self-determination of tribal administrative services, and the firm reestablishment of usufructory rights to the ceded territories surrounding LCO, community members were able to focus upon expanding their autonomy along other avenues. As a part of settling the spearfishing rights controversy, the State of Wisconsin was required to include local American Indian history and culture—including treaty rights—into public school curricula. This marked both an elevation of visibility for cultural issues, including language, as well as closed the chapter of an ugly period of legal conflict and intercultural misunderstandings. This set the stage for language to become a center of action and activism, and language activism carried forward the discourses of sovereignty mobilized throughout the struggle to uphold and maintain their treaty rights. American Indian Tribal Sovereignty For Western cultures, sovereignty is a (masculine) defense against (hostile) Others. In other words, it is usually invoked to keep outsiders out, or to rationalize intrusion into the lives of those outsiders. It is also a justification for control over internal resources, peoples, and territories, often invoked to support efforts at assimilation and social control over problematic populations—especially minoritized peoples. However,

81 this conception of sovereignty objectifies Others as it objectifies resources, and it objectifies internal Others as it objectifies internal territory [Wilmer 1998:71]. The term is both Eurocentric and anthropocentric. This human-centered perspective sets up a hierarchy that precludes a full understanding of Indigenous Peoples’ inherent rights as stewards of lands, societies, resources, and cultures [Johansen 2004:xiv]. Indigenous conceptions of sovereignty, in mirroring a view of the world that includes people, animals, territory, or even resources, does not necessitate objectification of these otherthan-human persons or entail their subjectification to human agents. Rather, indigenous sovereignty is relational to other sovereign subjects—political, environmental, spiritual, and demographic. As such, indigenous sovereignty does not depend upon federal Indian law or treaty relationships because it existed prior to European contact. Sovereignty contains the overlapping elements of territory, autonomy, authority, control, and population [Litfin 1998:2]. While I acknowledge the material importance of natural resources to sovereignty and even identity [Howitt, et al 1996:4], with territoriality and population being socially constructed but treated as facts, it is perhaps least useful to focus on sovereignty as the connection between a population and a territory. Focusing on the autonomy, authority, and control aspects of sovereignty highlights its operational elements rather than its legal formalism; legal sovereignty is merely a part of authority. In addition to these benefits, this focus on three elements of sovereignty allows both internal and external aspects of sovereign practices, and decenters the state [Litfin 1998:9]. Despite the benefits of focusing on aspects of autonomy, authority, and control, I need to qualify these three elements further, in order to avoid conflation among them and

82 to specify salient indigenous accents for these three elements. Autonomy, here, means mutual recognition of a shared process. Indigenous self-governance is a matter of regaining control over both the powers and process of administration [Alfred 1995:102]. The first step towards self-governance is recognition of the indigenous right to selfdetermination, by both the colonizer and the colonized themselves. Beyond the right to say “yes” or “no” to their material interests and assets being sold or exploited, indigenous self-government is the ability to protect or repair cultural assets such as language, religion, and social organization [Howitt, et al 1996:15]. This often requires deliberate, and careful, reclamation of the power to self-define who is able, or desired, to take part in the struggle for self-determination. Considered in this way, autonomy is not based upon territory. Instead, indigenous sovereignty “flows through an inclusive decision making process. Being sovereign does not, therefore, entail establishing a state that exists separately from ‘society,’ nor the imposition of a single voice at the conclusion of debate” [Kalent 2004:230]. Authority, here, means the shared ability to (re)negotiate balance. This is a matter of maintaining local understandings and commitments in a manner that does not endanger collective peace. This level of authority focuses on the philosophical and moral basis for resource management. Drawing from local experience, the voices of authority arise “directly from the community itself; that is, from the people who hold the traditional knowledge of their community and are recognized by their citizens as legitimately expressing the meaning of their political sovereignty” [Turner 1997:17]. As it happens, these voices have had to arise in the political realms of law, media, education, academia, arts, and activism.

83 Control arises from the autonomous exercise of authority. This is not a unilateral imposition of will, but a conscious negotiation over issues of land, knowledge, identity, and history. Such authority is not an immediate or even short-term project, because “(t)he object of the struggle is not only Indigenous cultural and intellectual property but the continued future of Indigenous societies themselves” [Smith and Ward 2000:3]. Indigenous groups have modified the Eurocentric notion of sovereignty, commonly understood to be absolute power and supremacy, to bring it in accordance with an indigenous brand of self-sufficiency that stands in harmony with outside groups, internal social relationships, land, and spirituality [Alfred 1995:102]. The spiritual perspective is important here. Given the history of colonization coming in waves, sometimes under several flags over the same territories, there is a faith found among some indigenous groups in their own survival as a people beyond the reach of colonialism. No matter what colonial governments do to indigenous peoples, it is believed, so long as they remain rooted in their own quiet sovereignties better days will come [Wilkins and Lomawaima 2001:97]. This is a different sense of nationalism than has existed in European contexts. Locating a nation in a process rather than a territory reflects both a pre-contact and nonstate identity. It also stands in response to the colonial reality of minoritization, of economic marginalization, and political exclusion in the dominant politics of nationhood. For indigenous peoples, “the notion of the territorially defined nation is more likely to be a dangerous fiction than an ‘imagined community’ because it is so often built on the denial and subjugation of their rights, cultures, aspirations and even their very presence” [Howitt, et al 1996:1]. Nation-states are built upon subordinating the indigenous, the

84 local, and the minority. Nation-states actively disallow local self-determination in the name of national interest, and by “these processes, nation states, their political institutions and the private interests favoured by them have been empowered in national political life and international political and economic arenas” [Howitt, et al 1996:15]. In the face of such domination, the classic Herderian notion of nation being an identity of language, territory, and culture—one that has been imposed upon indigenous peoples in order to incorporate them into the nation-state through violently assimilative processes—can not be sustained. The answer to dealing with an invasive hegemony is not the propping up of an oppositional alternative hegemony. The former seeks to incorporate The Other on its dominant terms, while the latter crafts its definition in reflection to dominance—and in terms so essentialist and exclusionary that it creates its own centripetal forces, spinning off syncretic indigenous peoples who have become unable or unwilling to continue in their native language, native territory, or native culture. Language revitalization efforts could, through careful attention to the dynamics of power that pressure subcultures towards depoliticized incorporation into the mainstream and continual respect for the powers still available to indigenous peoples, effectively navigate this political situation towards a clearer goal of community revitalization that reflects local understandings, local values, and local needs based on their status as sovereign indigenous nations. Treaties are looked upon as evidence for a relationship between sovereigns when arguing for self-determination in the present. Declarations of peace and war, negotiations over territorial borders, and the cession of lands for other considerations are all sovereign acts. From the beginning, treaties served to define distinctions between the United States and tribes along international lines [Prucha 1994:3-5]. However, a small lesson in

85 perspective is in order. The rights reserved to indigenous nations in treaties are original rights. These settler societies, by definition, had only derivative rights—and as such these derivative rights were neither recognized nor respected by indigenous nations. However, these derivative rights became, by their own self-interest, the most articulated and exercised rights under the laws of settler societies. The result of this difference is that treaties became the most significant source of rights—especially to territory—for settler societies [Berman 1992;131]. This leaves the original rights of indigenous peoples as an often untapped resource, perhaps unrecognized as a result of these rights being so marginalized within mainstream legal discourses and all but erased from curricula delivered through state-based, and statist oriented, educational institutions. The revival of spearfishing rights in the ceded territories in Wisconsin began with the knowledge, as learned within an educational institution, of the terms of the Treaty of 1854. Those rights were never signed away, but had for most practical purposes been put away, replaced by the perceived need for the Ojibwe to incorporate themselves into the dominant system of colonialism. Wage labor, property lines, and social marginalization all carried formal and informal definitions of interactions, and all at least implied the backing of force— often direct state legal power—because so much of Federal Indian policy trafficked in the exclusive, paternalistic, and deleterious language of progress. While traditional practices may never have been signed away formally, Federal management of indigenous resources and indigenous peoples strongly carried formal implications of their replacement, leading many to believe that traditional practices were no longer valid—legally or morally. Much of the current discourse surrounding indigenous sovereignty is aimed at

86 rehabilitating local and popular understandings of the validity of such traditional practices. Sovereignty includes the rights to define degrees of belongingness and citizenmembership, self-government and the right to treat with other sovereigns, jurisdiction over the internal legal affairs of its citizen-members and subparts (such as states, counties, and municipalities), political jurisdiction over the land, and the definition of certain rights for its citizen-members (or others with whom citizen-members interact) [Wilkins and Lomawaima 2001:4]. Importantly, sovereignty is never absolute. United States sovereignty is limited by its treaty obligations towards other sovereign nations (including several hundred with tribes), by the balance of state and federal powers, and by the constitutional investment of certain powers to only the citizenry and not the government. American Indian sovereignty is limited by its treaty relationship with the United States, their relationships with state and other local administrations, and the complicated political terrain arising from overlapping, competing—or even contradictory—jurisdictions, histories, and citizenships [Wilkins and Lomawaima 2001:5]. In discussing the Treaty of Ghent Senator Rufus King stated that the United States: hold that Discovery gives them the exclusive right [preemption] to extinguish the Indian title of occupancy by purchase or conquest possessing such a degree of Sovereignty as the rights of the natives will allow them to exercise. The U.S. have an absolute right to the soil, subject to the Indian right of occupancy, and also the absolute right to extinguish that right. This division includes a complete title to the soil either in the U.S. or the Indians. The sovereignty of the U.S. is therefore limited not absolute [quoted in Venables 2004:57]. The common understanding of treaties is “as means of territorial aggrandizement, as a ‘license for empire,’ and thus to miss the overwhelming obsession of the United

87 States with changing the cultures of the Indians from communally to individually based systems of property ownership and from hunting or mixed economics to yeomanry” [Prucha 1994:10]. Accompanying this economic focus were several practices aimed at eliminating or incorporating American Indian cultural practices. American Indians are focused on the reparation, revitalization, and reversal of these assimilationist policies with regards to land and ecology, language, religion, jurisdiction, and self-definition. It is in this struggle that sovereignty has taken on indigenous salience and accent as “a relationship, essentially intangible, between human groups and their environment, a measure of a people’s claimed and recognized right to think, organize, and act freely to meet their own needs as they see them” [Cornell 1988:45]. The tenor of Native sovereignty is different from state-based—or state-seeking— nationalism, in that it is not attempting to replace state institutions with local imitations of those institutions, but to limit the state’s authority into their communities so as to protect the cultural distinctiveness of the community [Alfred 1995:15]. Thus sovereignty is “more than a term that pertains to the political standing of a nation-state, or nation that could have a state. Sovereignty is a language through which one can discuss the material, psychological, and cultural impacts of colonial institutions as well” [Kalent 2004:215]. Within colonialism, sovereignty makes struggle and resistance obligatory. Often, these struggles enter the US legal system. While courts must accept the interpretation of treaty provisions as made by the American Indian nation making the claim, such claims must be supported by historical documents. However, most of the historical record is written by non-Native people [Venables 2004:55]. Within those texts, indigenous peoples’ interpretations of history are absent, misrepresented, or devalued.

88 Because of this, it is now more important than ever, in the name of justice, to respect indigenous voices in the philosophical discourse on indigenous sovereignty [Turner 2000:146]. This inclusion of indigenous interpretations into official definitions has been messy and inconsistent. Rather than serving to define debates over issues, the very idea of American Indian sovereignty has become a matter of debate itself19. This is nothing new, but the inconsistent definitions evident throughout the legal history, as well as the racial overtones inherent in the debate, allow the term to be deployed publicly and legally as political rhetoric rather than legal foundation [Clarke 2002:45]. It is important, then, for anyone interested in language and community revitalization to resist simplistic, oppositional discourses related to indigenous sovereignty. It is also important to seek out particularistic, localized understandings of indigenous sovereignty as it is lived by the indigenous people revitalization activists intend to organize. This requires attention to the organic intellectuals, often but not exclusively Elders, who have maintained articulations of indigeneity in spite of the forces of erasure and assimilation deployed against them. Assimilation and American Individualism The social Darwinism of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries served to erase the general public memory of these United States having to deal with indigenous nations on an international diplomatic level [Berman 1992:127]. In place of political framings of indigenous rights, American Indian rights, practices, and values were reduced to matters 19

This feature of debate parallels other arenas of contestation. I, like many indigenous people, have found that when an indigenous person takes a critical stance, often the debate sidesteps the content or intent of the stance, and thereby fails to engage with the historical, intellectual, or factual basis of the argument. Instead, detractors turn the focus of the debate onto questions of the authenticity of the critic’s indigeneity. It seems it is easier to call into question the right for a person to exist, or the right for an indigenous concept to exist, than to take seriously the political ramifications of that existence.

89 of racialized “culture” or “custom.” For example, the Alabama Supreme Court dismissed the laws of the Creek people as “a high pretension of savage sovereignty” in 1833; this sort of racist language was commonly found in judicial opinions, BIA reports, and legislative hearings [Harring 1994:17]. This racism in certain cases helped to support American Indian sovereignty as other races were played off each other in an ideological hierarchy. Chief Justice Roger Taney, when rendering the Dred Scott decision, argued that American Indian tribes were by law equivalent to foreign nations and thus as eligible for US citizenship as any other foreign national. This point was made to argue why Blacks could never become US citizens [Harring 1994:19]. However, Chinese immigrants seeking work and commercial enterprise were deemed better than Indians by Federal District Judge Matthew Deady of Oregon, who wrote that the radical nonparticipation in the American nation by American Indians meant that forced assimilation of them was necessary even if it looked like a violation of Indians’ civil rights [Harring 1994:20]. These legal debates often occurred in cases where no party was Indian, and often over issues that had no bearing on Indian policy or practices; Indians, or more specifically, the idea of “the Indian” became a mere rhetorical device. The indigenous voice, as advocated for by Turner above and others, was silenced within official legal discourses, but this does not mean that indigenous peoples stopped exercising their original rights. Through the 19th Century, American Indians considered themselves sovereign and acted as such; this record of American Indians acting to protect their sovereignty defines the legal concept of sovereignty more fully, and more consistently in context, than US case law [Harring 1994:15]. Indigenous language revitalization efforts must be able to show connection and response to the historical and ongoing localized

90 theories and practices of sovereignty, and avoid enacting generically indigenous aesthetics and politics that can serve to advance a colonialist construction of “the Indian” as an atomized, anachronistic alterity. Particularism is necessary to stave off a collapse into stereotype, with the danger of stereotype becoming a reductive as well as universalizing substitute for understanding within a multiculturalist society. I read the directed erosion of tribal rights as a replacement of collective rights that depended upon recognition of American Indians as members of political nations, with individual rights that imposed Liberal definitions of personhood and agency in a particular relationship with larger society. It is more revealing to view the legislative history of Federal Indian policy, rather than being a story of increasing recognition of the humanity of American Indians, as a tale of atomization of American Indian nations that stood apart from American society, into diverse citizens best incorporated into American society through multicultural discourses and policies. This took some time to develop, as matters of Native rights moved from settling land and land use towards management of the very lives of Native peoples. Civil rights bills that were passed after the Civil War excluded Indians. Indians were deemed incapable of owning property, filing suit in a court, testifying against a white man, voting, or even leaving the reservation [Deloria 1969:15]. While US citizenship had been extended to African Americans by the 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution, American Indians were not even legally defined as “persons” until 1879. In 1884, the US Supreme Court decided that Indians who had left their reservations and customary ways of life could only become US citizens by direct and explicit action from the United States—even if individual states had extended state citizenship (usually for tax purposes) to Indians [Harring 1994:203]. US citizenship was

91 conferred onto Indians who received allotment under the Dawes Act of 1887, as well as upon those Indians who had left their reservations and become recognized as residents of any state or territory [Washburn 1995:164]. Allotment, which granted land title to individual Indians, was an attempt to end tribalism as a social and political order [Cornell 1988:59]. This model of tying US citizenship to individual ownership had precedent in treaties. The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, signed between the Brule, Miniconjou, Yanktonai, Hunkpapa Blackfeet, Cuthead, Two Kettle, San Arcs, and Santee Sioux Bands as well as the Arapaho, Northern Cheyenne, and the United States contained a provision that individual Indians who occupied a section of land for at least three years and made at least $200 worth of improvements to that land would receive 160 acres and full citizenship in the United States. While it is unknown if any Sioux made such improvements, it is known that no Sioux received citizenship until the American Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 [Reilly 2004:252-253]. When citizenship was extended to include tribal Indians by this Act, many resisted believing it to be a denial of their status as nations [Harring 1994:204]. Some Indians also saw that legal citizenship was not in any practical sense equal citizenship. In fact, Indians, despite gaining US citizenship, were not allowed to vote until 1948 in certain states [Washburn 1995:164]. Thus the language of inclusiveness and individual valuation of citizenry found in citizenship discourses is not to be trusted, as that same language of equality is still used to limit or control American Indian collective rights. Indigenous claims in the United States must also contend with popular discourses of equality aimed at eliminating separate packages of rights for indigenous peoples.

92 These discourses are evident in anti-treaty rights protests, such as the fish-ins in the Northwest Coast and the spearfishing battles in Minnesota and Wisconsin in the previous century. As the spearfishing controversy in Wisconsin heated up in Minnesota in 1999, then Governor Jesse “The Body” Ventura used the stereotype of “real” Indians only existing in the past to argue against treaty rights. He argued that, “If those rules apply, then they ought to be back in birch-bark canoes instead of 200-horsepower Yamaha engines with fish finders” [Bruyneel 2007:xi-xii]. Underlying such statements, of course, is the ideology that authentic indigeneity is a thing of the past, and that any changes in cultural practice justifies the abrogation of political status. Further, this implies that the adoption of supposedly “nontraditional” features indicates acceptance of the terms of an American identity that is free from problematic adjectives like “Native—which is a common complaint leveled against other minorities whenever identity politics become salient. Sometimes the very names of anti-treaty rights organizations reflect the idea that indigenous rights are antithetical to US Civil Rights, such as the Interstate Congress for Equal Rights and Responsibilities group in the Pacific Northwest, All Citizens Equal in Montana, or Totally Equal Americans in Minnesota. Many of these groups entered into a national coalition called the Citizens Equal Rights Alliance. “Equal Protection” ideologies reflect a reification of the individual as the only valuable entity to be considered in facilitating a fair and equitable society. Social scientific theory also developed towards a similar end. Cultural constructionist discourses tend towards reification of the individual, in its focus on intersectionalities that result in increasingly tight, and idiosyncratic, focus on agents and agency. These intersections strengthen parallels with equal rights discourses to the extent that minority

93 rights become riddled with questions of authenticity in which any cultural changes are deemed evidence of individual incorporation into a society based not upon primordial ties but civic ties. This sets up the timeworn dichotomy of primitive and modern, and given the context of increasing Native nationalism since the second half of the 20th Century, “the vogue for cultural construction arguments appears as a hegemony-preserving reaction to decolonization movements” [Tobin 1994:126]. Cultural constructionist discourse certainly fits the objectifying reductionism of heritage into a multicultural palette for individual personality cultivation [Pfister 2004], a move which manages to relegate authenticity to an imagined past. This historicization of authenticity serves to limit the usefulness of that authenticity to matters of aesthetics rather than as a source of political power or recognition, though by no means do I intend to imply that aesthetic interventions are all devoid of politics. Nation-States are built to manage and incorporate internal differences into the service of national interests. One common method that nation-states employ to exert control over debates over indigenous rights is for state interests to frame the controversy as a matter of multiculturalism. For example, in 1974, a group of Mohawks occupied 612 acres of New York State land, claiming it as sovereign territory. Local white opposition from the surrounding towns organized against the occupation. The opposition continually portrayed the Mohawks in ethnic terms, thereby framing the incident within domestic American politics. The Mohawks, however, pressed the issue as international in character, as a matter between sovereign nations [Landsman 1988:41]. Such demands by American Indians for self-determination and for more control over their affairs, while at the same time insisting that the US government live up to treaties and other

94 agreements, have kept the debate over indigenous sovereignty publicly visible for the last several decades [Nichols 1998:310]. The terms of the debate, however, remain largely set by state interests. Civil rights remain individual rights and thus are not extended to tribes [Harring 1994:19]. The extension of individual constitutional rights to American Indians met with little resistance, but the Chairman of the All Indian Pueblo Council of New Mexico did object that the procedures prescribed would replace existing traditional methods of justice, including a code of restorative justice, and cases were heard by a council similar to a jury [Washburn 1995:188-189]. Later developments, however, complicated the politics of civil rights in Indian Country. A female member of the Santa Clara Pueblo claimed that her individual rights were violated when her tribe refused to enroll her children for the reason of their father being Navajo. She argued discrimination based on the fact that Santa Clara Pueblo does enroll children of male tribal members no matter what nationality the mother is. In 1978, the US Supreme Court decided that her individual rights as a US citizen did not precede tribal authority [Washburn 1994:248249]. This valorization of tribal rights versus individual rights falls flat once we consider that the court basically ruled that her children must go through life as merely US citizens; this was clearly the goal of many decades of American Indian policies. Individualistic liberalism and interdependent republicanism that focuses on group rights are in constant competition in Native affairs [Franks 2000:222]. The dominant systems of dealing with tribes were restrictive and intended to detribalize the groups under them. Thus, as groups, tribes were bound but individual tribal members were, in theory, free to join society as individuals [Cornell 1988:88-89]. This was, of course, the

95 goal of progressive assimilation. While the special relationship between Indian communities and the federal government has grown and shifted over time, the problem of balancing individual and collective rights demands “a devotion to justice and a feeling of good will towards those one does not understand” [Washburn 1995:203]. While certainly part of this “good will” must include a more dynamic understanding of culture and tradition, with respect for the collective identities and activities of indigenous peoples, the problem of illuminating this dynamism through history is undercut by the records themselves, since, as I mentioned before, they are often written by non-indigenous people. This presents intellectual and practical problems for agents working to revitalize any tradition—including language. Sahlins discusses the postmodern nihilism that is the logical outcome of functionalist disclaimers of the “invention of tradition” [Sahlins 2000:475]. However, he allows more of an alternative to essentialism with a notion of culture as always and only changing. Identity, continuity, and even sanity are not all or nothing affairs. I prefer to consider a self-conscious traditionalism [Alfred 1999] to be an important method of resistance to assimilation. Sahlins argues that “’tradition’ often appears in modern history as a culturally specific mode of change” [Sahlins 2000:476]. The cultural specificity pointed out by Sahlins thus serves to inform an understanding of “inventions of tradition” within a revitalization context; far from being simply “made up,” traditional acts demonstrate flexibility, foresight, and continuity well beyond their apparent aesthetic instrumentality. Such self-determination should also be highlighted in processes of political recognition within tribes. The definition of who is or is not an Indian is more a matter of legal or cultural distinctions than biological distinctions [Washburn 1995:164],

96 and as such is best decided by American Indian nations for themselves. Identity does encompass ideas of self as opposed to others, but it should be understood in terms of “sameness and continuity over time” [Fogelson 1999:76, emphasis in original]. This continuity is not merely maintenance of a core catalog of cultural traits, but a core relationship to self, to society, and to land. Relationship to land remains an aspect of community membership and aspect of cultural belongingness, and these social connections to land stand in contrast to market capitalism [Cornell 1988:40]. Indigenous identity is a process of constant transformation as groups highlight, maintain, and (re)create their self-representations [Field 1994:237], as realized through social relationships to themselves, their environments, and outside groups. Indigenous identity is not about survival (or extinction) only. The process of identification is more complex for “many, if not most, historical indigenous groups, whose existence should be seen as an ensemble of possibilities for transformation” [Field 1994:241]. In the United States, the federal government has taken the most dominant role in Indian policy. While the nature of the federal-Indian relationship has changed over time, the state of indigenous affairs remains situated under dominance. Ongoing oppression is evidenced in the Native population remaining the most disadvantaged group in the country, suffering poor medical and health conditions, economic underdevelopment and poverty, cultural stress and alienation at the individual and community level, and possessing an unhealthy economic dependence on government welfare [Franks 2000:222]. Tully argues that individual liberty and personal responsibility is conditional on self-respect, and that self-respect has a social basis shaped by the judgments of, inclusion by, and respect for cultural identities by other individuals and groups who are

97 from different cultures [Tully 2000:68]. In one sense, sovereignty is invoked by indigenous leaders as a “pragmatic alternative to the federal micromanagement and failed social engineering of earlier generations,” which can be seen as “claiming rights and powers that other American communities have always taken for granted” [Bordewich 1996:313]. Until there is a more general respect for cultural distinctiveness as a social process within and between groups, the matter of exclusion will receive considerably, and violently, more attention than the matter of belongingness. For language revitalization to succeed, however, the matter of belongingness must be foregrounded at every level of effort, so that the potential speech community can be as large as possible. We simply can’t afford to shun people without a damn good reason, and as language activists, we must be careful not to inadvertently exclude participants through ill-considered actions or unexamined dispositions. I return to these issues in detail in Chapter 7. Language Revitalization in an International Comparative Perspective The loss of indigenous languages around the world has been portrayed as a crisis. Often the rhetoric surrounding this crisis makes direct comparison to the loss of global biodiversity [Crystal 2002; Nettle and Romaine 2002; Zepeda and Hill 1991]. This analogy is problematic because it may tend to equate indigenous peoples with “subhuman” forms of life requiring protection. Further, there is a trap to frame the crisis within a discourse wherein diversity exists solely as a universalized resource for the benefit of all humanity, thereby subsuming the political-ideological work of the stakeholders within a bourgeois Liberal humanism that is too far abstracted from—if not downright offensive to—local concerns. Some research on the need for language revitalization is focused on statistics that illustrate the extreme level of language

98 endangerment [Hale 1992; Krauss 1992]. Given that those works often present such a dire picture of language status, are conducted by outsiders, and especially as it mobilizes the authoritarian discourse of qualitative sciences, an obvious potential affective response is a loss of motivation to enter into the work of reversing language shift [Hill 1992]. Once again, indigenous peoples are represented as having a “plight” [Deloria 1969:1], one rife with contradictions and potential for misappropriation by outsiders who see alleviating the problem as either a matter of benefit to the colonizers or, just as problematically, as a matter for which indigenous peoples are solely responsible. What I present here are not merely comparisons for the sake of comparison. People involved in language revitalization know of other such efforts around the world. It is generally “understood that the Anishinaabe are both unique and also a kind of people who have a great deal in common historically and structurally with other North and South American Indians, Hawaiians, Maoris, and other so-called Third and Fourth World peoples in their view” [Nesper 2004:240]. In fact, indigenous peoples and minoritized peoples around the globe have had to deal with their identities, languages, and practices being managed by the State. The Maori, and Maya in both Mexico and Guatemala, have had to deal with the state legislating what race they belong to, and then determining what package of rights is associated with that racial category [Nash 2001; Garzon et al 1998; Warren 1998]. Catalonia existed for decades under state prohibition of any identity other than Spanish [Woolard 1989]. The Welsh in Wales have dealt with a relegation of their identity to a more-or-less (depending upon the historical moment) apolitical culture [Harrison 1997]. In the US and Canada, federal management of indigenous identities has at various points in history done all of these, with the additional complications presented

99 with long-established—if selectively honored—international treaties between indigenous nations and several European colonizing nations [Biolsi 1995; Wilkins and Lomawaima 2001]. Through the 1800s, indigenous languages were vehicles for missionary efforts, and missionaries produced orthographies, grammars, and dictionaries for several indigenous languages. Often it was individual missionaries who saw the need to appropriate indigenous languages as a tool to spread their religious ideologies, but their supervisors did not necessarily share this view. Under missionaries, the education of indigenous peoples was mostly religious inculcation, but never far removed from the goal of reshaping tribal peoples from their more communitarian orientations towards a more individualistic outlook, including preparation for participation in the labor market. As educational systems became more institutionalized, the use of indigenous languages within educational settings became increasingly unnecessary, and even intolerable. Formal education has been deployed by nation-states to assimilate linguistic minorities into national culture in several contexts. Aside from the active exclusion of minority languages from formal curricula seen in Mexico [Hill and Hill 1986], the United Kingdom [Dorian 1981], Spain [Mar-Molinero 1989], and New Zealand [King 2001], the structure of formal education serves to disrupt the intergenerational passing on of cultures and replace it with the conformity of every day peer pressure [Garzon et al 1998:31]. Additionally, in public and missionary schools, students were abused for linguistic nonconformity by teachers and administrators [King 2001:120; Adams 1995; Lomawaima 1993; Benton 1988]. Because children have been historically treated as sites for ideological continuance and even transformation, it is only slightly ironic that

100 educational institutions have become central arenas for the preservation, and even revitalization, of endangered languages. However, given the particularly painful history associated with boarding school experiences, the irony of current (albeit unofficial) proposals calling for the establishment of indigenous language immersion boarding schools is unavoidable—and perhaps even retraumatizing. These ironies exist across time and space, and play out within discursive spaces spanning from the personal to the international. Language revitalization projects have taken various shapes according to various international contexts, but these reveal some overlaps that allow comparison of theories and practices. Spolsky reminds us that language revitalization projects exist at the intersection of three areas of linguistics: the ethnography of communication [Hymes 1974], language ideology [Woolard 1998], and language policy [Spolsky 2003:554]. Matters of language ideology, which “envision and enact ties of language to identity, to aesthetics, to morality, and to epistemology” [Woolard 1998:3] figure most prominently in this project, however these are aimed at policy matters both official and informal, with a careful eye on local contestations over the connections between language, culture, and identity [French 2004]. In this project, I do not wish to demonize The State as anathema to local struggles for language revitalization. The formation of any sort of centralized polity, not just nation-states, leads to language consolidation through standardization [Friedman 2003:748]. However, the Liberal nation-state poses a special problem. In the cases of the Welsh, Maya, and others, language efforts run up against State organizations seemingly incapable of accounting for the local values underlying language

101 revitalization. In Liberalism, the idea is that "individual rights and nondiscrimination provisions must take precedence over collective goals" but this becomes attenuated towards a conscious investment in promoting "a definition of the good life" with official encouragement of "the cultural survival of the majority nation" [Branchadell 1999:299]. Under such a system, it has been a common occurrence that nation-states usurp locallevel communities’ rights to self-determination in the name of “national interest,” and they have been richly rewarded for it [Howitt, et al 1996:15]. In State language policy and planning, the concerns focus on formal documentation of minority languages as an object rather than maintenance of these languages as viable social discourse amongst speakers [Farnell and Graham 1998:413]. Explicitly stated: “No dictionary or grammar can possibly store the wealth of information possessed by a body of fluent speakers; nor can a group of recordings preserve the aesthetic potentiality of a living language” [Garzon et al 1998:2]. However, Perley reminds us of the need to to get at the unexamined questions of language and identity within revitalization projects, and that requires shifting the focus of language endangerment research and rhetorics away from language as the object of intervention, and onto speakers themselves [Perley 2011:3-5].

