Reflections on revitalizing and reinforcing native languages and cultures

Abstract

The purpose of this essay is to introduce nativist expression, historic practices, and perceptions in describing an important approach to exercising language revitalization based on traditional fundamentals and operational ownership in Native organizations of these reflections. Information is presented to enhance the understanding of how Native knowledge is expressed from oral tradition for non-Natives to understand. This explanation is the basis of recommendations for Native organizations that are focused on the Native languages renaissance. It is also reinforcing and explaining traditional approaches of how Native cultures have formalized their customs and practices in historic times to better define their civilizations as relevant and significant to their regions in North America. An emphasis is presented for Native educators to liberate and compliment their contemporary educational approaches and methods with traditional knowledge and practices to perpetuate and formalize their knowledge for perpetuating the future of their language, culture, history, and relevance.

Keywords:

• decolonization
• oral tradition
• Indigenous language revitalization

Public Interest Statement

Information is presented to assist Native organizations to empower their organizational missions, goals, objectives, and activities with their traditional customs and practices. There are descriptive presentations from a Nativist perspective of historical practices of tribes, such as the Apsaalooke (Crow), to assist readers in better understanding the economic, spiritual, and social practices of historic times and how they can be integrated into contemporary Native-based organizations. The overall recommendations for this essay are to encourage Native organizations to revitalize, reinforce, and empower their customs, culture, and practices through the revitalization and renaissance initiatives of their language projects and institutions.

There are challenges for the Indigenous people throughout the Americas to empower and liberate their ancestral foundations regarding their values, culture, language, and historical legacies. Many are faced with an even more challenging dilemma in creating a renaissance to formally re-establish an identity due to the absence, dormancy, and destruction of the foundations of their past civilizations like their traditional languages and world views due to the influences of the Western political and economic world. This is partially the state of affairs that Indigenous people acknowledge in a contemporary movement in their formal educational missions for revitalizing Native languages. This reflection presents a concise and tactful analysis to identify challenges and prepare for the ascension of successful efforts to revitalize, re-learn, re-introduce, and initiate language and cultural renaissances among Montana tribes.

As Native educators and lifelong learners, our backgrounds are founded by the views of our ethnicity which define our views based on an upbringing around the beautiful environment among our Native people, and our sense of belonging only as a very miniscule part of a more powerfully vast universe and a dynamically energized world of nature. It is important to acknowledge these thoughts for understanding Native thinkers. Even more important is the contrast that these views are less emphatic to individualistic expression unique to western views as individuals being the gauges of defining thoughts or perspective. This is the understanding of a world view as being part of a greater force than at being the center of this limitless universe. It is important to understand that articulating these views is combined with an ingrained foundation of descriptive thought in the practice of our Native languages and a unique regional dialect of English that stands as a huge contrast of the mainstream use of English. Our reflections are more deliberate and descriptive due to the facilitation of translations tiers of holistic Native world concepts we accept and mainstream linear views emphasized by logic and reason that we learned (Wilson, 2005).

The delivery of traditional Native knowledge, language, spirituality, culture, and education is founded on learning through oral history and tradition. This reflection is the basis of how this information will be presented through the views of an active participant of the traditional culture. Knowledge is presented formally in informal settings through storytelling and the etiquette or ethics of what it means to be an Apsaalooke person (Crow). An example of this knowledge is passed on through the preparation of constructing a Sweat lodge or teepee in an informal setting. During these outdoor activities, elders would pass on knowledge of the material quality, the proper time for harvest, and evolvement or background of using particular material or plants such as lodge pole pine or birch as obtained by heroes or visions in Native lore. During these preparation practices learners would acquire hands on knowledge for construction and significant memorable experiences for reinforcing the importance of the association to nature, environment, and the relevance of the activity to the Apsaalooke culture, religion, or identity. Names or sources would be passed during this instruction to link associations with time periods, locations, and roles among the Natives such as the Apsaalooke.

