Keep It Alive: The Fight to Preserve Ancestral Voices

Like many Katzie Elders, Richard Bailey died before being able to pass along his knowledge of the Katzie culture and language.

 

As evidenced by the testimony before and findings of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which issued 94 Calls to Action in 2015, these tales are common across the country. Trauma from the impacts of colonialism and residential schools affected almost all First Nations, adult and child alike. Even more than twenty years after the last residential school has closed, the effects are still ever-present today. Residential schools, and other forms of discrimination, have left a void of Indigenous knowledge that many are seeking to rebuild.

 

“Some elders who [didn’t] want to speak our language out of the fear […] were perfectly willing to take it to the graves and not talk about it, even though they had that knowledge,” James said. “Everyone has an interest in our language, but we have no fluent speakers left.”

 

The Katzie First Nation is not the only Indigenous Nation facing this problem. Out of the over seventy Indigenous languages in Canada, two-thirds are considered endangered according to UNESCO’s endangered language criteria. The troubles and problems affecting the Katzie Nation’s language and culture, are prevalent for nearly every Indigenous Nation.

 

For an Indigenous child, being disconnected from their culture and language, coupled with systemic racism and discrimination, can be tough to handle according to James.

 

“[Indigenous children experience] a sense of loss of belonging. A sense of not knowing. A lack of identity,” James said. “And then [you’re] told you don’t belong in the mainstream world because of discrimination and the fact you look different. You’re an Indian. You live on a reserve.”

 

Bailey says that without a strong connection to their culture, indigenous children struggle with identity issues.

 

“Who are you? What’s your culture? You can’t even speak your language and you have to somehow answer those questions?” Bailey said. “It stresses them.”

 

It takes a toll on the adults too.

 

“It’s hard,” Bailey said. “When I don’t understand, when an Elder comes in and talks to us talking the language, I have to lean over and say, ‘what did he say?’ I feel, it’s not hurt, it’s not embarrassed. I don’t know, it doesn’t make me feel good that I don’t know my language. I feel bad.”

 

James is often frustrated by his current-day dealings with the colonial powers who caused the problem in the first place.

 

“You’re told by the government or somebody in politics or leadership that’s not First Nations, that without your language you have no culture and because you have no language, you’re nothing special. We’re like, you took our language from us. How are we supposed to feel about that? You did this to us and we’re trying to get our culture back.”

 

Despite some improvements and efforts to work with Indigenous Nations recently, James and Bailey both agree that racism is still alive and well in Canada.

 

“I don’t know how it came up, might have been on the news, think I was having coffee at a friend’s house, and they talked about Haida Gwaii. I don’t know if he was just covering up before, but at that instance he said, Haida Gwaii, what is that bullshit. It’s the Queen Charlotte Islands. I looked at him and was just about to lose it,” Bailey said. “That’s the type of thing that’s out there, resistance to learning.”

 

James says the Katzie Nation has had to expend resources and go to court to fight for language resources, but he believes that things are slowly starting to improve.

 

“It really is getting better with the recognized Language Authority,” James said. “You can register your instructors as legitimate teachers of your language or dialect and get recognized by the provincial government and the provincial education system as valid instructors. That gets you into the system and you start teaching from there. So, it has come a long way in the last fifteen, twenty years.”

 

James also sees support from the Canadian Government on this issue, despite the historic and current problematic relationship between Canada and First Nations.

 

“They’re coming on board for the most part because of the Truth and Reconciliation Calls to Action. The government is behind it at the higher level and it’s trickling down towards the front lines now. With the meetings we’ve had with the school districts, they’ve all expressed interest in First Nation’s culture. They have a mandate to address it and introduce it to the school system and they all want curriculums.

 

Katzie First Nation is developing a variety of different resources to help fill the need. The Language Authority has been working for four years on a ten-chaptered curriculum which James says is close to being complete and they have even begun developing a language app for kid’s tablets and smartphones.

 

“We’re creating some curriculums as quick as you can with our limited resources,” James said. “Everyone wants so much now, […] which is great, but we just need to grow our own speakers first. That’s going to take a while.

 

These improvements and early steps seem like a good sign for the future.

 

“Language carries our culture within it. You can’t help, just to know your language, can bring up within you any connection you have with your ancestors,” James said. “Our language described our everyday lives as we lived on this land. You go through this territory, words to describe your sense of being and the location of where you existed, it can’t help but be full of your culture and history, your daily life, where you lived, because those are what the words described.”

 

Luckily, the Katzie nation isn’t alone in revitalization efforts to try and reclaim the downriver dialect of Halkomelem, they’re joined by numerous other local First Nations including the Kwantlen, Musqueam, and Tsawwassen. Some Nations are further along than others and some have more access to resources and have Elders who are still fluent, but they’re working together to protect their common language from the danger of being lost.

 

“Joining together is the real accomplishment. Putting aside any political difference or economic interests of territory and putting that all aside and saying we share a common interest, the fact our language is something worth saving, is the real accomplishment,” James said. “We study together. We plan together. What are we going to do? How are we going to do this? How are we going to revitalize the language and save it in our own communities? We really are doing the same thing at different rates. We have different access to resources, but I see it in a positive light. We are succeeding. We’re going to be successful.”

 

Even without fluent Elders in the Katzie Nation, James believe they’re seeing tremendous improvements, specifically with the youth.

 

“These kids are so young and sponges, they soak it up. That would be what I’m most proud of,” James said. “We’re doing well with our youth right now. Twenty, twenty-four kids learning, that’s fantastic, but we need to just get everyone speaking, even the leadership. Just a few words, a few phrases. A welcome or a greeting or to say who you are and where you’re from, simple stuff.”

 

James is optimistic that the Katzie language will continue to grow and be revitalized.

 

“In twenty years from now, [I hope we] have maybe forty, fifty teachers, maybe a dozen linguists, professors, curriculums in all our school districts around here,” James said. “We will never get the old language back entirely. Language has evolved. Technology and our world have evolved, so we need new words, but we can preserve seventy-five or eighty percent of it. I think that’s possible with twenty percent new dialect. It will still be ours because we’ve evolved as a people and so does our language.”

 

Rick Bailey, he just hopes his grandchildren will get the opportunity he missed out on when growing up.

 “At the very least, I’d like to see my grandchildren speaking greetings and phrases. […] We still have hope. We’re still continuing on to bring it back. My grandchildren participate, maybe not every single day, but they go to the classes. That’s what I’d like to see, all the young children, twenty years from now, I guess young adults then, being, at the least, the very least, doing a greeting or welcoming, a prayer and some phrases.

 

“Talk about salmon or the mountains or the water. Stuff that means something.”