102 CHAPTER 4 AUTONOMY, IDEOLOGICAL COMPETENCE, AND OJIBWE REVITALIZATION

I present an analysis of several language ideologies found among Ojibwe language learners, teachers, and activists. Learning any language involves more than memorizing cases and amassing a vocabulary, contained in the learning of a language is the learning about a language—its place in the world and what it carries into the world. These are the ideas about the language, the language ideologies, which explain the status of the language, describe the proper use of the language, and justify its connections to identity. It is these ideas about a language that enter most readily into discussions of how to protect a language, how to teach a language, and what a language can teach us. These discussions can turn into debates in situations of competing languages, where one language is dominant over another, or when the use of a language is seen as intimately and inextricably connected to a particular group membership [Bokhorst-Heng 1999]. Given the history of Indian-White relations over the centuries, and given the present salience of language and political identity as evident in English-only legislation in many places in the United States, an examination into the language ideologies of Ojibwemowin remains useful. Further, I argue that the work of becoming ideologically competent is of more practical importance for community revitalization than becoming linguistically competent. To that end, after describing the ideological terrain of Ojibwemowin, I attempt to highlight where and how the ideologies surrounding Ojibwemowin are often counterproductive to language learning and have consequences for building a speech— and language learning—community.

103 In this work, I identify several commonly held, and continually reproduced, language ideologies. Most of these have to do with the intersection of language and identity. Others speak more to the history of language shift and the resulting status of the language. Some of these are presented faithfully as justifications for language maintenance and revitalization. Many of these exist as alternatives to other language ideologies circulated by the American majority, while others support dominant language ideologies that justify or excuse the low regard for Ojibwemowin within Englishspeaking society. As these ideas exist in relation to each other as well as in relation to social institutions and individual attitudes, investigation into language ideology demands “treating it as a process involving struggles among multiple conceptualization and demanding the recognition of variation and contestation within a community as well as contradictions within individuals” [Woolard and Schieffelin 1994:71]. Within the context of indigenous language revitalization, the identity of a community as related to their language is not easy, especially given the varying stakes and pressures involved in defining a politicized context rife with social inequalities and identity politics. Hudson writes of the difficulties in defining “speech community” as an object of analysis. He focuses on the changing understandings of community from physical boundaries to arbitrary ones, from political borders to imagined borders, finally ending with the discursive construction of a community around shared norms, expectations, and rules of interpretation [2002:153-155]. Thus, I see language ideology as illustrative of community identification. This trajectory of community definitions does not become increasingly political as barriers become borders or as borders become values. Rather, as the boundaries shift from the physical primordial to the civic interpersonal, the politics of

104 these distinctions only become more obvious, and this obviousness facilitates bootstrapping back to highlight the political (-economic) stakes that were supposedly less salient than physical boundaries. Taking such a long, if sideways, view of political distinctions shows how definitions of belongingness have always been political, it’s just that the formal features of distinctiveness themselves have been differentially emphasized. Most of these alternative language ideologies are remarkably portable concepts, easily changed from Xish to Yish (to Zish) construction and then deployable to many other global contexts. The ideology that “When a language dies, a culture dies” is nothing new, and not at all exclusive to indigenous or endangered language communities. However, when hearing this expression with specific reference to Ojibwemowin, I am the most conscious of my position as an anthropologist. Those who voice that ideology became, for better or worse and more or less automatically, members of the community of my study. As the revitalization of Ojibwemowin becomes more visible and spreads, it carries language ideologies along. Since science teaches us that no one is born with a particular language, but with an identical capacity for language (barring injury or other incapacity), and since every language is a complete system for expressing all ideas, then there is little scientific justification for preserving endangered languages beyond the pedantry of salvaging examples of language variation. Thus we are left on ideological terrain to defend these languages from being replaced or erased. All of the ideologies I will describe here are aimed at defending, protecting, and celebrating the beauty, purpose, and intelligence of Ojibwemowin. While I do not deny the importance of rehabilitating ideas about Ojibwemowin as a part of language revitalization, my focus is on bringing a

105 critical awareness of the potential consequences of these ideologies to language activists and the communities that they serve. It is in this ideological terrain that my actions as an academic are the most obviously political, because the navigation of ideological terrain requires making political choices that favor some ideologies or undercut others. The status of the language is related to the status of the speech community, so to revitalize a language entails revitalizing a community. Given this is occurring within a colonial context, language activists must be careful in how they carry out the ideological as well as practical work of revitalization. The ideologies surrounding Ojibwemowin reveal, and often reinscribe, the subordinate status of the language. Revitalization work, from inside and outside the community, is shaped by and evidenced through language ideologies. Since colonial domination through assimilation has gone on for generations—as has indigenous resistance, which to varying degrees worked to shape colonial interventions—it is impossible to uphold a clear distinction of ideological orientations between indigenous peoples and their colonizers. Ideological contradictions, and cross-purposes, exist within individuals and communities, all of whom are positioned within larger hierarchies that seem, if they are even consciously recognized, to be somewhat out of their control. Revitalization efforts self-consciously work to rehabilitate attitudes towards Ojibwemowin, and this often entails engaging with language ideological debates. Ojibwemowin teachers are highly aware of the status of the language. Many, however, are not critically self-aware of their situation or privileged positions, or about the language ideologies they have been inculcated with. The ideologies around Ojibwemowin enter into, even become, the pedagogy of teaching and learning in the

106 language. This can present problems. While nearly all of the language activists I deal with are conscious of how revitalizing Ojibwe requires ideological regimentation, few are reflexive enough to address how their own view of themselves potentially harms the level of community inclusiveness necessary to build a stronger social context for language use and learning. It is, therefore, all the more important to understand the ideological underpinnings of Ojibwemowin activism. In order to carry out the work of language revitalization, language activists must cultivate reflexivity. They must become critically aware of their own ideological dispositions to as full an extent as possible, so that their own attitudes and orientations do not contradict their efforts to build a stronger, more inclusive speech community. As noted by Williams, “a definition of language is always, implicitly or explicitly, a definition of human beings in the world" [quoted in Woolard and Schieffelin 1994:56]. Within a colonial context and language shift, these definitions reveal relationships of power that revitalization efforts must accommodate only as minimally as possible, and resist in every way they can. Language activists need to be aware of how their own positioning and potential has been constrained through hegemonic constructions so that they can, in turn, cooperate with community members in reimagining the positioning and potential of their communities and their language. Careful inventory and analysis of language ideologies can “expose the perceived naturalness of things as a fiction” and thus demonstrate how and where ideological barriers can be modified [Schubert 1995:1005]. This does not mean the goal is a full replacement of problematic, colonialist ideologies with “purely indigenous” ideologies. The development of reflexivity pushes agents towards autonomy, in that they are better able to choose for themselves what to think and

107 do given the circumstances—and the colonial circumstances still demand interactions with outsiders, including settler society. A reimagining of community through selfconscious discursive practices “is neither purely emancipatory nor entirely disciplined but is a space of contestation in which individuals and groups seek to annex the global into their own practices of the modern” [Appadurai 1996:4]. Put another way, rather than focusing too exclusively on the language itself as the object of revitalization, language activists would do well to recognize how attention to language ideologies reveals how “[t]he most crucial variables in ‘expert’ assessments of language vitality are the people and their relationship with their languages” [Perley 2011:61-62], and these relationships are revealed through discursive practices. The ethnography of communication depends upon approaching language and its use with careful attention to social context and function [Hymes 1964, Bauman and Sherzer 1974]. These contexts elevate language to the level of discourse, through which sociocultural relationships are elaborated. “Discourse is social action; it is social practice" [Valentine 1995:6-7, italics in original]. Ethnography into such discourse is intended "to discover the social meanings inhering in language forms and their relationships to social formations, identity, relations of power, beliefs, and ideologies" [Farnell and Graham 1998:413]. I choose to focus on language ideologies as one aspect to both membership in the movement to spread Ojibwemowin, as well as one set of strategies used to accomplish their goals. This opens up the metalinguistic discourse— usually in English—as the most important arena for ideological work, at least until such time that linguistic competence has spread enough to allow for this reflexive criticism to take place in Ojibwemowin. In fact, the ideologies associated with Ojibwemowin are

108 usually so overdetermined by the status of the language, Ojibwemowin ideological competence spreads faster than communicative or linguistic competence. Bourdieu [1991:44 (fn 4)] comments that since linguistics is concerned with the "ideal speaker" within a "homogenous speech community,” the discipline often removes from consideration matters of power in the social relationships enacted through linguistic action. My work makes use of this assumption by highlighting the consent to an idealized speech community made by a group with an uneven distribution of linguistic competence, but a shared ideological framework for communicative competence. The symbolic significance of language, described in terms of a "power code" by Hill [1995:401], can become a marker of identity, authority, and social distance. These three aspects are evident in the use of Ojibwemowin in performance, but in this case the goals are not to maintain these symbolic (and structural) distinctions but to begin to eliminate them. Authority, identity, and social distance are underscored by the unintelligiblity of the "power code," but the performance is keyed in such a way that the audience is granted hope, indeed, promised to gain access into the distinguished class of Ojibwe leaders. This moves Ojibwemowin away from “mere language” and changes the emphasis and evaluation of competence in Ojibwemowin. Bourdieu further argues that linguists analyze "the language" and by this lack of specificity or consideration of the internal variability within languages, reproduce the ideology of "the official language" as the only acceptable form of language within a political unit [Bourdieu 1991:45]. Ojibwemowin teachers, perhaps as a function of the complicated borders of Reservations, Reserves, Provinces, States, and Nation-States that cross among them—and the accompanying formal variability of Ojibwemowin—have

109 responded to this tendency through a strong adherence to a value of Ojibwemowin diversity as tied to socially acceptable political units—the primary unit of Reservation or Reserve boundaries. This may serve to officialize a particular form of Ojibwemowin within the boundaries of a particular Reserve or Reservation, but goes far to undermine the push for an all-encompassing, official Ojibwemowin. Further ideologies related to literacy and the appropriateness of orthographic representation also preserve local variability of Ojibwemowin, often against direct or indirect pressure towards standardization as evident by the rampant use of the single dictionary available for scholastic use. Ojibwemowin activism is based, therefore, on more than linguistic formalism. Both of these points are illuminated and problematized through consideration of the metalinguistic discourse of Ojibwemowin activism. The object of revitalization is perhaps best understood not as a linguistic system, but as a symbol in and of itself. Because of the degree of ideological work necessary in the movement to spread Ojibwemowin, and because so much of this work must occur in English, it is possible, even likely, that the bulk of the ideological community around Ojibwemowin are not competent speakers. Dorian writes that "semi-speakers" have restricted grammatical and lexical competencies, but make up for this lack through their excellent sociolinguistic/communicative competencies [1982]. Here, we may have to expand Dorian’s “working margins” of the speech community to include the ideological workers—and by this move show how ideological competence is spread more uniformly within the community than linguistic competence.

110 Linguistic research on subordinate languages cannot be neutral; it is either complicit with language assimilation or actively for the equal rights of subordinate languages to exist [England 1992:31]. An extension of this is to say that my own work, by being recognized as the latter, fits into the struggle for ethnic and indigenous rights more generally. Membership in an "ethnic group" is based upon competent participation in shared rhetorical strategies. Socialization into a community involves acquisition of "subconsciously internalized communicative conventions" that must be discovered in order to fully understand how communication is taking place [Gumperz 1997:202]. Thus, socialization becomes a key factor in differentiation, or conformity into an alternative social system. This provides a new point for analysis, the "conscious forms of resistance on the part of individuals" as a means of creating and maintaining distinction from other groups [Gumperz 1997:200]. I hope that I can facilitate the positive aspects of indigenous identity, as a creative survival process of constant transformation as groups highlight, maintain, and (re)create their self-representations [Field 1994:237]. This ideological importance of language to identity unfolds within a context of centuries of State-level legislative intervention into the definition of “Indian” and the accompanying delimitation of tribal activities. From the onset of treaty-making up through nearly all current laws, the purpose of codification has been to strip tribes of their lands, their social systems, their economies, and their languages. Nearly all current Indian law and legal challenges have focused on the protection of aspects of life that have not been explicitly addressed in treaties and other law. The practical face of activism in the face of these limits has been to identify, revitalize, or reinvent cultural practices that—though they may have been maligned or perhaps become obsolete—were never

111 expressly prohibited by law or negotiated away. Ojibwemowin exists in this intercultural space. Like other cultural revivalist activities, such as the Makah whale hunts, Ojibwe spearfishing, and Dakota netting on Minneapolis lakes, Ojibwemowin is used to recreate social ties across time, generations, space, kin, and nations in ways that not only reflect understandings of tradition and historical continuity, but also provide new venues for the collaborative creation of new intellectual, philosophical, economic, and social contexts from which to understand, critique, resist, or accommodate the worlds around them in ways that make local sense and reflect local values. I describe one such venue below. Ojibwemowin Zagaswe’iding and The Ojibwe Language Table This story unfolded from a deliberate desire for an autonomous space for language use and learning. In 1995 a group of students in the first-year Ojibwemowin class decided to reestablish Ojibwemowin Zagaswe’iding, the Ojibwe Language Society. One of my fellow classmates, Brian Sago, found out that there had been, some years prior, a language society for both Ojibwe and Dakota language learners at the University of Minnesota. He was foremost in organizing a new Ojibwemowin Zagaswe’iding. He basically hounded me and two other students into signing on to become the officers as required to become a recognized student group with the Office of Student Activities on campus, and personally saw to contacting Collins OakGrove, the former instructor of Ojibwemowin and the University of Minnesota, about the previous Ojibwe Language Society. Collins gave us his permission to revive the Ojibwe Language Society, but with one important condition: He instructed us that drugs and alcohol were not to be allowed at society meetings and that no society activities should be conducted in the presence of drinking. We wrote this into the new constitution of the Ojibwemowin Zagaswe’iding,

112 and promised him we would adhere to his warning. With four students acting as officers, with Delores Wakefield as our faculty advisor, and with a ratified constitution, Ojibwemowin Zagaswe’iding became a recognized student group on the University of Minnesota campus, thus eligible for University grants to student activities and to conduct outside fundraising. We could then sponsor a weekly Language Table, which we wanted to hold off campus within the Minneapolis American Indian community. This Language Table exists, after years of growth and positive change, to this day. It was hosted (ironically enough) at the Office of Indian Ministries (the old DIW, Division of Indian Work, to locals) in Minneapolis, and Language Tables have spread into other communities across Ojibwe territory, with frequent sharing of participants who bridge up to several hundred miles and across institutional distances in a manner that looking at Ojibwe Language Tables as a social movement seems plausible—but that is beyond the scope of this dissertation. In the Fall of 2001, I conducted a simple written interview of a focus group, made up of the Ojibwemowin Zagaswe’iding (Ojibwe Language Society in Minneapolis). After passing out 4” by 6” note cards, I posed to the group one question: Why is it important to learn and/or teach the Ojibwe language? After being asked for clarification, I suggested thinking about the importance of the language in terms of what we get from learning, teaching, or speaking the language, and to basically answer the question of why we are here at Language Table. Through this activity I hoped to uncover the ideas about Ojibwemowin, the language ideologies, held by Ojibwemowin Zagaswe’iding members. All answers are in Appendix A. I have placed several quotes of the responses from

113 Language Table participants in this section. I hope that their words contribute vibrancy to my analysis. In addition to this interview, I examined the materials for learning Ojibwemowin. It was my aim to see if there was replication of similar ideologies in these materials as I found in the interview responses. One important idea about Ojibwemowin, one I have encountered frequently as a student of the language and as an anthropologist, is encapsulated by Earl Nyholm and worth keeping in mind: "When the language dies, we become descendants of the Ojibwe people, and we are no longer Ojibwe" - Earl Nyholm - Quoted in Vollom 1994:Preface The story of education in America has been one of majority dominance over minorities. We should all be familiar with the Boarding school phenomenon, in which American Indian children were sent away from their families in order to assimilate them into American society. But domination did not begin or end with Boarding Schools. American Indian school children, even at reservation schools, are taught the value of English monolingualism. While school districts with a significant population of American Indian students have opportunities to learn indigenous languages and programs to reinforce indigenous cultures, we do not yet have a school that has completely replaced English as the language of instruction. Ojibwemowin, and all other languages other than English, are secondary concerns at best—and at worst obstacles to be overcome. A brief historical overview of Ojibwemowin as related to its current status in Minneapolis-St. Paul area, or “The Cities,” is necessary. I do not want to go into great detail about Indian-White relations, so I will touch principally on the status of Ojibwemowin as related to education. Additionally, the status of the language must be

114 related to the status of the community in The Cities. I do not intend this to be a comprehensive view of the Minneapolis American Indian community, but it must be acknowledged that this story unfolded within one of the largest urban concentrations of American Indians in the United States. Because of this strong native demographic, and the history of Native activism in what is the birthplace of the American Indian Movement, children now attending schools in the Minneapolis area are able to partake in more culturally-relevant curricula including classes in Ojibwemowin. As a child, my mother and father spoke Ojibwe to each other, they did not teach the younger children. The eldest spoke and understood. The reason she gave was so we could get along better in school (Catholic nuns). I came to the language table to learn Ojibwe. Some words came back to me from my childhood. I have two daughters in Roosevelt High School who are learning Ojibwe in school (first year)(9th, 10th grade). I hope someday to talk with my daughters in Ojibwe. - One response from the Language Table In Minnesota there are several opportunities to learn Ojibwemowin as a second language. There is an open enrollment system in Minnesota public schools, and particularly in Minneapolis there have been efforts to build programs supportive of American Indian students. These programs frequently include learning Ojibwemowin. Through community education programs, I know of at least one school that offered weekly Ojibwe language classes in the evening for any interested person. With the size and complexity of the American Indian community, there is the occasional commercial, even corporate-sponsored group instruction in Ojibwemowin20. Included in there would be Ojibwemowin Zagaswe’iding, though they are non-profit. Tribal colleges and reservation schools offer Ojibwemowin, as well. A handful of institutions offer 20

For a brief time, I attended another weekly Ojibwe Language Table sponsored by Honeywell Corporation. Paul Day, who at the time was an in-house corporate lawyer, largely spearheaded its establishment.

115 Ojibwemowin at the college level, though at this level students of the language may encounter another sort of language ideology; since Ojibwemowin is not considered a “research language,” proficiency in it may not be accepted to meet the language requirements of other institutions, particularly at the level of graduate study in most fields. While there are many opportunities to hear the language, venue, audience, and purpose limit these to mostly non-interactive settings. Public opportunities to hear the language are mostly large community gatherings such as powwows and other events where Ojibwemowin is used for invocation or in songs—yet it is almost as likely to hear Dakota or even Ho-Chunk. Private and semi-private opportunities to hear the language are, of course, exclusive. Since language and culture are so intertwined, there is protectionism to exclude outsiders from these events. Depending on the event, outsiders can include non-Indians, non-Ojibwe, non-family, and others based on more selective criteria, such as lifestyle choices. Proficiency in the language can be a key, even for nonIndians, to get into exclusive events. However, a lack of proficiency in the language can still lead to exclusion by non-comprehension. So far it seems to me that Ojibwemowin is regarded as the ideal language for these events to take place in, but since many Ojibwes are not speakers this is not without some controversy. We established the OjibweZagaswe’iding Language Table to provide a non-institutional, community-based, informal, and non-hierarchical social venue for interactive language use and learning. Language Ideologies: The Big Ideas About Ojibwemowin I enjoy learning Ojibwe because I hope to know something to pass on to my children someday. The language strengthens the culture and the two are so intertwined that you cannot fully understand one without the other.

116 It gives people back a sense of identity as well as plays a role in spiritual understanding. I want to learn the language so that I can someday speak only Ojibwe in ceremony. It’s important to revitalize the language so that we have it for our children and grandchildren. - One response from the Language Table After looking at the materials and the responses from the Language Table, some major ideologies are identifiable. These are not mutually exclusive, and in fact demonstrate a considerable and unsurprising interrelatedness. One is the idea that the Ojibwe language is intimately intertwined with Ojibwe culture, making Ojibwemowin the vehicle and fundamental constituent of Ojibwe culture. Further, Ojibwemowin is seen as a major part of an Ojibwe spiritual identity and practice. This elevates Ojibwemowin a necessary part of personal and ethnic identity; it is a major part of Ojibwe action at the individual and community level. Ojibwemowin is thus considered an important part of Ojibwe national identity; the language is both a demonstration of and justification for a unique political identity, often expressed in terms of sovereignty and self-determination. Secondly, there is a grouping of ideologies surrounding aspects of teaching and learning the language. Finally, there is a broad ideology concerning the value of the oral tradition as a system of education and relationship to history. I will discuss these categories below, in reverse order from this list. The oral ideology is a reaction to the problems of books and book learning. These problems arise from the history of American Indian education generally. Books are associated with the Western European-style educational system. This presents several conundrums for people who, while they may recognize the necessity of getting an education, they must also recognize the legacy of disregard and disrespect for any other systems of knowledge or ways of living outside of the dominant culture. Since schools

117 had been designed to assimilate American Indians into American life, to become educated was to somehow become less Indian. For people coming from an oral tradition, books threatened to replace parents and elders as sources of necessary information for getting along in life. Books are information largely removed from social relationships, as objects they alienate information from people. Learning from books instead of learning from people by direct example and experience individualizes the learning experience and thus the learner. Achievement in education then becomes measured by the accumulation of information, and not concerned with the relevance or propriety of the information to actions and relationships within a social network. This ambivalence towards the written word is expressed in the preface to Ojibwemowin: Series 1. Jerry Staples writes: It was never our intention to offend or minimize the importance of oral teaching. We also wish to respectfully acknowledge those people who could not (or did not) look beyond the cover page. Their concerns were noted and received with the deepest respect [Vollom 1994:Preface]. Other books recommend that Ojibwemowin learners seek out the guidance and advice of a native speaker when questions of pronunciation and cultural content arise [e.g., Nichols and Nyholm 1995:xxiii, Clark and Gresczyk 1997:21, and after all chapters as “Related activities” in Vollom 1994]. While it is generally recognized that written texts are useful in teaching Ojibwemowin, there is still debate over the place of texts and the form of texts. Meek argues that textual productions intended for instructional use in revitalization contexts can, and often do, iconically represent the domination of endangered languages by English through framing practices, routinization, and pedagogical intrusions of English [Meek 2010]. Still, in contradiction to that domination and despite being (potentially) removed from social interactions, such texts exist—and will hopefully

118 continue to exist—as examples of “alternative [indigenous] language vitalities” [Perley 2011:191]. Entextualization presents some problems of representation. One debate is over standardizing the orthography of Ojibwemowin. It is an international concern, with opinions varying widely. For some, the very idea of a written form of Ojibwemowin is offensive. Among those who make use of a written form, there is competition between systems based on the Roman alphabet and the syllabics developed for the Cree and subsequently adopted by the Ojibwe in the early- to mid-18th Century. Within the Roman-based forms, there are two standard systems: the Macron system and the “double-vowel system” developed by the missionary Charles Fiero in the 1950s. In addition to these are a variety of “folk-phonetic” styles that are often internally idiosyncratic and inconsistent with other folk styles. One difficulty in agreeing upon a standard orthography is that people learn their orthography in certain ways, and to abandon it for one more academic may be a sign of disrespect. I know people who learned to write from their elder relatives, which is an authority difficult to ignore. The debate has inspired the Ministry of Education in Canada to sponsor a conference of Ojibwemowin speakers, teachers, and learners to settle the issue. Participants came from all over Ojibwe country in the U.S. and Canada, including members of Ojibwemowin Zagaswe’iding in Minneapolis. Their recommendation was for the “double-vowel system,” but with a statement that the syllabic system was probably “superior” [Ningewance 1999:2,30]. The main reasons for this recommendation centered on ease of teaching the language. The double-vowel system uses no special characters or markings, so it is easier

119 to create materials in any word processing program or on a typewriter [Ningewance 1999:7-9]. It is also the one used in many texts, including Nichols and Nyholm’s Concise Dictionary of Minnesota Ojibwe, a widely used text even outside Minnesota. Ojibwe Zagaswe’iding members jokingly refer to it as “the bible” [Gresczyk 1997:7]. As one of the few widely available Ojibwemowin dictionaries, it constitutes a singular force of standardization. This is amplified by its use in the major language programs such as those at Bemidji State University and the University of Minnesota, which is currently positioning itself to become a major center for certifying Ojibwemowin teachers at the college level. Issues of literacy, standardization, and textualization touch upon myriad values underlying Ojibwemowin revitalization in theory and practice [Mignolo 1995]. Flows of Literacy Literacy itself is the subject of competing and conflicting stories. The debates over Ojibwemowin literacy fall into two themes. One attitude is that Ojibwemowin, to use a generalizing paraphrase, “was always an oral language.” This is intended to imply that literacy is somehow not traditional, not proper, or not natural and therefore inauthentic and polluting. The other is a fear that entextualization will somehow give outsiders access to the language, or even do damage to the language itself. This section will examine these themes with attention towards the long history of written Ojibwemowin. I do not intend to silence the debate over literacy, it is my hope to disentangle ideologies of Ojibwemowin literacy from ahistoricism so that the terms of the debate can be tailored according to particular circumstance, community goals, and shared understandings of the stakes for language revitalization.

120 For this purpose, I will present a brief, and admittedly overgeneralizing overview of literacy across Anishinaabewakiing. This is intended as a contribution to the idea that “Ojibwemowin was always an oral language,” a sort of “yes, but” addendum. Obviously, with the exception of certain artificial languages, language preceded literacy. However, there remains debate over whether or not language preceded symbolic thought as evidenced by artistic representation of reality, including pictographic representations of that reality. For the purposes of this section, and for the purposes of the Ojibwe language revitalization community, a distinction between pictographic representation and ideographic representation is a political determination. For some, the very name Ojibwe is related to the word ozhibii’ige, meaning “s/he writes.” The commonly accepted reason for this etymology, as described in Jones [1995], is that one distinguishing feature of the Ojibwe was the practice of birch bark pictographic writing and the maintenance of birch bark scrolls of such records. The use of scrolls goes back at least 5 centuries, and are generally regarded as extensions of far more ancient petroglyphic writings dating to thousands of years ago. If one takes on an evolutionary perspective, then it is arguable that pictographic representation of reality largely coincided with the achieved ability for symbolic thought, so that the origins of language and the origins of writing—here, admittedly, largely defined—are not as far apart as they are often made out to be [Noble and Davidson 1996]. Among the Ojibwe, however, the origins of pictographic representations and the continuity of literacy practices requires a rather long view of history.