The oral knowledge is particularly linked to environmental or seasonal phenomena. Just as Western ideology is passed through literacy. The Native people read nature as literacy by recognizing environmental conditions, weather patterns, seasonal changes, wildlife activity, and nature just as a scholar or students read a book. The signs of nature reveal vast information and links to history and other oral tradition. The diverse practices among Native people in preparation or cultural practices maintain important reinforcement elements. Knowledge may occasionally contain repetitive qualities because there is an importance to affirm and reinforce cultural procedure, process, and protocol. This is a quality of Native people maintaining tradition. It is also a valuable quality in teaching contemporary Native learners.

The course of this commentary is to present certain challenges and provide constructive recommendations to these challenges faced by Native people pursuing a mission in revitalizing Native languages and cultures. The discussion will be guiding readers and learners with suggestions or contingencies for self-sustaining Native language initiatives and solidifying their formal institutions through holistic and nativist views (nativist – a term used to identify Native people who participate in the traditional Native cultural practices). This is an offering as in a Native ritual or a good neighbor to assist, support, encourage, and reinforce the efforts of tribal organizations, educational institutions, motivated or inspired individuals, and programs pursuing goals and objectives to strengthen their Native language foundations. It is important to discuss the limitations and the road blocks by finding solutions and healing or recovery from forces that may be hampering language revitalization missions such as historic trauma or colonization. These struggles are possibly being the most destructive forces outside of the internal strife and in-fighting among each other as it happens in some colonized unhealthy or economically disadvantaged communities where lateral violence is prevalent.

Like many Native educators and lifelong learners, our foundations were defined by a community upbringing around mentors and elders participating in culture and reinforced with the emphasis of our wealth, measured by our family or clan, and belonging or participating in the activities that define who we are as this is heard in our languages. Within this world we came to understand a particular honor for horsemanship, family, ceremonial preparation, individual roles or responsibilities, discipline, cultural gatherings, and the respect for our elders and ourselves. This also includes formal teachings in informal settings regarding the universe, philosophy, traditional values, ethics, religion, and even disciplines in being competitive and resilient. The Sweat Lodge ceremony comes to mind as a way of life for my people, the Crow (Real Bird, 1997).

There are certain procedures and preparations involved for this practice through the Sweat Lodge ceremony that become a way of life. The ceremony itself is an institution for prayer, healing, teaching, preparation, personal visions, storytelling, humor, role of clan reinforcement, and community missions. There are philosophical foundations for respect and reverence for specific purposes during this ritual. It is a way of life and how we have come to understand the world because there are a number of processes involved such as finding the proper wood, harvesting this wood, cutting the wood, and utilizing the proper wood for heating rocks. Participants have extensive procedures regarding the preparation and participation. It is an element that is overlooked many times as compared to just practicing the ceremony. There are many other institutions and preparation requirements for other spiritual foundations such as Native American Church ceremonials, Sun Dances, pipe ceremonies, bundle openings, naming ceremonies, healing or doctoring ceremonies and more. There are social educational institutions such as powwows and feeds associated with celebration, military service, college bound students, birthdays, and evolvement among family members such as important jobs, or obtaining cultural rights or recognition or celebrations of success. This is how we interpret the revitalization and renaissance of Native languages through custom and ceremony.

It seems like only a few hours ago in the other room I was waiting and listening for the approval or support of my elders to exercise some activity, project, or mission. The most endearing events in our lives were when we heard and listened to voices of support and encouragement. This reminds me of elders that supported my efforts to organize educational projects or career pursuits. The words of my mentors served as a means of positive reinforcement and support. With their guidance and approval, successes, and even set backs were important because this reinforcement always meant to stay strong, prepare, and find ways to improve. Their emphasis was to show our people a way to achieve or rise again from defeat if necessary. This is the template exercised by the diversity of tribal nations. They are relying on their own foundations and protocols to define the success of their language and cultural educational missions.

