00:00:01.267 --> 00:00:04.270
[instrumental music]

00:00:17.884 --> 00:00:19.652
- It was prophesied that
language would

00:00:19.652 --> 00:00:21.921
go away from here for a time.

00:00:21.921 --> 00:00:26.292
And when
the appointed time came,

00:00:26.292 --> 00:00:30.396
if the people here decided that
they wanted to welcome language

00:00:30.396 --> 00:00:34.067
home, then there would be
a way made for that to happen.

00:00:37.237 --> 00:00:40.039
- We had asked elders
and spiritual leaders,

00:00:40.039 --> 00:00:43.276
"How do we regain
our language?"

00:00:43.276 --> 00:00:45.812
And we were told that

00:00:45.812 --> 00:00:48.815
"it's not your language
that's lost, it's you."

00:00:50.884 --> 00:00:52.852
And that
"a day will come when

00:00:52.852 --> 00:00:55.021
"a child will be born

00:00:55.021 --> 00:00:57.690
and they will bring you back
the language."

00:00:59.259 --> 00:01:05.331
[people speaking Wampanoag]

00:01:34.027 --> 00:01:36.863
- I started having these dreams
some years ago.

00:01:36.863 --> 00:01:38.331
And I was seeing
all these people

00:01:38.331 --> 00:01:40.567
that really looked familiar,

00:01:40.567 --> 00:01:41.568
but I didn't know them,

00:01:41.568 --> 00:01:42.602
and they looked familiar

00:01:42.602 --> 00:01:43.703
because they looked like

00:01:43.703 --> 00:01:46.139
everybody else around home.

00:01:46.139 --> 00:01:49.075
They were talking to me
and I didn't understand

00:01:49.075 --> 00:01:50.176
what they were saying.

00:01:50.176 --> 00:01:52.178
I had never heard
the language before,

00:01:52.178 --> 00:01:54.047
but it sounded familiar.

00:01:54.047 --> 00:01:58.885
But I just thought maybe
I was getting a little nutty.

00:01:59.953 --> 00:02:01.287
Sometime after that,

00:02:01.287 --> 00:02:03.656
I was traveling down this road

00:02:03.656 --> 00:02:06.659
and I saw that sign
for Sippewissett,

00:02:06.659 --> 00:02:08.661
and I don't know why,

00:02:08.661 --> 00:02:10.530
but the light just went on
and I thought,

00:02:10.530 --> 00:02:13.333
"Oh, you know, I wonder if

00:02:13.333 --> 00:02:15.835
"that's Wampanoag language
I'm hearing.

00:02:15.835 --> 00:02:17.103
I wonder what that is."

00:02:17.103 --> 00:02:20.073
And looking at that word

00:02:20.073 --> 00:02:22.542
and saying that word in my mind,

00:02:22.542 --> 00:02:24.110
I thought,
"Well, hmm,

00:02:24.110 --> 00:02:25.945
"I don't know anything
about our language.

00:02:25.945 --> 00:02:27.580
What was it like?"

00:02:27.580 --> 00:02:29.449
- We used to hear the
old-timers saying things like,

00:02:29.449 --> 00:02:33.820
you know...
[speaking Wampanoag]

00:02:33.820 --> 00:02:35.321
It means greetings,

00:02:35.321 --> 00:02:37.991
but it means more than "hello."

00:02:37.991 --> 00:02:39.993
- Me and my sisters
and my mom and my nana

00:02:39.993 --> 00:02:41.894
are sitting on the back porch
or in the yard

00:02:41.894 --> 00:02:44.697
and she's teaching us
these songs.

00:02:44.697 --> 00:02:46.532
And I remember asking her,
you know,

00:02:46.532 --> 00:02:49.202
"Nana,
did we speak a language?"

00:02:49.202 --> 00:02:52.772
And she said, "My mom didn't
speak the language,

00:02:52.772 --> 00:02:54.774
"I didn't speak the language,

00:02:54.774 --> 00:02:57.443
and I couldn't teach your mom
the language."

00:02:57.443 --> 00:02:59.846
She says,
"I'm sure we did, but,"

00:02:59.846 --> 00:03:02.915
she says, "I was never taught,"
you know.

00:03:04.083 --> 00:03:05.518
- I think, all my life,

00:03:05.518 --> 00:03:07.487
I've been under the impression

00:03:07.487 --> 00:03:09.088
that our language was dead.