121 “Let Them Burn the Sky” During the Minnesota Indian Education Conference in 1997, Tobasonakwut Kinew delivered a keynote address. As a part of his presentation, he related a story drawn from his long associations with his Uncle and teacher. Kinew is an Ojibwe Elder and a former Chief at Onigaming in Canada. He was educated in Ojibwe traditions as well as in residential school. He describes himself as “a political animal” and is concerned with revitalizing Ojibwemowin as part of a conscious nation-building project connected to the political, intellectual, and moral revitalization of Ojibwe people as Ojibwes. Himself possessing a curious and skeptical mind, he is unafraid to question Ojibwe traditions. During this keynote address (and this was not the only time I heard him relate this particular story), he spoke of how the Black Robes—the Missionaries and Priests who often preceded other colonialist intrusions—would collect and burn the birch bark scrolls that contained Ojibwe religious and historical teachings. The story was of the time when he pressed his Uncle with questions as to how to respond to the deliberate destruction of Ojibwe teachings by the colonizers. He asked his Uncle, “What do we do if they burn all our scrolls? Will we be lost then? Will all be lost then?” His Uncle replied that, “No, let them burn the scrolls. If they burn all the scrolls, we still have our sacred pipes, and they, too, are inscribed with the teachings on the scrolls.” So Kinew asked his Uncle, “What do we do if they burn all our sacred pipes? Will we be lost then? Will all be lost then?”

122 His Uncle replied, “No, let them burn the sacred pipes. If they burn all the sacred pipes, we still have our sacred tomahawks, and they, too, are inscribed with the teachings on the scrolls.” So Kinew asked his Uncle, “what do we do if they burn all our sacred tomahawks? Will we be lost then? Will all be lost then?” His Uncle replied, “No, let them burn the sacred tomahawks. If they burn all the sacred tomahawks, we still have our sacred rock art, and they, too, are inscribed with the teachings on the scrolls.” So Kinew asked his Uncle, what do we do if they burn all our sacred rock art? Will we be lost then? Will all be lost then?” His Uncle, by this time likely agitated, replied, “Let them burn the sky!” Kinew stated that this final answer confused him greatly. He wondered what his Uncle had meant, and he carried that question out on a fast. I will not go into description of fasting here, except to say that in this instance the intent was to hold the question of what, exactly, his Uncle had meant firmly in mind in hopes of receiving an answer. Kinew said that during that fast, one night, he looked to the stars. There he could see, inscribed in the constellations, the same patterns and pictures he recognized from the birch bark scrolls. With that recognition, Kinew knew that his Uncle meant that the most important teachings can never be lost forever, because if someone knows how to seek those teachings then they are, in fact, written into the very fabric of the universe. This story gives entrée into a fuller discussion of the values associated with literacy than mere opposition to the written word as a reactionary stance to the problems of representation, intellectual control, and misuse of entextualized materials by or about

123 the Ojibwe. Further, we can see the potential role that literacy practices—and particularly Ojibwe literacy practices—can play in the revitalization and maintenance of Ojibwe language and culture. Through acknowledgement of this intellectual heritage of literacy practices, contemporary authors, teachers, and learners of the language can justify their own use and development of written materials; Ojibwe author Louise Erdrich’s travelogue Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country reads as such. Erdrich meditates on the connections between her authorial works and the pictographs shown to her by Tobasonakwut Kinew, and the further connections between those pictographic works (and, seemingly, her own books) are represented as evidence of ideological continuity between the creators of rock art and contemporary Anishinaabe people. She writes, "And in truth, since the writing or drawings that those ancient people left still make sense to people living in Lake of the Woods today, one must conclude that they weren't the ancestors of the modern Ojibwe. They were and are the modern Ojibwe" [Erdrich 2003:6]. Further, she highlights efforts to learn and use Ojibwemowin in her work and in her life. She describes these efforts, again, as continuity with “those ancient people” and connection with “the modern Ojibwe,” stating, "And as the words are everything around us, and all that we are, learning Ojibwemowin is a lifetime pursuit that might be described as living a religion" [Erdrich 2003:87]. Of course, there is obvious self-interest in this representation, but marketability of her own authenticity should be taken as tangential to the degree to which her celebration of ideological continuity through literate practices dovetails with a more broadly shared community desire to reclaim historical practices and experience as a part of revitalizing Ojibwe language and culture.

124 This system of redundant cultural mnemonic devices, from scrolls to the stars themselves, reveals a further parallel. Just as these objects and associated practices reinforce and reflect cultural resiliency in both language and practice, each context as marked by particular objects is analogous to distinct yet mutually reinforcing social venues for Ojibwemowin practice. Just as the missionaries, or at least the amalgamated social memory of missionaries animated within the story, sought to destroy these sacred objects as fulfillment of their role in colonization, colonizing forces enacted through these and other agents sought to destroy or erase social venues for Ojibwemowin use. It is useful to consider the arc of language shift away from Ojibwemowin as a systematic loss of venues for language use. Initially, due to the simple fact of mutual unintelligibility, interactions between the Ojibwe and the French, and later the English, Ojibwemowin lost primacy as a medium for exchange. This is not to say that Ojibwemowin was not frequently, or even perhaps most often, used for intercultural communication. While many missionaries, traders, and other intercultural agents did attain at least some proficiency in Ojibwemowin, the nature of the interactions often precluded framing of those social spaces as being particularly Ojibwe. Predominance over the exchange was unevenly shared. Many Ojibwes, of course, also attained at least some proficiency in French, English, and other languages as necessary to interact with others. However, as colonization advanced, and as the power differentials between the Ojibwes and their colonizers became increasingly articulated, the meaning of linguistic accommodation on both sides changed. Ojibwemowin use by non-Ojibwes went from instrumental for immediate interactions and exchange, to instrumental for encouraging further assimilation of the Ojibwe into colonial practices. Later, this went on to become

125 an aesthetic activity, often connected to romantic notions of “the Indian” as Noble Savage standing in (for a) critique of modern colonial society within early American literature [Carr 1996]. Along the way, as economic interventions into Ojibwe society increased with the rise of the fur trade and later pressures towards first agricultural and then wage labor economies, Ojibwemowin lost standing as a medium within economic venues. My grandfather, whom I referenced before, was proficient in several languages as necessary for the success of his trading post. Northern Minnesota was home to Ojibwe, Dakota, Swedish, German, and Norwegian peoples, not all of whom were able to speak English, and my grandfather had to be able to communicate with them all. However, English obviously ascended to top importance as American monolingualism became more and more expected, or demanded. English has become the language of economic life, and with the English language came a shift in values and orientations wherein indigenous languages are rendered increasingly obsolete [Perley 2011:52-54]. The onset of treaty making marginalized Ojibwemowin within intercultural politics. The treaties themselves codified rules and expectations for behaviors into colonial languages, as well as overwrote indigenous territory with colonial symbolic systems of measurements and boundaries. Treaty provisions for tribes reflected an intrusive paternalism that not always clear in its intent to indigenous signatories. For example, treaties often provided financial and practical support for missions and educational institutions that quickly extended their influence beyond the religious and intellectual realms to become sites of bodily control and regimentation, as well as linguistic crucibles intended to burn away the “impurities” of indigenous languages.

126 Provisions for the health and dietary well-being of tribes within treaties further extended bodily control over indigenous peoples as colonial food commodities replaced traditional subsistence foods, as became necessary due to the massive expropriation of land and resources. Governmental delivery of medical care, too, became a vehicle through which indigenous bodies were (and are) controlled, most egregiously evident in the rate of Native women who were unwittingly/unwillingly sterilized in Indian Health Service facilities in the last century. Along each of these axes of control flowed language shift from the indigenous towards the colonial as a part of a deliberate project intended to “civilize” Native peoples. Indigenous spaces of health care, as well as behavioral and epistemological socialization, were increasingly replaced by colonial institutions, with the accompanying loss of venues for indigenous language use. Treaty negotiations did employ a variety of translators to assist indigenous peoples understand the process, but the role of these agents was not as straightforward or mechanistic in providing direct, neutral transposition of one vocabulary and grammar for another. The educational provisions of treaties turned Native minds into sites of ideological and practical intervention. Children became, and remain, the target for this work, but it must never be forgotten that the goal was for a lifelong orientation towards hegemony and incorporation into the modern political economy. This necessitated expansion of the colonization of social venues beyond individual Natives and into collective Native spaces. Education of children moved beyond day schools and into residential schools to disrupt intergenerational and social transmission of indigenous knowledge, language, and practices, thereby intruding into the domestic venues of

127 indigenous life. When that proved less than effective to the colonial project, day schools were replaced by residential schools, further separating children from their families. Eventually the students were removed to residential schools far from their homelands, and prevented, directly or indirectly, from returning home for summer breaks because, it was feared, to allow students to return home at all would encourage backsliding into “primitive” lifeways—the trope expressing this neurosis was a fear of students “going back to the blanket.” Summer “vacations” were often replaced with indentured servitude masquerading as work-study, as girls were assigned as domestic servants in non-Native homes, and boys were assigned to agricultural or industrial labor in non-Native farms and factories. Schooling and employment locales were not venues for indigenous language use, and the alienation of students from their families for so long (on average, a Native boarding school student would go ten years without seeing his or her family) removed the domestic and family venues for language use. Economic pressures to conform to the market economy, too, carried pressures to shift away from Ojibwemowin in domestic spaces for fear of somehow preventing or discouraging family members from attaining the requisite proficiency in English to earn a living. Thus, English language programming, best evidenced by boarding schools, easily extended its immersion inside Ojibwe domestic spaces. This intrusion into indigenous family life did not end with residential boarding schools. One architect of residential boarding schools for Native children, Colonel Richard Pratt, envisioned colonial education as a transitional step towards complete assimilation. His “final solution” was to mandate the total removal of Native children from Native homes through adoption into White families, thereby preventing them from

128 ever “going back to the blanket.” This vision became official US policy with the Indian Adoption Project of 1958, which, along with other less official avenues for child appropriation, resulted in 25-40% of Native children in the US being adopted or fostered out into non-Native homes. Clearly the intent was to destroy, or at least erase, the home as a venue for language use, as well as transmission of indigenous values and teachings. In the spirit of full disclosure, I must indicate that I am an adoptee, but my story is exceptional. At the time and place I was born, in Minnesota, one in four Native children were adopted out to non-Native families. The county social worker handling my case thought it would be a good idea to suggest my placement with my adoptive family since my adoptive father is also from White Earth. This was not the case with my birth siblings, who were placed in non-Native homes, other than an older sister who was placed with her biological aunt and raised to believe that her aunt was her biological mother. This older sister initiated reunification in 1991 after her—our—dying grandmother revealed this secret. If the goal of reversing language shift is to re-place Ojibwemowin, it is helpful to be conscious of the target venues for revitalization. Looking at the colonial history of language shift as a loss of social venues for Ojibwemowin, the ideological terrain of Ojibwe language revitalization comes into particular relief. The trajectory of language loss progressed from externally-oriented venues such as economy and politics towards more internally-oriented venues such as the family home and the mental spaces within each individual. This trajectory carries with it a range of epistemic orientations, as well, harkening back to my theoretical underpinnings represented in Figure 1. As the venues associated more with the Objective/Empirical, Interpretive/Hermeneutic, and

129 Experiential/Empathetic epistemes become increasingly colonized, the Spiritual/Reflective episteme becomes more heightened as a site of resistance and selfdetermination. In other words, as the economic, political, bodily, aesthetic, and familial venues for Ojibwemowin use fall away, the last stand for Ojibwemowin practice is relegated to ceremonial contexts. This is not to say that the former venues do not or did not reflect spiritual engagement or ceremonial practices, or to say that ceremonies do not have economic, political, bodily, aesthetic, or familial aspects, but it is to say that one feature of colonization—“modernizing” project that it is—is to desecrate social spaces so they fit into an imposed definition of rationality. This heightening of ceremonial contexts for Ojibwemowin use highlights several contradictory and contravening ideologies that must be understood for language revitalization to be liberatory. If Ojibwemowin itself is a sacred gift from the Creator, as it is represented by several language activists, then how might that persuade or dissuade Ojibwe people with regards to language revitalization? Language activists mobilize the persuasion of the sacred to encourage a seriousness and clarity of the mind. As seen in the responses from the language table, emphasizing the sacredness of the language itself serves to alleviate anxieties related to identity alienation arising from both the historical legacy of colonialism and the contemporary devaluing of the (indigenous) sacred. The sacredness of the language, and its associations with sacred ceremonial practices, opens a pathway towards rehabilitation of individuals atomized by colonial history towards an imagined community of ideological and practical continuity to precontact—or at least premodern—Ojibwe life. Thought of this way, the “sacredness” ideology may be reduced to a simplistic, and

130 oppositional, mode of ethnic boosterism or a mere identity project. It is not my intention to argue that such a reduction is accurate, much less at all helpful towards understanding revitalization efforts. Rather, this valuing of the language itself as sacred must be considered as evidence of the dire stakes resulting from the history of language loss itself; the importance of the sacredness of Ojibwemowin reflects the need to protect what may be seen as the last bastion of Ojibwemowin use. The association of Ojibwemowin with sacredness carries along certain presumed indexicalities. As I said above, proficiency in the language often leads to an assumption that the speaker is especially culturally proficient, here in the domain of ceremonial practices. Proficient speakers, even semi-speakers, are often assumed to be spiritually exemplary, in possession of arcane knowledge, having participated in ceremonies, or even qualified to conduct ceremonies. Given this, it is important for speakers and semispeakers of Ojibwemowin—especially those who are language activists working on the visible stage of revitalization—to avoid mystification of their own biographies. It is especially important for language activists to disallow an erroneous presumption of their cultural competencies, if only to avoid overstepping their own authority and intruding upon the still-present expertise of Elders and other recognized, established community leaders. Stories as theory can, with a critical mass of awareness, help to maintain the integrity of cultural practices. This is especially important, given the disintegration of traditions enacted by colonial policies and resultant loss, as well as a defense against cultural appropriation. Stories underlie practices, and thus knowledge of the underlying stories affords protection to both the practice and the practitioner. Knowing the story

131 behind a practice allows a person to interpret how that practice fits in with other practices—if at all. While this use of story as theory may be used to police the content and expression of cultural practices on the basis of presumed authenticity and subsequent exclusions in the name of “purity,” stories may also be used to rationalize the adoption of useful practices from outsiders. This helps, too, to deal with one result of cultural appropriation by colonizing agents. For example, the above discussion of the rhetorics of sacredness and its relationship to Ojibwe social reproduction could lead to a perceived need for more sacredness no matter what the source. Cultural appropriation by colonial agents has as long of a history as colonization itself. Since cultural appropriation is at least partially an incorporating move wherein alternative, subordinated cultures are selectively idealized within the limiting terms of unrelenting domination, the objects of appropriation may be folded in to the legislated or otherwise hegemonic definitions of “authentic” indigeneity. For those subordinated cultures, then, such decontextualized colonial appropriations may become desired as markers of national distinctiveness. However, the stories underlying these appropriated objects will have been transformed or perhaps even absented. Without adequate relevance or provenance, as evidenced by intertextual cohesiveness with the local canon of story-theories, candidates for (re)appropriation by indigenous peoples can be rejected. Stories, as theory, can be used to evaluate the propriety and usefulness of practices introduced from outside communities, and thus to increase overall self-determination. This use of stories as theories is also used to evaluate the candidacy of persons into the project of language revitalization. If self-determined egalitarianism, or at least equal opportunity within cultural roles, is intended, then revitalization participants—and

132 especially leaders—must strive to present themselves as constructed social beings with their own complicated, or even compromised, origins. For example, rather than allowing language students or community members to presume that my Ojibwemowin proficiency (such as it is) is the result of cultural immersion or even in-depth interactions with esteemed Elders, I think it important to foreground that my own exposure to the language came first as a teenager, and then only incidentally. My training in the language did not start until I took Ojibwemowin in college, where I studied it mostly as a foreign language—with all the pedagogy that implies—with only slight accents of heritage sprinkled throughout. In this, I share much in common with many of the language activists I worked with. Most of us had to get at least a couple of years of formal study and memorization through drilling of vocabulary and grammar within an institutional educational setting before embarking on community-based learning in less institutional settings. In my experience, clarifying my own development as a language learner makes attainment of proficiency seem more accessible to non-speakers than romanticized, or otherwise obfuscated, origin stories. The “Let Them Burn the Sky” story merits further analytical extension beyond its argument for the ideological continuity of literacy practices for the Ojibwe. The opposition between the Ojibwe people and practices and those practices introduced by missionaries reflects an arc parallel to the story of language shift away from Ojibwemowin. Tobasonakwut was curious as to the extent of redundant systems of control over Ojibwe knowledges. Each of these material objects of memory containment are associated with particular practices that, while substantively different from one to the next in a formal sense, maintain similar connections to Ojibwe epistemology. In other

133 words, while the uses associated with sacred pipes are formally distinct from the uses of sacred tomahawks, both objects reflect a similar process of knowing what to do with them. I will not go into these “doings” here. But as they share an underlying epistemic orientation, they can be taken together. Through that epistemic orientation, as well as through association within the story as told, they all contribute to the resiliency of cultural memory as inscribed in material objects used, remembered, and respected by Ojibwe people. For my purposes, the salient feature of resilience lies in the intimate connection between linguistic competency and cultural competency, with both being (at least potentially) embodied in practice. Rather than being a taken-for-granted ideology, the connections between language and identity must be consciously taught and learned. Ojibwemowin Teaching and Learning This brings up the ideologies associated with teaching Ojibwemowin. While the lack of a standard orthography and the difficulties of teaching a language which has wide dialect variance present problems for teachers, the value accorded to teachers themselves tend to mask these practical problems. As we have seen in the written texts responding to the oral ideology, native speakers are especially valued as teachers. Founded in 1969, the American Indian Studies Department at the University of Minnesota required Ojibwemowin teachers to be native speakers, with or without an advanced academic degree. It is generally agreed upon that native speakers know Ojibwemowin better than second-language learners. As native speakers, they are presumed to carry more authority and authenticity as Ojibwemowin teachers. They would also be better able to deal with the varieties of Ojibwemowin dialect, and more easily navigate the bumpy ideological terrain here described. However, institutions are often insufficient in their support of

134 language teachers who lack formal teaching experience; teachers have been marginalized in matters of professional development and course management. In addition, native Ojibwemowin speakers are not necessarily more aware of grammatical rules or other unconscious competencies than native speakers of any other language. The increased demand for teachers of the language, and the dying off of native speakers, has led to hiring second-language Ojibwemowin speakers. Most of these teachers learned Ojibwe at the college level, and thus have some experience with college course structure and navigating academic bureaucracy. There is now a push for formal certification of language teachers to fill the openings at tribal colleges who desire Ojibwemowin courses and are seeking accreditation. Given the steady increase in average age of native Ojibwemowin speakers, the native speaker ideology is giving way to a more realistic perspective on hiring teachers, but the preference remains. This calls attention to another ideology of teaching and learning Ojibwemowin: ideas about fluency. I have heard repeatedly that a native speaker of Ojibwemowin would never self-identify as a fluent speaker. This ties into the value of humility, but there is more to consider. As a language comprised of many dialects, to call one person fluent elevates the dialect that person speaks as the standard. Also, since the language is seen as a living thing, to apply a measure of fluency would be a container, a sort of cage, or perhaps a limit to the language itself. To attain fluency is to conquer or own the language. Thus, hypercorrect Ojibwemowin production is fair game for criticism. This ideology is new, and not yet as stereotyped as the “when a language dies, a culture dies” ideology. Its usefulness may lie in informal social controls over these Ojibwemowin as a second-language speakers. I have most often heard older women tease young, male

135 Ojibwemowin activists and teachers (which are predominantly male—this is a matter requiring further investigation). This may be a balance to the ideology that language is culture; such teasing is a reminder that there is more to social competency than speaking the language. At the very least, it highlights the additional importance of pragmatics to learning Ojibwemowin. Additionally, since language and culture and identity are so intertwined, Ojibwemowin proficiency is taken as an indication of cultural authenticity. Since the language us seen as a precious connection to heritage, even minimal, emblematic use becomes a claim to authenticity as an Ojibwe person. Knowledge of even a small part of the language indicates further knowledge, and as the apparent level of proficiency increases, so, too, does the amount of the presumed knowledge. A “fluent” speaker, therefore, is often taken as not just a linguistic expert, but as a cultural expert, as well. This presumption carries with it further presumptions as to how that person became an expert. Keller Paap, the longest-serving teacher at Waadookodaading, for example, is a strong proponent of full immersion as a method of teaching. Because of this orientation, and because of his level of language proficiency and current connections with Elders and other respected language activists, I have heard several people remark upon their presumption that he learned Ojibwemowin through full immersion, or at least through the master-apprentice model with several Elders [Hinton, et al. 2002] . Many people are surprised to learn that, in fact, Keller was my TA in Ojibwe at the University of Minnesota in 1995, and only had one more year of study under his belt than I did. He deserves much credit and respect for seeking out Elders and community members for further language study, but he—like most second language learners—needed initial

136 instruction in vocabulary and grammar in a classroom setting before embarking upon his many master-apprentice relationships and immersion into Ojibwemowin. Related to the native speaker ideology is the native learner ideology. It is thought easier for an Ojibwe person to learn the Ojibwe language, because it is less a matter of learning the language as it is rediscovering the language already inside the person. The following quote, taken from the Introduction of an Ojibwemowin phrasebook, reflects this ideology: We believe that the Creator gave all nations a unique language and way of life. Learning this language and culture is a spiritual activity. For those who are descendants, we believe that it is a part of a genetic memory and what a person must do is learn back the language; it's already inside you. It needs to be brought out and this can happen by becoming reacquainted and reunited with the Anishinaabe way of life. Let the desire to learn Ojibwe be a part of your dreams and your prayers and with hard work, motivation and continuous effort, you will make progress. - Clark and Gresczyk 1997 I remember hearing this same idea as I sat in my first-year Ojibwemowin class at the University of Minnesota. I recall feeling embarrassed that I, as an Ojibwe person in an Ojibwemowin class, was having more difficulty learning Ojibwe than some of my nonOjibwe, even non-Native, classmates. How, I wondered, was I falling short as an Ojibwe? I eventually learned that there are social and environmental factors that impact the level of commitment to learn Ojibwemowin among Ojibwe students that may not be present for non-Native students. Delores Wakefield, an Elder from Leech Lake, was my first Ojibwe language teacher at the University of Minnesota. On the first day of class, which was also her first day of teaching there, remarked within her opening comments that “Kids these days don’t speak their language because they are ashamed.” In her following remarks, it seemed

137 that she was including as “kids”—with the deictic “their” before “language”—Ojibwe college students, some of whom were in the classroom. Including me. Now I must admit that, as a young, eager, college student with a background in activism informed by tribal nationalism, I disagreed with her remark. Not out loud, because like any decent Ojibwe male, I was (and remain) scared of Elder Women, but I did not accept her claim. I enrolled in the class, wanting to learn Ojibwemowin, as a part of a nationalist identity project. I believed I was not ashamed of my language or identity; I believed I was proud of both, or at least proud of my identity and proud to start finally learning Ojibwemowin. It was not until 2 years later that I finally understood more fully what she meant. My first daughter was born in 1997. By then I was in second year Ojibwe language classes, and still learning about Ojibwe practices beyond language. My daughter had a difficult birth, and for the first few months had difficulty sleeping. She also appeared to see things no one else could see. Several people commented on this behavior, and again I would be reminded that babies are just as revered as Elders for a similar reason—both babies and Elders are in closer proximity to death, or the other side, or the spirit world, or whatever descriptor felt most reasonable to the person making the comment. All I knew is that sometimes she would appear to see something, trace its movements with her eyes, and I would see fear and upset growing from her facial expressions into full-on wailing. I wanted that to stop. I wanted to be able to help her. I wanted to comfort her. I felt powerless. On one particular night, after she reached her full shrieking potential and seemed to be going for a duration record, I was again feeling powerless. However, my mind was suddenly filled with an address, a speech ostensibly to the source of her distress. It was,

138 and likely remains, the largest piece of singular Ojibwemowin discourse I ever held in my brain. I knew, or at least wanted to believe, that by saying these words, these sentences, these phrases that I could comfort my daughter. But I could not say them. It was at that moment when I realized what Delores was talking about. I was afraid to speak my language, not because I didn’t know it and not because I wasn’t proud to be Ojibwe. I did not say out loud what was in my head because I was ashamed that I might not be Ojibwe enough. Because the speech was directed towards the unreasonable, the unseen, perhaps some spirit, I did not feel entitled to speak. I was by then immersed in the ideology that the Ojibwe language is a spiritual language, and because of this distinction full use of Ojibwemowin as directed towards spirits was a role reserved for Elders or other specialists. I am pleased to report that Delores Wakefield was in attendance at a presentation I made to the Minnesota Indigenous Language Revitalization Summit in 2005, and that after my talk she raised her hand, asked if I remembered her, and I was able to share this story with her, and everyone in attendance. It is a rare privilege to be able to tell an Elder who has shared some wisdom when their insight became useful or understood or put into practice, and I am glad I risked telling that story publicly with her. The conversations I had afterwards indicated that the matter of shame as a barrier to language learning is important, and many language activists are attempting to work with, around, or through it so that it can be lessened, or removed, or even healed. The importance of retaining our language is to keep our history and culture alive for future generations. The Ojibwe language is a language that I know for a fact communicates with all of creation. - One response from the Language Table

139 This brings us to the most prevalent ideology, one not limited to Ojibwemowin: the linking of language constituting and justifying a unique culture. Ojibwemowin carries its own history, which is intimately tied to the history of the Ojibwe. First, Ojibwemowin is the basis of aadisokaanag, or the sacred oral histories. While stories of migration, settlement, environmental knowledge, and of the culture hero have been translated, it is felt that full appreciation and understanding of the values contained in these stories can only be gleaned from the original Ojibwemowin. Also, there is a prevalent consciousness of folk-etymologies—explanations for the origins of specific words that reveal important historic or moral values. Dennis Jones, currently the Ojibwemowin teacher at the University of Minnesota, identifies seven etymologies for the word Anishinaabe, the name the Ojibwe use for themselves [Jones 1995:43-48]. The variety of explanations for the word, which is still translated as merely “the Original People” in many academic and other works, makes me forever suspicious whenever I read another tribal name translated as “the people,” especially when there is an adjective involved. Further insights into the perceptions and perceptiveness of people can be found by interrogating further into their language, and it is our responsibility as language learners (and academics) to be sensitive to subtlety, and creative possibilities, within naming and labeling practices. This language-and-culture ideology is apparent in the structure of many Ojibwemowin learning programs. One example, in the Vollom text Ojibwemowin the chapters are organized by specific activities such as maple sugar bush and wild rice harvesting. The courses at the University of Minnesota and other schools are also organized in such units. These follow the seasonal subsistence round, both beginning

140 with autumn wild ricing to correspond with the beginning of the school year. While such organization aims to satisfy a pedagogical need for making the subject matter relevant to the students’ experiences and provide stronger associations for learning the language [Hermes 2005], the ideological attentiveness to “traditions” outweigh these associations insofar that these practical experiences are limited to the occasional field trip or, more rarely, attending a dedicated language camp where such activities are possible. The importance behind Native languages, and the preservation thereof, is to foster the growth of Native culture and our way of life. We would cease to exist as sovereign nations if we lose our distinction from Western society, which is found in the presence of our languages. Language is the fundamental aspect of life. It is our thought process and tool of communication; which is necessary to fully identify with our environment and people. - One response from the Language Table As an academic, I find that it is the aim of the academy to find finer and finer distinctions between phenomena, and where none exists it is to be created so that we can go on about the business of theorizing. In dealing with people in the real world, who do outnumber academics, such distinctions are never so rigid, if they are even found. Ojibwemowin participates in Ojibwe identity at the levels of individual, family, community, and nation. While academics have written volumes distinguishing these categories (and their sub-divisions), I found in the responses from the Language Table a great blurring, even erasure, of such distinctions. I will compromise by making three distinctions: personal, ethnic, and national identities. I was adopted as an infant. I grew up in a non-Indian home. I became enrolled when I was in my twenties. Ojibwe is something that helps make me a complete person in the sense that it connects me with my family's culture. - One response from the Language Table

141 On a personal level, Ojibwemowin is seen as valuable for individual identity and comfort with one’s self. Ojibwemowin is learned for use in ceremony and personal prayers. It is learned to gain personal insights into Ojibwe culture and history so that a parent can pass information on to a child. To learn Ojibwemowin is to undo the pain and shame of being denied the language by school, church, or some other external force. To learn Ojibwemowin is a mark of sincerity and authenticity in being Ojibwe, and intergenerational transfer of the language, knowledges, and culture is highly valued. Both students and teachers of Ojibwemowin will point out that they are learning and teaching Ojibwemowin for “future generations” [See Appendix: 2,7-9,11,13,15]. Learning Ojibwe for an Ojibwe is a must because that is who we are as Anishinaabe people. It deals mainly with identity. If one is to be Anishinaabe one must know their language. If the Ojibwe no longer speak the language then they are only descendants of the people. We must keep the language alive. Our language is connected to our culture and our spirituality. We need our language to stay connected to our ancestry. - One response from the Language Table As a marker of ethnicity, the use of Ojibwemowin is a clear indication of selfidentification. To hear Ojibwemowin from a speaker fulfills the other side of ethnicity, the recognition of Ojibwe-ness by others. This is true across an ethnic boundary, differentiating Ojibwe from non-Ojibwe or non-Indian, and within Ojibwe communities. Speaking Ojibwe with another Ojibwe, even without full understanding between speaker and listener, situates the speaker within an ethnic identity. The use of Ojibwemowin has become a more important marker of ethnic identity, as evidenced in the increased use of Ojibwemowin in more public spheres from academic conferences, professional banquets, to the speeches of powwow royalty.