Now, in this room I am a grandfather and many of those that taught me are in another world. The elders left me with the permission saying that you have been doing the right thing long enough that if you are challenged again, tell them I said you have the right to use any means to achieve your goals and objectives based on your cultural practices and their trust. It is my intention that our future leaders and lifelong learners perpetuate these foundations and keys to success based on their traditional knowledge, especially for institutions devoted and dedicated to perpetuating these institutions of our Native languages and cultural practices. The traditional ways and formulae for success are the key processes and models to reinforce contemporary Native institutions in strengthening their identity and belongingness in our communities. In order to describe how this process occurs, the perspective will be analyzed from the vista of political and economic initiatives of our tribal nations. An example might be hunting, ceremonies, or gathering intelligence of the movement of game, abundance of natural resources or enemies within our lands.

Today, many tribal entities have formally incorporated or defined themselves based on governmental regulations on corporations’ or non-profits’ institutions standards such as the tribal college located throughout Native communities nationwide. In order to define their institutions they create charters, policies, and registrations to governmental agencies for identity. This is all good and a successful compromise to a Native traditional language and cultural institution. Yet, it is important for organizations to resort to their traditional practices to define and achieve the successes based on their own models taught to them in their traditions and cultural practices. What I mean by this is, if an organization has established all the mainstream characteristics for identifying themselves. They can have greater participation and ownership by infusing their traditional knowledge, customs, ethics, values, and practices into the process of their business model. Unconventional to a mainstream organization, there is precedence for the reverence of our ceremonies and customs from the practice and reinforcement of our ancestral and nativist philosophies (Stein, 1999).

Years ago and today, we still hear the stories of the achievement of warriors, leaders, and visionaries. In reflecting upon the Crow and other tribal nations, their economic systems were based on the buffalo. This natural resource provided clothing, food, shelter, medicine, wealth, and purpose to these nations. On a large scale, it was the center of commerce while other parts supported domestic activities throughout villages and civilizations. The crafts and labor force involved tanning, sewing, housing construction, food preparation, medicinal extraction, educational processes surrounding the institution of the buffalo economy, and much more interpretation to history, geography, science, humanities, and nature. So when it was time to hunt, this event was not random. Like ceremonies and preparation, there was a formal process exercised and practices for this mission regarding the “hunt” or harvest. This was their mission. It is a similar to the missions needed for contemporary Native organizations to recognize and practice to succeed and flourish. For a language program to thrive, it will be compared to the preparation of a hunt or other traditional practice such as moving camp for economic purposes in the days of the buffalo economy.

In the traditional times, our legacy was when we followed the buffalo in cycles of nature, environment, botany, and seasons. It was important to respect nature and the universe as told around cultural and ceremonial gatherings for generations for tribes such as the Crow, Hidatsa, Dakota, and others. There were considerations that had to be made and followed. So buffalo harvests or a hunt were not random. There was and is extensive planning; still today, protocols that need to be recognized just as much as a mainstream Native organization has to consider in their goals to be successful. Along with planning, there is a requirement for preparation and practices that were learned from previous missions that contributed to successful ventures or compromises throughout generations of the historic civilizations that followed the buffalo. This is the emphasis for contemporary organizations in using historic models of tradition and practice to modern day challenges like the buffalo hunts of the past. In our camps and villages there were experts and owners of licenses or rites to achieve a “successful harvest.” They were medicine people who had bundles and disciplined teachings about the buffalo and the environment. Hunters and participants had to be respectful and cognizant of all of these teachings the harvest was not random.

