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FROM: THE ROCHESTER DEMOCRAT & CHRONICLE NEWSPAPER
0335/1002/NEWS
Unspoken Link To Senecas' Past
School works to keep the tribe's language and spirituality alive
Diana Louise Carter
Staff writer
(January 30, 2005) - STEAMBURG - The wall calendar in this rural schoolhouse
in Cattaraugus County doesn't have the traditional grid of numbers on it.
Students at the 8-year-old Faithkeepers School instead use a large drawing of
a snapping turtle surrounded by small pictures, each corresponding to one of
the 13 plates on the turtle's back.
The plates represent each moon of the year - maple sugar moon, strawberry
moon, harvest moon. And the 28 small rectangles around the edge of the turtle's
shell represent the 28 days in each of the lunar months, said Sandra Dowdy, the
head teacher here.
At this school, students of Seneca heritage are learning to speak the
language that has almost gone silent in their community - Seneca - as well as to
understand and participate in the Longhouse ceremonies that define them as a
people. For traditional Iroquois, the Longhouse is the center of both religious
and political life, but it's hard to participate if you can't understand the
language spoken there.
"It's like an alternative-type school. It's not for everybody. It's for ones
who are interested in Longhouse," said founder Dar Dowdy.
Indeed, a handful of last year's 15 students left so they could participate
in sports at nearby high schools. But the Dowdys still feel they are producing
a new generation of faithkeepers: people who can lead the sacred ceremonies of
the Longhouse.
"We make sure our children will be able to take part," Sandy Dowdy said,
referring to rituals such as the midwinter ceremonies held in mid-January that
mark the beginning of the Iroquois year. The children, ages 7 to 15, have learned
to make fire the traditional ways - with flint or a bow drill - so they can
ignite the ceremonial fires in the Longhouse. They have learned passages of
the Thanksgiving Address, the prayer that opens and closes every Iroquois
gathering, so they can follow along.
But the Dowdys are in a race against time, as speakers of Native American
languages everywhere are dying out, possibly spelling the end of the languages
for some native nations.
Lori V. Quigley, a professor of linguistics at the State University College
at Buffalo, grew up and still lives on the Allegany Reservation. She estimates
there are just 60 fluent speakers among 7,200 members of the Seneca Nation of
Indians, who live on or have family ties to Allegany and the Cattaraugus
Seneca Reservations. Most of those speakers are elderly, lacking the energy,
training or wherewithal to take on a classroom of rambunctious kids.
"For 30 or 40 years we've been teaching language, but we haven't been able to
produce a new fluent generation," Quigley said.
State and federal education policies that encouraged assimilation - sometimes
by force - as well as the adoption of modern lifestyles dependent on
off-reservation jobs have made English the standard language for Senecas.
For 40 years, New York state turned away federal funds that would have helped
pay for cultural education for Native American students in public schools,
said Lawrence M. Hauptman, a history professor at the State University College
at New Paltz. The state finally accepted the money in the 1970s. Still, Native
American students couldn't learn their own languages in school until the late
1980s, Hauptman said.
"They had to take French or Spanish and they could not take an Indian
language, even with certified teachers, and count that toward their language
requirements," Hauptman said.
As the language goes, so goes the culture, most Native American experts say.
"That's how history, that's how experience, that's how wisdom is
transmitted," said Andrew J. Lee, a Harvard University administrator of Seneca heritage
who helped the Faithkeepers School get a $10,000 grant from a social issues
foundation. The grant has provided stipends for elderly reservation residents to
come and speak in Seneca with the children twice a week.
Teaching about life
Both Lee, who has traveled the country examining cultural programs on
reservations, and Jon Reyhner, a bilingual and multicultural education professor at
the University of Northern Arizona, say the Senecas' language problems are
emblematic of Indian nations everywhere. "We have grandparents on the Navajo
reservation that can't speak to their grandchildren. The grandparents only speak
Navajo. ... The kids only speak English. How can you pass down traditional
family values in a situation like that?" Reyhner said.
Exactly, Dar Dowdy said. "We're trying to teach everything they need to know
about life, how to conduct yourself."