142 Here we see Ojibwemowin filling in a more national identity. Ojibwemowin Zagaswe’iding follows a rigid self-introduction in the language: a greeting followed by giving your name in Ojibwe (and/or English), then identifying you clan (indicating if you don’t have one or don’t know it), and then identifying what community you are from (usually a reserve or reservation). This situates both who you are and what you have to say for other Ojibwe from other Ojibwe areas. Just as dialects vary from community to community, other details of cultural practice can vary. Among these language learners, it is not acceptable to judge another person unfairly just because their way is slightly different, and clearly explaining a different context defuses potential conflicts or misunderstandings. The goal is to facilitate understanding and cooperation among various Ojibwe communities in order to work together towards common goals. Preservation of Ojibwemowin is a social movement, requiring joint effort among all Ojibwe people no matter where they are from. The Ojibwe Language Table as a Model Program As a part of language revitalization, the Ojibwemowin Zagaswe’iding has become a model adopted by communities across Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, and into Canada. The Language Table format provides a social context for learning and speaking Ojibwemowin. Anyone can come to Language Table, and there is no cost to attend other than time, a bit of travel, and an offering of food. It brings learning the language out of institutionalized education, and relocalizes language teaching. At Language Table, anyone can assume the role of teacher; it is recognized that in Ojibwemowin the root word for “to teach” is the same as the root word for “to learn” (giikinoo’) [Paap

143 1998:personal communication]. Language Table is attended by students enrolled in formal classes, teachers of the language, and interested community members. I enjoy and support the language table and want to help out any was I can to help others learn to speak Ojibwe. Ojibwe was given to the Anishinaabeg by the Creator to communicate with the spirits and one another in this world and the next. I'm glad to help others on their journey which I believe is a spiritual journey. The support is good and we are like a big family that can be there for each other. We want to see a language table started on every reservation and reserve throughout Ojibwe country and other Indian nations. The food is great and every time we meet we begin with a tobacco prayer. This is why our table has been strong. - One response from the Language Table In addition to the weekly potluck meetings, Ojibwemowin Zagaswe’iding sponsors Ojibwemowin immersion camps and gets involved with other language learning activities. These also provide more informal, socially based contexts for learning Ojibwemowin. Language camps occur seasonally, centered on the seasonal subsistence round, and families are welcome. The only rule (besides sobriety and basic politeness) is attendees do not eat until they can ask for food in Ojibwemowin. This serves as good inspiration to learn and speak. In organizing these activities, Ojibwemowin Zagaswe’iding has cooperated with many community organizations and educational institutions around Minnesota, Wisconsin, and in Ontario. These activities increase the visibility of Ojibwemowin, and a greater number of opportunities to learn the language are created. To my mind, the opportunities created for learning the language in an informal social setting seems a perfect intermediate step to getting the language back into the homes of Ojibwe people. As a social movement, Ojibwemowin Zagaswe’iding has entered into the international effort to preserve Ojibwemowin, and it has earned a widespread reputation. Several members of Ojibwemowin Zagaswe’iding have attained professional status as teachers of the

144 language and researchers working towards language revitalization efforts. Keller Paap and Lisa LaRonge went on from the University of Minnesota to help create Waadookodaading, the Ojibwe language immersion school mentioned throughout this dissertation. Other language activists who were involved with the Ojibwe Language Table—at the University of Minnesota and in other communities—are assessing the status of the language in various communities, creating programs and curricula to teach the Ojibwe language, and building a stronger network to bring Ojibwemowin into new areas of media and practice. They are role models. I sincerely hope that my work on language ideologies is useful for them as they interact with communities seeking allies, support, and learners, not just for language revitalization, but for the broader community revitalization that is necessary to create and maintain more autonomous social venues for Ojibwemowin use.

145 CHAPTER 5 STORIES AND ELDERS

Federal policies provide much of the context from which to understand contemporary efforts at language revitalization. Historical awareness must extend beyond abstract legislation to include how the lived experiences of language activists were, and are, shaped in response to imposed policies—both official and unofficial. This chapter provides a necessary historical background of relevant Federal Indian Policy, and then presents several stories and perspectives related by Elders. These stories comment on, and react against, their encounters with institutional interventions into their lives. Residential/boarding school experiences figure most prominently here, and the legacy of educational impositions and its accompanying linguistic, epistemic, and bodily oppression of Native children—who are now Elders—is similarly immediate in the minds of contemporary American Indians. Many, if not most, Native peoples involved in language learning have at least one relative that has recounted to them a variety of firsthand experiences in boarding schools. Barring such familial history, boarding school traumas and practices of forced assimilation are central, organizing narratives to language revitalization efforts, shared time and again within revitalization contexts. Treaties guide Federal governmental interactions with American Indians, while often taking the form of Congressional action. The debate on policy towards tribes shows two basic sides: the progressive or liberal approach that a “civilizing” project was best, and the other side saw extermination necessary or inevitable. The earliest treaties with tribes recognized the presence of missions among American Indian nations, and often elaborated the rights and privileges afforded to missionaries as agents of assimilation and

146 civilization. These varied from treaty to treaty, and by historical contexts. Congressional acts towards American Indians began with the Constitutional Convention’s assignment of the power “to regulate Commerce… with the Indian tribes” to Congress. Within George Washington’s administration, Washington himself advocated for the progressive approach, and while his Secretary of War Henry Knox was less optimistic at the prospect of civilizing Indians, he suggested that missionaries should be sent to live among the tribes. The first Congress funded missionary agents to serve tribal areas in the East, while tribes in the West were deemed too hostile for such efforts [Rahill 1953:9]. The Civilization Fund Act of 1819 was another governmental deployment of missionaries to serve political aspects of cultural genocide through the intellectual and spiritual regimentation of Indians[Tinker 1993:6]. As Federal Indian policy became more systematized, the place of missionaries in the administration of treaty areas became more uniform, while the debate between assimilation and extermination went on. President Grant’s Peace Policy was a watershed moment in the debate over the civilizing project. Grant appointed a Board of Indian Commissioners made up of men “eminent for their intelligence and philanthropy, to serve without pecuniary compensation” [quoted in Prucha 1973:3]. The Board oversaw the fiduciary activities of the Department of the Interior regarding Indians. Grant also turned over Indian agencies to religious denominations, missionaries then controlled who became Indian agents and other staff administering to American Indians. Tribal resistance to white encroachment continued, so more than a decade of the Peace Policy was marked by warfare [Prucha 1973:4]. Language ideology was central to the Peace Commission Report of 1868. The

147 goals, in part, were to use language shift as an assimilative move towards destruction of the national identities of tribes: [T]heir barbarous dialect should be blotted out and the English language should be substituted. … The object of greatest solicitude should be to break down the prejudices of tribe among the Indians; to blot out the boundary lines which divide them into distinct nations, and fuse them into one homogenous mass. Uniformity of language will do this—nothing else will. This attitude against national distinctiveness of tribes continued to fuel progressive assimilation efforts in the 19th Century, and remains an important part of contemporary discourse surrounding American Indian issues to this day. In the 19th Century, the focus for progressive action turned towards transforming American Indians into individualized American citizens, in hopes of finally allowing the United States government to dispense with its treaty obligations. Two important aspects of individual citizenship efforts were severalty of lands and the further development of education programs for American Indian children. While I will write mostly here on the latter, I hope to maintain clarity of the fact that education for citizenship was essential to carry out the destruction of the communal land bases of American Indians and subsequent expropriation of lands and resources unto the colonizers. In 1875, then-Lieutenant Richard Henry Pratt was assigned the command of Fort Marion in Saint Augustine, Florida. After the Civil War, Fort Marion was a prisoner of war camp for captives from the frontier wars. Pratt believed that it was possible to educate American Indians, and saw their assimilation into American life as a better option than to continue the expensive Indian Wars. Pratt introduced classes in English, religion, industrial arts, craftsmanship, art, and guard duty, and drew upon volunteer teachers to deliver curricula. Pratt’s efforts at training these prisoners, and at mobilizing

148 practical and financial support from progressive citizens and volunteers, led to his model being adopted by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. With the support of Senator Pendleton and others, the BIA opened the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in 1879, under Pratt’s leadership. As a member of the 19th Century progressive organization, the Friends of the Indian, Pratt did not support the BIA and opposed the entire reservation system of administration as segregationist. The Friends of the Indian advocated for individual citizenship for American Indians, and thus the end of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Growing tensions on this point between Pratt and the BIA led to his forced retirement in 1904. By 1902 there were 25 federally funded off-reservation boarding schools in operation, with a total enrollment of about 6,000 students. The American Indian population within the United States was 270,000. When Carlisle was closed in 1918, almost 12,000 students had attended school there. Additionally, there were over 130 boarding schools operated by missionary groups, most of which received support from the federal government directly or indirectly as a part of the civilizing project. This relationship between the United States government and Christian denominations represents a strong coalition set against American Indian sovereignty—not just American Indian languages and cultures—and a clear intent to reduce American Indians to a simple minority status as a way to circumvent the recognition of tribal nationhood and ultimately end treaty obligations. In this light, efforts at language revitalization can become explicitly directed towards bolstering nationhood, both as reinscription of the distinctiveness necessary for Federal recognition of tribes externally and the internal development of political consciousness.

149 Storytelling is one way to address historical and ongoing relationships with colonial institutions, such as boarding schools. Through storytelling, the use of both Ojibwemowin and explanatory metacommentary in English can serve to rehabilitate relationships to the past, as a matter of acknowledgement and healing of historical trauma and as a matter of bringing a traditional political epistemology into contemporary times, so that those traditions become accessible and relevant to today. Storytelling has highly personal aspects in that individual storytellers must marshal their own memory, skills, and perspective for an audience—and that may involve digging up some painful or difficult topics. Storytelling also has corresponding aspects within the audience, who must also experience the story being offered in its promise of catharsis or explanation, and through its emotional content. That emotional content is not necessarily to be experienced vicariously through the storyteller, but may elicit personal or familial memories on the part of the audience. As an aspect of language revitalization, storytelling continues to be used as a vehicle for teaching and spreading Ojibwemowin. Through listening, transcribing, and translating stories, Ojibwe language students were brought towards a deeper level of instruction while I was at the University of Minnesota. Storytelling is an important means of instruction; it is a vehicle of re-socialization and re-construction of self through Ojibwemowin [cf. Smith 1999:105]. Ojibwe storytellers are often aware of the deep emotions surrounding Ojibwemowin; they are concerned with the emotional well-being of their Ojibwe students who have grown up with a fear and a shame about the language brought on by its historical place in a hegemonic order. Often a storyteller will use the

150 opportunity to comment upon that hegemonic order, and present a critical alternative, as we shall see below. To illustrate just such an intervention, I use a section of a transcript from a lecture given by Tobasonakwut Kinew, an Ojibwe elder from Onigaming. The lecture was delivered on January 13, 1998, to a class given at the University of Minnesota. This data will be used to show how a particular moral order is explicitly presented, and how a path towards achieving that moral order is implied. I also make reference to other speaking sessions not reproduced in this chapter, but I clearly indicate these instances. The class was titled "Ojibwe Winter Storytelling." It was a special topics class offered through the Department of American Indian Studies. The Ojibwe language instructor, Dennis Jones, is the adopted son of Tobasonakwut. This was the second year that the class was offered; Jones taught it the year before, and I was also enrolled in that previous iteration. The prerequisite for the class was enrollment or completion of the first year of Ojibwe language study, or with special permission of the instructor. It was intended for an Ojibwe audience, and the class of 25 was predominately Ojibwe students. It is important to note that a major goal of the class, and of Tobasonakwut in particular, was for (especially Ojibwe) students of Ojibwemowin to take up the spiritual teachings and philosophies underlying the stories he was to present throughout the class. Tobasonakwut is an accomplished speaker, and called upon internationally to meet with world leaders, and within Canada to speak for Aboriginal issues. He has held many official political positions within the Aboriginal Chief system of First Nation governance. He is also a language activist, and one who is committed to maintaining a strong connection between Ojibwemowin and Ojibwe ways of living.

151 The section transcribed comes from the beginning of the third class meeting. Lorraine Jones, wife of Dennis, presented the first class meeting. The second class consisted of a feast for the class, the students, teachers, and the Ojibwe language. Thus, the transcription represents the first lecture (so to speak), and the first moment that the students were seated in rows of desks facing Tobasonakwut, who addressed them from the front of the room. The proceedings were audio- and videotaped. The audio recordings were distributed to students. Student teams of two or three were assigned time segments to transcribe and, if necessary, to translate from Ojibwemowin into English. These transcriptions, tapes, and all other materials were to be collected for possible publication and archived for future use—by whom, exactly, was not really defined. The transcript presented here is from my own collection. I should note that part of the reasoning for my choosing this section to analyze is that its contents, while useful for this paper and my argument, are not esoteric. I have heard other versions of this story in public venues. It is not my intention to reveal personal details of the speaker, which must be respected, but know that Tobasonakwut has been rather public about his life experiences and goals, including most recently agreeing to be the subject of a short documentary produced by his son and aired on CBC. The segment dealt with Tobasonakwut’s experience of sexual abuse at residential school, and is available at http://video.ca.msn.com/watch/video/family-portrait/16a8u2new. I chose to retain the segue into a further topic not as an anthropological tease, but to provide evidence for the type of transitions employed in his speeches. There are other recordings from this class that bear much more directly with health and healing as aspects of storytelling, but I think it would not be appropriate to use them for this dissertation. I

152 believe that my choice serves enough to introduce the concepts and strategies I describe and analyze. The Dog Council Story I now present the transcript. Tobasonakwut begins in English, and then goes into a story told in Ojibwemowin. I provide an English translation in the column on the right. I should say that my translation is not a word-by-word translation. I have chosen to represent the story through a close—but not exact—translation. I have omitted some of the small-scale reduplication inherent in Ojibwemowin21, but tried to retain the noun and pronoun reiterations. As I am not a fluent Ojibwemowin speaker, and this is not a dialect that I have extensively studied, so there are doubtless many mistakes. I take full responsibility for any errors. January 13, 1998 Tobasonakwut, Session Two Do you have any wiike? I don't have any. I usually carry some but I don't have any tonight. You know when—oh, geez, that would be good… When I was a little boy, I was very fortunate, ah, I was born in the Lake of the Woods, a place called Turtle Lake, and ah, I'm the second of four boys. Ah, the reason I say that is because, in the Lake of the Woods, the first boy was always taken care of by the grandparents, taken over by the parents, I should say. And the second one, I was taken over by my grandparents, so I stayed with my grandparents for a long time, and I speak the Lake of the Woods dialect, and ah, I speak Cree, Woods Cree, all the Cree dialects and ah, the reason why I say this is ah, because, ah, when I was growing up, there was no swearing. I didn't know what swearing was, and I didn't know what was dirty and what was clean. I didn't know that, so that's the way my, ah, my mother and my grandparents talked to us that way, so if I say things here that are offensive to you, just let me know. I'd rather that you—miigwech. Ho-wah, wiinge miishijiisi wiike, ha, ha—so just let me know. Aabiding iidog, aabiding iidog gii-ayaawag, animoshag 21

Ojibwemowin is an agglutinating language

In a center, perhaps, they were, the dogs

153 mii go apii giibi-aabitabiboong igo, miij iidog gaa-izhichige'ood ongowe animoshag. Anishinaabemo sa gaa-ichige'ood daabishkoogo ge giinawaa giiwaakoobiyeg. Mii iidog gaa-izhichigeyood ingiye animoshag.

it was in the middle of winter it was what they were doing, these dogs They talked, as they did in the beginning and they could do that It was what they did, those dogs.

Mii iiwidi mishaw'wikom gaadanamikiziyood, gii-ayaawag, gii-waakobi'og, gii-zagaswaayag ikidowag,

It was there they were barking they were there, they could, they were having a council, they’re talking.

Inaadizookaazowag ini animoshag.

They’re telling stories, those dogs

Mii iidog ako giiwaakoobiyood, angoding iidog akawe ezhibazigwiid

When he had talked enough sometime another would stand up that dog in the middle there he goes he speaks, then he would sit down again,

a'a animosh naawe'ii imaa izhaa, gaagido, mii miinawaa ezhi-anabid. Minawaa naagaj, minawaa, minawaa bezhig ezhibazigwiid a'a animosh ezhigaagigidod, miinawaa ezhi'anaabid. Miij iidog gaa-izhiwebadogwen, animoshag iidog gii-ayaawag,

again later, again, again one would stand, that dog he'd talk that way, again he would sit down It would be like that then, the dogs, they did that

Gigiigaagidowag sa iidog mewinzhaa, gaawiin giiyaabi gaagiigidosiiwag

You could hear them talk back then yet now they do not talk.

Indoding idoog imaa bezhig, gichi-akiwenzii asim, gaa-izhibazigwiid, a'aw akiwenzii. Bezhig iidog a'awe animosh gaa'izhiboogidid, mii gaa'izhiboogidid o'a bezhig a'a animosh,

There was one there, a very old dog he’d stand up, that old dog. One dog there farted, It was then that one dog farted.

154 Miij iidog azhigwaa ezhi-anaamendidiwaad gaanash inaa?

It was at that time asked "Who made such a disturbance?"

Aadisooke’aan ini akiwenzii'an "Gaawiin, o'owedi gaagiiboogidid." “Oo gaawiin awedi gaagiiboogidid.” “Gaawiin awedi gaagiiboogidid” Mii iidog gaa-izhigichimiigaadiwaad ingi animoshag.

It was told by that old man, "No, he farted over there" "No, that one there farted." "No he farted there." So they had a big fight, those dogs.

Miij o'owe noongom gaa-onji-ayaad a'a animosh, gii'oobandi'ood animoshag, anjidago gojimaandi'ood,

So now when he comes, that dog, the place where the dogs sit, that's where they would smell

Adiyaa,aang izhigojimaandiwag, "Giin ina gaagiiboogidiyan?"

They would start to smell each other, "Was it you who farted?"

Giingaagii-nishoonaad kamigiziwin, miiye, miinake ayii gaa-inaadizooked a'a gaagi'ogiiyaang, miinake gaa-ikidod.

She told me thus, it was that old story that she would say all the time, she'd say that.

That's what she said all the time, she talked about these things so there was these wolves, I mean these dogs, centered around ah, just as you're sitting, that's what it reminded me of, ha, that's how come I was [laughter in room], e'hem!. So, ah, they all sat around, and they were having a meeting, a council meeting, so at that time dogs could talk, so the ah, one dog got up and related an experience when he was hunting, and how the other young ones should hunt, so, he sat down. Another one got up, relating his hunting experiences, and then ah, and sat down. And throughout the day, that's how it went, till one day, till one time the old dog got up, and related all his experiences, went back, about that time one of the dogs farted. And ah, so, one of the dogs said "You're the one who farted." "No, no, no, it's that one." "No, it's the other one." So they all broke out into a big fight, and today, that's why we see dogs, you know, they smell each other first… "Are you the one that did it?" [Laughter]. So ah, when I went to residential school this story went around quite a bit, and ah, the nuns, and the priests, they didn't like us talking, you know, because "fart" is a four letter word and it begins with "f." That's why, you know, that's where I learn't, you know, that certain things either you don't

155 talk about. When I was growing up, I heard everything from my mother, you know and ah, that's how we spent ah, winter, winter nights. I was telling this to my kids the other day, you know, and ah, in those days we had, didn't have television. And they said, "Geez, you must be old" you know, so that's what happens. Ehim! So I wanted to just say that, because, to kind of put a background as to where I'm coming from, and, we're gonna be talking about Nanaboozhoo as we go along. You’re gonna find Nanaboozhoo, as you know, was all things. They had a good movie about Nanaboozhoo a couple of years ago… Which one was that movie? ["Forrest Gump"] Yeah, that's the one. Everything that Forrest Gump did, you know, it reflects on the American society, Canadian society, you know, and that's the way it is with Nanaboozhoo. But there's something more with Nanaboozhoo that I found very, very interesting… The first thing I notice is how Tobasonakwut22, a man of then about 60, situates himself by birthplace and who exactly raised him. Reflecting his linguistic consciousness, he identifies his own dialect. The details of child rearing he provides, while interesting as facts, also provide some guideposts for interpretation. His identified connections to parents and grandparents connect him to a particular tradition [cf. Asad 1991:316-318]; they index his cultural authority as a storyteller, as a language teacher, and as an Ojibwe23 elder. The connections they reveal are exactly the connections that are missing among all of the students, except for two, enrolled in the class.

22

Tobasonakwut, in a later session, related a story of the assignment of the first name "Peter" and the Anglicization of his grandfather's name from "Kinew" to "Kelly" in residential school. He remained "Peter Kelly," legally, until changing his name officially to his original given name, and retains his grandfather's name as a surname. Thus, his name is explicitly politicized and historicized. In fact, he has encouraged a similar change for me and my children. 23

Tobasonakwut would give me grief for use of the Fiero orthography [Nichols and Nyholm 1995: xxiii]. He is committed to spelling it "Ojibway," and associates the double-vowel Fiero orthography with John Nichols, a linguist at the University of Manitoba who Tobasonakwut believes to have served as an expert

156 The double presentation of the Dog Council story illustrates two strategies. Graham writes of a speaker who uses "the native language to make symbolic gains in situations where the indexical, or pragmatic, properties of an indigenous language are valued" [Graham 2000:19]. Graham also points out how translation can increase the overall symbolic value of a performance as "the positive value derived from the performance can transfer onto to propositional message" [Graham 2000:19]. In this case, the control over translation is reserved to the performer—but only in terms of the referential contents. Higher order meanings, such as metaphor and indexicality, become difficult for the performer to control because they are subject to the Peircean ground and personal imaginings of the listener. In later lectures, it becomes clear that Tobasonakwut is well aware of these limitations; one goal of the class was to introduce particular higher levels of meaning—especially Ojibwe metaphors—to students of Ojibwemowin [Pels 1997:168]. The questions of legitimacy that can arise from encounters with bilingual identity performance, a central concern of Graham 2000, are not present here, for a variety of reasons. First off, the context of Ojibwe students attending a state university selects against a rigid identity purism that would rule the dominant language as a pollution of cultural purity. Further, in later sessions, Tobasonakwut makes full use of his Ojibwemowin competence in order to reaccentuate, and even relexify "'Western' concepts and words" [Graham 2000:31] into Ojibwemowin through creative metaphor and metastorytelling. There was, to understate the matter, a lot more going on than “mere” storytelling. witness against Red Lake Ojibwe land claims based on linguistic evidence [Kinew, personal communication, 1997].

157 The story Tobasonakwut relates could be heard as mere entertainment than as evidence of “the importance of the integration of language, landscape, stories, and what these connections mean for [indigenous] worldviews” [Perley 2011:60]. Given its subject matter, especially as related within a particular moral context, it is humorous24. But it is this moral context that Tobasonakwut aims to subvert. The story is strategically deployed by a person fully engaged in contemporary political struggles for selfdetermination. The story is set up at the beginning by situating his moral compass. He tells the students how when we was growing up he "[D]idn't know what was dirty and what was clean." Obscenity was an unknown concept; he was brought up in a social environment in which it was acceptable to discuss scatological or sexual topics and functions without shame. These things were simply taken as facts of life. He makes a point of warning his audience that what they hear may be offensive to their ears. This warning presumes that at least some in the audience, or perhaps some who have been in his audience before, are situated within a different moral order—and presumably, a nonor not-quite traditional Ojibwe moral order. This presumption is further revealed at the end of the story. The framing of this story within a particular moral context, an alternative moral context, is closed by tying the potential offensiveness of the story to a metonym for the French Catholic moral regimentation: So, ah, when I went to residential school, this story went around quite a bit. And, ah, the nuns and the priests, they didn't like us talking, you know, because "fart" is a four-letter word, and it begins with an "f". That's why, you know, that's where I learn't, you know, that certain things either you don't talk about. 24

I am not convinced, as George Carlin was, that farts are inherently funny [Carlin 1978].

158 Thus, discussion of quotidian biological phenomena only became immoral outside of Ojibwe socialization. It is important to note the violence and degradation associated with Aboriginal boarding schools, perhaps especially in Catholic institutions in Canada where it seems comparatively more heinous abuses occurred than in the (slightly) more secular boarding schools in the United States25. However, I must point out that in preparation of this chapter of the dissertation, I was greatly disappointed to find that academic literature on boarding schools in the United States focused exclusively on Federal boarding schools, thereby ignoring the hundreds of schools operated by religious orders. The boarding school experience is widely known among American Indians, and is especially salient for students of Native languages. The topic of boarding schools is included in the curriculum of Ojibwemowin by Jones, who identifies this history as the major force of Ojibwemowin alienation from the Ojibwe. Thus, everyone in the class had some prior knowledge of the boarding school. In a later session, Tobasonakwut describes his experiences at the hands of the nuns and priests who tried to "beat the language out of me. But they only beat the language into me, deeper in to me, so that I would never forget my language." This experience, as well as his characterization of it, reinforces his own authority; his ability to speak, and his credibility as a language activist and teacher, is tied to a warrior image. If the fight was against his linguistic competence, he has clearly won. Exactly how self-conscious this connection to warrior values is made clear in later sessions, but I will not digress into this aspect any further. More importantly, the legacy of colonial powers coming between the Ojibwe and Ojibwemowin is viewed not simply as an injustice, but as an assault that can only be 25

For background on residential boarding schools in Canada, see Furniss 1995, Miller 1996, and Regan 1993 work on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

159 understood as spiritual and emotional violence, and not just intellectual and physical violence. Such a multivalent pain is something that remains to be healed; it is this healing that most concerns Tobasonakwut. Tobasonakwut clearly states that his goal is a transformation of the Ojibwe into a political force to be reckoned with, and that the key to this movement is Ojibwemowin. He bases this struggle on the language because of the totalizing, holistic connections between Ojibwemowin and Ojibwe culture—history, philosophy, science, wellness, and morals. The model he uses, as evidence by his own introduction to his audience and reinforced in later sessions, is diagrammed in Figure 5:

Figure 5: Situating Identity Within an Ojibwe Universe

The individual is situated first in relation to family, and then in ever expanding social networks. This expansion is spatial as well as conceptual, being both material and

160 spiritual in dimension. Thus, the wellness of the family, the nation, and even the Universe is founded upon the strength and vitality—the health—of individuals critically aware of their place in the Universe. Tobasonakwut is intervening into his audience’s lives with the goal of transformation. This is a moral regeneration, a spiritual consciousness, and a revitalization of humanity. It is healing, writ rather large. His level of commitment to this intervention is reflected in his concern with the lives of his audience, and with the communities at large, with regards to the social problems of alcoholism, suicide, abuse, and alienation. His commitment is evidenced by the number of times he has adopted people as relatives, officiated weddings, and told their Ojibwe names—including, it must be reported, me and my daughter. These acts are his interventions into the social networks of individual Ojibwe so that they can become recentered within a proper Ojibwe Universe and worldview. His storytelling strategies are intended towards this same end, and by making full use of the emergent quality of performance, he has been quite successful ass both an entertaining and challenging storyteller. In Being Ourselves for You, Stanley [1998:170-171] describes the interaction of performer with audience as tacking between two poles he identifies as "politeness" and "embarrassment." Politeness is defined as respect for the expectations of an audience— this entails avoidance of value-laden subject matter or an adherence to acceptable positions. In this position, the performer is constrained by the audience positioning. Embarrassment is defined as challenging the values—and self-image—of the audience through transgressive refraction of audience expectations. In this position, the performer remains somewhat outside of audience control. A skilled performer is able to judge an

161 audience and choose enactments from along this range. Stanley's thesis that "ethnographic performance in a contemporary setting involves a strategic judgment by the performer about the expectations of the audience and the extent to which this performance may be used to offer a critique of the audience's values" [Stanley 1998:172]. Stanley places too simple of an emphasis on the function of "alterity" [1998:173]. For him, there exists a proportionate relationship between degree of alterity (a relexification of "Otherness") and the potential for an exalted state of engagement with "the ethnographic imagination" [1998:172]. When examining Tobasonakwut's lecture, the picture becomes more complicated. We have here a case of a performer mobilizing the tensions between "embarrassment" and "politeness" in a struggle for a change of personal self-image as well as a change in the perception and understanding of Ojibweness. The performer is in many important ways marked as different from the audience: age, gender, membership in a special social group, (to a small extent26) dress, nationality, and (most importantly) linguistic competence. These distinctions are used by both the performer and the audience in order to co-construct the performance experience. However, once this performance is taken as an exercise in counter-hegemonic socialization, there is an important maintenance of the possibility for erasure of some of these distinctions. The performance is an act of leadership by example, and one that promises possibilities for the audience to partake in an alternative hegemony even as the performance presents a critique of the hegemony (presumed to be) currently holding

26

Tobasonakwut appeared dressed in blue jeans, running shoes, and a ribbon shirt. The brand of jeans he wears carries a logo of a soaring bald eagle—which I am sure is not a coincidence. His ribbon shirts, which he nearly exclusively wears while traveling, range from off-the-rack dress shirts with ribbons sewn on them to the more frequent appearance of custom-made shirts. He wears a leather belt with a variety of hand beaded belt buckles.