The hypothetical scenario of how a buffalo harvest was practiced involved many, just as much a contemporary organization functions are based on policy and procedure. All of these events occurred in informal or environmental settings. According to our elders, there were certain times to hunt. It was not honorable to harvest during certain natural events such as calving or during menstruation cycles or areas known to have poor water supplies or the lack of natural resources used for preparation like wood and other dietary plants supplementing the diets and medicinal needs of tribal nations. This included a location that might be prone to enemy attack or a history of sickness or bad medicine in a region especially with rough geography. The first course of business was for a visionary leader to determine the need for a hunt based on the historic seasonal cycle and migration patterns of buffalo, and including elk. This was determined by their medicine bundles, spiritual helpers, cosmic signs, moon patterns, plant maturity or stages, oral tradition, and need through community collaboration. Knowledge was passed on of these patterns by the literacy of understanding astronomical cycles, wind patterns, plant cycles, bird and animal activities, life cycles of bugs, and specific times and seasons as a calendar is reference today to harvest plants with medicinal values based on the abundance of blossoms, seeds, and even sap.

Based on these patterns and interpreting natural environmental cycles such as the season and moons, leaders would determine through oral accounts that a certain herd was likely to be in the Musselshell River valley at this certain time. So, the wolves or scouts (Chíitdee) as described by the Crow were sent out to determine the strengths and weaknesses of moving the camp for a buffalo harvest. The visionary leader would choose his intelligence staff or wolves. In any preparation, they would be given instructions and plans during a Sweat Lodge ceremony. This could be the same means for contemporaries to practice their economic goals like a Pipe ceremony, or Sweat Lodge, or consultation with elders. The scouts then would be sent out with protection and contingencies to locate the migrating herds and perspective campsites with abundant firewood, rich grass for horses, wind breaks, natural gardens of roots and edible plants, presence of berries, even the capacity for storage, and an ample water supply. Other exercises required the wolves to venture further from the perspective camp to locate any hostile or friendly neighbors. When the wolves reported, there were individuals left in strategic places like trails or high peaks to monitor other movement, like enemies or weather conditions and return to the main camp when instructed or due to an urgency to report information. This is similar to the contemporary practices of prioritizing strengths weaknesses, opportunities, and threats taught in business courses.

When the wolves reported their expedition and location of scouts left for strategic purposes. They again performed the Sweat Lodge ritual to reflect in prayer and perspective on the next move. At that time certain chiefs will be consulted such as war leaders or pipe carriers to formalize the planned move and exercise the appropriate ceremonies for organizing the moving of a camp or village. Other support services were instructed on the practices for moving and preparation for a hunt. Individual ceremonies were performed and preparations were made for this custom such as organizing specific horses trained for transporting young children and elderly people. This included horses specifically used for travois for hauling personal belongings and lodges. All of these practices would be similar to the duties and responsibilities of members in a language organization given formal duties and important responsibilities bestowed by rite and ceremony based on plans and procedures.

The procession of a camp move was a formal and glorious occasion and is similar to the daily parades held during the Crow Fair during the third weekend of August. It was a time to showcase the achievements of warriors and included the announcement of marriages or a great exhibition of the fine regalia on horses and individuals. Members were honored by elders during praise songs sung to celebrate their achievements or life changes. Heralds would announce and reinforce the standards, expectations, and ethics of what it means to be Crow. Leading the procession would be the visionary chief and pipe carriers. There would be near the lead was the head person who had the responsibility of transporting burning embers or charcoals to start the fires in the new camps by igniting flames through mixing coals with dry buffalo dung. They would be followed by prominent women leaders, sub-chiefs and societies. The rest of the citizens joined the entourage after the prominent, spiritual, and social leadership. Their order was formalized and defined just as much as an organizational chart would be. Upon arrival of the new camp, ceremonies would occur and more preparations would be made for the harvest. This included the construction of domestic lodges, ceremonial lodges, and specific campsites for certain clans and bundle owners. A contemporary language and culture organization will use this model to empower and reinforce the importance of specific and common roles in their functions and activities. The camp would have other safety precautions such as the presence of magpies, coyotes, eagles, and camp dogs that warned of danger or were an alarm of caution like the presence of dangerous animals or an enemy presence by their demeanor or senses. The camp was also prepared and understood the potential of intertribal gatherings during the hunt and renewing friendship and alliances as other nations, bands, and allies entered the region. This also contributed understanding the importance of trade and political interaction, including ceremony as the camps moved regionally.

