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5 introduction We’re Not Losing Our Language “We’re not losing our language, our language is losing us,” says White Earth elder Joe Auginaush. I have been both haunted and driven by that thought for many years now. The current peril faced by the Ojibwe (Chippewa) language is a matter of a declining number of speakers and a people who have lost their way, rather than a language that is lost or dying. The Ojibwe language, spoken by as many as 60,000 Anishinaabe people in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan, is alive.1 The grammar, syntax, and structure of the language are complete. The oral tradition and history of the Ojibwe are still with us. Yet in many areas fluency rates have plummeted to unprecedented and unsustainable levels. Especially in the United States, most speakers are more than forty-five years of age.2 In some places, the fluency rate is as low as one percent.3 As the population of fluent speakers ages and eventually leaves, there is no doubt that the Ojibwe language will lose its carriers. We are not losing our language. Our language is losing us. A battle now rages to keep Ojibwe alive. At stake is the future of not only the language, but the knowledge contained within the language, the unique Ojibwe worldview and way of thinking, the Anishinaabe connection to the past, to the earth, and to the future. In recent years, educational initiatives have been implemented at every level of the curriculum . Elders, such as those whose stories are collected in this book, have made extra efforts to teach and to be heard. Young Anishinaabe people have been making extra efforts to listen and to learn. It is the hope and prayer of all those involved in creating this book that these recent efforts will not be too little, too late. “We are not losing our language ” is a statement of fact. “We are not losing our language” is a battle cry. “We are not losing our language” is a promise to all who care about the Ojibwe language, a promise that it will not die. Culture and language are inextricably linked, and all of the stories in this volume echo this belief in one way or another. It is my hope that this collection of bilingual Ojibwe stories can help to turn the tide of that battle as well as educate readers about Ojibwe history, culture, and humor. Over the past several years, I recorded numerous Ojibwe elders from my home community of Leech Lake and the neighboring reservations of White Earth, Red Lake, and Mille Lacs. I also came under the cultural tutelage of Archie Mosay, an elder from the St. Croix Reservation of Wisconsin , and recorded some of his stories as well. I never recorded any sacred legends, which are strictly taught through oral instruction only. However, the narrations of childhood memories and Ojibwe lifeways tell a great deal about how Ojibwe people lived, thought, and persevered during the tumultuous twentieth century. This anthology is rich and varied. Not only do the assorted speakers have different ways of speaking Ojibwe, they also have very different experiences and philosophies about anishinaabe-izhichigewin—the Indian culture—and anishinaabemowin—the Ojibwe language. The stories are vividly detailed, and often the speakers paint a verbal canvas of Ojibwe living: maple sugar camps, ricing, spearing fish, and religious ceremonies . A picture of early-twentieth-century life comes alive in the tellings of these gifted orators—whether it is Susan Jackson’s explanations of rabbit snaring at Inger on the Leech Lake Reservation or Archie Mosay’s description of the tall pine forests of the 1910s, where lack of undergrowth left a silent carpet upon which he could approach whitetailed deer. The history revealed in these stories is of great importance as well, and historical narrations about everything from Ojibwe-Dakota warfare to boarding schools and military experience during the Second World War abound. Indeed, when Porky White remembers his namesake , a Civil War veteran, it becomes strikingly clear just how much has changed in a very short time for the Ojibwe. The serious narratives about culture and history are great fun to read, as they are interwoven with a thread of humor. Examples of comic recollections include the image of Archie Mosay, a full-grown man and father, fearfully running off the footpath and hiding in the brush the first time he saw an automobile, as well...

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