162 some sway over the audience. Tobasonakwut is making an intervention into the selfimage and self-imagining—individual and collective—of his audience, but for the intervention to take place the audience must met him halfway. The story of the dog council serves several purposes. Perhaps the tale sets a tone of levity, but in order for this to work at the level of humor we must account for the underlying challenge of the (presumed) moral order. Tobasonakwut aims to introduce an alternative perspective on the world. Beginning with what seems to be a light-hearted story about canine flatulence, he smuggles in a challenge to the hegemonic definition of socially acceptable behaviors. He ties the domination of a post-Ojibwe moral code to the history of institutionalized oppression of Ojibwe people. With his comments on the imposition of an alien system of education (and, it is important to remember, institutionalized religion), he demarcates the colonization of the Ojibwe mind and spirit. Concomitantly, an Ojibwe moral worldview in which gastrointestinal and other biological phenomena are not shameful is presented as natural and non-oppressive. Further, he places the zone of contention firmly in the realm of Ojibwemowin. It is through learning the language of the Ojibwe that a person can attain an Ojibwe way of thinking. Thus, a moral regeneration can be had through embracing Ojibwemowin and the alternative ideologies of the Ojibwe. Further, the connections between body, emotions, mind, and spirit are clearly made. The transformative force of this introduction to an alternative worldview, an Ojibwe worldview, is further evidenced by the ensuing topic shift. Tobasonakwut manages to shift from the dog council meeting story into discussion of the Ojibwe culture hero, Original Man—and with a reference to the Zemeckis film Forrest Gump thrown in

163 to excellent effect. Clearly, everything that is presented by Tobasonakwut is filtered and rearticulated within a powerful, persuasive, and dynamically creative Ojibweness. We can look at this performance through theories of identity politics. The lecture is a means of encouraging personal and social change on the part of the audience. Thus, it is instrumental. Graham describes two forms of instrumentality, which she terms firstorder instrumentality and second-order instrumentality. First-order instrumentality is evident in "behaviors or actions that are marshaled to achieve definite, identifiable objectives. … Second-order instrumentality describes behaviors or actions that are primarily deployed to accomplish indirect objectives" [2002:2]. Graham focuses on the potential benefits to be gained from identity-derived behaviors in terms of recognition and respect. In identifying outward identity performance as a political act, Graham cites Bourdieu [1984:483] to connect the political enacting of identity as an attempt "to transform 'categories of perception and appreciation of the social world, and through this, the social world itself'" [Graham 2002:3, emphasis in original]. While we can identify Graham's first- and second-order instrumentalities in Tobasonakwut's lecture, to stop there would miss an important point. Graham's work focuses on indigenous performance and authenticity within an international arena; her actors are directing their identity-based actions to outsiders, and the goals of these actions are situated more outside the group. Tobasonakwut's performance is directed to insiders, and the goals of his actions are situated more within the group. This fundamental difference necessitates the modification of Graham's instrumentalities. There are identifiable goals informing Tobasonakwut's performance—and he is explicit about some of these, such as increasing linguistic and cultural competence, maintaining

164 Ojibwemowin and Ojibwe philosophies and practices. However, he is well aware that, his audience being comprised of individuals possessing degrees of autonomy and varying biographies, the results and measures of these goals remain relegated to an indefinite potential for realization. Thus, I see a range of specified and unspecified goals within both of Graham's instrumentalities, spread as they are across various individuals as well as an unspecified future. In order to allow the audience agency, or even free will, it must be allowed that the first-order and second-order instrumentalities deployed by performers become separable not just in the intent of the performer, but in the perlocutionary effects upon individual audience members—who are themselves characterized by uneven access to transformative powers and arenas to use their powers and exist within variously colonized biographies. This serves to introduce sensitivity to a global structuring of Ojibwe life and lives. Unlike what Graham argues for the Xavante, identity performance is not so much intended to represent cultural continuity in (presumably) external national and international arenas [Graham 2002:32], identity performance is intended to bring cultural continuity to Ojibwe people who find themselves existing within complex national and international arenas. While still a matter of (self) respect and (self) recognition, the emphasis, and onus, is placed upon being ourselves for ourselves. This creates the possibility of Ojibwe storytelling becoming an act of personal autonomy; personal autonomy, decolonization of self, is a necessary basis for larger scale collective sovereignty and total health of individuals and the group. The metapragmatics of Tobasonakwut's performance are complex, as is his audience. Decolonization depends upon these contradictions, counterintuitions, and

165 contestations. Not allowing for these problematics would deny the important individual dynamics of consciousness. This denial would encourage uncritical essentialism, and uncritical essentialism is a necessary precondition for hegemony. We define hegemony to be those unexamined practices that facilitate dominant ideologies to incorporate subordinate ideologies [Weismantel 1988:37] so that the identities of the dominated become imagined only in terms of the dominant ideology. A critical self-reflexivity, a "self-conscious traditionalism" [Alfred 1999] aimed at decolonization of self and others, illuminates the unexamined practices of hegemony. In a sense, these internalized ideologies become intellectually externalized; self-consciousness serves to challenge unexamined practices by making them into objects of study, or at least reflection. That this process occurs within groups who proclaim some level of shared identity and goals, reveals contradictory processes of self-imagining, and serves to problematize reification of the insider-outsider dichotomy. One result of this problematic is that the autonomy of the audience is left more intact as they work out the multiple meanings presented by storytelling. Tobasonakwut later tells his audience that they are free to take his stories in whatever ways they see fit. Audience members are explicitly encouraged to ask questions, and question themselves, in order to find resonance or dissonance with what the storyteller shares. This points to a milestone of Ojibwe socialization; stories are meant to be heard, understood, and reinterpreted. This reinterpretation takes the form of broader, more situated, and strategic associations—the ability to identify and personally tailor multiple morals to the story. This ability marks readiness to become a storyteller, because it is the responsibility of the storyteller to remain relevant to current events,

166 goals, and needs, even as he or she must adhere to tradition—community history and values. Thus, linguistic competence, communicative competence, political competence, and ideological competence are constitutive of Ojibwe cultural competence. By gaining these competencies, participants in the storytelling performance can begin to take on the responsibilities of an inclusive Ojibwe cultural leadership. Empowerment through Ojibwemowin stories is judged as natural, healthy, and desirable personally, spiritually, and politically.

167 CHAPTER 6 WAADOOKODAADING OJIBWE LANGUAGE IMMERSION SCHOOL

The establishment of the Waadookodaading Ojibwe Language Immersion School in 2001 marked an important milestone for language revitalization in the area, offering both a hopeful example of cooperation between Ojibwe people, the local school district, the Lac Courte Oreilles Tribal government, US Federal agencies, academic researchers, language activists, and private funders, as well as exposing the myriad contractions and cross-purposes that continue to shape many efforts at indigenous self-determination. As I moved into the area served by Waadookodaading as a long-time language activist and as a trained anthropologist, I at times reveled in riding the complicated—and at times chaotic—ideological and practical waves surrounding and shaping the community centered around Waadookodaading. Perley identifies three arenas of agency within language revitalization efforts; these are Community, Government, and Academia [Perley 2011:67-68]. Each type of agent has its own constituencies that may or may not overlap with the others. Each type also has its own limitations, both in terms of its structural constraints as well as its level of engagement with, or suspicion by, the other agents. It must be said, though obvious, that academics are most often in this context products of the State, through training, certification, funding, and orientation. Thus the community itself may be the most productive source of guiding criticism [Turner 1997]. The direct limitations on the political agency of language activists working within state-based institutions are so obvious that they comprise much of the critical discourse surrounding language revitalization in general. Anxieties, and resentment, of imposed state standards can be

168 heard around every Ojibwemowin learning context I have attended, especially from community members who are unaffiliated with state institutions. However, this has not stopped state funded institutions from becoming the predominant venue for language revitalization in Ojibwe country, with examples in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan operating, and sometimes cooperating, in their efforts to reverse language shift. Waadookodaading—literally “The Place Where We Help Each Other”—was created in 2001 by young parents who were committed to learning the Ojibwe language and wanted immersion education for their children. Waadookodaading developed in collaboration with local Elders, Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe community members, and the Hayward Community School District. Waawaakeyaash Keller Paap, enrolled at Red Cliff and who grew up in White Bear Lake, MN (a suburb of St. Paul) and Pebamaashikwe Lisa LaRonge, enrolled at Lac Courte Oreilles and who grew up around Eau Claire, WI, are two Ojibwe language activists who teamed with Dr. Mary Hermes, a non-Ojibwe married to an LCO tribal member, LCO tribal member Monica White, and Elder Zhaangweshi Rose Tainter, enrolled at Red Lake but living on LCO with her husband who was an LCO tribal member, to establish the immersion school. The original pilot program was housed within the Lac Courte Oreilles Tribal Elementary School. Their first effort was to secure ANA funding to conduct a feasibility and needs study for immersion programming at LCO. Their research found 10 fluent speakers on LCO, all of whom were Elders. Obviously, the state of Ojibwemowin at LCO was dire, and Waadookodaading presented a possible solution. These findings, and the demonstrated commitment by these activists to both the LCO community as well as the Ojibwe language, led to Waadookodaading being formally charged by the LCO tribal governing

169 board with coordination of Ojibwe language revitalization efforts for the LCO tribe. Waadookodaading language activists launched efforts at local signage in Ojibwemowin around the reservation, more Ojibwemowin content on WOJB (the tribally-owned radio station), and more support for Ojibwe language and cultural curriculum throughout the LCO schools and the local, off-reservation school district. From this basis of community support from local elders, language activists, their local school district, and the Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe Community College, these parents developed Waadookodaading into a State Charter School later that year. This charter school structure gives Waadookodaading more autonomy and much more flexibility over its budget and curriculum than if it were operated more fully within a public or tribal school. The charter itself is negotiated with the local school district, which grants access to many district services such as transportation, student supports, and facilities. Charter school status also allows Waadookodaading to create its own path towards meeting State and Federal education requirements so long as high academic standards are maintained. This allowance, however, does not make this path easy to make, or even find, as I learned in my time serving on the Waadookodaading school board and then as interim director of the immersion school, a topic I will return to later. The charter school movement is commonly associated with socially conservative groups wanting to create an educational enclave in which to inculcate their students with “traditional” values—and allows them certain leeway as far as representing religious viewpoints in their curricula as well as opens up avenues for student recruitment and enrollment based upon criteria that may be unconstitutional if used by a regular public school. Both of these characterizations, it must be said, are also enjoyed by

170 Waadookodaading27, but the main appeal of the charter school structure lies in the financial flexibility. Waadookodaading is able to apply for its own external grants to help fund the school operations, from both public and private sources, in addition to receiving a portion of the per-pupil allowances administered to the school district by the State of Wisconsin. The local school district also serves as the fiscal agent for Waadookodaading, and thus takes a small percentage of each grant won to cover their finance and administration costs, including assisting Waadookodaading with compiling grant reports for both financial and student-based outcomes. So long as Waadookodaading is able to win outside funds, they maintain a certain amount of leverage against the school district to self-direct how their monies are spent, as well as remaining in a better place to negotiate for additional autonomy in their operations. For example, in comparing the per-pupil cost to the district between Waadookodaading students and mainstream students, I found that Waadookodaading was trending downward to match the district-wide per pupil cost, or perhaps even come in lower if Waadookodaading’s enrollment exceeded 35 students in the following year. This finding helped to alleviate some tensions between Waadookodaading and the local school board, some members of which were concerned at the high costs per student at Waadookodaading, as well as the higher salaries paid to 27

I must admit, I was curious to see what would happen if a non-native student from a non-native home was enrolled at Waadookodaading. The closest this situation came occurred while I was Interim Director and a not-exactly local, non-native family inquired about enrolling their child. The family sought enrollment into Grade Two, and under current law, a state charter school can refuse admittance if enrollment would go against a primary consideration of the charter school; in this case, the student would have entered into Grade Two with no prior Ojibwemowin exposure, much less instruction. Informally, between the family and the Waadookodaading Board, the impossibility of the child making up for the lack of Ojibwemowin proficiency was made clear and the family did not pursue enrollment. I am left curious, still, what would happen if a non-native family attempted to enroll a child at Waadookodaading just as a test case based upon an argument (however tenable or untenable) that denial of admittance would be an example of reverse racism or a denial of the family’s civil rights.

171 Waadookodaading teachers compared to mainstream teachers with comparable credentials and experience. Waadookodaading’s justification for the salary differential was, and is, the value accorded to the language proficiency requirements to be an immersion teacher, but this does not fully explain the expenses for the program. At the outset of Waadookodaading’s existence, the cost per pupil was quite high. This was because of the small number of enrolled students, as well as the huge startup costs involved in developing immersion curricula and activities, as well as the carrying out the research and professional development necessary to cultivate immersion teachers and instructional practices. Waadookodaading teachers are key in curriculum development, and their on-site language specialists assist with finding accurate terminology in Ojibwe for concepts that had not, until this school was created, been taught in Ojibwemowin within a school setting. For example, scientific terminology— such as surface tension—needed to be formulated through first explaining the phenomenon to a (usually Elder) native speaker of Ojibwemowin and then assembling the appropriate morphemes to express the idea for teaching and learning. Specialized vocabulary related to every subject area, from social science to language arts to music, had to be developed in consultation with Elder speakers and through the expertise of second-language Ojibwemowin speakers who drew upon their own understandings of the terminology as gleaned through formal education, with reference to archived linguistic data. This level of socially and historically grounded linguistic detail makes Waadookodaading unique among Ojibwe language revitalization efforts. Such focus and attention creates at least the potential for a fully immersive Ojibwe language environment. Obviously, it is highly labor-intensive, and dependent upon specialized

172 research skills as well as the careful creation and maintenance of social networks of experts from a variety of backgrounds who are able to address the myriad of concerns arising from the generation of “new” words in Ojibwemowin. The following chart of the per-pupil cost to operate Waadookodaading was calculated while I was the Interim Director of Waadookodaading using all sources of funding, including private grants, Federal grants from the Administration for Native Americans, and all State and direct District contributions:

Figure 6: Waadookodaading Cost per Pupil, using Total Budget AY 2001

AY 2002

AY 2003

AY 2004

AY 2005

AY 2006

$247,155

$291,451

$487,379

$438,665

$319,908

$320,980

16

20

24

26

27

40

$15,447

$14,573

$20,307

$16,872

$11,851

$8,025

Official figures from the local school district on their cost per pupil are as follows: AY 99 $7168, AY 00 $7541, AY 01 $7970, AY 02 $8378, AY 03 $8401, and an estimation for AY 04 $9402 provided to me by the school district financial administrator for the preparation of the report from which these charts are taken. Thus, depending upon Waadookodaading’s enrollment, the immersion school was on track to match the district wide cost per pupil within a year or two. It should not be forgotten that the school

173 district was still providing facilities, transportation, lunch and breakfast, student mental and physical health services, special education, and student support services for literacy, library and media skills, thereby lowering the operational costs of Waadookodaading by a considerable amount that is not reflected in Waadookodaading’s budget figures. However, in compiling my presentation to the school district, I did find that the amount taken by the school district as Waadookodaading’s fiscal agent exceeded the portion of the school district’s per pupil allowance granted to them by the State for each Waadookodaading student, which means that Waadookodaading’s fundraising activities brought in slightly more monies than were paid out to deliver instruction to Waadookodaading students. The cost directly—that is, not accounting for the indirect student services I just mentioned—laid out by the school district for each Waadookodaading student is charted below:

Figure 7: District Cost per Waadookodaading Pupil AY 2001

AY 2002

AY 2003

AY 2004

AY 2005

AY 2006

$22,818

$25,177

$39,186

$50,900

$44,940

$45,940

16

20

24

26

27

40

$1,426

$1,259

$1,633

$1,958

$1,665

$1,149

The figures above show the solid bargaining position enjoyed at that time by Waadookodaading with regards to their charter with the local school district, even as it may paint a picture that could elicit competitiveness, jealousy, and greed over the financing and control of the immersion school, not just within the school district but in

174 surrounding communities as well. Another charter school within the district received a much smaller portion of the per-pupil grant from the State of Wisconsin to the district, and that caused some controversy. The district itself would reference this high proportion in comparison to the other charter school when it argued for more control of the school through monopolization of financial oversight and resistance to having outside agencies operate as Waadookodaading’s fiscal agent. In smaller, more informal ways, these tensions were voiced through negative comments as to the qualifications of the teachers within Waadookodaading and the insinuation that they are overpaid, mischaracterizations of the preparedness of Waadookodaading students after they transitioned into the mainstream school, and comments that Waadookodaading’s staff, students, and supporters emit an air of superiority. While such slights may be motivated simply by the racism prevalent within the bordertown of Hayward, or the intratribal factionalism of LCO, or mere acts of assertion from larger institutional powers, these sorts of commentaries rise and fall according to the cycles of financial reporting to the district, or when the topic of educational costs become topics of political campaigns, or during the preparation of grant proposals. Within the immersion school community, anxieties over the aforementioned contradiction of valuation between classroom Elders and classroom teachers are frequently voiced as well. One classroom Elder at Waadookodaading, for example, proposed that teacher certification and licensure should utilize Ojibwe standards and measures, even going so far as to propose that the various degrees of initiation into an Ojibwe religious society be considered as equivalent to degree attainment within European style educational institutions. First degree initiation would be, under his plan,

175 equal to a high school diploma, second degree would be a Bachelor’s, third a Master’s, and fourth a Ph.D. He seemed to presume that degrees of initiation indicate accumulation of spiritual knowledge and cultural proficiency; he did not give any indication as to how initiation improved one’s linguistic or, for that matter, teaching abilities. But as an alternative to state standardization of not only curriculum but also personnel, it did inspire further conversations. Another concern I heard at the Elder’s Speak Out event was how lax the state standards for certifying teachers of language and culture within public schools. Larry “Amik” Smallwood described how the State of Minnesota will certify a teacher for Native American Languages and/or Culture with signed acknowledgement of that person’s qualification from a legal representative of a Federally recognized tribe. Amik argued that since tribal council members often do not have much, if any, cultural or linguistic competencies, then tribes have certified underqualified individuals as teachers of language and culture. He also pointed out how such a system has lead to tribal council members certifying teachers solely for the concentration of political and economic benefit unto their own family or faction within the tribe. At that event, others echoed his sentiments and called for Ojibwe language programs to aim for higher standards than those mandated by the state. Amik’s point, however, might not apply to immersion language programs. The scenario described by Amik applies to supplemental, even paraprofessional teachers offering enrichment curricula. Classroom delivery of core curriculum (that is, the materials that are tested by the state) must be made by fully qualified and licensed teachers. It was not made clear at that event how, or even if, it was necessary for teachers of language and culture to satisfy

176 the other credentials required by states of full-time teachers, nor was the feature of a tiered licensing system brought up for discussion. Meeting these requirements is expensive. Clearly the success of Waadookodaading depends upon continuing its fundraising efforts. Their record of winning external grants has given them a strong position to negotiate with the local school district for optimal benefits to their students. Up to, and thankfully beyond, by term as interim director, Waadookodaading has demonstrated consistent success in winning private sector grants to support their programming. In addition, Waadookodaading has become less and less dependent upon state funding as such monies became harder to come by due to the larger economic downturn. However, this is also largely due to Waadookodaading’s track record of garnering grants from the Administration for Native Americans program. This Federal program was created to foster economic development on and around reservations, and after the signing of the Native American Languages Act of 1992, an amendment to the NALA of 1990, in which ANA was charged to manage competitive grants specifically aimed at revitalizing indigenous languages across the country—including the Pacific Islands and Hawai’i. I return to the relationship with ANA later. Additionally, Waadookodaading has received competitive grants to continue its programs from The Lannan Foundation, The Tides Foundation, and The Grotto Foundation, among others. The Lannan Foundation is a family-endowed fund that has as one of its foci the Indigenous Communities Program, which “supports the resolve of Native Americans to renew their communities through their own institutions and traditions. Funding priority is given to rural indigenous projects that are consistent with traditional values in the areas of education, Native cultures, the

177 revival and preservation of languages, legal rights, and environmental protection” [http://www.lannan.org/programs/indigenous-communities/]. Through its Native Language Revitalization Initiative, the Grotto Foundation supports indigenous communities with a $5.6M endowment established in 2001, and grants approximately $350,000 to various programs each year [http://www.grottofoundation.org/nli]. The Tides Foundation connects donors and institutions with member funders, and supports around 200 non-profit programs each year [http://www.tides.org/about/].

Figure 8: Waadookodaading Funding Sources

100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% 2001-2002

2002-2003

2003-2004

Private Sources State Sources

2004-2005

2005-2006

2006-2007

Federal Sources Local Sources

This flexibility of funding sources has made Waadookodaading an attractive model to emulate by other immersion programs, though to date it remains the only indigenous language immersion charter school in Ojibwe territory. Other efforts operate within tribally-controlled schools, such as the Niigaane program at Bug-O-Nay-Gee-Shig School on the Leech Lake Reservation, or the Nay Ah Shing School on the Mille Lacs Reservation, both in Minnesota. Another model is the Enweyang Language Nest, which is an Ojibwe language immersion program for children ages 4-5 operating within and

178 through the Center for Indigenous Knowledge and Language Revitalization at the University of Minnesota-Duluth campus, which has recently become authorized to sponsor charter schools. As part of financial reporting to funders as well as the Hayward Community School District as their Charter Sponsor, Waadookodaading Ojibwe Language Immersion Charter School must publicly report on their grants and budget activities. These reports are in addition to the matters of grant compliance required by the program officers of their various funders. Here are the actual dollar amounts for AY 2001- AY 2006:

Figure 9: Waadookodaading Funding Sources, Actual Amounts AY 2001

AY 2002 AY 2003

AY 2004

AY 2005

AY 2006

Private Sources

34,404

37,382

54,473

49,546

59,700

115,000

Federal Sources

92,485

121,289

280,038

280,040

160,340

160,040

State Sources

115,661

106,823

125,114

22,000

22,000

22,000

Local Sources

4,818

27,247

24,507

35,328

22,940

23,940

These numbers do not include the fundraising efforts of Waadookodaading’s Parent Committee, who sought donations from local businesses and conduct fundraising activities to cover small programmatic embellishments such as snacks for field trips, winter holiday gifts for every student, and additional language learning materials for Waadookodaading’s parent and family library.

179

Figure 10: Waadookodaading Budget by Academic Year

500000.00 450000.00 400000.00 350000.00 300000.00 250000.00 200000.00 150000.00 100000.00 50000.00 0.00 2001-2002

2002-2003

2003-2004

Private Sources State Sources

2004-2005

2005-2006

2006-2007

Federal Sources Local Sources

The spike during AY 2003 reflects the addition of Grade 4 and the onset of their preschool ANA grant, which was amended into Waadookodaading’s charter agreement at that time. For that year, Waadookodaading held two ANA grants simultaneously, their second grant was for FY 2001-2003, and the three-year preschool ANA grant started in FY 2003. Additionally, they held a grant from the Department of Education Office of English Language Acquisition, the funding source for the English Language Arts teacher and English language literacy materials. I made these charts as a part of Waadookodaading’s charter school report to the Hayward School District. For a clearer comparison between Waadookodaading and Hayward, the chart in Figure 11 below makes use of the same categories the Hayward Community Schools Budget Report from the preceding September, and the line- and budget items are grouped in the same fashion. Instruction includes all curriculum line items, including co-curricular activities. Student and Support Services include pupil services, such as field trip transportation, and instructional staff services, such as travel to

180 and registration for professional development programs and administrative grant trainings.

Figure 11: Waadookodaading Expenditures by Category

100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% 2001-2002

Instruction

2002-2003

2003-2004

Student and Support Services

2004-2005

2005-2006

Administration/Operation

The rather large portions devoted to Support Services in the beginning had to do mainly with staff and teacher development and grants management as needed for a new program with long-term goals and specific grants compliance needs. The abrupt increase in the administrative percentage in AY 2004 has to do with a shift in funding sources for expenses associated with Waadokodaading’s Office of the Principal, mainly salary and benefits. By way of (a rather unfair) comparison, Hayward Community Schools expenses broke down as 48.1% instruction, 32.5% administration, and 19.4% student services. This comparison is unfair because as a small charter school focused on a specific goal within a specific population, Waadookodaading’s needs are less diverse than the district as a whole.

181

Figure 12: Staff Employment by Academic Year AY 2001

AY 2002

AY 2003

AY 2004

AY 2005

3 FT teachers

2 FT teachers

4 FT teachers

4 FT teachers

3 FT teachers

1 PT Director

1 FT Director

1 FT Director

1 FT Director

1 FT Director

FT Preschool Director

4 PT Language Specialists

1 PT Teacher

1 PT Teacher’s 3 PT Teacher’s Aide Aide

2 PT Teacher’s Aide

3 PT Teacher’s Aide

3 PT Language 3 PT Specialists Language Specialists

1 PT Language Specialist

1 PT Language Specialist

With corresponding enrollment figures of 16, 20, 24, 26, and 27, this works out to a teacher:student ratio of 1:5.33 in AY 2001, 1:10 in AY 2002, 1:6 in 2003, 1:6.5 in 2004, and 1:8 in 2005. These ratios do not include teachers’ aides. The number of families served in these years is eleven in AY 2001, 12 families in AY 2002, 24 in AY 2003, 23 families in AY 2004 and 2005. The part-time teacher added for AY 2005 taught English language arts to all grades. This was a welcome, if ironic, addition to Waadookodaading’s programming. Supporters of second-language learning often operate under the presumption that students who learn a foreign language within English speaking schools learn English grammar better, and have improved academic performance later on in any language. This is at least because without exposure to other grammatical systems, we tend to remain unconscious of the rules of our everyday language. By hiring an English language arts

182 teacher, Waadookodaading turned this model on its head to excellent effect. One of the third graders placed within the top ten of over thirty schools in the region in 2004 Reading Rainbow Book Contest, for example28. And this small irony does not rule out Waadookodaading’s self-identification as a full immersion school. In fact, the decision to employ an English language arts teacher was inspired by research at the Center for Advanced Language Acquisition at the University of Minnesota, which recommended that second language learning can be beneficially managed through a transition from full immersion towards compartmentalized L1 teaching so long as L2 language learning is carried out as full immersion throughout its more limited time of instruction. This new position also served to alleviate tensions with the local school district, whose teachers and administrators expressed concern that Waadookodaading students entered into mainstream school lacking preparation in English language arts. I am not sure how real that concern was, since nearly every Waadookodaading student lived in an English speaking home and spent nearly all of their non-school time immersed in English. The relations between Ojibwes and non-Ojibwes in the local community was, and is, rife with racism in general, and certainly those tensions played themselves out across every intercultural interaction, from teachers to students (and their families) to immersion teachers and their non-immersion colleagues to Waadookodaading’s school board and the district school board, especially during the periodic review of the Waadookodaading charter, as evidenced by the timing and types of comments directed against Waadookodaading above.

28

In the spirit of full disclosure, that student was my daughter.