Continuing a view into our ancestors’ important activities, prior to the harvest, ceremonies and rituals will be exercised for the success and safety of the participants and a healthy yield. Bundle openings will be held by owners of these shrines that are linked to the buffalo, and the supernatural power associated with this right as custodians of medicine bundles. More Sweat Lodge ceremonies will be performed for cleansing and purifying the body while clearing human scent to not alarm the buffalo. Hunters will be wiped with sage to blend their scent while moving through the hunting grounds. Weapons will be smudged off with incense along with prayers for everyone’s success and safety, including the horses involved in the hunt. It would be similar to contemporary Natives having formal meetings for their business operations, or potential ceremonies/rituals for their equipment like computers and other technologies or licenses that contribute to success like strategic plans. Some individuals, horses, and weapons will be adorned certain paint with specific symbols by their medicine bundles and representations or the medicine power for stealth and accuracy. It is important for Native organization to have the spiritual essence and positive energy complimenting their success just as the buffalo harvest of historic times. Songs may be song by some with that right on behalf of the buffalo and prayers will be offered on lives of the ones harvested, reinforcing their purpose in the world and universe, and mainly for gratitude. The souls of the buffalo will be addressed in that manner. This is a consideration for all mainstream organizations to consider. There are no laws or barriers keeping us from this practice that complimented historic success and that can be empowering our modern achievements and visions. It is a supernatural energy that has been around for generations and needs to become stronger as organizations are empowered and liberated from Western mechanisms of control.

The cycle will continue with formal processes in informal settings of harvesting, preparing, and feasting including trade and commerce as nations or bands interacted. Everything of the buffalo will be used such as the hide for lodges and clothing, while bones were made into tools or placed around fires to maintain warmth in the lodges. Sinew will be processed for sewing clothing and rawhide will be made for riding regalia. The harvest will create an extensive and active industry for commerce and trade. This was a description of a healthy and vigorous Indigenous organization of the past that can likewise strive today for modern Native organizations based on traditional and cultural foundations. With that perspective, it is then necessary to examine the challenges of organizations to empower and create a self-sustaining language organization based on traditional models for dealing with situations or challenges to success. In general, situations will be presented and contingencies or solutions will be provided to achieve success or effective evaluations for contemporary Native language and cultural organizations.

Among many nativist communities today these processes and traditional practices are very active and successful, especially for individuals. Ceremonies will be held among the Dine’ or the Hidatsa for members following a road in the armed services. In general, prayers will be manifested for the safe return of individuals on military missions and effective training experiences that they can share with their Native communities. There are pipe ceremonies and Sweat Lodge ceremonies among the Lakota and Arikara people using the same template for success in contemporary educational pursuits such as obtaining degrees. All of these successes are based on the central foundation of their traditional philosophies and spiritual institutions. The Kiowa or Arapaho will conduct Native American Church ceremonies for individuals for obtaining advanced degrees. These ceremonies and visions are achieved through the remote viewing of the medicine people or bundle holders. These spiritual leaders are able to communicate and emphasize paths for individuals about important elements of their mission and flourishing outside of their people or community. They will be guided in how they will finance their mission, perceptions of potential educators or allies, and the type of work or information they gain including the preparation for academic success. This is the power of traditional practices and institutions. This is the emphasis and ethics that will contribute to Native organizations and individuals immersed in the political and economic world of the mainstream.

