|
|
<< Return to Cultural Diversity Home
Canadian storytellers fight to save their language
 "Our ancestors respected everything". James Young
James Young, a storyteller, retired fisherman and elder of the Haida indigenous people paddles his canoe around the spectacular shoreline of Queen Charlotte Islands off Canada's Pacific coast and tells the story of The Crab. As the crab lies on a mountain, it reaches down and pinches the Haidas as they paddled through the narrows. "The Haidas were not learning their language fast enough, that is why the crab pinched them," says James.
"Our ancestors respected everything. They also respected the crab story very much," he continues. The story is told as a reminder of what the ancestors knew: The vitality of the Haida people rests in the continuity of the language.
The hand-carved canoe in which James is sitting is as rich in history as the story he tells - carved from the trunk of a single giant cedar by the late Bill Reid, world-renowned Haida carver and artist. The day before, many prominent Haida had returned from New York City where they had repatriated the bones of ancestors taken by archaeologists a century ago. Back in the town of Skidegate, the sacred remains had been placed in that canoe until the burial ceremony, four days later.
Each weekday, James attends the language preservation programme in the longhouse by the water in Skidegate to record his knowledge on tape. Inside, elders raised in different villages argue over pronunciations and spellings, teach the younger people, practice difficult passages and analyze the nuances of Haida - a language that depends greatly on modifiers and metaphor.
At present there are only about 50 elders who speak the language fluently out of a total population of 4000 Haida on the Queen Charlotte Islands and Prince of Wales Island in the Alaskan Panhandle.
The learning of the oral tradition has always been passed on with reverence and is embodied in the multitude of stories told by Haida elders. In everything that they do, the Haida make connections with their ancestors, the land, and the living generation: Seals, whales and ravens are referred to as their own brothers and sisters, fish and trees as the 'finned' and 'tree people'.
The preamble of the Haida Constitution reflects this and offers a poetic introduction to the Haida people: "Our culture, our heritage is the child of respect and intimacy with the land and the sea. Like the forest, the roots of our people are intertwined such that the greatest troubles cannot overcome us. We owe our existence to Haida Gwaii.
"On these islands, our ancestors lived and died and here too we will make our homes until called away to join them in the great beyond. The living generation accepts the responsibility to ensure that our heritage is passed on to following generations".
Haida Gwaii is the Haida name for the Queen Charlotte Islands and means "Islands of the People". Traces of Haida ancestors have been found in hundreds of archaeological sites on Haida Gwaii, the oldest being approximately 9,000 years old.
Much of the 138 islands are now a part of the Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve. In Juneau, Alaska, there is a central representative Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, claiming a sovereign government representing 24,000 people. The Haida people themselves were of either of two clans, those of the Eagle or those of the Raven.
The creation myth of the Haida, which has many alternate forms, tells of the character of the Raven who cajoles man out of his hiding place in a clam shell. In another myth Raven uses his cunning to disguise himself and steal the Sun, Moon, and Stars from the House of the Sky Chief. These he gave to the people.
The stories and creation myths of the Haida people are now taught as part of third grade curricula in Canada and the northwest but it was not until 1972 that a concerted effort was made to document the structure and vocabulary of Haida. There are two dialects: one spoken in Skidegate, the other in Masset, forty miles to the north. This northern dialect is also spoken by the Alaskan Haida population.
One hundred years ago there were many more dialects because the language developed differently in each of the widely dispersed villages. However, with the onslaught of smallpox, which killed about 95% of the population, the villages were abandoned.
|
|
Click on pictures
to read the stories
|
