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Tribes reclaim languages once spoken in California

phecht@sacbee.com

Published Sunday, Jun. 14, 2009

Standing before a giant mossy rock and two Tsi-Akim Maidu bark houses, Farrell Cunningham gazes skyward to find the words and spirit imparted to him as a child.

He directs his outdoor class of about 20 Indian and non-Indian students to the amber light piercing down into the forest of Nevada County.

"Ekim pokom epinin koyodi kakan" – "the sun is in the sky" – he says in the Mountain Maidu tongue taught to him on nature walks by a tribal elder named Lilly Baker.

She died at 96 a few years back. But now Cunningham, 33, is among a small legion of speakers trying to preserve California's endangered American Indian languages.

Their efforts are about to get an official boost. Lawmakers are moving on a bill to create a special American Indian languages teaching credential to promote efforts to teach – and recapture – some of the nearly 100 languages once spoken by California Indians.

The measure – Assembly Bill 544 by Democrat Joe Coto of San Jose – declares that "teaching American Indian languages is essential to the proper education of American Indian children."

The bill would also allow fluent speakers to teach special classes in public schools as part of understanding California history and culture.

The limited "eminence credential" could enable some tribal elders with little formal education to give lectures on ancient languages widely spoken before the Gold Rush.

Passed by a 76-0 vote in the Assembly and now in the Senate, the bill is strongly backed by the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians in Santa Barbara County. It is seen as an endorsement of several tribes' efforts to rediscover long-forgotten languages.

"For generations, native American children were taken from their homes, raised in boardinghouses and punished for actually speaking their language," said tribal languages researcher Richard Applegate. "It would be remarkable to revitalize what is left."

Applegate, who holds a doctorate in linguistics from UC Berkeley, is working to help the Chumash tribe rediscover its mother tongue.

The Chumash, a wealthy casino-owning tribe, is funding a major research effort using work of late ethnologist John P. Harrington. In the early 1900s, he compiled extensive manuscripts and wax recordings of the tribe's Samala language.

Harrington worked closely with a Chumash matriarch named María Solares, who died in 1923. Their work helped form a translated record of tribal stories, such as this selection from a 1919 tale of a hunting expedition:

"They say that at Tashlipun there were many deer" or – in Samala – "sa'mip i tašlipun i w` hi wahaè."

"He said to his wife, 'We're going hunting' " – "s'ipus a šta'lik, "nokišyaw`l."

Even though the last known speaker of the Samala language died in the 1960s, Applegate worked with the Harrington materials to help the tribe compile a 5,000-word dictionary, grammar and pronunciation guide.

Five tribal members, who stand to become eligible for the state special language credential, have undergone three years of study to become "senior apprentices" in the Samala language.

"What we find as we learn the language is that it opens up doors to our ceremonies, to our history and to our knowledge of who we are," said tribal member Nakia Zavalla, 35.

Zavalla so immersed herself in language learning that she covered her kitchen cabinets in practice words from abalone – t'aya – to Zaca Lake – ko'o'. She is now teaching fellow tribal members a language many never heard spoken..

Zavalla hopes someday that local high school students can study Samala to meet foreign language course requirements. The Coto bill includes no such curriculum provision.

Meanwhile, Zavalla said she would be excited to offer special lectures on tribal language and culture.

"Being able to have your indigenous language being offered in the local school district is an acknowledgment of the people who lived there for many years," she said.

Cunningham has similar aspirations for the 220-member Tsi-Akim Maidu tribe, which operates a Grass Valley thrift store and leases four wooded acres from the Nevada County Land Trust as a tribal retreat.

Cunningham, who has taught Northern Maidu for seven years, incorporates ecological themes in classes at the tribes' wooded site. He drills a group of adults on tribal vocabulary as he plays to the sounds of a woodpecker – panaka – and the swaying live oaks – ohm hamsim cha – and Ponderosa pines – burbum cha.

"I wanted to learn the language of the land because it helps me relate to the land," said one student, Rachel Water, 33, a non-tribal member from San Juan Ridge. "There's something healing in hearing the language."

Cunningham's class offers even more poignant healing for Don Ryberg. The chairman of the tiny tribe is just now learning its language.

"The adults used to push the children outside when they spoke the language," Ryberg said. "The parents didn't want their children punished for speaking it. But I'm learning it now."

So are members of the Tubatulabals Kern Valley tribe in the lower Central Valley. The tribe is training six language teachers based on linguistic research, including recordings by an anthropologist, Charles Voegelin, in the early 1900s.

Tribal Chairwoman Donna Miranda-Begay said she believes the special teaching credential bill can give renewed energy to honoring the cultures of a tribe whose last native speaker – Jim Andreas – died last year at 79.

"This will elevate our history through language," Miranda-Begay said. "When we talk about history in California, we talk about the 49ers and the missions. Well before that, there were people here who spoke their own languages."

The tribe offers classes to American Indian junior high and high school students at a cultural center at Lake Isabella and imparts a message in its native tongue of Pakanapul – woogamii ih galuuts.

Translation: We are still here.

Call Peter Hecht, Bee Capitol Bureau, (916) 326-5539.