There are great language institutions in Montana like Cuts Wood of Pikuni or White Clay of the Gros Ventre who have persevered and continue to expand their legacy regarding language and culture in reservation communities today. They have tremendously powerful qualities that contribute to their success such as local leadership, vision, compassion, community support (especially from elders and youth), planning, and inspiration. Even with limited resources, they made their own. They have all faced similar problems and have overcome these challenges based on qualities mentioned, and spirituality. Unlike mainstream organizations that ban religious or spiritual symbolism. Their Native and spiritual practices are the center and core foundation for operating and flourishing today. There are similar experiences and challenges that they have faced and continue to address tactfully and diplomatically and this is still the social and economic state of affairs in many reservation communities. Along with this dilemma is the negative history associated with their survival. In the next portion of this essay, issues will be discussed that pose challenges and possibly hold back progress. This view will be explained from a nativist and ceremonial view point just as other nativist educators have prevailed as they follow their spiritual road and practice their traditional values and ethics.

Many Native educators experience a vast array of interpreting or describing their roles in the community. Their positions range from educators, administrators, elected officials, clergy, or grass roots organizers. All of these experiences are important. The most obscure positions are those of the educators working directly and with their community members. They are basically the ones assigned to work in the trenches and do the hard work when other administrators end up with the accolades of their hard work. These grass-roots educators and instructors are not seeking the merits of recognition or status because they are too busy trying to prepare, teach, reinforce, and support people they already respect and love like community members and the innocent minds and children to whom they serve as modern day warriors of peace. For some educators, their main efforts are to instill confidence especially to continue and support an individual learner’s goal for education while at the same time constantly expecting consistency to maintain this mission. Confidence is the means to continue and pursue advanced levels of understanding and learning, while consistency is the important expectation of forming characteristics of success, resiliency, and ownership by belonging to the process. Many educators have this mindset that is a characteristic of faculty among many of the nation’s tribal colleges and grassroots organizations.

The purpose of describing this educational experience is important to the efforts of language and cultural programs throughout Indigenous communities. The reason being is that many are faced with similar social and economic problems impeding individual growth or community enhancement. Educators, like faculty members among the Montana tribal colleges, do not get to pick their clientele. They are given the huge task to orientate and groom adult learners that may come through the door with social problems, unhealthy conditioning, unpreparedness, or poor work habits. Many students enter the doors with fear due to their past experiences of being embarrassed, beaten, belittled, traumatized, and abused in mainstream schools and public or government organizations. Because of their lack of understanding contemporary communication processes to address these issues or pursue any recourse they tend to keep them held within themselves. They have been only exposed to the frustration and anger of other people they know, and accept that this is how it is supposed to be. This is a mentality that is prominent in reservation communities such as Montana. This primarily is the main problem that has to be addressed and solved to proceed effectively, especially in establishing a healthy language program. This is the historic trauma experienced by the survival of their once great civilizations. The need is for progressing language and cultural missions as a state of healing and recovery.

In the days of the buffalo, leaders and visionaries collaborated to resolve issues based on the established protocols of their traditions and cultural practices. Unfortunately due to the annihilation or genocide, some tribes experienced the loss of many of these institutions. Some have gone dormant or we are told not to say anything because this knowledge and information is still in the streams, winds, dream world, or remote geographical locations in nature to Native people. Our mentors taught us not to speak of dark forces such as death, and in this case extinction, because this will call the spirit of those dark forces that have no place in what we are doing today. Our elders taught us that education and knowledge is in nature and the universe. In the past, our heroes and leaders acquired power and intervention through spiritual and supernatural forces. They were acquired in visions during fasts or spiritual practices of penance like Sun Dances where upon they were given gifts of healing, prowess, success, leadership, formal license, and ceremony associated with their medicine and powers representing forces helping our communities. These institutions remain strong and available for all Montana tribes and individuals today, like sacred pipes and Sweat Lodge ceremonies in virtually all Native communities including the vicinity of Montana State University in Bozeman.