00:03:09.088 --> 00:03:12.091
[gentle music]

00:03:14.661 --> 00:03:16.362
A lot of the reflection
in this world

00:03:16.362 --> 00:03:18.331
that I receive is that

00:03:18.331 --> 00:03:20.933
the Wampanoag people
don't exist.

00:03:27.573 --> 00:03:29.208
- I don't think we know
with any certainty

00:03:29.208 --> 00:03:33.479
when the last fluent speaker
of Wampanoag died,

00:03:33.479 --> 00:03:36.949
but it's probably
more than a century.

00:03:36.949 --> 00:03:39.952
[poignant music]

00:03:49.429 --> 00:03:52.098
- I think
a lot of things happened.

00:03:52.098 --> 00:03:56.202
Death.
A lot of death happened.

00:03:56.202 --> 00:03:59.205
I think people being
displaced happened.

00:03:59.205 --> 00:04:03.443
I think war happened.

00:04:03.443 --> 00:04:07.447
And I think
Christianity happened.

00:04:17.123 --> 00:04:18.758
- The Wampanoag happened to be

00:04:18.758 --> 00:04:23.096
part of the local heritage of
extermination and destruction.

00:04:23.096 --> 00:04:25.798
That's one of the two
original sins

00:04:25.798 --> 00:04:28.234
of the country, right here.

00:04:28.234 --> 00:04:30.937
The Wampanoag were, after all,
the people who lived here

00:04:30.937 --> 00:04:33.940
at the time that
the pilgrims landed.

00:04:36.609 --> 00:04:39.779
- I think there's such a desire
in our own people

00:04:39.779 --> 00:04:43.783
to wish that
colonization never happened.

00:04:46.986 --> 00:04:49.655
We really want to take
responsibility for everything,

00:04:49.655 --> 00:04:51.557
in a way.
We want to take responsibility

00:04:51.557 --> 00:04:53.092
for the fact that
we don't speak our language.

00:04:53.092 --> 00:04:55.661
We want to take responsibility
for the fact that, you know,

00:04:55.661 --> 00:04:58.097
we lost the war, in a way.

00:04:58.097 --> 00:04:59.799
You know, well, why couldn't we
have done better?

00:04:59.799 --> 00:05:01.968
Why couldn't we have
pushed the English out

00:05:01.968 --> 00:05:04.370
and kept our land
and kept our language?

00:05:04.370 --> 00:05:05.838
It's, you know, horrible,

00:05:05.838 --> 00:05:07.240
when you think about it.

00:05:07.240 --> 00:05:10.510
Of course we lost our language.

00:05:10.510 --> 00:05:13.746
- And it must have been
a great sadness,

00:05:13.746 --> 00:05:18.751
for the last few people
who could actually speak,

00:05:18.751 --> 00:05:23.356
to know that the majority of
the people weren't understanding

00:05:23.356 --> 00:05:27.193
or couldn't understand
what was being said to them.

00:05:29.362 --> 00:05:31.564
- In one of those dreams,

00:05:31.564 --> 00:05:35.635
there were a lot of circles of
Indian people in the room.

00:05:35.635 --> 00:05:38.471
They were chanting something,

00:05:38.471 --> 00:05:41.007
and I didn't know what it meant.

00:05:41.007 --> 00:05:43.543
One of them said,

00:05:43.543 --> 00:05:44.877
"Ask Jessie.
She knows what it means."

00:05:44.877 --> 00:05:46.546
And I jumped and I said,

00:05:46.546 --> 00:05:48.548
"I don't know anything!"

00:05:48.548 --> 00:05:50.049
And they said, "Yes, you do,
and you have to tell us."

00:05:50.049 --> 00:05:51.517
I said, "I tell you,
I have no idea

00:05:51.517 --> 00:05:53.953
what you're talking about.
I don't know."

00:05:53.953 --> 00:05:56.189
Oh, we just missed a ferry.

00:05:56.189 --> 00:05:57.957
Damn.
[horn honks]

00:05:57.957 --> 00:05:59.091
I knew we should've, like,

00:05:59.091 --> 00:06:00.860
hustled out the door
immediately.

00:06:00.860 --> 00:06:03.062
- Oh, you silly billy!

00:06:03.062 --> 00:06:07.967
It was right across...
across the street.

00:06:07.967 --> 00:06:09.969
[ferry horn blares]

00:06:13.573 --> 00:06:15.675
- So, these people
that look familiar

00:06:15.675 --> 00:06:16.676
are talking to me.
I don't know

00:06:16.676 --> 00:06:17.810
what they're saying,

00:06:17.810 --> 00:06:19.812
and they wouldn't let me go.

