The Longest Walk II

Tuesday, February 12, 2008 -

The Longest Walk II:

In 1978, Native activists held the Longest Walk in an effort to shed
light on Native issues. Today, participants are embarking on the Longest
Walk II a 5-month journey from San Francisco to Washington , D.C.

It has shaped up to be an extraordinary grassroots effort on a national
level to bring attention to the environmental disharmony of Mother
Earth, sacred site issues, and to commemorate the 30th anniversary of
the original walk. Do events like these actually raise awareness? Guests
include Dennis Banks of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe and co-founder of
the American Indian Movement.

Listin to Native America Calling
Airs Live,


To participate call 1-800-996-2848, that's 1-800-99-NATIVE

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Death of a language

Article:Death of a language
Caille Millner

Monday, February 11, 2008

Marie Smith died in Alaska last month, and with her went the Eyak
language.

For most of my readers - who probably speak nothing but English and a
little taco-store Spanish - at first glance this news will garner
nothing more than a sad shrug, a small feeling of loss, a wonder if NPR
will rebroadcast that short segment when Smith spoke a little of that
unusual Native American tongue, with its nasal intonations and its
explosive sounds. So I wanted to talk a little bit about what happens
when a language dies, since we're going to watch so many of them (90
percent of the world's 6,000 languages could be extinct by the next
century) die during our lifetimes.

(Note: I am not a linguist. My "expertise" in this subject is of the
thinnest, most honest kind - the realization that my own life will be
spent in submission to language.)

Take the Eyak word c'a, for instance. There is absolutely no English
equivalent for what might be roughly described as "silky,
water-saturated mud that gums between your toes," yet I feel enriched by
the knowledge that someone devised a word for an object that is familiar
and a sensation I have felt before, usually while walking on a beach.

Probing the word reveals even more - why did those who constructed (and
are still constructing) English choose not to create a word for this? It
can't just be because the Eyak lived along the Copper River delta on
Prince William Sound, where silt and swamp were their surroundings.
English, too, came into being in cold, dark, muddy climes. But while
it's clear that the Eyak were comfortable with having mud between their
toes, did the assemblers of English feel uncomfortable with it?

If that's true, then it tells us something about the Eyak that they felt
comfortable with that mud.

And it tells us something that the English did not.

Or take the Eyak word demexch, for instance. Demexch is a single thing
(a soft spot in the ice) with two meanings. The first meaning is that it
is dangerous, that it is a bad place to walk. The second is that it is a
good place to squat near, for fishing purposes.

This is the kind of word that reminds me how little ambivalence is built
into the English language. As a language, English is not particularly
comfortable with gradation or uncertainty, a point that was brought home
to me once years ago when a Spanish-speaking colleague of mine was
railing about why he had to call his girlfriend a "girlfriend."

"It's so juvenile!" he shouted. "Why isn't there an English word like
novio or novia, something that doesn't make us sound like we're in high
school?"

"But doesn't novio mean fiance?" I asked.

"It can also mean that you're in an adult relationship with someone, and
maybe it doesn't need all those definitions," he said. "English doesn't
have a lot of words that allow for ambiguity."

Perhaps this also tells us something about the people who speak English
as well.

Language tells us all of these things about ourselves, but it's
difficult to recognize the language itself is thrown into sharp relief -
by coming up against another language, created by different people with
different experiences, values, and beliefs about the world. Marie Smith
only realized the importance of Eyak once she was an old woman. Once her
last surviving sister died and Smith became the last living speaker of
the language, she looked around and was horrified to discover that if
Eyak died, so did the world's understanding of why the Eyak believed
that leaves and feathers were so intertwined that they should share the
same word (kultahl). She looked around and realized that no one would
have the words to tell their stories about the Creater-Raven and the
magical loon, or to explain why the Eyak believed in the linguistic
kinship of a hammer and a hat. She looked around and realized that once
the language was dead, no one would understand how the Eyak thought, how
they lived, or what was important to them.

Now multiply Smith's recognition by a factor of 5,400 languages.

Unfortunately there are plenty of people who still don't believe that
losing all of these languages is a problem. They believe that linguistic
homogeneity is not just inevitable but also a sign of evolutionary
power, a sign that English has triumphed because its speakers have. But
what's at stake is not just someone else's dying language, it's our own.