So today, language and cultural programs may be dealing with apathy linked with historical trauma and the great thing is that it can be treated and healed. Just as our ceremonies help us maintain our well-being. We need to proceed on the basis of leading and initiating our missions based on the spiritual foundations and supernatural medicine to guide us, prepare us, and ultimately heal us. Since it has been mentioned, historic trauma is a dark force holding back the progress of language and cultural missions and the most direct action is to address this first hand. Based on traditional practices of collaboration and identifying spiritual leaders to take on this problem, and providing healing even by complimenting this with effective Western approaches. This is done with ritual and ceremony. It might involve the traditional approach of offering tobacco and organizing a feast among the leaders and medicine people to understand the problem, and for them to strategize a means for solving the problem. It is up to organizers to make offerings and dowries such as tobacco, the cost of food, and material goods such as fine wool blankets, elegant bead work, horses, lodges (tipis), guns, or gifts because these leaders and medicine people are going to put their lives on the line and expose themselves to the negative energies and dark forces of historic trauma and the experiences of specific people in the community that could be very corrupt and evil. Those energies have transference and can hurt or injure medicine people and their helpers. You are preparing mainly for yourself and your team, but also for future participants and others that may collaborate with your educational endeavors. It is important to communicate the mission and vision of your organization so that the spiritual leaders can communicate with the supernatural forces associated with their gifts. From your heart and the contributions of the food and material items, the supernatural world will interpret your intentions and guide your organization to a path for success and heal the participants of negative experiences like historic trauma. Although you may not treat the whole community, you have provided a ceremony for the people and an opportunity by giving. This is a key foundation among Native ceremonial people because the reciprocal of your investment will be ten or hundred times than you had imagined when you achieve success. The spirit world is directly associated with nature and great patterns and cycles in the universe. Many of the unseen paths in the these worlds take and adopt humans and take them on a great ride on a road of success due to their faith, trust, personal or community sacrifices, dedication, and devotion toward giving. So that it is highly possible a language and cultural program will represent success after these protocols are respected and practiced.

It is important for our contemporary organizations and traditional nativist institutions to lead with the foundations of spirituality. As modern day careers of teaching children become a way of life for those that choose this path, this phenomena can also be solidified by contemporary organizations to adapt the philosophical and traditional Indigenous practices of their civilizations in modern day settings. The previous discussion regarding the approaches to adapting cultural protocols are only suggestions and an orientation in respect to the world views of our traditional elders. It is not meant as a means to indoctrinate change but a means to empower and liberate the traditional ethics of our once great Native civilizations. The challenge is not to be just pure nativist in your identity but to also incorporate new concepts and technologies of the western civilization and be part of the dynamics of the bigger global world. It is important for Native people to adopt these and construe them to compliment the strengths of their Native world and achieve belonging and relevance economically and politically through the empowerment of a way of life based on their Native language and culture. It is as important as modern day organizations emphasize the exercise to control the agenda during operational or business meetings. Our leaders of the past strived and flourished in adapting to change and the manifesting of new technologies during and after the civilization of the buffalo nations.

In modern times, technology has advanced civilizations, especially in countries like the United States while Native nations remain neutral of understanding the dynamics and strengths they can gain by taking and making technologies fit into their world. Our Native nations historically did this. Consider the political advancement of nations upon acquiring horses and as a catalyst for increasing mobility and how this enhanced tribal civilizations such as the Comanche, Bloods, Crow, and Dakota. Even more advancements adopted from the western world such as guns or tools greatly enhanced the quality of life for these nations. It is the responsibility of the modern day warriors of peace to enhance the quality of life in Native communities by the same standards of the generations of the past in adapting technology for their own use. Back in historic times, the evolution of the horse or even guns advanced the political and economic status by allowing tribal nations to flourish and strengthen their fit in this part of the world. The new era brought important reverence and power to our people as they considered the horse as an immense power source. So important was the role of the horse, that children were named by the representations of horses in the Native societies and political worlds. It is still a common practice. Just as children were named by the power of eagles to break through storm clouds and find warmth above the storms, elders named recipients after the power and influences of guns in battle, defense of the nations, hunting yields, and a technology providing respect from neighbors and fear from traditional and new enemies. It is potentially the same reverence to new technologies that possibly lends to future elders bestowing names on future generations of the great influences of technology in empowering Native nations like a tablet, device, or apps. Even contemporary processes of enhancing and improving the quality of life for Indigenous communities may be held in reverence as communities enhance modern approaches to healing the tragedies of social problems, and historic trauma. The advancement of this evolution and power deserves and is fitting to be bestowed in naming ceremonies just as our legacies are interpreted through horses, guns, and technological advancements that occurred in historic times.