00:06:19.812 --> 00:06:20.880
They said,
"You're not going to go

00:06:20.880 --> 00:06:24.650
until you tell us
what that means."

00:06:24.650 --> 00:06:27.353
And I just said the first thing
that came to mind,

00:06:27.353 --> 00:06:30.356
and that was,
"We're still with you."

00:06:33.926 --> 00:06:35.561
Some years later,

00:06:35.561 --> 00:06:37.797
I figured out what it meant.

00:06:37.797 --> 00:06:39.232
They were not saying,

00:06:39.232 --> 00:06:41.968
"We're still with you."

00:06:41.968 --> 00:06:43.135
They were saying,

00:06:43.135 --> 00:06:46.239
"We've been killed
with the yellow thing."

00:06:46.239 --> 00:06:48.241
And I was, "Oh, my God.

00:06:48.241 --> 00:06:51.777
They must've been talking
about yellow fever."

00:06:51.777 --> 00:06:55.681
In 1616, yellow fever swept

00:06:55.681 --> 00:06:57.750
from Provincetown to
Narragansett Bay

00:06:57.750 --> 00:07:02.688
and killed 2/3s of
the population.

00:07:02.688 --> 00:07:03.990
- Some people say over 100,000.

00:07:03.990 --> 00:07:06.759
Some people say 70,000.

00:07:06.759 --> 00:07:08.427
But a good guess is
over 2/3s are wiped out

00:07:08.427 --> 00:07:10.162
within a two-year span,

00:07:10.162 --> 00:07:14.000
four years before
the pilgrims got here.

00:07:14.000 --> 00:07:17.537
- It was known to have come
from European fishermen.

00:07:17.537 --> 00:07:19.038
After contact with
these fishermen,

00:07:19.038 --> 00:07:21.207
people up north
must've become ill

00:07:21.207 --> 00:07:23.109
and just went like wildfire,

00:07:23.109 --> 00:07:25.177
right down the coast.

00:07:25.177 --> 00:07:28.180
[man speaking Wampanoag]

00:07:36.222 --> 00:07:38.524
- They said for
200 miles up the coast,

00:07:38.524 --> 00:07:40.026
going towards Maine,

00:07:40.026 --> 00:07:43.195
that there was not a soul
to be seen on the coastline.

00:07:43.195 --> 00:07:46.165
Nothing but empty houses
and bleached bones.

00:07:46.165 --> 00:07:47.900
- People's whole lives changed.

00:07:47.900 --> 00:07:50.803
I mean, you're just literally
watching people all around you

00:07:50.803 --> 00:07:55.207
just fall down dead
within two days or three days.

00:07:55.207 --> 00:07:58.411
It was that quick once it hit.

00:07:58.411 --> 00:08:01.414
- Before the diseases
affected our people,

00:08:01.414 --> 00:08:04.517
our territory extended from
Narragansett Bay

00:08:04.517 --> 00:08:06.886
up to Cape Ann,
including Cape Cod,

00:08:06.886 --> 00:08:08.621
Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard.

00:08:08.621 --> 00:08:11.991
That was all
Wampanoag territory.

00:08:11.991 --> 00:08:15.328
And after the sicknesses came
and hit our folks,

00:08:15.328 --> 00:08:17.930
you'd see great devastation
along the coast,

00:08:17.930 --> 00:08:20.633
whole stretches
for miles inland

00:08:20.633 --> 00:08:22.635
that people were wiped out.

00:08:26.706 --> 00:08:30.443
- "Terrifying," I don't think,
covers it, you know.

00:08:30.443 --> 00:08:33.946
The psychological impact that
that had.

00:08:44.256 --> 00:08:46.692
- While I was having
these visions,

00:08:46.692 --> 00:08:49.695
somehow,
the same group of people

00:08:49.695 --> 00:08:52.031
started speaking to me
in English.

00:08:52.031 --> 00:08:54.700
And then they said,
"We've got a job here for you,

00:08:54.700 --> 00:08:57.236
"if you'll accept it.

00:08:57.236 --> 00:08:59.872
"Could you please go
and ask Wampanoag people

00:08:59.872 --> 00:09:02.908
"if they would like to have
language home again?

00:09:02.908 --> 00:09:05.945
Just ask."

00:09:05.945 --> 00:09:08.948
[speaking Wampanoag]

00:09:18.024 --> 00:09:20.926
P...
- Um...p...p...