This message is reprinted under the Fair Use
Doctrine of International Copyright Law:
************************************************** *************
FROM: THE ROCHESTER DEMOCRAT & CHRONICLE NEWSPAPER
0335/1002/NEWS
Unspoken Link To Senecas' Past
School works to keep the tribe's language and spirituality alive
Diana Louise Carter
Staff writer
(January 30, 2005) - STEAMBURG - The wall calendar in this rural schoolhouse
in Cattaraugus County doesn't have the traditional grid of numbers on it.
Students at the 8-year-old Faithkeepers School instead use a large drawing of
a snapping turtle surrounded by small pictures, each corresponding to one of
the 13 plates on the turtle's back.
The plates represent each moon of the year - maple sugar moon, strawberry
moon, harvest moon. And the 28 small rectangles around the edge of the turtle's
shell represent the 28 days in each of the lunar months, said Sandra Dowdy, the
head teacher here.
At this school, students of Seneca heritage are learning to speak the
language that has almost gone silent in their community - Seneca - as well as to
understand and participate in the Longhouse ceremonies that define them as a
people. For traditional Iroquois, the Longhouse is the center of both religious
and political life, but it's hard to participate if you can't understand the
language spoken there.
"It's like an alternative-type school. It's not for everybody. It's for ones
who are interested in Longhouse," said founder Dar Dowdy.
Indeed, a handful of last year's 15 students left so they could participate
in sports at nearby high schools. But the Dowdys still feel they are producing
a new generation of faithkeepers: people who can lead the sacred ceremonies of
the Longhouse.
"We make sure our children will be able to take part," Sandy Dowdy said,
referring to rituals such as the midwinter ceremonies held in mid-January that
mark the beginning of the Iroquois year. The children, ages 7 to 15, have learned
to make fire the traditional ways - with flint or a bow drill - so they can
ignite the ceremonial fires in the Longhouse. They have learned passages of
the Thanksgiving Address, the prayer that opens and closes every Iroquois
gathering, so they can follow along.
But the Dowdys are in a race against time, as speakers of Native American
languages everywhere are dying out, possibly spelling the end of the languages
for some native nations.
Lori V. Quigley, a professor of linguistics at the State University College
at Buffalo, grew up and still lives on the Allegany Reservation. She estimates
there are just 60 fluent speakers among 7,200 members of the Seneca Nation of
Indians, who live on or have family ties to Allegany and the Cattaraugus
Seneca Reservations. Most of those speakers are elderly, lacking the energy,
training or wherewithal to take on a classroom of rambunctious kids.
"For 30 or 40 years we've been teaching language, but we haven't been able to
produce a new fluent generation," Quigley said.
State and federal education policies that encouraged assimilation - sometimes
by force - as well as the adoption of modern lifestyles dependent on
off-reservation jobs have made English the standard language for Senecas.
For 40 years, New York state turned away federal funds that would have helped
pay for cultural education for Native American students in public schools,
said Lawrence M. Hauptman, a history professor at the State University College
at New Paltz. The state finally accepted the money in the 1970s. Still, Native
American students couldn't learn their own languages in school until the late
1980s, Hauptman said.
"They had to take French or Spanish and they could not take an Indian
language, even with certified teachers, and count that toward their language
requirements," Hauptman said.
As the language goes, so goes the culture, most Native American experts say.
"That's how history, that's how experience, that's how wisdom is
transmitted," said Andrew J. Lee, a Harvard University administrator of Seneca heritage
who helped the Faithkeepers School get a $10,000 grant from a social issues
foundation. The grant has provided stipends for elderly reservation residents to
come and speak in Seneca with the children twice a week.
Teaching about life
Both Lee, who has traveled the country examining cultural programs on
reservations, and Jon Reyhner, a bilingual and multicultural education professor at
the University of Northern Arizona, say the Senecas' language problems are
emblematic of Indian nations everywhere. "We have grandparents on the Navajo
reservation that can't speak to their grandchildren. The grandparents only speak
Navajo. ... The kids only speak English. How can you pass down traditional
family values in a situation like that?" Reyhner said.
Exactly, Dar Dowdy said. "We're trying to teach everything they need to know
about life, how to conduct yourself."
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