'Decolonise and re-indigenise': The Ojibwe language warrior

December 20, 2019 2:00 PM

Advocating for indigenous language revitalization has offered [Anton Treuer] healing and empowerment. "Language can disrupt the glue for colonial thinking which has been fundamentally dehumanizing to indigenous people," he explains. "Although we can't stop the bludgeon of forced assimilation, we can decolonize and re-indigenise everything we do, recognizing that in our worldview, spiritual, physical and mental health are intertwined. This is where real healing will come from; the language is a powerful tool in this work."

He has written several books about language, culture and history including: Living Our Language: Ojibwe Tales and Oral Histories, Everything You Wanted to Know about Indians but Were Afraid to Ask, The Assassination of Hole in the Day and Atlas of Indian Nations. Amazon author page.

posted by Anonymous (5 comments total)

Thank you for posting this.

My brother-in-law is a descendent of an Ojibwe band that neighbors Treuer’s in northern Minnesota. Though he’s always had a strong connection to his extended family on the reservation, the fact that he grew up in the Twin Cities suburbs has meant that his knowledge of Ojibwe language and culture isn’t as good as he’d like it to be, and for complicated reasons he hasn’t felt comfortable passing that heritage along to his daughter until recently. Now that my niece has reached an age where she’s showing a strong interest in her family’s background, the two of them have been working on this together, and Treuer’s writings have been a big part of that. In addition to the titles listed in the FPP, they’ve also found the Ojibwe Vocabulary Project Aaniin Ekidong (co-edited by Treuer) to be an invaluable resource.
posted by theory at 5:04 PM on December 20, 2019 [4 favorites]

I married into the extended Treuer family, but my spouse is not Ojibwe because blended families are complicated. Folks should also check out Anton's brother David Treuer's books for both fiction and non-fiction that deals with Ojibwe and Native identities.

(And for something completely different, here are their father Robert Treuer's writings on his experience escaping the Holocaust--like I said, blended families are complicated).
posted by hydropsyche at 5:20 AM on December 21, 2019 [1 favorite]

language preservation and revitalization are among the very few things i can bring myself to care about anymore. what a great post, thank you.
posted by poffin boffin at 10:46 AM on December 21, 2019 [2 favorites]

Footnote because it's in this weekend's Montreal news: Reawakening the dormant Wendat language. The Wendat are also known by the names Wyandot and Huron and their language has not actively been spoken for 150 years, but an effort is being made to teach the revived language at a school in Wendake, Quebec.
posted by zadcat at 3:10 PM on December 21, 2019 [3 favorites]

A friend mentioned that his family attended Ojibwe language camp last year and really enjoyed it.
posted by Friendly Craft Person at 4:36 PM on December 21, 2019 [1 favorite]