Band Member Voices
October Culture Column - THE BABIES ARE HERe (Part 1 of 3)
By Nazhike, Mille Lacs Band Member
As Anishinaabe, we are in the Era of Revitalization. We are saving our language, rebuilding our ceremonies, teaching our customs and finding ways to bring our people back into an Anishinaabe way of life. What does this look like in the long run? We need to vision together and execute our parts of that vision for the future. We are in a critical state of being with the least amount of Ojibwe Language Speakers we have ever had. And, there will be fewer for a period of time soon. We also see an increase of people attending our ceremonies and seeking our way of life. With so few language speakers and a growing need developing, we must act on our responsibilities to each other today and to our future ancestors.
A baby born in 2026 will be ten years old in 2036. They will be twenty in 2046. In 2076, that baby will be fifty years old. When we imagine what Anishinaabe communities could look like fifty years from now, we are actually imagining the lives of babies being held by their parents and grandparents today.
What do they need from us? First, they need our language. Not someday. Not when they are old enough to enroll in a language class. They need to hear Anishinaabemowin while they are being fed, changed, carried and playing. They need commands, statements, introductions, prayers and the names of everything around them. Imagine what could happen if every family expecting a baby learned fifty words before that child was born. Then another fifty during the baby's first year. Then phrases. Then sentences. The child and family could grow in the language together.
But language alone is not enough. Our babies need to know the land. They need to recognize when the maple trees are ready, when the fish come to shore, when berries ripen and when manoomin is ready. They should grow up knowing that different seasons carry different responsibilities.
They need ceremony and our customs around them so those things are ordinary. A child should not have to reach thirty years old before wondering what happens in lodge, why we offer asemaa, who the Manidoog are, how we feast our relatives, why certain songs are sung or how we conduct ourselves when someone passes. These should not feel like mysterious pieces of a culture but simply be part of life.
For many of us, revitalization means recovering something our families were prevented from carrying forward. For these babies, we have an opportunity to change that experience and instead of teaching them how to reconnect later in life, we can work so they never become disconnected.
Imagine one of today's babies sitting with their grandchildren in 2075, speaking Anishinaabemowin. Someone asks, "When did you learn Ojibwe?"
Maybe they think for a moment and say: "I don't remember learning it. That's just how everyone talked when I was little." Miigwech.
