Introduction

(This is the introduction for Crystal Boulton-Scott and Joseph Scott‘s curriculum, “Tribal Tongues along the Trail: American Indian Languages, Histories, Values, and Cultures Encountered by the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery.”)

Crystal Boulton-Scott
Lenape-Rancocas

Joseph C. Scott
Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians

This curriculum is designed to accompany middle school U.S. History content.
The Common Core State Standards referenced are for 8^th grade.

 

Tribal languages

The Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery cut a path through many, many tribal homelands, each with culture in its place, preserved as a product of the languages encountered along the route. The survival of these strange outsiders would often depend on their ability to negotiate with their hosts. On some occasions they were compelled to employ convoluted methods to communicate with tribes. These methods might involve two, three, or more levels of complexity—English to French, French to Chinuk, and so forth. The Corps of Discovery often survived without any translation at all. The communication challenges faced back then have endured to this day, and most tribal languages include innumerable dialects and a wide diversity of what would be considered precise or imprecise definition and pronunciation. Languages are culture-bound, and they reflect a worldview snapshot that differs from place to place and changes over time.

It would be a daunting task to capture a comprehensive list of languages and associated peoples and world views encountered by the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery in their path through the homelands of immeasurable numbers of unique tribal peoples, so only a short list of English-identified tribes will be explored in this unit’s lesson plans. With that in mind, the languages of a few select tribes have been used as the basis. These languages often carry phonologies not found in English. These are the sounds that were then, and remain, unfamiliar to English speakers. Therefore, you will find many words that have been translated from unfamiliar graphemes into phonetic English. An attempt has been made to use these select tribal languages under the best advice available.  Individual tribal language speakers, language programs, university archives, and online resources have been consulted. Like many other culturally precious things held through history by tribal people, language teaching and learning can sometimes be carefully guarded and regarded as the sole property of sovereign nations. As always, when approaching tribal ways of knowing, ask first. This is often a legal requirement.

Language is a living thing. Tribal languages have existed in the absence of outsiders’ static “pen and paper” techniques since time immemorial. With the breath of their words, indigenous ways of knowing have been passed along meticulously through the generations, and shared among and across the complex communities of what is now called the Northern United States. Often intentionally, colonizers used maps and treaties as another weapon in exploiting vulnerabilities in resisting the mass invasion soon to follow. These unfamiliar documents would frequently codify territories and impose artificial boundaries inconsistent with intertribal agreements and understandings. These fluid and changing territorial boundaries often illustrated complex political relationships, and reflected seasonal needs of adjacent tribes. Disruption of these understandings frequently resulted in a political and cultural dissonance that endures to this day. Casualties of these impositions include ancient tongues, cultures, values, and ways of knowing the world.

Again, tribal languages were never written in the European sense. Colonial approaches to printed communication served as one tool in crafting the massive destruction that was soon to follow the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Within these documents existed the idea that unfamiliar words strung into alien languages describing strange concepts could be used to assert ownership of lands that had been occupied by tribes since the beginning of time. Further, the values of outsiders often guided their derisive vision of tribal languages as the “grunting of cretins”. Native American words were described as “the gibberish of apes”. The appearance of American Indians’ faces as they spoke were said to be “twisted and lizard-like” (Ishi, the Last Yahi, Gold, Greed, and Genocide). The treaty-making period generally robbed Native people of their lands and many of the associated languages, cultures, values, and ways of knowing the world.

Language History

As was noted before, the individual lessons included in this curriculum each use a different tribal language as a foundation for further learning about indigenous ways of knowing. Just as English includes regional dialects, so do Native American languages. Techniques used by outsiders to delineate tribes often followed linguistic delineations, and these distinctions were often established by early linguists tasked by universities and museums with documenting the “dying race” and associated lifeways. As happens all too frequently, their distinctions were often the product of miscommunication and mistrust among and between individual informants. Further, their perceptions were colored by the limits in physical and social access to language speakers and culturally literate individuals. Academics often faced the pure frustration felt by English-speaking researchers attempting to make sense of and reach conclusions about the incredibly diverse languages spoken among tribal peoples. The top map illustrates this perfectly. As a document asserting historical fact, it makes sweeping generalizations across the lands described as “Kalapuya”. In fact, people to the north near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia Rivers would be challenged to understand their relatives to the south in Yoncalla country. This is true among the Dee Ni speakers, the Molale, the Upland and Lowland Takelma, and countless other tribal peoples. During the reservation period, conflict often erupted where disagreements over individual word pronunciations and meanings diverged. This Pacific Coast reality is nothing unique to what is now known as Oregon, and the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery would likely have encountered the same diversity, subtlety, and perhaps even some of the disagreement as they made their way across the rest of the country they explored  (https://franceshunter.wordpress.com/2011/07/26/nearly-all-the-men-sick-lewis-and-clark-meet-the-camas-root/https://history.army.mil/LC/The%20People/interpreter.htm). The Shawnee, Osage, Sioux, and Warm Springs Tribes are confederacies that include culturally unique bands and tribes, and frequently cover vast territories. There exists a linguistic correspondence with this cultural diversity. Chinuk Wawa is a mix of several different tribal languages, and includes many words developed through the collaboration of tribal and non tribal peoples (https://history.army.mil/LC/The%20People/interpreter.htm). The language has traditionally been used across the West among trappers, traders, explorers, and early pioneers. More recently, it has been adopted as the official language of the Grand Ronde Tribe.

Perhaps most significantly, these disagreements have endured to this day, often becoming politicized and entering the realm of non-native academia. Disagreements can become quite heated, and it is important for educators to recognize and honor the fact that there may be a diverse interpretation of individual definitions, pronunciations, and origins.