Since Many Native communities are suffering from historic trauma due to the tragic annihilation of their strengths by economic and political forces aligned with the United States government. Furthermore, many nations were forcibly removed and strategically destroyed by policies and regulations to open their territories to exploit their natural resources through capitalism and historic corporate interests of the past like the railroad, cattle barons, mining, and real estate. Our contemporary Native language and cultural institutions must seek the strengths of those in the past that made advancements through technology and adapt, because this power and influence is not just for one race or class of people but made available to everyone else just as their once flourishing civilizations were empowered by the horse. Our people need to exercise the formalities and ceremony to own these changes and seek vision and examine contingencies of new technologies as a means of enhancing the quality of life of our Native communities. The new and contemporary changes need to be part of our world and not ignored or laughed off because the seriousness of this is getting left behind and perpetuating the historic trauma that stands in the way of our healing and renaissance in strengthening our identities and culture.

The first step of resolving and healing, is utilizing ideologies of how we lead with our medicines, how we lead with our pipes, how we are guided by visions, and the strength of these traditional institutions. Then our Native and cultural organizations can thrive and develop healthy, consistent, and strong foundations to pass onto future generations. This would again revive how it was done and how it will be in a world that is defined by what is important to these Indigenous people. As these organizations proceed they can continue to take the language and cultural healing approaches to other aspects and scenarios of their communities and region like the other social problems of dependency, abuse, apathy, in-fighting among each other, and colonization. This perspective emphasizes healthy language and modeling cultural organizations that would serve as protocols of healing and recovery for our Native communities. These initiatives will provide models of strength, belonging, and ownership in to the era of language and cultural revitalization and renaissance.

Our contemporary organizations will create standards of inclusion and community based on traditional knowledge through teaching their languages in broader environments advanced from simple conversation to levels of academic or advanced degree programs. This will be another day as foundations for teaching the language are established by user friendly methods, inclusion, humor and more effective contact time to facilitate learning rather than the politically structured instruction mandated by state regulations. Native institutions will seek to define their own means of achieving their goals and objectives based on the best practices and the passion of those dedicated to this mission. Although many will face new and more sophisticated challenges, stressors, and setbacks, Native organizations that continue to improve, plan, and adapt will understand new strategies and tact for dealing with change based on the principles of their philosophies, ethics, and practices of their traditional knowledge, but that is for another story to tell later.

Funding

The author received no direct funding for this research. The dissemination of this article has been made possible by a grant from the Spencer Foundation.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lanny Real Bird

Lanny Real Bird resides on the Crow Reservation, Montana. He previously taught business, mathematics, and language courses at Little Big Horn College and worked extensively in language revitalization and renaissance initiatives with tribes in Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wyoming, Colorado, and Canada. Real Bird has directed his interests primarily to ceremonial and social practices among the Crow, Arikara, and Hidatsa. His recent activities involve media productions, public service announcements, designing Native language materials, and providing consultation and planning for designing Native language projects or programs. Currently, he is working on historic and Crow language-based geography video productions for Apsaalooke students attending the Wyola School based on the Crow name places within the boundaries defined in the 1851 Fort Laramie Treaty. He has immediate plans to assist the Little Shell Tribe of Montana with research in expanding and developing more Chippewa language conversational resources.