by Rosemary Brown
In the Settlers Book Club we read the recently published As Grandmother Said: The Narratives of Bessie McGuinness, as recorded in 2011 by Dr. Bruce Starlight from the Tsuut’ina Nation.
Bessie (1883-1987) was a matriarch of the Tsuut’ina Nation, and she and her son Willie Little Bear (1912-1989) shared many stories with Bruce as he grew up.
The narratives are written in Tsuut’ina with English translations, and the book is part of the language revitalization project in the Nation. Tsuut’ina is a Dene language and the dialect spoken here is the Big Plume dialect. Only 20 speakers remain and as such it is considered to be an endangered language. The language is a tonal one with 30 consonants and four vowels.
There are nine narratives in all. Several relate to how the Tsuut’ina separated from the Dene. The rest include stories related to how the earth was created, how the Tsuut’ina met the Blackfoot, the roles of men and women, the origin of the teepee, and how the Tsuut’ina came into possession of the Beaver Bundle.
While offering glimpses into history and culture of the Tsuut’ina Nation, the book is a teaching tool for those wanting to learn the Tsuut’ina language. Language revitalization is critical for Indigenous Peoples globally as one impact of colonization has been the endangerment and in some cases extinction of these languages.
Article 13 of the United Nations declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP) “states that indigenous peoples have the right to revitalize, use, develop and transmit to future generations their languages, oral traditions, writing systems and literature.”
Here in Canada, which is a signatory to UNDRIP, the Truth and Reconciliation Calls to Action 13 to 18 concern language revitalization. While some have been fulfilled, as with many of the Calls to Action, insufficient funding has been provided by the Federal government to realize full implementation.
The 2024 Federal Budget is no exception. Here is what Carla Lewis, the Chair of the First People’s Cultural Council in BC had to say about it.
“Generations of oppressive and assimilationist federal and provincial policies have aimed to wipe out First Nations languages. Through dedication and hard work, our people have fought for language rights to keep our languages alive. But many of our languages have few speakers left and most fluent speakers are elderly. Our languages hold our culture, history, and ways of being. We can’t over-emphasize the urgency of the situation and we can’t wait another five years to get the funding needed to breathe life into our languages that were stolen from us. We need long-term, sustainable funding now. We need sufficient funding for each and every language across Canada. We are beyond frustrated at being expected to do this urgent work with insufficient resources. This is not reconciliation.”
For settlers sincerely interested in reconciliation, we can learn more about what language revitalization projects exist in Treaty 7 and speak out to the federal government about the need to sufficiently fund such programs.
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