To further complicate matters, the unwritten tribal languages had no consistent orthography. The image above shows a page of notes taken by a linguist who passed through the Pacific Northwest at the turn of the century. Academic researchers often developed and used an orthography of their own singular design, linking unfamiliar sounds with graphemes that made no sense to anyone but the researcher. There are presently a number of orthographies recognized by academia, and/or produced by tribes working to revitalize their languages. These can usually be downloaded and function on a regular keyboard. They can be used to produce a printed version of a language in order to share it widely, but the language is still subject to the same earlier disagreements over meaning and pronunciation.

Teaching, Learning, and the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery Expedition

These teachings presume that, as a part of required U.S. History teachings, a basic understanding of the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery’s expedition has been and/or is being taught to the learners who might study these tribal language lessons. A vast amount of information is available on the Internet. There are primary documents. There are notes, maps, and illustrations written and drawn by Lewis and Clark and their military corps themselves. There are similar notes and illustrations created by linguists, botanists and biologists, early entrepreneurs, other explorers, Indian agents, and members of the military posts that would come in the wake of the Corps of Discovery. Resources describe the encounters between these outsiders and tribes from first contact to the present day. The tribes themselves are often an excellent resource for archival documents, photographs, recordings, and other means of preserving tribal languages. Cultures, values, and ways of knowing are embedded in and reflected by these words.

In responding to the challenges of providing for themselves food, clothing, shelter, transportation, currency, and the other cultural universals necessary for their survival, members of the expedition would also face life-threatening challenges in establishing effective communication with the tribal peoples they encountered in their exploration of the lands of the Louisiana Purchase. This purchase was an act of the government of the United States that asserted ownership of lands already occupied by sovereign peoples who had been there since time immemorial, and set in motion events that would ultimately necessitate communication among all parties involved.

The intent of this unit is not to provide a comprehensive language learning experience, but to provide a peek into the diversity and richness of the languages and associated cultures with which the path of Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery intersected. Even the briefest of introductions to American Indian words can spark interest not only in the learning of the larger language, but in learning more about the expedition, the impacts on some of the Native American peoples in the region traversed (not only during the expedition by in the period of colonization it set in motion),, and the cultural context from which Native American languages arise.

Honoring Tribal Legacies

These lessons are the product of extensive research and development in collaboration with the University of Oregon and the National Park Service’s Honoring Tribal Legacies project. These lessons recognize that the teaching and learning of tribal languages must be tied to the history, culture, and values within the tribe of origin. Equally, multiple perspectives are crucial to an understanding of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Over time, National Parks such as the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail have shaped peoples’ understanding of place and have grown to enhance their appreciation for the responsibility they carry to embrace alternative viewpoints, histories, and ways of knowing. The National Park Service’s recognition of the 200^th anniversary of the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery (2003–2006) included an oft-overlooked recognition of the tribes and bands affected by their voyage, captured using a wide variety of media, and shared through the traveling Tent of Many Voices. (More information:  https://lc-triballegacy.org/main.php.)

Working with Tribal Youth and in Tribal Communities

1. Never assume there are or are no Native American students in your classroom, school, or community. Expecting ethnic identity to include a dependent visible stereotype, and making assumptions based on appearance and/or behavior can have unpleasant  consequences for a positive and productive educator/student relationship. If Native American youth are in your class, and they wish to be known as such, it is their prerogative to share this.
2. Even if you and your class are aware of tribal students in your classroom, never single them out or ask them to speak as an authority on Native Americans in general.
3. Many tribal people have a tradition of naming members of their respective communities based on stages of life, social status, and other cultural markers. These things are often not for sharing. The same goes for spiritual beliefs.
4. Native students often exhibit different learning styles than an educator trained in a colonized fashion is used to seeing. Native students are often raised to trust their community. Tribal youth often work best in collaboration with fellow tribal members and peers. Tribal children and families often carry a traumatic mistrust of the dominant Western model of education. This model has been forced upon them since First Contact, and it can be regarded with resentment.
5. The impacts and consequences of historical trauma are very real and often produce a challenging environment when working with tribal youth, families, and communities. Genocidal treatment by outsiders, the history of boarding schools, the appropriation of tribal culture, and ongoing disenfranchisement of tribal peoples who are engaged in a constant battle to assert sovereignty have left many tribal families deeply wounded. Government and social forces continue to seek assimilation. This mistrust of government often extends to a mistrust of public schools.
6. Take inventory of your materials. Many teaching resources and activities still being used glorify conquest or are grossly culturally inappropriate. Books can often trivialize the sacred, present inappropriate racial stereotypes, and perpetuate the marginalization of Native American culture. Oyate is an excellent resource to consult when in doubt about the appropriateness of material. (http://www.oyate.org/)
7. If you are unfamiliar with the principles of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, as an educator you must be. Tribal communities are frequently disproportionately affected by the impact of poverty and all associated maladies. These include youth as head-of-household, lack of reliable utilities, and incomplete access to the learning tools often taken for granted by many learners.

A Curriculum Model and Educational Philosophy

This visual representation serves as both an educational philosophy and a literal structure for teaching and learning. The model

• reflects an understanding of the role and importance of culture;
• provides a universal representation of learners’ Place as a necessary to positive outcomes;
• illustrates a connection of channels that describes the model’s subject-area integrative nature;
• offers learners the opportunity to take responsibility for their own progress and establish their own pace;
• follows the core philosophies captured by a recognition of the four cardinal directions and their connection to season, evolution, and change as a philosophy, and the stages through which learners pass;
• describes the path of lifelong learning;
• generates an easily recognizable structural metaphor;
• is centered and balanced on the intersection of family and community.

The curriculum model creates a directional illustration of multiple intelligences and a cardinal approach to diverse learning styles.