00:09:20.926 --> 00:09:22.528
- Peesh...

00:09:22.528 --> 00:09:24.697
- P-peesh...

00:09:24.697 --> 00:09:26.365
- Mm-hmm.

00:09:26.365 --> 00:09:29.535
- [speaking Wampanoag]

00:09:29.535 --> 00:09:30.536
[laughter]

00:09:30.536 --> 00:09:32.972
- [speaking Wampanoag]

00:09:32.972 --> 00:09:34.306
[laughter]

00:09:34.306 --> 00:09:35.307
She can't read.

00:09:35.307 --> 00:09:37.610
- I said the wrong thing,
didn't I?

00:09:37.610 --> 00:09:40.479
- Yeah, you were making it up,
but it made sense.

00:09:40.479 --> 00:09:42.081
- But it was silly.
- You said you were gonna leave.

00:09:42.081 --> 00:09:43.249
[laughter]

00:09:43.249 --> 00:09:45.551
- And I thought,
well, I could do that.

00:09:45.551 --> 00:09:47.620
It was a simple question.
Like, I could do that.

00:09:47.620 --> 00:09:49.355
I can ask people
if they would like to

00:09:49.355 --> 00:09:51.290
have language home again.

00:09:51.290 --> 00:09:52.692
I mean,
you live on the island.

00:09:52.692 --> 00:09:54.026
[indistinct chatter]
Yes.

00:09:54.026 --> 00:09:56.262
- We were discussing
whether or not

00:09:56.262 --> 00:09:58.864
there should be
a language program,

00:09:58.864 --> 00:10:00.900
do we want to bring it back,
you know,

00:10:00.900 --> 00:10:03.836
should we bring it back,
how do we do it?

00:10:03.836 --> 00:10:06.972
- Yeah, we had committees from
Gay Head and from Assonet

00:10:06.972 --> 00:10:10.676
and from all the different
Wampanoag communities.

00:10:10.676 --> 00:10:12.344
We had to bring it all together

00:10:12.344 --> 00:10:15.815
and figure out how we could get
in a cohesive way.

00:10:15.815 --> 00:10:17.216
- The decision was finally made

00:10:17.216 --> 00:10:19.218
that, yes, we're going to try

00:10:19.218 --> 00:10:22.288
to work on this language and
we're going to support it fully

00:10:22.288 --> 00:10:23.856
and we're going to
work together,

00:10:23.856 --> 00:10:26.859
which was an historic decision,

00:10:26.859 --> 00:10:28.627
in and of itself.

00:10:28.627 --> 00:10:30.129
- Nobody said no.

00:10:30.129 --> 00:10:31.797
Nobody said,
"I'm not interested."

00:10:31.797 --> 00:10:33.165
Nobody said, "Don't do it."

00:10:33.165 --> 00:10:34.867
- I wouldn't have to ask that,
I know.

00:10:34.867 --> 00:10:37.770
- This never happens,
I tell you.

00:10:37.770 --> 00:10:39.438
Okay.

00:10:39.438 --> 00:10:42.842
- Luckily, we had
the written language there,

00:10:42.842 --> 00:10:46.512
to see the basis of
where it all came from.

00:10:46.512 --> 00:10:48.280
All the town halls around here,

00:10:48.280 --> 00:10:49.982
a lot of the original deeds

00:10:49.982 --> 00:10:52.384
and a lot of
the original documents

00:10:52.384 --> 00:10:53.652
are all in Wampanoag.

00:10:53.652 --> 00:10:56.155
If you go back far enough,
you'll find them.

00:10:56.155 --> 00:10:57.156
And she said, "Oh, yeah!"

00:10:57.156 --> 00:10:58.824
And she started looking around.

00:10:58.824 --> 00:11:02.695
[stirring music]

00:11:02.695 --> 00:11:04.797
- We're just lucky that
the native written documents

00:11:04.797 --> 00:11:06.365
for this language is
the largest corpus

00:11:06.365 --> 00:11:10.202
of native written documents
on the continent.

00:11:10.202 --> 00:11:13.339
The Wampanoag people learned
how to write in Wampanoag

00:11:13.339 --> 00:11:15.975
very early because
they knew that

00:11:15.975 --> 00:11:19.612
that was a tool that
they could use in dealing with

00:11:19.612 --> 00:11:21.180
the white settlers,

00:11:21.180 --> 00:11:23.516
because when you deal with
the white settlers,

00:11:23.516 --> 00:11:24.817
you're dealing with courts,

00:11:24.817 --> 00:11:28.254
you're dealing with lots of
written documents.