183 As a Charter School registered with the State of Wisconsin, Waadookodaading continues to embody a positive and productive intergovernmental arrangement that has empowered Waadookodaading parents and local Ojibwe community members to take more symbolic and practical ownership of the school, as well as join the larger movement towards indigenous language preservation. For their efforts, Waadookodaading has earned a widespread reputation and receives regular requests to share their strategies and models all over Indian Country and beyond. The aforementioned Ojibwemowin programs are in regular contact with Waadookodaading staff and teachers, and during my tenure as Interim Director I received telephone and email inquiries from Michigan and Ontario where other Ojibwe communities were interested in starting their own immersion programs. Waadookodaading reflects a range of approaches, from informal to institutional interventions into the place and status of the Ojibwe language, that reveal the creativity, flexibility, and persistence necessary for any alternative or counter-hegemonic community revitalization. As I reflect upon my involvement with Waadookodaading, laying out not only my praise of their continuing existence but also my criticisms, I hope my readers do not forget that I hold Waadookodaading’s teachers, staff, supporters, Elders, and parents in high esteem. I invested several years of not only research but also practical support in Waadookodaading, and I enrolled three of my children in their programs. All criticisms offered here are not intended to take away from the reputation of Waadookodaading or anyone connected with the Waadookodaading community. Rather, my criticisms are focused as closely as possible on areas that could be improved, and by those improvements could not only strengthen Waadookodaading as an

184 immersion school, but as a focus of community revitalization that consciously attempts to reflect and uphold Ojibwe values, Ojibwe people, and the Ojibwe language as a sacred trust and responsibility. The story of Waadookodaading also relates to other revitalization efforts currently underway worldwide, many of which are unfolding within or in relation to Liberal multiculturalist and state-based institutions. Waadookodaading represents realized and potential gains made as a revitalization movement unto itself, sometimes in spite of and sometimes as facilitated by their relationship to the LCO tribe, the local school district, the State of Wisconsin, and the US Federal Government. However, State recognition and support of the need for language programs opens the door to State input into the hiring and actions of teachers, standardization of course contents that may be antithetical to indigenous revitalization, control over the intellectual property of curricula, and managerial interference backed by the threat of withdrawal of State funding [King 2001:121]. These were precisely the challenges I faced when I agreed to become the interim director of Waadookodaading in 2006. I stepped into the position at a time when the school lost its only licensed and certified teacher, stood to lose another founding teacher due to the lapse of his provisional teaching license, was embroiled in a controversial contract relationship with a non-Native educational consultant hired to bring its curriculum into state and federal standards, lost one small grant for failure to fulfill its funded goals, found itself unable to renew a major Federal grant that was won under rather murky circumstances, and was under hostile review by its primary source of support, another Federal program I will turn to now. During my two month tenure, I oversaw grant compliance reports under threat of losing the primary source of funding: a three-year Federal grant administered by the

185 Administration for Native Americans, an agency under the US Department of Health and Human Services. ANA was established in 1974 by the Native American Programs Act of 1974, and Act “to promote the goal of economic and social self-sufficiency for American Indians, Native Hawaiians, other Native American Pacific Islanders (including American Samoan Natives), and Alaska Native (sic)” [Sec. 802. (42 U.S.C. 2991a)]. The Native American Languages Act of 1992 amended the NAPA to allow the ANA to “award grants … to be used to assist Native Americans in ensuring the survival and continuing vitality of Native American languages” [Sec. 803.C (42 U.S.C. 2991a)]. For FY2006, the immersion school received $175,000 in funding through ANA and they were out of compliance with the grant objectives. In my work to bring the program back into compliance, as well as in an effort to spend down the budget in time to meet grant goals, I had to reallocate monies from previously stated expenditures and into newly developed programs aimed at the same objectives, or aimed at furthering other objectives. Much of this spending took the form of purchasing digital recording software and hardware, as well as a collection of iPods with speakers for checkout by families involved with the school for at-home language learning. Another new item approved was the development of an Ojibwe language learning website intended to be a repository of materials for public use as well as an outlet for immersion school information—including, it must be said, acknowledgement of our ANA funding. These modifications to the ANA budget required approval from ANA. To assist with that process, Waadookodaading’s ANA Program Officer assigned a technical advisor, a grants specialist who at that time worked for the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission. GLIFWC was established in 1984 after the Voight decision, in

186 which the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the rights of Ojibwe people to hunt, fish, and gather within the ceded territories under the Treaties of 1837 and 1842. Member tribes include the Bay Mills Indian Community, Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, and the Lac Vieux Desert Band in Michigan; the Bad River, Red Cliff, Lac du Flambeau, Lac Courte Oreilles, Sokaogon, and St. Croix Bands in Wisconsin; and the Fond du Lac and Mille Lacs tribes in Minnesota. GLIFWC assists its member bands with natural resource management, in setting off-reservation treaty seasons, and with the protection of treaty rights through management, enforcement, legal and policy analysis, and public education efforts. Their efforts are funded from a variety of sources, including Federal grants through ANA and other agencies, and as such could provide Waadookodaading guidance and advice in generating a budget modification request. The process was daunting, but our technical advisor was encouraging. He presented us a set of values and underlying philosophies to guide our modification request, and presented a picture of our position of negotiation in interaction with the larger structure of ANA. Federal agencies have a vested interest in spending all of their money, because to have anything left over at the end of the fiscal year would be taken as evidence of a need to decrease their next budget allocation. So long as Waadookodaading could demonstrate fulfillment of the overall grant objectives and did not shift the expenditures too far from the original allocation by category, we were assured, then the exact manner in which those objectives were met would be supported. This necessitated a shift in my overall attitude and expectations of resistance, but in collaboration with the GLIFWC technical advisor, Waadookodaading’s contracted grants writer, and the Chair of the Waadookodaading Budget and Finance Subcommittee of the

187 Waadookodaading Board, we set ourselves towards reimagining how Waadookodaading could uphold the prior grant objectives despite the necessary changes to actual programming, all under the time constraint of having to implement the changes and spend the money before the next budgetary quarter—as well as before the academic year started. As the summer was quickly passing, the most important budget line item to deal with was the ANA funded summer immersion preschool as well as the family language classes that had not been carried out the previous school year. Knowing we did not have enough calendar days to fulfill the number of family language classes scheduled in the previous budget, we shifted those dollars over into technology investments. We proposed a library of iPods and speakers, to be filled with Ojibwemowin content, and made available for checkout by Waadookdaading families for home practice. We also proposed a language learning website that would contain further language resources as well as provide a medium for dissemination about Waadookodaading’s activities specifically and Ojibwe language revitalization efforts in general. This entailed contracting with web designers, audio recording specialists, graphic designers, and other personnel to generate the web and iPod content. We contracted with local community members for all of these services, as well as with an on-reservation office space from which to operate summer programming and to house these newly developed resources. We also went ahead with a summer immersion preschool, necessarily cut short due to time constraint, and expanded the potential for participation by renting RVs to house local Elders and visiting language teachers, who would be encouraged to offer languagebased activities after formal preschool hours. Further, we wrote in contracts with locals

188 to provide food services, security services, custodial services, and busing service for the summer immersion camp. Soon after the budget modification request was submitted, I received a call from the ANA program officer. She was resistant to our budget modifications, and demanded further explanation and justification. Slightly taken aback given the level of encouragement from our technical advisor, I responded to her questions, repeating our justifications for these proposed changes and further describing how these changes fit into the overall objectives of the original ANA grant. After my first answer to her questioning, she asked me “Are you reading this of something?” I took this as a sign of the strength of our budget modification and faith in ourselves to meet the grant objectives. I’m not entirely sure what she meant, pragmatically speaking, by the question. The budget modification was approved, and Waadookodaading carried out the new activities. This demonstrates the complicated relationship between Waadookodaading and its statist funding. On one hand, the relationship reproduces much of the paternalism that has characterized Federal Indian policy since at least the time tribes ceased to be a military threat to the US. Language revitalization is a resource-intensive activity, requiring people, technology, facilities, and products. Of course it is expensive, and few tribes have the independent financial means to support such efforts. ANA grants have comprised most of the funding for Waadookodaading, and as Federal dollars the funding comes with a particular set of expectations, limitations, and responsibilities—all shaped by the overall political climate of the US. Political activities are expressly forbidden, defined within the rules as contributions of time or labor towards any political party,

189 candidate for office, or lobbying effort. Speaking as a linguistic anthropologist and an Ojibwe, though, language revitalization is inseparable from political action. The fiction of ANA funded activities being apolitical can only be sustained through disregard of the social and ideological work required to reverse language shift, through ignoring the politics inherent in any matter of language status, and through erasure of the historical and ongoing colonial interventions that have threatened indigenous languages from the moment of contact onwards. ANA language revitalization grants must be viewed within this colonial context, and language activists who enter into ANA funded revitalization efforts must not forget that the Native American Languages Act of 1990 read, in part, that: special status is accorded Native Americans in the United States, a status that recognizes distinct cultural and political rights, including the right to continue separate identities; (3) the traditional languages of Native Americans are an integral part of their cultures and identities and form the basic medium for the transmission, and thus survival, of Native American cultures, literatures, histories, religions, political institutions, and values It must be pointed out that The United States, as evidenced by the Native American Languages Act of 1990, takes no direct responsibility for the destruction or suppression of indigenous languages; while the Act may be looked at as progress, it did not initially offer any plans or support for reversing the language shift within indigenous communities, and even the appropriations for grants to support revitalization proffered in the amendment of 1992 do not reflect the level of commitment in terms of time, effort, resources, personnel, supplies, or finances that the US government funneled into their efforts to eliminate indigenous languages over the past centuries [Wilson, in Wilson and Yellow Bird 2005:114-115].

190 Despite this egregious historical blindness, the Native American Languages Act of 1992, the Act that finally authorized grant agencies for the language revitalization projects proposed in the 1990 Act, expressly recognizes “the sovereign authority of Indian tribes over all aspects of their cultures and language” to restrict the dissemination of materials funded by ANA grants. This is an important right of self-determination over control over the learning materials created within ANA funded programs. The matter of increasing inclusion while also managing exclusion along the lines of upholding Ojibwemowin as evidence of national distinctiveness manifested difficulty as Waadookodaading attempted to develop the newly funded internet presence. One concern shared among the staff and board of the immersion school was the propriety of presenting Ojibwe language materials online for public consumption by non-Ojibwes. In collaboration with a school staff member, I coordinated a meeting with local Elders on the LCO Reservation. After talking about the school in general and presenting our goals to reach more people with Ojibwemowin learning opportunities, we acknowledged the issues of access, questions of what to include or not include, and the matter of how to deal with dialectal differences. The Elders reached consensus that it would be acceptable, even beneficial, to get language learning materials out to as many people as possible so long as we do not include sacred or otherwise protected knowledge. Additionally, they came to the consensus position that the immersion school teachers and others who participated in the production of instructional materials should use the local dialect of Ojibwemowin to whatever extent possible, but beyond that the use or representation of other dialects of Ojibwemowin would be acceptable.

191 This concern over dialect reveals the importance of maintaining local community ties and representation of local history within the immersion school. This reveals a contradiction, however, for the language activists involved with school operation who most often do not come from the local Ojibwe community. During my time as interim director, Waadookodaading’s teaching staff consisted of three classroom teachers, three Elders, and two teacher aides. Of these, only one of the aides was from LCO and one Elder, though from Mille Lacs, spoke the LCO dialect due to his mother being from LCO. Towards the end of my time as interim director, Waadookodaading did hire a classroom teacher who is from LCO, though she learned Ojibwemowin as a second language and thus uses the Mille Lacs/Red Lake dialect reflected in Nichols and Nyholm’s Ojibwemowin dictionary. Despite these disjunctures, Waadookodaading’s staff have managed to build community connections to the LCO Ojibwes through alliance and kinship connections across a range of social networks. Language activists mobilize their kin identities to attract constituents—supporters, parents, and students. These kin and kin-like networks open spaces in which to move beyond statist institutional models of instruction, which is necessary to maintain and expand a fully immersive environment. Waadookodaading, for example, operates Family Language Classes that are open to more than just the parents or other relatives of their students. These classes meet weekly during the evening, and are led by a Waadookodaading teacher. On one hand, these classes tend to reproduce the hierarchy endemic to an institutional classroom setting by constructing family and community members as students under the tutelage of a teacher. On the other hand, because these classes are often attended in family groups, and because many of the Waadookodaading

192 students are somehow related, the dynamic between “teacher” and “student” is itself disrupted in potentially productive ways. The presence of familial groups as students tends to avoid the individuation of students as being in a power-laden and largely exclusive relationship with the teacher. Instead, Family Language Class attendees are able to relate to each other in familial ways that informalize and (inter)personalize language instruction, and prevent the concentration of authority onto the teacher. This is especially true when, as it often occurred, a community Elder with at least some linguistic competence, as well as overall cultural competence, attends Family Language Class. While the teacher may have more formal education and official licensure from the State, community members—especially Elders—bring their own types of authority into the Family Language Classroom. These types of authority may come from their status as community members, or their linguistic or cultural competencies, but is often bolstered by their status as parents, grandparents, or other senior relative to other “students” attending Family Language Class. As I experienced firsthand and observed more generally, attendance of Family Language Class as a family can facilitate the expansion of Ojibwe language use within the home, and could ameliorate the disjuncture of Ojibwemowin being (or becoming) merely a topic of instruction at Waadookodaading. This also disperses the responsibility for language revitalization beyond a concentration onto Ojibwe language teachers, and such expansion of stakeholders must be facilitated for revitalization efforts to succeed. The tensions evident in balancing wider inclusion of the community versus finding self-determined limitations to that sharing of information play out internally among people and factions therein. In reading the language of the Native American

193 Language Acts, the disconnect between prohibiting political activity in one sense and acknowledging political realities on the other only makes sense if “politics” means something different when used as an adjective for tribal activities. Put another way, internal tribal politics, like (I suspect) identity politics, is not considered to be “real” politics. This mismatch can be bemoaned as a gross oversimplification of tribal politics, a broad dismissal of tribal politics as being “merely” matters of identity, or a relegation of tribal politics as being irrelevant to greater national interests. Read in this way, language activists could resign themselves to formal linguistics methods or depoliticized second language acquisition approaches. Or, perhaps more productively, this mismatch can open a space for incisive political action, carefully deployed, within ANA funded activities. Such a space presents an opportunity for language revitalization projects to engage directly with local histories and politics, using those insights to give shape to their applied efforts intended to reverse language shift, all the while upholding the federally recognized right to maintain a separate political identity and separate political institutions. Despite these gains, however, there remain several practical matters that prevent Waadookodaading from achieving full autonomy as a community-controlled, community-directed school. The measurement of academic achievement remains set by Federal law, especially the No Child Left Behind Act. Under NCLB, all children enrolled in a school that receives direct or indirect support from the Federal government must take standardized tests to measure their progress through school. The tests are developed in collaboration with textbook companies with input from governmental officials, most notoriously through the local school districts in Texas, whose buying

194 power of curricular materials and proximity to the authors of NCLB—notably as it was extended from Texas State policies under the governorship of George W. Bush—afford them national influence. Since setting the curricula for State schools is a nation-statist political project, curricular standards often reproduce patriotic themes that underplay, or directly undermine, minority interests within the nation-state, here especially needing mention is the erasure of indigenous presence from the intellectual landscape within these curricula. That NCLB curricula are explicitly designed to be “teacher-proof,” meaning that individual autonomy of teachers over the content is limited through pressures to stick to scripts associated with each module and topic. Thus, NCLB curricula can be prime examples of statist indoctrination and at times propagandic elevation of grand nationalist narratives at the expense of attention to local diversity, local histories, and both historical and ongoing ideological and political struggles by minoritized populations. This control over the content, scope, and tone of the information within these curricula does not fully prevent resistance by teachers or local communities. Within the LCO tribal schools, for example, while the scripted unit regarding the “Discovery of America” is nothing short of an apotheosis of Christopher Columbus, local teachers told me that while they do stick to the script so that their students can pass the test, they imbue the script with sarcastic tones, humor, and at least minor critical commentary when delivering the content to their Ojibwe students in the classroom. The reach of that level of control was necessarily sidestepped by Waadookodaading, but at great cost. When the school was first established, it served students up to grade 4, and for a time offered fifth-grade curriculum—if only because a child of one of the founding group had a child in that grade. Later students seeking to

195 continue their Ojibwe language immersion beyond third grade were faced with the difficulty of having to take—and pass—the national tests that begin in third grade. The fourth grade—and higher—end-of-year tests contain more specific content, content that is difficult to render within an Ojibwemowin immersion environment, and content that contains more and more ideologically-laden themes that are sometimes antithetical, and often erasive, of indigenous peoples, cultures, languages, and values. Thus, Waadookodaading has been effectively halted with third grade, barring the complete generation of new curricula that meets or exceeds Federal standards, which necessarily includes the patriotic content. The need to pass standardized national tests presents a hurdle to a full immersion environment. Waadookodaading had other reasons for abandoning a full immersion environment later on, but in the first year of standardized tests, a former Waadookodaading teacher told me a rather heartbreaking story. The third grade students had learned all of their subject areas using Ojibwemowin, but at the onset of the end-ofyear test, one student raised a hand to ask “Teacher, what’s a ‘sum’?” While the student knew the concepts and procedures necessary to succeed, the student lacked the particular English vocabulary to understand the test. It was at that time, too late for the teacher to help the child, due to the rules for proctoring end-of-year examinations, and the teacher did not answer the student’s question. Beginning immediately, Waadookodaading teachers actively taught their students the necessary English vocabulary to understand standardized tests, and looked for ways to improve their overall curriculum as well as replace imposed standards and measurements with content that reflected

196 Waadookodaading’s core values and philosophy throughout the grades offered by the school. Leading up to my time as interim director of the school, the Waadookodaading School Board—of which I was a member—worked towards developing academic standards that would meet NCLB measures for 4th and 5th grade, with the goal of adding subsequent years as part of a mid-term plan aimed at extending, in the long-term, Ojibwemowin immersion teaching all the way through secondary schooling. The pressures upon the previous director to oversee this curriculum work, undertaken with the assistance of an outside consultant and ostensibly with the in-house support of a fluent, licensed, Ojibwemowin immersion teacher, gave rise to anxieties within the Board itself as well as the surrounding community. While the Ojibwemowin teacher received extra remuneration and release time to dedicate to curriculum development, up to and after that teacher’s departure from the school the Waadookodaading School Board, the previous Director, nor myself saw much, if any, curriculum materials produced. The teacher in question declared that questions over ownership and control of the intellectual property of the curriculum itself prevented their release, even to the school board. That teacher wanted credit, as well as ongoing ownership, of the materials developed while the Waadookodaading School Board argued that since they were paying the teacher and had the teacher under exclusive contract with specifications for curriculum production, that the Waadookodaading School Board would have ownership over the materials developed in-house by one of their own teachers. Overshadowing all of this, as well, were the claims by the Hayward School district to ownership of all materials generated by Waadookodaading, and that anxiety only served to fuel further in-house divisions for

197 Waadookodaading. Here we see the limitations of the legal and rhetorical structures surrounding intellectual property as an individual right versus the shared, or even collective, goals of language and community revitalization. While I am sure that the Waadookodaading School Board would not prevent the teacher from making use of those materials—even at a different school—the details of working out practical licensing and mutual respect never did come into balance, leading to ill feelings and tensions around more than just the felt absence of new curricular materials. As I noted earlier, matters of intellectual property were of concern at several levels. Waadookodaading School Board, of course, wanted to maintain control over the materials generated by and for the school, even as they sought to allow for use of the materials by others as a matter of being conscious of their place and role within the larger Ojibwe language revitalization movement, while the school district would often remind teachers, staff, and the Waadookodaading board that in their view all materials produced by Waadookodaading, including curricula, were the property of the Hayward School district. The ANA, on the other hand, viewed all materials purchased or generated through the use of their Federal grants belonged to Waadookodaading, with the provision that should Waadookodaading cease to exist, then all ANA funded materials would then belong to the local tribe, in this case the Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe. Through all of this murk, Waadookodaading struggled to protect both the materials generated by their operation as well as navigate the competing interests of their funders, teaching and administrative staff, and communities of constituents writ large that included Ojibwe language activists—and other indigenous language activists—across and beyond Indian Country. Part of this concern to balance their control over their flexibility was the high

198 rate of turnover among the Waadookodaading teaching and administrative staff. I have already written about how labor intensive, and just plain intense, immersion teaching is— so burnout is an obvious concern29. One proposed solution was to allow for sabbaticals among the teaching staff after a certain number of years of service, but this option was only used once or twice when a teacher would be awarded some outside grant that required they step back from full-time employment. Sabbatical releases would help with teacher retention, but the matter of finding a suitable, qualified temporary replacement was difficult. Since the job itself is so intensive, and requires such specialized skills—if not professional teacher training than at least a high degree of Ojibwemowin proficiency—those persons even marginally qualified to fill the post temporarily would of course want to have a permanent position. As immersion programming proved successful at Waadookodaading and elsewhere, other Ojibwe communities became interested in developing their own immersion schools. This lead one teacher at Waadookodaading to envision a time when there would be enough Ojibwe language immersion programs for teaching staff to take teaching sabbaticals or curriculum development sabbaticals whereby they could work at a different immersion school and thereby benefit from a change of scenery and personnel and sidestep the pressures of hiring temporary sabbatical replacements. However, the increase in number of Ojibwe immersion programs has increased the demand for competent, qualified, committed immersion teachers. The competition for teachers has become intense. Immersion teacher training programs that have become available in the past few years are not producing fully qualified teachers, at least in the eyes of some already 29

The position of Director, as well, had a high rate of turnover. Since their founding in 2001, Waadookodaading has had 10 different people serve in that position.

199 established immersion teachers. As Interim Director, I managed the hiring of a new teacher who graduated from an immersion teaching program, and the excitement at expanding the teaching staff was, of course—and due in no way to the qualities of the candidate—attenuated by tensions around the inevitable comparisons between the new teacher and the by then internationally recognized reputation of the established teachers. These comparisons happened within the immersion school community as well as echoed in the larger Ojibwe language revitalization effort in the region. Other programs, as mentioned above, are watching Waadookodaading. This reflects an entrenchment of a pernicious political economy of immersion programming that can potentially become a major barrier to developing Ojibwe language revitalization efforts into more regional collaborations as a part of a transnational movement. The elevation of Waadookodaading’s teaching staff as “Language Warriors” sets a high standard to meet, beyond their proven track record of success which is already impressive enough. Unfortunately, the evaluation of candidates as teachers also has gendered dynamics, since the most famous immersion activists are men—and here I am not only speaking of Waadookodaading, but even in such general terms I refuse to go into ethnographic detail on this point. As lines of individual and familial affinities crosscut a wide range of reservations and communities, this competition could get in the way of language revitalization being a part of community revitalization in the manner that is required, or appealed to, by activists who envision their work as a part of decolonizing practices. This potential for factionalism overlays the inherent competition between immersion programs who are also vying for many of the same grant supports.

200 The charter school structure itself, as an object of negotiation between Waadookodaading and the Hayward Community School District, also comes with compromises and heightened competition over resources. Waadookodaading enjoyed the busing, food services, facilities, and student support services provided by the local school district. The school was staffed, at district expense, with a nurse, custodians, food service workers, bus drivers, campus security, special education teachers, child psychologists, and teachers specializing in technology, reading, and library/media that are, of course, necessary classroom supplements and supports. At the administrative level, the local school district was the fiscal agent for Waadookodaading, and provided necessary budgetary support and accounts management. However, all of these services necessitated compromise. Classroom and student support services, after-school programs, and extracurricular activities are carried out in English, and thus break with the immersion environment of Waadookodaading. This sometimes led to an attenuation of what was called “the fishbowl effect” by Waadookodaading staff and teachers. Because the immersion school was located within 2 or three classrooms within the local town school, staff and teachers often felt alienated and objectified by the staff and teachers of the town school. This feeling also carried over onto the students themselves, who would often note the distinction from, and distinctive treatment by, their non-immersion, English-only speaking peers from other classrooms. During recess, during school lunch and breakfast, and during all-school assemblies, Waadookodaading students are marked as “different” by at least the language produced by staff and teachers directing them in those activities, and sometimes by the language they used amongst themselves. This is further complicated by the ethnic and racial markers that predominated among

201 Waadookodaading students, while Ojibwe, or even non-caucasian, students are underrepresented within the larger student body. As American Indian students, too, they are marked administratively because as a matter of ongoing treaty relationships between the Federal government and tribes, school districts receive per capita allowances for each American Indian student in attendance within their schools. Further, as many American Indian children attending Waadookodaading live on the LCO reservation, there are additional forms required to be filled out by their parents/guardians identifying them as living on untaxable land, or within the reservation boundaries, or having at least one parent who works for a Federal agency—including a tribal agency. This count determined additional Federal subsidies to the school district to make up for provided education to families who do not pay property taxes or state income tax. These administrative markers led to conflict over the associated funding streams. The majority of the per capita Federal allowance for each American Indian student, for example, is used by the local school district to fund what are called “Home-School Coordinators” whose role it is to provide academic support and general observation of student performance, attendance, and any other red flags that would indicate the need for intervention—all done in coordination with the students’ parent(s) or guardian(s). The remaining funds are used to fund an Indian Parents’ advisory council that is charged with reporting particular community needs to the school district as well as overseeing the administration of school cultural events—usually (and predictably) a pow wow. In this manner, the Federal allowance for American Indian students is used to support, in principle, all American Indian students throughout the district. This presents two problematic structures. First, these funds are going towards increased surveillance of

202 Native students and Native families within the school district. This increased attention, as it reveals foucauldian biopower behind panopticism [Foucault 1995], results in a higher rate of Native students becoming tagged for special services. While this is not necessarily a bad thing because clearly the needs of Native students are high, more markings of need seems to lead to even further interventions into Natives’ lives, resulting in further markings—usually as some sort of “problem” that must be addressed, and that requires yet further intervention. Further, the ostensibly non-intervening uses of the monies—such as the pow wow—are still, in and of themselves, an intervention into the cultural spaces and lives of American Indians. The regularity of the events leads to increased reliance on the same support personnel from the community, with a handful of individuals now automatically associated with the roles necessary for carrying out the event, such as the emcee, arena director, spiritual advisor, and head dancers. This concentration of personnel extends to the composition of the Indian Parents’ council itself, as there is a limited number of parents available, willing, or interested in participating. It takes efforts of recruitment and retention of community members to serve in these support positions, and it takes commitment from community members to serve out these positions with an eye towards broader community revitalization. This is complicated by a palpable sense of competition amongst these programs that all serve the local Ojibwe community. Waadookodaading, as it has attracted American Indian students to an almost exclusive degree, presents a further challenge. Waadookodaading has consistently argued that because it attracts a predominately American Indian student body, and that those students often would otherwise go to the Federally funded tribal school, it should directly receive the Federal allowance for each

203 American Indian child enrolled in the charter school. This creates a division within the population of American Indian students in the district between immersion school students and students in the general district population. Rerouting of those Federal dollars away from a general American Indian fund would impact services to the entire population of American Indian students. Within the local tribal community, this potential division exacerbates an already existent tension between segments of the local Ojibwe population who feel that Waadookodaading teachers, staff, students, and families suffer from some sort of superiority complex. A special set aside of funds away from the general American Indian district funds introduces a materialist form of competitiveness to what is, at worst, usually only a matter of sentiment rather than fighting over things. From the perspective of members of the Waadookodaading school board, however, the Federal allowances made to the school district on a per American Indian student basis for Waadookodaading enrollees is monies that would not likely go to the district at all, because if Waadookodaading students—whose enrollment reflects some degree of a family-held value of Ojibwe language and culture—were not attending Waadookodaading, they would likely attend the tribal school on LCO. The local school district does not get a per capita allowance for students who enroll at the tribal school, those students are supported by Federal sources, directly and indirectly, as a matter of treaty obligations and LCO tribal self-determination. By this logical assessment of the funding structure, certain members of the Waadookodaading school board have argued, Waadookodaading should be able to receive from the school district the entirety of the per capita allowance for American Indian students from the Federal government for each such student enrolled at Waadookodaading. While I was involved with

204 Waadookodaading, however, this argument was never presented to the school district; it remained a hypothetical discussion because of the knowledge that directing the funds to Waadookodaading would take monies away from American Indian student services across the school district. That move would set off community tensions. One argument deployed with the school district, however, was for Waadookodaading to receive a larger share of the per pupil allowance administered by the State of Wisconsin for all public school enrollees. The argument is similar to the above: pointing out that were it not for Waadookodaading’s existence, these students would likely enroll in the LCO tribal school, so their attendance to Waadookodaading brings the school district more monies. While I was Interim Director of Waadookodaading, there was one other charter school contracted with the local school district. That charter school received a substantially smaller cut of the district per pupil allowance than Waadookodaading received. This was despite the fact that Waadookodaading students made more use of district wide services than the other charter school—which serviced home schooling families within the district boundaries with supplemental group instruction and co-operative extracurricular activities undertaken through community organizations not directly affiliated with the school district. Because of the difference in the percentages granted to the two charter schools, during my time there I was reluctant to pursue an even larger cut for fear of actually losing some of the extant percentage due to the obvious weight on district services by Waadookodaading students and administration. The salaries earned by Waadookodaading teachers were another source of tensions between the immersion school, the community school district, and the LCO

