News Letter Excerpts

For the first years of my life I was raised by my grandparents. We lived in a very small community and all of my aunts and uncles lived nearby. Everyone had a hand in seeing to my safety. If I wandered to far away from home I can remember people asking me if my Granny knew where I was or "its near dinner time, shouldn't you be home?" Of course in those days almost everyone in the community spoke the beautiful language of my childhood. When my grandfather spoke I would listen intently, my uncles would tease me and say how quickly I was growing up. We had an summer kitchen and in summer my grandmother and my aunts would fix some wonderful meals. There was always a beehive of activity going on. No one would just walk by without stopping in to say "hello, how are you?" Sometimes a fiddle would come out and everyone spoke the beautiful language of my childhood.

Then at age six my father returned from the army. I was forbidden to speak that language ever again. My grandfather was heartbroken. He couldn't speak English, so my grandmother would translate for him whenever he spoke to me. With my mother and father we moved away from that small community. I was about to enter public school so I had to learn English. My grandfather died when I was eight and we returned to that small community for his funeral. He was laid out in the living room, as was the tradition. I went and stood by him and when no one was around I spoke to him in a whisper in that beautiful language of my childhood. That was the last time I spoke those words. My parents let me spend one summer with my grandmother when I was ten. We always spoke English. Neither of us mentioning the beautiful language of my childhood.

Almost fifty years later, long after I had forgotten the beautiful language of my childhood, I had the opportunity to see a newly written paper of it, you see the beautiful language of my childhood was not a written language, but now some people were attempting to make it a written language. On my first look at it I recognized nothing. I must have looked it over several times in the following weeks. Then one day I read out loud a word from my past....kokum...grandmother. I almost cried. I was anxiously reading over other words. ...Mo nook ....uncle, ....shushum ....grandfather. Words came flooding back to me after all these years. Another word and it was one I remember very well because I learned something from it that is not seen often today. When receiving something from someone, you don't take it from their hand, rather you let them lay it in your hand. For me it was "Tansi" ...Thank you. The beautiful language of my childhood you see was Michif. It was not only a language but also a way of life.

Larry Haag - MCHRC