INTERESTING NEWS Canada’s Oldest First Nations Newspaper - Serving Nuu-chah-nulth-aht since 1974 Canadian Publications Mail Product Vol. 48 - No. 03—February 11, 2021 haas^i>sa Sales Agreement No. 40047776
Endangerd or a language in hiding? Just 108 fluent speakers were identified in an 2018 survey, but interest is clearly emerging from the shadows By Melissa Renwick Local Journalism Initiative Reporter As Levi Martin reflects on the Nuu-chahnulth language, he rejects the notion that it is endangered. Despite being one of an estimated 10 remaining fluent speakers within his nation, the Tla-o-qui-aht elder describes it as a “language in hiding.” As a young boy, he absorbed his ancestral tongue during story time on his father’s lap. Hours would pass them by as they sat on the edge of the Pacific Ocean in the tiny village of Opitsaht. Distracted only by the faint hum of a fishing boat drifting by, or a sea lion coming up for air, Martin can still remember his father’s teachings with precision. Everything changed when he was taken away to Christy Residential School on Meares Island. Before he left, his father presented him with a bag of medicine that he kept tied around his neck as protection, “because he knew he wasn’t going to be there to look after me,” he said. Martin arrived at the school not knowing a word of English. On the very first day of school he was strapped across his hands by his supervisor, who called himself a “brother,” for speaking his language. It was the only time that Martin received a beating. It was also one of the last times the then seven-year-old spoke his language at the school. When Martin returned home for the summer, he showed off the English he learned to his parents with pride. His mother quickly pulled him aside and said that he was not to speak “a white man’s language,” because he “wasn’t a white man.” Although he continued to speak Nuuchah-nulth with his family during the summer months, the Catholic Church was eventually victorious in their efforts to shame Martin out of speaking his ancestral tongue. Once he began high school at St. Mary’s Indian Residential School in Mission - nearly 350 kilometers away from his family - he stopped speaking the Tla-oqui-aht dialect altogether. It’s a story that repeats itself throughout the homes of Nuu-chah-nulth families up and down the west coast. For many fluent speakers, their language was something they kept hidden within themselves to safeguard their loved ones. “Because the Catholic Church tried to beat it out of us, my own way of protecting my kids was not to teach them our
Photo by Melissa Renwick
Levi Martin wears a shawl that he dons while delivering ceremonies on big occasions. “When I have to speak in public, I have the ability to connect with the ancestors,” he said. “I will be their voice [to] channel their message,” on Jan. 16, 2021. language,” said Moses Martin, Tla-o-quiaht First Nation’s elected chief. “I never taught any of them.” As a result, only 108 fluent speakers remain within the 12 Nuu-chah-nulth nations surveyed in the 2018 Report on the Status of B.C. First Nations Languages. B.C. accounts for around 60 per cent of the First Nations languages in Canada. There are currently 34 Indigenous languages within the province. Of those, three per cent of the reported First Nations population are fluent. Almost two decades passed before Martin was reintroduced to his language at a Round Lake treatment centre for alcohol-
Inside this issue... More COVID numbers shared with Nations..............Page 3 Should there be a universal basic income?.................Page 5 Fourth Ave tailers offer shelter....................................Page 8 Intercity bus service faces closure............................Page 11 B.C. waters ‘a toilet bowl’ for cruise ships..............Page 15
ism when he was 36. While participating in a sweat lodge ceremony for the first time, he was stirred by messages from his ancestors. Sitting on the cool earth as heat from the fiery coals flushed through his body, everything his parents taught him in Nuu-chah-nulth as a child started rushing back. “One of the messages I got said I needed to go back home to work with the people,” Martin recounted. “To reconnect the people to the land, language and spiritual ceremonies.” After spending more than half his life suppressing his ancestral teachings, Martin was moved to reawaken their sleeping
language. He spent a year preparing for his move back home after leaving the treatment centre in 1981. In Opitsaht, Martin began working with elders in his community to create audio recordings of songs as a teaching tool. “Language is a connection that we have to our ancestors,” he said. “It comes from the ancestors and we’ve held on to it. Now, we’ve got to pass it on to our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.”
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