They say when you learn another language that you understand someone
else's culture. That's a fallacy. What you actually learn is your own.
The words we choose to invent - and even more crucially, those we choose
not to invent - are reflections of our values and our desires, our
beliefs and our shortcomings. That's why all English speakers should
mourn the loss of Eyak language. What we have just lost is another
reflection onto what our own language means.

Caille Millner is a Chronicle editorial writer. You can e-mail her at
cmillner@sfchronicle.com.


This article appeared on page D - 4 of the San Francisco Chronicle


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Longest Walk II Starts Off

Activists' national trek takes first steps in Yolo
American Indian group to lead 4,000-mile walk for environmental cause.
By Stephen Magagnini -
Published 12:00 am PST Saturday, February 9, 2008
Story appeared in METRO section, Page B2

"Sacramento Bee-DENNIS BANKS AND BUDDHISTS AMONG THE WALKERS "

Activists from four continents – led by American Indians and Japanese Buddhist monks – will gather in Yolo County on Monday to launch a walk across America dedicated to protecting the environment.

Led by American Indian Movement co-founder Dennis Banks, they will embark on a five-month, 4,000-mile spiritual trek to Washington, D.C., calling for an end to the degradation of the planet.

"We want to raise the issues of global warming and clean air, water and soil," said Banks. "Many native elders believe Mother Earth is being hurt by all this and it's going to cause some very serious climate change."

Banks, a well-known indigenous activist, said he didn't want future generations to look back and say, " 'What did they do to stop it?' "

The trek – dubbed "Longest Walk II" – begins on the 30th anniversary of the first "Longest Walk," another transcontinental journey led by American Indians. Like this second walk, the trek set off from D-Q University, a tribal community college seven miles west of Davis.

The two-year tribal college, founded in 1971 as a symbol of native empowerment, is named after Deganawidah, peacemaker of the Iroquois Confederacy, and the Aztec prophet Quetzalcoatl. Today, the school is fighting for survival after losing its accreditation and federal funding in 2005 over financial and enrollment problems.

"I'm happy they included D-Q because we're trying to get back on our feet and straighten things out," said D-Q chairman Calvin Hedrick, a Mountain Maidu from Plumas County. "Somebody just called and asked is D-Q even around any more – it will be great for people to see we're still trying and not letting things go."

The 1978 Longest Walk was undertaken to protest legislation that activists say would have wiped out Indian treaties and taken away tribal hunting and fishing rights. The legislation ultimately failed.

"Last time, we started with 60 people," Banks said, "and it just kept getting bigger until about 3,000 people walked into D.C., and we collected over 1.5 million signatures along the way."

The 1978 walk "was very much a walk for survival, and this walk, too, is very much about cultural survival," said Morning Star Gali, 28, an organizer from the Achumawi Band of Pitt River Indians near Burney.

"This is a call to action for our elders and youth to bring attention to what's going on in our homeland and the environment in general," Gali said.

The walkers plan to cover 15 miles a day, said Banks, who will lead a southern cross-country route.

A second contingent will follow the footsteps of the 1978 walk through Placerville and Lake Tahoe, Banks said.

Walkers of all ages are coming from 30 Indian nations and about a dozen foreign countries, including Germany, Norway, Switzerland, Russia and Australia, "and a walking order of 20 Japanese Buddhist monks," Gali said.

The walkers plan to to sleep under the stars, though organizers are hoping churches along the way will provide lodging. The Rumsey Tribe of Yolo County, which runs Cache Creek Casino, and other tribes will provide food, and the Sacramento Central Labor Council and Pollock Pines Community Center are helping with water and lodging, said co-organizer Ricardo Tapia of Woodland.

Longest Walk II will launch at 4:30 a.m. Monday with a ceremony at Alcatraz Island. Banks and thousands of other activists occupied Alcatraz from 1969 to 1971 to fight for American Indian rights.

Activists also occupied the land that became D-Q in 1971.

The walkers will caravan to D-Q Monday, where they'll sleep in dorms or camp out, said Hedrick. They'll meet a handful of students living at D-Q and running their own gardening class.

For more information on Longest Walk II, go to www.longestwalk.org or call Gali at (510) 827-6719.

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http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/699878.html