00:11:28.254 --> 00:11:31.490
- There was constant letters
and petitions to Boston,

00:11:31.490 --> 00:11:33.092
to the Colonial government,

00:11:33.092 --> 00:11:34.293
to the American government,

00:11:34.293 --> 00:11:36.295
depending on the time period.

00:11:36.295 --> 00:11:37.730
"The overseer's doing this,

00:11:37.730 --> 00:11:38.864
"the English are doing that.

00:11:38.864 --> 00:11:39.865
"Can you stop them?

00:11:39.865 --> 00:11:41.233
Can you help us?"

00:11:41.233 --> 00:11:44.236
And on and on and on.

00:11:46.906 --> 00:11:49.575
- The documents
that are written

00:11:49.575 --> 00:11:51.477
by hand by people,

00:11:51.477 --> 00:11:55.381
I mean,
it just gives me the chills.

00:11:55.381 --> 00:11:57.449
It's like you can
see their hand, you know.

00:11:57.449 --> 00:11:59.785
It just makes it almost like
touching that document

00:11:59.785 --> 00:12:02.087
is like touching their hand.

00:12:02.087 --> 00:12:04.857
And what those documents
kind of symbolize to me

00:12:04.857 --> 00:12:08.394
is like that thread
that is attached to me,

00:12:08.394 --> 00:12:10.629
to my ancestors,
through my blood,

00:12:10.629 --> 00:12:13.799
through my body,
and through my spirit.

00:12:15.801 --> 00:12:17.670
- One of the reasons
this is important for me,

00:12:17.670 --> 00:12:20.573
I think, is because
we get to hear what our folks

00:12:20.573 --> 00:12:22.608
had to say, regardless of what
white people wrote

00:12:22.608 --> 00:12:23.909
in history books.

00:12:23.909 --> 00:12:25.511
And the only way we can
hear our families,

00:12:25.511 --> 00:12:29.215
I think,
is by knowing the language.

00:12:29.215 --> 00:12:32.051
This is what the documents
actually look like.

00:12:32.051 --> 00:12:34.820
They're really hard to read.

00:12:34.820 --> 00:12:38.324
I'm going to read
the English text of this,

00:12:38.324 --> 00:12:40.192
just from the translated.

00:12:40.192 --> 00:12:43.262
This letter is dated Barnstable,

00:12:43.262 --> 00:12:47.099
June 11, 1752.

00:12:47.099 --> 00:12:48.868
"Oh, our honorable gentlemen

00:12:48.868 --> 00:12:50.469
"and kind gentlemen in Boston,

00:12:50.469 --> 00:12:52.938
"in Massachusetts,
here in New England.

00:12:52.938 --> 00:12:56.775
"Now we beseech you, what can
we do with regard to our land?

00:12:56.775 --> 00:12:58.577
"We shall not give it away,

00:12:58.577 --> 00:13:00.246
"nor shall it be sold,

00:13:00.246 --> 00:13:02.314
"nor shall it be lent,

00:13:02.314 --> 00:13:05.618
"but we shall use it
as long as we live,

00:13:05.618 --> 00:13:08.187
"we, together with our children,

00:13:08.187 --> 00:13:10.422
"and our children's children.

00:13:10.422 --> 00:13:13.292
"Against our will these
Englishmen take away from us

00:13:13.292 --> 00:13:15.094
"what was our land.

00:13:15.094 --> 00:13:16.996
"We poor Indians soon shall not

00:13:16.996 --> 00:13:20.666
"have any place to reside
together with our children.

00:13:20.666 --> 00:13:23.335
"Therefore now,
you kind gentlemen in Boston,

00:13:23.335 --> 00:13:25.437
"we beseech you, defend us,

00:13:25.437 --> 00:13:28.507
and they will trouble us
no more on our land."

00:13:28.507 --> 00:13:29.975
And the people that signed this,

00:13:29.975 --> 00:13:31.644
that's all of our family lines,

00:13:31.644 --> 00:13:33.846
signed this letter.

00:13:33.846 --> 00:13:36.849
That's our own folks.

00:13:38.183 --> 00:13:40.019
[indistinct chatter]
- Hey!

00:13:43.789 --> 00:13:46.792
[speaking Wampanoag]

00:13:50.329 --> 00:13:52.097
- Woody.