205 school. While the linguistic competency of the Waadookodaading teachers was used to justify their earnings to the local school district, given the politics of language as related to its status within the community itself, pointing out the exceptional level of Ojibwemowin proficiency was not necessarily a productive line of rhetoric in answer to local Ojibwe concerns. This tension was certainly exacerbated by the fact of nearly all of the Ojibwemowin teachers coming from other Ojibwe communities, and not from LCO. The status of Ojibwemowin, with so few speakers to be found locally, has necessitated searching for immersion teachers from elsewhere. These outsiders must then learn how to navigate the varying expectations and community tensions in a way that allows them to go about their work with as little controversy as possible. Of course, since Ojibwemowin is a political object, sometimes controversy is unavoidable. Finding qualified immersion teachers does not solve every challenge for immersion programs. Once a teacher is established within an immersion school setting, however, there is a problem maintaining accountability. The dearth of linguistically competent teachers has led to a high valuation of language proficiency, often over and above their other qualifications, which may, in fact, be lacking. For example, a lead teacher at Waadookodaading worked for several years under a temporary emergency license to teach in the State of Wisconsin. Because of this provisional status, the contracts offered to that teacher could only be annual, and every year the contract would require that the teacher attain full licensure. An emergency teaching license was limited to a small number of renewals, and this teacher stretched his emergency licensure by taking a “sabbatical” year that reset the emergency licensure clock, effectively doubling the years he could operate under the provisional license. It was not until the last minute,

206 and perhaps only because an immersion teacher training program in Minnesota emerged that offered free tuition plus a stipend that included an allowance based on the size of the family, that he entered into teacher training and worked towards passing the licensure examinations required by the State of Wisconsin. Instead of being able to pressure the teacher into upholding his contract requirement for teacher licensure, the school board could only enable his avoidance of licensure requirements, including the loss of his vital role as an in-class teacher for a year while he pursued training and licensure. In another case, a teacher failed to show up on the first day of school. First a preschool teacher, the teacher informed Waadookodaading’s Director in April of 2005 of her desire to return for the 2005-2006 year as a preschool teacher. That July, the teacher wrote to the Waadookodaading Board that instead of returning to teach that she would be taking a one-year “sabbatical” from teaching for personal reasons, but would be available to do part-time curriculum development work and/or teach the after-hours family language class. The teacher indicated an intention to enroll in a teacher licensure program to meet teacher qualification requirements for the 2006-2007 academic year. In December of 2005, the teacher was hired as a part-time curriculum developer, with the Waadookodaading Board stating that the teacher may be ineligible to return to teaching without first completing a teacher licensure program as promised. The aforementioned teacher—the one whom relied upon emergency teaching permits to the absolute limit— was, at this time, facing the prospect of being ineligible for another renewal of his emergency permit. Because of that possibility, the curriculum developer, and former preschool teacher, was informed in July 2006 that the Waadookodaading Board might ask that the curriculum developer secure another emergency teaching permit to cover the

207 grades if the other teacher was unable to renew his emergency permit. In fact, the other teacher was unable to renew his emergency permit, and the curriculum developer was asked on August 30, 2006, to teach the joint First and Second grade classroom for Waadookodaading. The curriculum developer accepted the teaching post on August 31, 2006, but on September 5, 2006—the first day of classes—the curriculum developer called me, as the then Interim Director, at 7:20 AM with her refusal to come in to teach. The curriculum developer indicated that she simply did not want to teach at that grade level. Rather than censure—or, as I would have expected, firing—the school board granted her wish to remain as the curriculum developer. Further, the curriculum developer was later rewarded with the job of coordinating family programs for the school board, and did not receive any admonitions for her unprofessional behaviors other than the usual informal social sanctions—which were also tempered by the reverence granted to Ojibwemowin speakers sometimes in spite of their sometimes observed, and occasionally obviously detrimental, individual character flaws. It is difficult, within any language revitalization effort, to keep separate the evaluation of contributors based on their language skills from the appropriateness of their other skills. With the state of Ojibwemowin being so dire, and with the accompanying difficulties not only of finding even proficient speakers willing and able to conduct language instruction, individuals possessing language proficiency are granted—at least within the revitalization community—considerable latitude as far as their other professional, and interpersonal, behaviors. The Waadookodaading Board was compelled to keep both of these individuals involved in the school because of their centrality to not only the operation of

208 the school itself, but because of their visibility within and beyond the local Ojibwe community. The other teacher was able to secure his temporary emergency teaching permit after securing enrollment into a teaching licensure program, and he was able to take up his post as the First and Second grade teacher during the second week of school. The visibility of Waadookodaading as a site of Ojibwe language revitalization heightens the political stakes within the school. Being so visible, obviously the perceived stability of Waadookodaading must be maintained, in order to maintain community confidence in the school’s success and to attract both students as well as teachers and other adult supporters for their efforts. Elders, teachers, parents, community volunteers, and children are able to participate in the goals and activities of language preservation, and Waadookodaading does encourage wide participation from their local and regional communities. Its growing reputation has attracted students from all across the district and beyond, as well as interest from other native language programs across the country and in Canada. From 2004 to 2006, three new families moved into the Hayward area from other states just so their children could attend Waadookodaading30. Waadookodaading has also attracted language teachers from Ojibwe territories in the United States and Canada, both for instructional employment as well as research and other collaborations. Obviously, Waadookdaading has enjoyed a high level of success, both in terms of language revitalization and community revitalization. In the first five years of its inception, Waadookodaading cultivated Ojibwe language proficiency within dozens of children. Despite the best efforts of non-immersion language methods that have been 30

My family was one of these, having moved from Iowa.

209 practiced locally for decades, it is safe to say that this level of language proficiency among children has not existed for at least two generations. For these achievements, Waadookodaading was nominated in 2006 to the Honoring Nations Award Program at Harvard University as a successful example of cultural preservation and education efforts. While I was Interim Director in 2006, Waadookodaading had a small student body of 30 spread from preschool to Grade Three. However, this number only tells a small part of the story. The families involved in Waadookodaading are constantly looking for ways to expand their opportunities for language use, and working towards expansion of Waadookodaading into higher grades so that current students can continue to develop their linguistic and cultural competencies. There is a strongly felt sadness at the fact that a Waadookodaading student can have spent six or seven years within an immersion environment only to have to leave Waadookodaading. Since the structures in place to standardize higher grades served to limit the servicing of older students, Waadookodaading entered into a more formal partnership with the Lac Courte Oreilles Tribal Governing Board in 2005 and continues to cultivate community connections through existing tribal programs such as Head Start, Family and Child Education Program, LCO Boys and Girls Club, and the newly proposed tribal day care to serve younger children from birth to age 3, thereby taking full advantage of the innate language learning abilities of babies. It is also important to note how Waadookodaading staff, teachers, and parents have entered into international and intertribal networks dedicated to preserving indigenous languages. Waadookodaading regularly receives dozens of requests to

210 provide anecdotal and practical assistance to tribal and other language organizations across these regions. Issues of indigenous language preservation are increasingly visible internationally, and intertribal conversations to share strategies for linguistic, cultural, and social revitalization must be encouraged and facilitated. Waadookodaading has inspired new ways of thinking and doing that move beyond language education and into reactivating traditional, intergenerational relationships in order to build a healthy community, and it is my hope that the criticisms and comments provided here allow for the development of stronger efforts of language revitalization built in collaboration with—and in response to—the local LCO community members, their concerns, their values, and their politics.

211 CHAPTER 7 LANGUAGE MOVEMENTS, STRUCTURE, IDEOLOGY, AND LEADERSHIP

There are two features common to many language revitalization efforts. First, the local intelligentsia is on the vanguard of these movements. This includes literary figures as well as trained linguists and other academics [England 1992]. Secondly, the state is an unavoidable force in shaping language revitalization programs. In the case of Maya, England maps a path of language revitalization running from local events taking on the role of folkloric promotional activities, to the elaboration of specific aspects of cultural identity—here, language—to the establishment of a school based on that cultural identity and aimed at retaining the language and culture [England 2003:741]. This trajectory is evident in several cases worldwide. While she uses this developmental arc to illustrate the rootedness in community of language projects, I see the likely expansion of language (and other) revitalization projects into imitations of, or incorporated into, Liberal state institutions where the local ethnic or, especially, nationalistic community values are suppressed. At the very least, the State will not allow separatism under its watch, and through academic standardization the extent of culturally relevant, counter-hegemonic instruction is limited. The personal cultural competencies of these language activists become institutional resources for reframing language learning experience as a cultural experience; this reflects the goal to establish schools with a complete immersion experience [Spolsky 1989:100], as well as serves to highlight the ironies and tensions arising from officializing the particular experiences, orientations, and goals of language activists within the collective struggles for language and community revitalization.

212 Language revitalization activists are often described in terms of their involvement in ethnic and/or nationalist projects. Often they fit into a model of “culture brokers” who have managed to attain a level of acceptance into other, often dominant, societies away from their home society. The Maori Language Nest movement as well as similar efforts in Hawaii arose from ethnic consciousness movements originating among college educated elites able to bridge local community issues with global frameworks of cultural criticism aimed at raising international awareness of—and support for—their indigenous issues [Fishman 1991:232]. This pattern is obvious among Ojibwemowin language activists and teachers, far beyond the context of language learning among committed adults. Speaking for my generation of Ojibwe language activists, at least as far as I can tell from my own social circle in Minnesota and Wisconsin, of the about 20 highly proficient speakers of Ojibwemowin as a second language, all have at least some college experiences, and all but two of them possess at least a Bachelor’s degree. In other contexts, this representation becomes exaggerated to Campbellian proportions. Early writings on the Hebrew revival presented Ben Yehuda as the hero returning his people and language to Palestine, thereby overstating his linguistic competence, oversimplifying the social and material conditions of the revival, and underestimating the importance of “micro-language planners” in spreading the revival [Nahir 1998:337, Harshav 1993]. I have heard one Ojibwe language activist referred to as “The Ben Yehuda of Ojibwe Territory;” this reference was perhaps intended in good humor and respect, but reproduces within Ojibwe territory the characteristics described by Nahir and Harshav. To further use the Campbell analogy, that the attainment of a college degree has become a rite of passage necessary for the transformation of a

213 language learner into a language teacher has its own set of ideological underpinnings. If heroic “exile” is to attend a college or university, then the receipt of a degree becomes the functional equivalent of receiving “enlightenment” within the Campbellian narrative. In further distinction from the archetypical hero narrative, the “return” is mostly metaphorical, as the “hero” in all but six of the aforementioned 20 grew up and attended school away from their home communities before becoming language activists, and those who did grow up in Ojibwe communities do not necessarily now work in their home communities. This top-down representation of language revitalization does not necessarily depend upon singular, heroic leaders at the top. Often, instead of individually named language activists, institutions take on the role of language promotion and planning. These can become vehicles of state-level interventions aimed at incorporating internal diversity without endangering state unity, though they may preserve autonomy in part by eschewing formal bureaucratic models of internal organization. The Welsh Language Council was created soon after the establishment of cabinet-level representation for Wales, and was aimed at improving the image of the Welsh language while discouraging political separatism [Harrison 1997]. In another example, the Academy of Mayan Languages of Guatemala is careful to maintain a cooperative stance with the State government by avoiding connecting its efforts at language conservation and education reforms with divisive issues such as land reform [Garzon, et. al. 1998:157-158]. Ojibwe language revitalization activists tread boldly into the practical and ideological minefield of language and identity politics. Language activists must uphold the centrality of language revitalization as a part of broader community revitalization for

214 indigenous peoples, and that creates many potential risks. Their efforts demand attention to the needs of their communities and the requirements of their supporters, including regimentation of experts as recognizable to state interests for the purposes of funding and administration, namely project director, linguist, Elder, and indigenous language teacher [Meek 2010]. For this type of engagement with settler institutions to be anything other than capitulation masquerading as compromise, language activists themselves must never lose sight of the Ojibwe communities they intend to serve, and work constantly not just on the improvement of second language acquisition as a mostly academic subject, but language socialization intended to include as many community members as possible, including language learners at all levels, language researchers, outside allies, external funders, and other indigenous communities “grammatically, interactionally, materially, politically, and so forth” within “a process involving both continuity and change, maintaining (consistently or not) various elements, practices, or interpretations while transforming others” [Meek 2010:48]. Thus, there is a need to cultivate these networks, and for language activists to become integrated into local communities. Language revitalization is a collective effort, after all, even as such efforts are often perceived of as being guided by a small number of language activists. The visibility of Waadookodaading, for example, has been accompanied by both the elevation of language issues and the elevation of language activists. There is an obvious star system in place, a hagiography of language activists existing at the local, regional, national, and increasingly international levels. With that kind of increasing visibility, there are increasing criticisms from local communities, sometimes motivated by suspicion of outsiders, sometimes motivated by ideological

215 incongruence between community members and language activists, and sometimes motivated by longstanding factionalism or even fairly obvious class envy that draws upon the rhetorics of authenticity. Certain language activists have become, through support from their communities as well as their own cultivation of individual distinction, metonyms for Ojibwe language revitalization itself. Sometimes, language activists manifest a problematic lack of awareness of how they themselves have been structured, and fall into an uncritical—and usually offensive—attitude of “If I can become fluent in Ojibwemowin, then you can, too.” While intended as encouragement, such a sentiment most often serves to demonstrate their insensitivity to the challenges faced by the community members they hope to serve. It is my hope to end the taking for granted by language activists their own privileged structuration, and to have more language activists question their own role in propping up a model for leadership that seemingly depends upon the celebration of privileged success while excluding, or at least ignoring and even denigrating, the barriers of entering into language and community revitalization from underprivileged positions. I’ve heard directly from a handful of Ojibwe language activists how they see themselves as a “minority within a minority,” occupying an exceptional spaces within the political minority of Ojibwes that embodies Ojibwemowin along with embodying other measures of social, physical, intellectual, and economic fitness and health, including the enjoyment of organic foods, internationally shaped cuisines, fashions, acquisition of technological gadgetry, fine arts, world travel, and other bourgeois standards. These patterns and attitudes towards consumption have marked and shaped the colonial encounter since 1492 [Round 2006].

216 The upholding and embodying of these dispositions has obvious economic costs. While I was doing volunteer immersion summer school teaching, despite the work being time-intensive and coming with a personal financial cost of buying our own materials, our daily routine still included the enjoyment of such luxuries. I was staying with Waawaakeyaash, and each morning we would brew a pot of freshly ground organic coffee and enjoy a breakfast comprised of organic cereal and milk, or if time allowed homemade from scratch pancakes featuring a creative blend of organic flours, yogurt, fruit, and flavorings. We each prepared sack lunches using, again, organic ingredients in our sandwiches and prepackaged organic snacks such as fruit leathers or energy bars. After a long day of hard work, we would then unwind afterwards by taking the remaining coffee with ice outside to enjoy and chat together overlooking the lake in his backyard. Much of the talk was about how hard this work is, how tired and frustrated we can become, and also how good it feels when a child speaks Ojibwe back to us. Then, after this ritualized airing of grievances and resavoring of precious moments, Waawaakeyaash would don his apron and make a delightful meal, again using fresh, organic ingredients. On more than one evening, I remember most particularly, he made some sort of southeast and south Asian fusion dish spiced with whole cardamom pods and other herbs into a sauce, served over brown rice and tossed with homemade paneer (yogurt cheese) that he would make right on the spot. I have come to refer to these features, and to those who seemingly without irony celebrate these features, as Ojibourgeois31. I see these displays as problematic symptoms of the type of personality cultivation and impression management described by Pfister 31

I also admit to sharing many of these features and dispositions.

217 [2004] as assimilationist and individuating, and thus largely antithetical to the type of inclusion necessary for language and cultural revitalization efforts to extend much beyond a select, and selected for, type of person. I hope that my characterization of the Ojibourgeois reflects the level of self-effacing humor I intended, even as it does in fact carry a certain (self) critical edge. Much of this dissertation is written with language activists in mind as a valued potential readership, after all, and my continuing time among them has given me to confidence to, from time to time, poke fun—and at other times level pretty coldly analytical criticism if I felt it necessary to do so. I offer the above description in the spirit of levity and criticism, perhaps in parody of ethnographic descriptions that tended towards amplifying “authenticity” of “Indians” in post-contact contexts. I also offer the description with, in the back of my mind, the echoes of several language activists from around the world whom I have heard complain about how some members of the communities that they serve are of the opinion that these language activists “think they’re better than the rest of us.” It is understandable, given the features I have described here, taken together with the stated self-concept of language activists that they are “a minority within a minority,” and put together with the problematic attitude I’ve heard language activists express that “If I can become a fluent speaker, then you can, too” that community members recognize at least the potential self-cordoning off of language activists exhibited through the display of these orientations and the words used to describe themselves as language activists. As Meek writes: This heirarchization is sociolinguistically contradictory for language revitalization, because it ideologically privileges particular speakers rather than encouraging all possible speakers. In other endangered-language situations, such heirarchization may work in tandem with feelings of

218 shame, incompetence, or shyness, further discouraging other, usually younger, potential speakers from conversing in the endangered language. [Meek 2010:40]. As I hope to have made clear by now, the discouragement impacts potential speakers of all ages. These sorts of uncritical, or even insensitive, displays of privilege cast into sharp relief how, for many Ojibwes living without such economic stability and flexibility, Ojibwe culture itself may be a luxury. A single parent working full time and raising a family has rather little time or energy to devote to language revitalization. A person may not have a flexible work schedule to allow participation in ceremonial life. Many people do not have access to the lands, boats, and tools necessary to carry out traditional subsistence activities. Given the sometimes stark difference in lifestyles, I think language activists need to address their own positioning and privilege vis-à-vis the communities that they serve so as not to offend, and thus drive away or otherwise exclude, potential learners, speakers, and allies. I hope that I have presented a full enough picture of what it takes to become a language activist to also show that, from a variety of perspectives, they are special. Their level of work, their accomplishments, and their dedication all deserve respect and acknowledgement, but making them into heroes seems premature and potentially offputting. The current Director of Waadookodaading and others in her circle of friends have come to refer to the immersion school staff and supporters as “The NDN Superfriends immersion teacher team” in their banter on Facebook. This is well and good, upholding a bit of levity as well as affording an opportunity to present a cultural reference to childhood television consumption that may go against mainstream

219 conceptions of traditionalism or even authenticity. But no matter how self-effacing, or even seemingly accurate, the discursive apotheosis of language activists may be, these displays of insiderness may contain too high of a degree of exclusion of members of the communities whom they ostensibly serve. These pressures from within and without, generated by and upon language activists, illustrate how the personal and the political swirl together; this political economy of language activists must be accounted for and theorized in a tailored fashion within indigenous endangered language contexts, so that each community can accommodate—or resist—hierarchy and domination on their own terms and in their own fashions. Given the political economy of becoming a language activist, the personalitydriven tendency of language revitalization efforts is heightened within governmentally oriented programs. The most viable sites of enculturation are interactions with culturally competent individuals, though this competence is undervalued when it comes to State education credentials. Rather, State education systems depend upon an individuated agent who is subject to evaluation by the State. Classroom teachers must be licensed, and there is further hierarchization within licensure. In order to deliver “academic content” such as mathematics, language arts, science, or other “core curriculum,” the lead classroom teacher must have a college degree and hold a State license of instruction. This, of course, marginalizes indigenous languages and cultural content as being nonacademic, as well as devalues the rich life experiences of first-speakers of Ojibwemowin who may be otherwise qualified to teach Ojibwe language and culture. Teachers of indigenous languages and culture—at least in the States of Minnesota and Wisconsin— may be able to secure separate-but-unequal licensure to deliver classes solely on the

220 presumably non-academic content of language and culture. Such licensure requires nothing more than passing a background check and receiving endorsement by a Federally recognized tribe; this requirement presents its own sets of problems, not the least of which being tribal council members are not necessarily qualified to evaluate proficiency in either language or culture. The demands places upon language activists working within state-based institutions are rife with contradictory forces and expectations, lying at the intersections of oppositional systems of valuation and colonial domination being reinforced through hierarchy. Under these, and other, structural pressures, and depending upon the available pool of language teachers, these language activists face the possibility of their roles not being taken up by a successor [Colette 1992:20-21]. I would also add that language activists, once established within professional programs, may also have a hard time moving aside to allow a successor. I have witnessed the high level of scrutiny and explosion of expectations for qualifications, as well as accompanying anxieties over how to best measure those qualifications, during many hiring processes for language teachers as well as language revitalization program administration. Understandably, once a successful Ojibwe language teacher has invested so much time and effort into a classroom or a school, that teacher may feel an urgent need to make sure that his or her replacement will be able to sustain the foundations, quality, and creativity that he or she imagined him- or herself as a legacy. That level of care and investment, the lasting commitment to continuing progress for revitalization programs, is laudable, but it should maintain a clear perspective not only on the individual accomplishments of the predecessor but on the shared ability within the surrounding community to pull together to patch up any shortcomings—and of course encouraging the

221 particular creativity, talents, and commitments brought in by the successor. This is a lesson I learned through my own history of activism, in which I myself—or one of my allies—would worry that the good fight would suffer if one of us took a step back from the struggle. Communities do benefit from strong, recognized leadership, but that does not mean that should one specific leader step down that the enterprise would fall apart. Perhaps because of coming from a place of relative privilege, certain Ojibwe language activists have become too resistant to the necessary change in approach and ability that must come along with a change in personnel; many indigenous language activists have either frequently operated from a position of leadership, or first found their leadership abilities through language revitalization. The pressures, in either case, overlap to contribute to potential problems of continuity and change. Elders, too, face pressures, though the considerations of transitions of personnel take on more emotional dimensions due to the factors of age, status, and health. While Elders have become (re)valorized within language revitalization efforts [Meek 2010:30], due to the requirements for teaching certification and limitations placed on the income of retired persons, Elders are structured into constrained positions within the political economy of language revitalization. Though they are often accorded the highest social and symbolic respects, their authority is limited to mostly symbolic and referential domains. Classroom Elders do provide a model for intergenerational transfer of knowledge to both subsequent generations represented by language teachers and their students. These Elders, too, represent a conscious disruption of the seeming mainstream American tendency to relegate the aged to the margins of society, thereby socializing the students (and, at times, the language teachers) into what can be considered a traditional

222 relationship of respect, deference, and gratitude. This (re)valorization is constrained, however, by the concomitant reproduction of hierarchical distinctions between Elders and younger generations of speakers, further fissures within the Elder class between those who have retained their linguistic competencies and those who have not, as well as through the attraction of—and dependence upon—outside experts to administer Ojibwemowin programming. These constraints do, at several points, reverse the valorization of Elders as the younger generation of language activists—with their higher education and attainment of credentials, as well as their usually higher economic class standing—tend to dominate in most practical matters related to language revitalization. Language revitalization leads to transformation of linguistic and cultural capital into monetized economic capital [Meek 2010:29], thereby reinforcing these class distinctions. Privilege attained from colonialism begets privilege within indigenous projects. This individuation of language revitalization efforts through a colonialist variety of meritocracy is antithetical to a self-consciously Ojibwe conception of leadership. There is an effort to conceal the appearance of singular leadership arising from “the general suspicion of authoritative totalizing visions among these historically egalitarian people” [Nesper 2004:239]. Despite this, there remain readily identifiable individuals who move across the geographic and ideological space of Ojibwemowin revitalization as leaders who traffic in what appears to be a remarkably uniform, hierarchical, and prescriptive vision for what successful language revitalization looks like. Uniformity, hierarchy, and prescription are, of course, the hallmarks of colonialist intervention and management of populations, and it remains to be seen the degree of success that such a

223 potentially dangerous orientation may have in fostering a locally-inflected, selfdetermined, indigenous effort at reversing language shift. Authoritarian approaches to revitalization can have dramatic impacts in a short period of time, especially when they are deployed within social institutions backed by state power, but the circumvention of extant organic intellectual traditions and lack of consultation and input from established community leaders combined with not eliciting the unique historical and intellectual viewpoints and experiences can erode the potential for maintaining a strong social movement. For language revitalization efforts to be as decolonizing as most of the activists I worked with claim it to be, their efforts have to include community dialogues across a widely inclusive social field so that a rich, and more commonly held, vision and sense of ownership can take hold. Waadookodaading, through its efforts to support language learning within families and within social spaces otherwise presumed to be dominated by English, has brought itself well earned recognition and respect locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally as a model to be emulated and learned from, taking its place alongside other indigenous language revitalization efforts such as the Maori Language Nests and the ongoing successes among Native Hawai’ians. Waadookodaading produced a children’s nonfiction book that is currently nominated for the 2012 Northeastern Minnesota Book Awards, Ezhichigeyang: Ojibwe Word List by Nancy Jones, Maajiigwaneyaash Gordon Jourdain, and Zhaangweshi Rose Tainter, edited by Anton Treuer and Waawaakeyaash Keller Paap, sits alongside other nominated books covering Minnesota history, hiking, travel, rock formations, and cuisine. Their ongoing community partnerships with LCO organizations such as the LCO Tribal Council, the LCO Schools, the LCO Elders Association, the LCO

224 Tribal and Community College, and the LCO radio station WOJB have opened and offer potential to expand involvement and investment in Ojibwe language revitalization. Their continued success chartering with the Hayward Community School District, as well as their ability to secure external grants from Federal and private foundation sources, also contributes to their success. The insights, criticisms, and praises I present here are offered as contributions of perspectives towards the vision for a well-coordinated, community-responsive, and responsible—perhaps even rehabilitative—inclusiveness of all of the descendants of our ancestors. The maintenance of such a vision further requires that Ojibwe language activists never take for granted that their efforts are inherently beneficial or uncritically acceptable to all members of the communities they hope to serve. Language activists must balance the careful consideration of their own strengths and skills regarding Ojibwemowin instruction with awareness of their own limitations. As social beings, language activists enter into communities of revitalization comprised of other agents, each with his or her own opinions and experiences relating to Ojibwemowin. While everyone involved may uphold the value of Ojibwemowin revitalization, the exact scope, shape, and process of how to carry out revitalization can be dramatically different, and the ultimate goals behind individual choices to take Ojibwemowin classes or enroll their child in an immersion school might not match the goals of language activists—who among themselves can also vary in how they see the future of Ojibwemowin. It is not necessary, nor may it even be beneficial, for every community member to relate to Ojibwemowin in the exact same ways. It will take the combined efforts of a diversity of strengths to undo

225 the damages that colonialism has done—and continues to do—to our language, our lands, and our people. The Need for Reflexivity and Empathy Language, as an object of intervention, holds a special place for all people. As a universal capability within all humans, and as central to the formation and maintenance of every human identity, every person holds an awareness of how necessary language is to life. No matter what form that language takes, be a person a monolingual English speaker or multilingual in several languages, I think that every person can empathize with the myriad of anxieties stirred by language ideological debates. This makes it of utmost importance for language activists to listen for how language ideologies are deployed in their communities. While the terms of debate may be comparable, or perhaps remarkably similar, to other revitalization contexts, the move from theoretical sociolingistics to applied sociolinguistics demands continuous attention to local specificities. Awareness of language ideologies facilitates the bringing together of abstract theories to concrete practice, as well as reveals the power dynamics at play within a context of social inequality [Woolard and Schieffelin 1994:72]. Comparisons may be made, and are in fact usefully made, within these local debates but should not be used as intellectual shorthand in lieu of local understandings of the language. It must be said, given that ongoing colonization has resulted in varying degrees of internalized oppressions amongst the colonized [Friere 2000:62], that local understandings may themselves be antithetical to language revitalization. Language activists must be prepared to enter into language ideological debates not only to understand their chosen context, but sometimes to intervene against ideological barriers.