00:13:52.097 --> 00:13:55.100
[all sounding out syllables]

00:13:58.437 --> 00:14:01.507
- [speaking Wampanoag]

00:14:01.507 --> 00:14:02.942
- I enjoy it very much.

00:14:02.942 --> 00:14:06.445
I find the language
difficult, challenging,

00:14:06.445 --> 00:14:08.714
because the concepts
seem simple,

00:14:08.714 --> 00:14:11.450
but the speech is
very complicated.

00:14:11.450 --> 00:14:14.453
[both speaking Wampanoag]

00:14:15.454 --> 00:14:18.457
[all speaking Wampanoag]

00:14:20.259 --> 00:14:23.896
- In the beginning,
when we first started meeting,

00:14:23.896 --> 00:14:28.233
we discovered that we really
needed a trained individual.

00:14:28.233 --> 00:14:31.236
[all speaking Wampanoag]

00:14:31.236 --> 00:14:35.307
And, at the time, I was working
in human services.

00:14:35.307 --> 00:14:39.979
I had absolutely no training
in linguistics.

00:14:39.979 --> 00:14:42.548
I left and got married at 18.

00:14:42.548 --> 00:14:47.152
I had my first child
before I was 19.

00:14:47.152 --> 00:14:49.154
Was taking college courses
for a while,

00:14:49.154 --> 00:14:51.623
and just could not finish.

00:14:51.623 --> 00:14:54.293
[all speaking Wampanoag]

00:14:54.293 --> 00:14:55.494
And then we decided,

00:14:55.494 --> 00:14:58.364
"Well, we have to have
an Indian person.

00:14:58.364 --> 00:15:00.032
"So let's see,
who are we going to get

00:15:00.032 --> 00:15:02.067
"that's American Indian,
that'll leave their community,

00:15:02.067 --> 00:15:03.302
"drop their language work,

00:15:03.302 --> 00:15:04.470
"and come here and live with us

00:15:04.470 --> 00:15:05.971
"for the rest of their lives?

00:15:05.971 --> 00:15:09.141
Oh, and we don't have any money,
by the way."

00:15:09.141 --> 00:15:11.877
Well, we showed up in Aquinnah
one particular month,

00:15:11.877 --> 00:15:15.381
and there was this
elder white man standing there.

00:15:15.381 --> 00:15:19.084
This is our guest linguist
from MIT.

00:15:19.084 --> 00:15:20.853
His name's Ken Hale.

00:15:20.853 --> 00:15:22.388
And I'm sitting here,

00:15:22.388 --> 00:15:25.124
listening to this white man

00:15:25.124 --> 00:15:28.627
tell us how maybe
he could help us

00:15:28.627 --> 00:15:30.396
bring our language home.

00:15:30.396 --> 00:15:35.734
And I thought,
"Well, isn't this ironic?"

00:15:35.734 --> 00:15:37.836
And it was really, really--

00:15:37.836 --> 00:15:40.072
that bothered me to my core,

00:15:40.072 --> 00:15:45.310
that the question wouldn't be

00:15:45.310 --> 00:15:47.246
"Do we do it ourselves?"

00:15:47.246 --> 00:15:48.981
You know, that we would have to

00:15:48.981 --> 00:15:51.517
depend on some white person

00:15:51.517 --> 00:15:53.919
to do this work,

00:15:53.919 --> 00:15:56.388
and so I was
really nasty to him.

00:15:56.388 --> 00:15:59.391
He said something about
a word in Wampanoag

00:15:59.391 --> 00:16:02.928
and he put an L where
there should've been an N,

00:16:02.928 --> 00:16:06.131
and I made a point of
jabbing at him about that

00:16:06.131 --> 00:16:07.666
and saying,
"Well, you don't know

00:16:07.666 --> 00:16:09.068
"what you're talking about.

00:16:09.068 --> 00:16:11.870
We don't even have
an L language."

00:16:11.870 --> 00:16:15.941
I was really ill-behaved
at that meeting.

00:16:15.941 --> 00:16:18.477
So then the next option was to

00:16:18.477 --> 00:16:20.279
take the responsibility
ourselves

00:16:20.279 --> 00:16:21.847
and get the training ourselves

00:16:21.847 --> 00:16:23.282
and do the work ourselves.

00:16:23.282 --> 00:16:25.951
[car horn honking]

00:16:25.951 --> 00:16:27.319
Some months later,

00:16:27.319 --> 00:16:31.156
an application for
a research fellowship at MIT

00:16:31.156 --> 00:16:33.892
was given to me
at a tribal meeting.