226 For example, when I was called upon to talk about Ojibwe language revitalization during a community gathering required by our ANA funding, I intended to intervene into a still commonly held ideology that Ojibwemowin is somehow an inadequate language. I saw how some locals reproduced the ideology that Ojibwemowin was an incomplete language because it lacked the vocabulary to reflect modern life. My attempt to quell, or preempt, that view began with a discussion of how Ojibwemowin is an agglutinizing language, in which words are formed by the assemblage of meaningful bits of language, morphemes, to describe parts of reality. I spoke on how Ojibwemowin is just as complete a language as any other language in the world, because familiarity with the richness of morphemes can give a speaker the ability to speak, or write, or think of anything in Ojibwemowin. I also pointed out that, failing that, Ojibwe people should also be free to enjoy the full sets of rights and privileges taken for granted by other, more dominating languages: if English lacked a name for certain phenomena, then it was perfectly acceptable to invent a new term or borrow a term from another language. To illustrate this, I pointed out how European languages lacked the vocabulary for the periodic table of the elements, and so those terms had to be invented, and were often coined in honor of a particular person or place. I commented that, obviously, no one would seriously condemn a European language for lack of completeness simply because they had to invent new words to reflect new understandings of the universe. Ojibwemowin, I said, is therefore just as complete, just as creative, and just as relevant to reflecting contemporary reality as any other language. This same struggle for equivalence of completeness underwrites the development of curriculum materials for Waadookodaading, but rather than dwelling upon a presumed incompleteness of Ojibwemowin to label the necessarily specific

227 phenomena within academic subjects, the language activists I worked with took great delight in the challenge of identifying—not inventing, but through morphological construction—Ojibwemowin vocabulary that workably encompassed such things as rotational force, surface tension, civil rights, vowels, consonants, and the colors of crayons. Their enjoyment arose not only from the mobilization of their intellectual strengths as linguistic repositories and researchers, but mobilization of their social and familial connections with other language teachers, speakers, Elders, and linguists within their (seemingly ever expanding) network of support. This aspect of the work was celebrated as bringing together the labors of revitalization with the creativity of Ojibwemowin, and thus generated a lot of excitement among language activists and those they work with. This acknowledgement of the creative potential of Ojibwemowin points out another consideration for language activists. Prescriptive, authoritarian language planning often lapses into an unrealistic valorization of linguistic purism. While this is not to say that there should be no rules for Ojibwemowin practices, language activists must never forget that the forms of Ojibwemowin that they learned were representative of a particular historical moment and context. As is true for other languages, Ojibwemowin was never fixed in form, and hopefully never will be. As language activists, we will only see what forms Ojibwemowin revitalization takes once the language becomes a creative tool for Ojibwe people—especially children32. A too rigidly held concept of linguistic purism will stultify the social reproduction of linguistic and communicative competencies within our communities. 32

I want to thank Dr. Tim Dunnigan at the University of Minnesota for starting my thinking about imperfect intergenerational language reproduction.

228 One commonly stated goal among language activists is the desire to see Ojibwemowin become the language of the home. This centrality of the domestic venue is found in other language revitalization contexts, such as the spoken Sanskrit movement in India [Hastings 2008], but a closer examination of this centrality reveals a set of ironies and contradictions. First of all, it is all too easy to characterize the efforts of language activists to intervene into the home lives of communities as reactionary, or perhaps even make a pop psychology evaluation of their work being underscored by overcompensation for their own domestic origins being devoid of Ojibwemowin. The threat of prescription looms large within this characterization, as does the calling into question the entire movement for language revitalization as being the officialization, again in a Bourdieuian sense, of personal identity projects. Undeniably, there is that element, but even such a crude quasipsychoanalytical observation can point out the larger historical trajectories of language loss. Colonization, after all, directly targets the domestic spaces of the colonized, so of course decolonizing efforts have to respond appropriately. These more private spheres, from the home to exclusive ceremonial gatherings, have harbored Ojibwemowin practices, often in direct opposition to the forces of linguistic homogenization that were increasingly applied in more hegemonic spheres, where “[f]rom economics to politics, from religion to education,” public life is now almost exclusively conducted in English [Perley 2011:55]. While I understand the necessity of Ojibwemowin becoming a language of the home, further questions arise. First of all, to what extent should Ojibwemowin become a language of the home? Is the goal for language revitalization to completely erase English inside the house? That is obviously unrealistic and unattainable. Some goals are more modest, including the goal that

229 Ojibwemowin become the language of ceremony and prayer, or the language that can be shared somewhat between parents and children. However, as many language activists rightly point out, the state of Ojibwemowin is such that the idea that “something is better than nothing” forecloses on even these modest goals. Revitalization efforts cannot be fueled by “something is better than nothing,” and this is evident in the by now 30 years of tokenistic, emblematic, or otherwise reductive Ojibwemowin flourishes currently allowed—or even encouraged—within social institutions dominated by multiculturalist values. Ojibwemowin flourishes, such as the allowance of Ojibwemowin speechmaking at public events or the continuously repeating lessons of vocabulary of numbers, colors, and counting, are attempts to turn Ojibwemowin into a depoliticized, decontextualized aesthetic object. One resulting irony of language instruction within public institutions is language practice tending towards public displays of symbolic capital rather than embodied and in-home practices [Perley 2011:63-64]. Allowances of emblematic Ojibwemowin use—where the Ojibwemowin content is monologic and if not directly irrelevant to the proceedings, then is repeated in English—demonstrate the magnanimity of dominant multiculturalist society even as it erases the ongoing colonial relationship with minoritized (and therefore aestheticized) peoples. The celebration of Ojibwemowin as sacred, too, can tend towards depoliticization of language revitalization efforts as well as present problems for making Ojibwemowin the language of the home. Kroskrity describes how the ceremonial use of Tewa has resulted in ceremonial speech becoming the “local model of linguistic prestige” [1998:108], and how this has contributed to the maintenance of Tewa. However, this also opens the possibility that indigenous languages may become limited to ceremonial

230 contexts and only used by specialists with that esoteric knowledge; this exclusiveness is antithetical to the goals of indigenous language revitalization [Meek 2010:54]. What often accompanies a focus on the sacred are the moralizing echoes of missionization and assimilation wherein indigenous peoples feel a pressure to conform to “civilized” values and attitudes towards and among their bodies across all their relationships. Speaking as a parent and now grandparent, I know that family life is often messy, and can require if not a bit of moral flexibility then at least a reservation of judgment. At the very least, in order for a healthy level of communication within a family, feelings of shame or guilt must be minimized or dispersed so that we can go on about the business of teaching our children how to take care of their bodies and their bodily needs, from infancy all the way through their sexual development and expressions. This is why my future work will be on mundane Ojibwemowin, with special emphasis on Ojibwemowin intimacy, erotics, and the so-called “profane” in order to “dirty up” language revitalization as a conscious intervention against the residue of missionization and missionary linguistics that continues to shape contemporary Ojibwemowin practices. As shown above, farts can be politicized; perhaps they should be. Language revitalization is a political project, and as such must attend to the history and ongoing political realities of colonization. Under colonization, the usage of unthreatening Ojibwemowin flourishes only serves to facilitate the unproblematic incorporation of Ojibweness into a multiculturalist state, and by depoliticizing the national distinctiveness supposedly evidence by linguistic distinction, actually threatens the continuing recognition of treaty rights by dominant society. In other words, if Ojibwemowin usage becomes more of an ethnic identity and less of a national identity,

231 then Ojibwe people are selecting against the nation-to-nation relationship of treaty federalism. While such a choice can reflect a criticism of treaty federalism that carries critical indigenous consciousness, it is also a capitulation that best serves state interest. Clearly the dominant society remains committed to getting out of treaty obligations, so indigenous self-selection against their own national identity continues to be actively encouraged. However, while I do not wish to lay sole responsibility for upholding Ojibwe nationalism upon language activists, there is a further complication when language activists do not foreground the political aspects of their efforts. The complication is personal. If the target domain for language revitalization, if the site for reversing language shift itself, is the private home, then this venue needs to be foregrounded throughout language revitalization efforts. I refer here most especially to how Ojibwemowin is taught as a second language to adults, even—if not especially— adult students who do not have children (yet) themselves. If the domestic sphere is valued as the ultimate site for language revitalization, this is mostly due to the desire to recreate precolonial language socialization contexts. Folded into this consideration are matters of intimacy and intergenerational transfer of linguistic, and other, knowledge. However, learners of Ojibwemowin as a second language are rarely trained in the vocabulary and registers of intimate, familial language. As with the learning of most other languages, instruction often relies upon memorization of grammar and vocabulary exemplified by generic, even stereotypical, representations of interactions between strangers. Such artificial routines may help convey an appropriate level of linguistic detail to get by within interactions that are more flattened as to their pragmatic considerations, but interactions within domestic spaces between intimates should entail

232 more emotional engagement and sensitivity. In other words, there is more being shared and expressed between intimates than mere reportage or procedural information. The discussion may center around, for example, just who is going to do the dishes and how they are to do them, but within a family the conversation demonstrates other levels of sharing, including the maintenance and repair of emotional relationships, conveyance of respect, and a deeper awareness of matters of identity and (inter)personal biography than may exist if the same conversation occurred between, say, a professional dishwasher and his or her supervisor. This absence of the intimate within Ojibwemowin pedagogy stands in stark contradiction to the often professed goal of language revitalization to replace Ojibwemowin as the language of the home. At the very least, the lack of pedagogy related to matters of intimacy means that those committed to establishing or maintaining an Ojibwemowin immersive home environment must, as a matter of affective justice, learn how to express emotional intimacy through Ojibwemowin. Here we see an instance of the personal and the political becoming identical. Here we also see how the interests of the state in atomizing indigenous peoples into individual citizens are served by the vacating of Ojibwemowin instruction of these intimacies.

Without such intimacies,

insisting upon an Ojibwemowin-only home, or even an Ojibwemowin-only relationship to, say, one parent within the home, may result in an emotional lack within those interactions. Such an emotional lack can, of course, have dangerous consequences not just within the complicated ideological terrain of Ojibwemowin, but consequences to the affective health of the relationship(s) within the home itself. In short, such a lack of intimacy can result in the same sorts of dysfunction brought on by other colonial disruptions within the home. In looking at official interventions into indigenous family

233 life—from warfare to missionization to boarding schools to child welfare—the colonizing state can be recognized as carrying out a deliberate destruction of familial intimacies, perhaps even through its support of language revitalization efforts. When the venues for language revitalization are controlled by the state, state interests are at play throughout every aspect of activity towards language revitalization. Within Waadookodaading, the State of Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction is the gatekeeper for who can be a teacher and what that teacher can teach. Further, state-based credentialism has institutionalized a devaluing of Elder speakers within Waadookodaading’s classrooms; since classroom elders often do not have college degrees or teaching licenses, they cannot receive an amount of compensation that is anywhere close to what certified classroom teachers earn. For example, in-class Elders may only be paid hourly, and restricted to a 20-hour work week that excludes summer. $10.50 an hour without any employee benefits is a pittance compared to a $40,000 salary with health and dental insurance, retirement, and optional professional development supports. This is a fundamental contradiction to the ideal structure of language socialization and reproduction. Intergenerational transfer is idealized, but in practice the authoritarian role of classroom teachers—as, it has to be said, agents of the state—is preferred. I do not wish to condemn this particular contradiction as making language revitalization impossible to equate with community revitalization, but it is a structural contradiction that must be acknowledged for there to be any semblance of social justice within language revitalization efforts. What is most dire, in my opinion, is how the already structured place for language activists within state-based institutions makes it perfectly possible for a person who is linguistically fluent in Ojibwemowin to carry on

234 their teaching with absolutely no potential for social or political change. The teachers and the language are both limited, and overdetermined, into politically neutralized positions. Without consciousness of the dynamics of power and privilege, an Ojibwe language teacher may have only served to make the settler state fluent in Ojibwemowin. Community members are well aware of this potential, if they at times seem conflicted as to how to protect their efforts against co-optation. Also at the Elders Speak Out event, some voiced concern at the fact that there was an individual teaching Ojibwe language in Minneapolis who is not Ojibwe. The registration of this complaint was credited to unnamed Elders, and the individual was neither named nor located at a particular institution or even level of instruction. While this complaint was not discussed during the event, and was not returned to as a matter of discussion later on at the event, four people whom I knew were making their own guesses as to whom the complaint was focused upon—and, interestingly, each of the four had a different person in mind. Moments like that highlight how cultural policing operates within indigenous communities; a specific person need not be mentioned, and in fact, keeping the matter vague ensures that investigative responses and mistrust cast an even wider net. This is destructive. These sorts of questions, concerns, and complaints call into question the very foundation of multiculturalist society, and thereby highlight tensions that exist within contradictory and competing values within Liberal society, within Ojibwe communities, and between indigenous communities and dominant society. The expectation, or even insistence, that a teacher of Ojibwe language be Ojibwe depends upon essentialist, and essentializing, definitions of authority and authenticity. While, as evidenced by the

235 earlier critique of tribal certification of language and culture teachers, being Ojibwe does not automatically qualify a person to teach Ojibwe language and culture, clearly some Ojibwes think that the role should (and perhaps only) be fulfilled by an Ojibwe person. As we learned from anti-treaty rights activism, this is exactly the sort of feature that nonnative critics seize upon to advance their opinion that Native rights struggles are inherently backward, illiberal, or downright racist. While I do not want to necessarily defend the stance that only an Ojibwe person should teach Ojibwe language and culture, I can distinguish between how essentialism, in the Ojibwe case, is deployed towards different ends than is used within anti-treaty rights discourses. Ojibwes who call for preferential hiring of Ojibwes to teach Ojibwemowin, or those who argue that teaching language and culture should be an exclusive domain reserved for Ojibwes as teachers, are using an essentialist, and often racializing, definition of authority and authenticity to advance their collective rights as well as expand opportunities for individual Ojibwes. In this sense, the argument is somewhat parallel to pro-affirmative action discourses. Nonnatives who condemn preferential hiring of Natives are using an ostensibly antiessentialist33, though no less racializing, definition of authority and authenticity to maintain their own dominance as a group as well as to take away opportunities for individual Ojibwes. In this sense, their argument is identical to anti-affirmative action discourses. As with attempts to cast “Red Power” discourses as mirror images of “White Power” discourses, attempts to equate the preferential hiring of Natives as reverse racism fall flat once it is shown how the powers—political, social, and economic—at play within

33

Arguably, they are making just as essentialist of an argument, insofar as they are claiming to represent the purportedly universal values of individualistic meritocracy combined with color-blind multiculturalism. In other words, they are attempting to impose what is essentially “American.”

236 the debates are not at all equally distributed. However, what I find more interesting is how the matter of authenticity is articulated, or submerged, throughout these debates. As an anthropologist trained to be suspicious of claims to authenticity, and as a Native person filled with at least as much ambivalence, alienation, and existential doubt as most colonized peoples I’ve ever met, it bothers me that in addition to state imposed standards of qualifications and all the barriers that those carry, we as Native people have this whole other layer of authenticity to worry about. A teaching license is a teaching license, and a college degree is pretty much a college degree, but the recognition and acceptance of Ojibweness is never as clearly delineated, and can always become unsettled. This is made even more disturbing by the definitions of Ojibweness often depending upon colonial power; the State, through the powers of Federal recognition, holds the power to define who is or is not “Indian,” creating further disjunctures within revitalization efforts [Meek 2010:5]. Accompanying these racializing critiques of teachers’ qualifications, the Elders’ Speak Out event was marked by what can be described as an antimodernist critique of how teachers (and, presumably, parents) treat children. In many ways, these critiques were identical with primitivist critiques of American society in the early part of the 20th Century. Panelists pointed out how, at some point in the past, Ojibwe children were expected to be fully contributing members of their society by about age 12. By that age, they argued, children should have already learned the value of work, the importance of self-sufficiency, and the need to respect relationships. These were, as the critique continued, precisely the lessons that modern education does not provide—or at least defers until children are older. For language revitalization to succeed, according to this

237 line of reasoning, children must be taught these lessons early, so that they can be applied towards linguistic and cultural renewal carried out by these children as fully formed political beings, with their individual autonomy intact as well as their sense of responsibility to uphold their relationships to their contemporaries, their history, the land, and their ancestors yet to come. I must admit that I do agree that the structure of public American educational systems tends to prevent the cultivation of autonomous individuals as agents of history, connected to place, or with much sense of belongingess to a distinct political community—even without the direct prohibitions by law of ethnic solidarity we’ve seen in Arizona34. I also do not think that schools are necessarily the right place to learn such lessons, but I report this stance taken at the Elders’ Speak Out as representing one set of local theories related to how to best revitalize Ojibwemowin that emphasizes an oppositional stance with a pretty full set of teeth intact35. Within this one position are varieties of identity politics, ethnocentrism, community values, opinions on societal roles, historical consciousness, opposition to colonization, alterity to Western hegemony, an antiliberal critique, and a push for a rather specific mode of social reproduction. At the very least, this position shows how many types and levels of ideological arguments any language activist would have to be able to, first of all, listen to, and then, of course, respond to appropriately. I wish language activists good luck, and offer these cautionary tales as examples of signposts that they will encounter throughout their work. Like all

34

Arizona House Bill 2281, which went into effect at the end of 2010, “Prohibits public schools from including courses or classes which: a) Promote overthrowing the U.S. government; b) Promote resentment towards a race or class of people; c) Are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic race; and; d) Advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.” If this stands, this will spread beyond Arizona, and may lose the exception for Native Americans along the way. 35

Metaphorically speaking only

238 signposts, the warnings of dangers are categorical and even stereotypical, but the exact form of the dangers will be unique to where and when the encounter occurs. This work entails more than intellectual engagement and dialogue. Awareness of the ideologies, and finding a productive way to proceed through—or in spite of—them requires a conscious cultivation of experiential, reflective, and affective epistemologies. Committed community engagement, of course, calls upon the full resources of human agents. By sheer fact of the labor involved in language revitalization, work that demands time and energy as well as mobilization of social networks, we can begin to see how the realms of knowing described in my earlier chapter must be readily available to language activists. Strong minds, strong hearts, strong bodies, and (if I may) strong spirits are required. This breadth of engagement is difficult, and often uncomfortable, which may serve to explain why there is such a familial—kin or kin-like—basis for these engagements. The trope of the “good” family as a metaphor within nationalist projects is easily uncovered within Ojibwemowin revitalization efforts, but the existence, or even dependence, upon familial networks within the larger movement concretizes the metaphor. This is not to say that the family metaphor is, in this particular case, any more genuine than as deployed within other nationalist projects; nor is it so say that the familial networks are to be uncritically characterized as enaction of “natural” affinities or primordial ties. Colonization, after all, was directly concerned with disruption of familial networks, so in order to decolonize social movements operating under the guise of familial relationships, the taken-for-granted conception of how “family” is constructed and maintained must be unsettled. The expansion of speech communities requires

239 (re)consideration of familial relations, and in a decolonizing framework, this reconsideration must be done with an eye towards repair. A focus, and reliance, upon the familiar facilitates fuller engagement. The relative safety (no pun intended) of familial networks allows for language activists to operate and advocate beyond the intellectual level, and thereby to enter into language revitalization efforts as complete human beings. As seen from the discussion of alternative moralities, a critical consciousness of how morality itself was deployed, as imposed by colonialism, within familial contexts must be cultivated. The strands of familial relationships that were deliberately torn asunder by colonization require careful attention, and foregrounding, within revitalization efforts so that language activism can be part of social justice. Intellectual, affective, and experiential understandings of historical and ongoing disruption, centered on language issues, can provide language activists the background necessary to transform their linguistic efforts into broader revitalization of intellectual, emotive, and moral traditions. This is where the linguistic features, with their associated politics and histories, become most salient. As I argued above, if the target domain for Ojibwemowin revitalization is the (family) home, then the pedagogy for Ojibwemowin acquisition must attend to familial and domestic intimacies. Language activists need to learn these domestic, familial, and intimate registers of Ojibwemowin, and should make conscientious use of familial and intimate forms of language. This is one reason why I am taking my research further into Ojibwemowin intimacies. Ojibwe stories are full of examples of intimate relations, ranging from the familial to the bawdy, and a fuller recovery of these traditions will throw into sharp relief the problematic legacy of missionary linguistics as it continues to be felt in Ojibwe

240 language revitalization efforts. Much of the learning materials for Ojibwemowin are marked by a social distancing, an abstraction beyond the bodily and emotive, and this reveals, to some degree, not just the repressive tendencies of institutional education in general, but the particularly moralizing selectivity of early missionary linguists. At the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association meeting in Minneapolis in 2008, when I was asked if I was “fluent” in Ojibwemowin, I responded that I will never call myself fluent until I can do pillow talk in Ojibwemowin. Glib as that remark was, behind it lies a deep reactionary stance against the whitewashing of Ojibwemowin at the hands of religiously concerned linguists in the early days of contact and the later—and continuing—mental hygiene efforts against Ojibwemowin, as well as Ojibwe family structures, to be found within imposed colonial institutions of education, social services, child protection, criminal justice, and religion. What all this points out is the need for language activists to take seriously the ideological and affective terrain of the communities where they work. Such are the requirements of entering into community service; and community concerns must first be listened to, before activists presume to be responsive. Too much reliance on the presumed indexicality of cultural competence as accompanying linguistic competence must be avoided, language activists must not be too afraid to ask questions or to admit the limitations of their knowledges. So, too, must language activists avoid overgeneralizing their sociolinguistic training (formal or not) to specific locations, or at least only extend comparison in ways that do not displace or erase local understandings of the situation. Finally, language activists must abandon the romantic notion that language revitalization is inherently liberatory. The threat of incorporation into compelling state interest runs

241 high within any state-based institution, and educational institutions in particular tend towards flattening the political agency of teachers, administrators, and students, thereby limiting the potential for schools to be sites of social renewal. This threat of incorporation exists strongly within the non-profit sector as well, as the reliance upon external sources of funding often carries requirements to adhere to a particular political agenda, or at the very least agents within a non-profit organization can easily become caught up in the constant need to secure funding, and that is not a strong position from which to enact social change. This is not to place all responsibility for the success, or failure, of language revitalization efforts solely on language activists. If, as I argued above (especially) noninstitutionalized venues offer language learners and teachers a chance to co-create a nonheirarchical social space for Ojibwemowin use and instruction wherein the promise that all individuals involved can become leaders within the revitalization movement, then this points out the continuous need for language activists and members of the communities that they serve to build and maintain similar dialogic structures at all levels of their organization. Just as language activists, especially teachers, must be wary of their own potential for co-optation into dominant interests, community members must also, through these dialogues, recognize and then take on their own responsibilities for maintenance of their language, their local knowledge, and their values. For language revitalization to be part of community revitalization, then both language and community revitalization must not be relegated to language activists, but taken up broadly throughout communities. This will necessitate deliberate efforts to undo the damage of imposed ideologies that serve dominant interests—this is one process where decolonization happens. Everyone

242 involved must be open and ready for the challenges of building a social movement, everyone must be willing to listen and to speak, and everyone must be self-reflexive and grounded in local history enough to sort out, in concert, the practical and ideological labor necessary in accordance with a shared vision of community values. Put another way, through unifying localized organic knowledge with globalized comparative knowledge, indigenous language revitalization projects can balance their local identities, and local social responsibilities, while also taking their place next to other such efforts around the globe.

243 APPENDIX: FULL TEXTS OF LANGUAGE TABLE PARTICIPANT RESPONSES

1. I've been learning and hearing Ojibwe since I was young and am grateful to the elders of Mille Lacs for all they've shared, the many years I've worked with Margaret Sayers and for the past ten years Jim and Jessie Clark. I enjoy and support the language table and want to help out any was I can to help others learn to speak Ojibwe. Ojibwe was given to the Anishinaabeg by the Creator to communicate with the spirits and one another in this world and the next. I'm glad to help others on their journey which I believe is a spiritual journey. I'm grateful to work with Dennis and Lorraine Jones, and any elders that come to our table. The support is good and we are like a big family that can be there for each other. We want to see a language table started on every reservation and reserve throughout Ojibwe country and other Indian nations. The food is great and every time we meet we begin with a tobacco prayer. This is why our table has been strong. 2. I want to learn Ojibwe because I recognize that it is part of who I am and I want my children to recognize that part of their culture and heritage. Eventually, if blood quantums are as important as they are today, the language and culture is all that our future generations will have left. 3. In my eyes, the primary importance of learning Ojibwe is to give me a sense of who I am in such ways as background, genetic culture, and for a more obvious reason, being able to talk to my family better and understand what is being said. As far as cultural learning, linguistics has a tendency to be a major part of each sect. 4. Being an Ojibwe woman, I find it necessary to learn my language, culture, and heritage. Language is an important part of culture. I feel proud that I have my own distinct language that I share with my ancestors and my people. AHO! 5. The importance behind Native languages, and the preservation thereof, is to foster the growth of Native culture and our way of life. We would cease to exist as sovereign nations if we lose our distinction from Western society, which is found in the presence of our languages. Language is the fundamental aspect of life. It is our thought process and tool of communication; which is necessary to fully identify with our environment and people. 6. I am not Ojibwe, I am from the Netherlands and am really interested in the Anishinaabe culture. I think I can better understand the people and be a part of it if I learn the language. I really like foreign languages. I like to speak in another language than my own. It's a hard language, but very beautiful. 7. I want to learn the language because when my kids have questions about Anishinaabe way of life I will be able to answer them. When I came to the point in my life when I had questions I had to go elsewhere to find answers. That's not bad, but it would have been nice to learn from my family.

244 8. For me this group is so positive to help keep the language alive for the future generations. I wish it would grow to teach more people at least the basics. I have been very happy that my son is learning his native language. 9. As a child, my mother and father spoke Ojibwe to each other, they did not teach the younger children. The eldest spoke and understood. The reason she gave was so we could get along better in school (Catholic nuns). I came to the language table to learn Ojibwe. Some words came back to me from my childhood. I have two daughters in Roosevelt High School who are learning Ojibwe in school (first year)(9th, 10th grade). I hope someday to talk with my daughters in Ojibwe. 10. Revitalizing, recognizing, honoring our natural languages is critical--vital to who we are. It is only through our language(s) that we can fully understand our culture(s). Without our culture, history, identity, we are simply walking shells without roots to ground us, without a connection to our own spirit. 11. Learning Ojibwe for an Ojibwe is a must because that is who we are as Anishinaabe people. It deals mainly with identity. If one is to be Anishinaabe one must know their language. If the Ojibwe no longer speak the language then they are only descendants of the people. We must keep the language alive. Our language is connected to our culture and our spirituality. We need our language to stay connected to our ancestry. 12. I was adopted as an infant. I grew up in a non-Indian home. I became enrolled when I was in my twenties. When I lived in Canada, I would always hear Anishinaabe speak Ojibwe to one another. My grandmother would sometimes speak Ojibwe to other elders. At the University I met Collins Oakgrove and Angeline Northbird. They were great at including me in some of their conversations. Ojibwe is something that helps make me a complete person in the sense that it connects me with my family's culture. 13. The importance of retaining our language is to keep our history and culture alive for future generations. The Ojibwe language is a language that I know for a fact communicates with all of creation. Ask yourselves in past communities where the Ojibwe resided has any major winds, storms, or disasters occurred in the villages of our people. The answer is no. Anishinaabe eta go ogichishkaan o'owe aki. 14. I live here and love this land. My people came from Scotland and Sweden--but I am here. I respect the people who have always lived here--I learn from the stories, I learn from the language. What I learn, I like, it feels right. I believe the stories, the language and the culture are important to the future of this place, and the entire planet. I am learning this language because I believe it brings me closer to what is real, what is good in life, what is important. It connects me to what is most important to me omaa noongom. 15. I enjoy learning Ojibwe because I hope to know something to pass on to my children someday. The language strengthens the culture and the two are so intertwined that you cannot fully understand one without the other. It gives people back a sense of identity as well as plays a role in spiritual understanding. I want to learn the language

245 so that I can someday speak only Ojibwe in ceremony. It’s important to revitalize the language so that we have it for our children and grandchildren. 16. Ninkitchi-minwendam kiishpin anishinaabemoyaan.

246 REFERENCES

1.

“Native American Languages Act of 1990/1992.” Title 42 U.S. Code, Sec. 2991.

2.

“Native American Programs Act of 1974.” Title 42 U.S. Code, Sec. 2991. 1998 ed.

3.

Adams, David Wallace. Education for Extinction: American Indians and the Boarding School Experience, 1875-1928. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995.

4.

Alfred, Gerald. Heeding the Voices of Our Ancestors: Kahnawake Mohawk Politics and the Rise of Native Nationalism. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1995.

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Ames, Michael M. Cannibal tours and Glass Cases. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1992.

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Appadurai, Arjun. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996.

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Asad, Talal. “From the History of Colonial Anthropology to the Anthropology of Western Hegemony” in Colonial Situations: Essays on the Contextualization of Ethnographic Knowledge. Ed. George Stocking. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991.

9.

Baraga, Frederic. A Dictionary of the Ojibway Language. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1992.

10.

Bauman, Richard and Charles Briggs. “Poetics and Performance as Critical Perspectives on Language” Annual Review of Anthropology, 1990. 19:59-88. 1990.

11.

Bauman, Richard and Joel Sherzer. Explorations into the Ethnography of Speaking. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1974.

12.

Bauman, Richard. Verbal Art as Performance. Rowley: Newberry House Publishers, 1977.

13.

Benton, Richard A. “The Maori Language in New Zealand Education” Language, Culture, and Curriculum 1(2) p. 75-83 1988.

247 14.

Benton, Richard and Nena Eslao Benton. “RLS in Aotearoa/New Zealand 19891999” Multilingual Matters 116: Can Threatened Languages be Saved? Clevedon: Multilingual Matters Ltd., 2001.

15.

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