00:16:33.892 --> 00:16:35.928
I opened it up
and it said that

00:16:35.928 --> 00:16:37.529
you could have
a research fellowship

00:16:37.529 --> 00:16:39.164
there for a year

00:16:39.164 --> 00:16:42.935
and you could research anything
you wanted for a year.

00:16:42.935 --> 00:16:44.169
So I thought, "Oh,

00:16:44.169 --> 00:16:47.239
I wonder if that school
has linguistics."

00:16:47.239 --> 00:16:49.141
And I looked and,
lo and behold,

00:16:49.141 --> 00:16:51.376
it's one of the premiere
linguistic institutes

00:16:51.376 --> 00:16:53.412
in the world.

00:16:53.412 --> 00:16:55.414
I went up for an interview,

00:16:55.414 --> 00:16:58.650
and the first question
I got was,

00:16:58.650 --> 00:17:02.754
"What's your biggest fear
at attending MIT?"

00:17:02.754 --> 00:17:04.756
And I said to this one woman,

00:17:04.756 --> 00:17:06.024
"Honestly?

00:17:06.024 --> 00:17:08.694
I don't know
my way around Boston."

00:17:08.694 --> 00:17:11.263
I come from
a small Indian community,

00:17:11.263 --> 00:17:13.065
and once we get past Plymouth,

00:17:13.065 --> 00:17:14.533
it's all Boston to us.

00:17:14.533 --> 00:17:15.901
It's all Boston.

00:17:15.901 --> 00:17:16.902
- Downtown.

00:17:16.902 --> 00:17:18.203
- It's off Cape.

00:17:18.203 --> 00:17:21.140
It's all just buildings
and people and noises.

00:17:21.140 --> 00:17:22.908
[car honks horn]

00:17:22.908 --> 00:17:26.245
Beyond that,
I'm not afraid of anything yet.

00:17:27.946 --> 00:17:29.381
- Knowing Jessie all her life,

00:17:29.381 --> 00:17:32.384
I never would've known
she was going to be a linguist.

00:17:33.886 --> 00:17:34.887
[laughs]

00:17:34.887 --> 00:17:35.888
I thought she was pretty much

00:17:35.888 --> 00:17:38.223
mired up in her local jargon.

00:17:38.223 --> 00:17:42.561
You know, she spoke in a local
Mashpee dialectical jargon

00:17:42.561 --> 00:17:44.429
as well as anybody, you know,

00:17:44.429 --> 00:17:48.200
and more or less
improper English.

00:17:48.200 --> 00:17:50.202
Never would've picked her,

00:17:50.202 --> 00:17:52.204
years ago, to be a linguist,

00:17:52.204 --> 00:17:53.939
but here she is.

00:17:53.939 --> 00:17:56.408
- My first week there,

00:17:56.408 --> 00:17:57.943
the advisor said, "Okay,

00:17:57.943 --> 00:17:59.912
"you need to get
the catalog out,

00:17:59.912 --> 00:18:02.114
"find a professor,
and make a meeting

00:18:02.114 --> 00:18:03.115
"and see if that person will
tell you

00:18:03.115 --> 00:18:05.050
which classes to take."

00:18:05.050 --> 00:18:06.718
So I said, "Oh, easy enough."

00:18:06.718 --> 00:18:08.253
I'm going through the catalog.

00:18:08.253 --> 00:18:11.757
I'm like, "Oh, Ken Hale.

00:18:11.757 --> 00:18:13.825
"Oh, crap!

00:18:13.825 --> 00:18:16.595
"It's the guy from the meeting
a few years ago.

00:18:16.595 --> 00:18:18.764
Oh, man, I'm sunk."

00:18:18.764 --> 00:18:20.399
And I started to panic.

00:18:20.399 --> 00:18:21.767
And I said, "No.

00:18:21.767 --> 00:18:23.669
I'll profusely apologize,"

00:18:23.669 --> 00:18:25.671
because I did behave badly.

00:18:25.671 --> 00:18:27.005
"I'll beg him.

00:18:27.005 --> 00:18:28.006
"I'll do whatever I have to do.

00:18:28.006 --> 00:18:30.042
And it's only one meeting."

00:18:30.042 --> 00:18:33.679
So, I opened the door

00:18:33.679 --> 00:18:36.081
and he looked at me
and he said,

00:18:36.081 --> 00:18:38.217
"I remember you."

00:18:38.217 --> 00:18:41.053
That's the first thing he said.

00:18:41.053 --> 00:18:42.654
"You're Jessie Little Doe,"

00:18:42.654 --> 00:18:45.023
He said, "Where have you been?

00:18:45.023 --> 00:18:46.792
I've been waiting for you."

00:18:46.792 --> 00:18:50.329
And, at that point,

00:18:50.329 --> 00:18:53.332
I think I felt, like,

00:18:53.332 --> 00:18:56.535
as low as I should've felt
for my behavior,

00:18:56.535 --> 00:18:58.470
and I just said, "You know,

00:18:58.470 --> 00:19:00.806
before we start, I want to--"

00:19:00.806 --> 00:19:02.708
and I was about to say
"apologize,"

00:19:02.708 --> 00:19:04.042
and before I could, he said,

00:19:04.042 --> 00:19:05.611
"Before you say another word,

00:19:05.611 --> 00:19:07.579
"please, please,

00:19:07.579 --> 00:19:09.948
"let me apologize
for my smug behavior

00:19:09.948 --> 00:19:12.484
at our first meeting."

00:19:12.484 --> 00:19:15.220
But we started working
that afternoon.

00:19:15.220 --> 00:19:17.456
We didn't even look at
the course catalog

00:19:17.456 --> 00:19:19.992
and we started to work.

00:19:19.992 --> 00:19:22.394
- The idea of doing something

00:19:22.394 --> 00:19:24.196
to actually bring back
a language

00:19:24.196 --> 00:19:25.831
that people thought had gone,

00:19:25.831 --> 00:19:27.232
I can see why it excited Ken.

00:19:27.232 --> 00:19:29.801
It excites me
for the same reasons.

00:19:29.801 --> 00:19:31.536
The idea that, you know, death--

00:19:31.536 --> 00:19:32.704
if we want to call it "death"--

00:19:32.704 --> 00:19:34.473
is not permanent for languages,

00:19:34.473 --> 00:19:36.074
that they can come back.

00:19:36.074 --> 00:19:39.544
It's a wonderful, hopeful thing
to be part of.

00:19:39.544 --> 00:19:42.547
[chanting Wampanoag]

00:19:46.218 --> 00:19:49.221
[drums beating]

00:19:57.496 --> 00:19:59.631
- We didn't have many people
singing songs

00:19:59.631 --> 00:20:02.334
in the language 20 years ago.

00:20:02.334 --> 00:20:03.769
[chanting and drumming
continue]

00:20:03.769 --> 00:20:06.772
And right along with the songs
comes more ceremony,

00:20:06.772 --> 00:20:09.508
more recognition by
our own people

00:20:09.508 --> 00:20:11.276
of those things,
and that's something

00:20:11.276 --> 00:20:14.246
that's come back
with the language.

00:20:14.246 --> 00:20:18.583
It's really a connection with
those who've gone on before us.

00:20:18.583 --> 00:20:20.352
[chanting and drumming]

00:20:20.352 --> 00:20:23.922
- We are still
the first people of this land

00:20:23.922 --> 00:20:26.858
and we are still connected.

00:20:26.858 --> 00:20:29.861
- [chanting]

00:20:32.431 --> 00:20:33.899
- All of our songs,
they have stories

00:20:33.899 --> 00:20:35.000
that go with them,

00:20:35.000 --> 00:20:36.368
reasons why we've made them,

00:20:36.368 --> 00:20:39.204
and there is
an appropriateness.

00:20:39.204 --> 00:20:41.273
It fills you up inside.

00:20:41.273 --> 00:20:44.076
It just makes that connection
that much deeper.

00:20:44.076 --> 00:20:47.079
[all chanting]

00:20:48.513 --> 00:20:51.216
- This song is a charging song

00:20:51.216 --> 00:20:54.419
that we made for our cousin,
David Kutch.

00:20:54.419 --> 00:20:56.555
He passed away last year, right?

00:20:56.555 --> 00:20:59.291
- Yeah, just a little over
a year ago, by now.

00:20:59.291 --> 00:21:00.525
The night before he passed on,

00:21:00.525 --> 00:21:02.794
he was having a talk
with his mom,

00:21:02.794 --> 00:21:05.430
who was kind of going through
some down times.

00:21:05.430 --> 00:21:08.333
And the last thing that
she remembered him saying was,

00:21:08.333 --> 00:21:10.469
you know, "You just have to
push on," you know,

00:21:10.469 --> 00:21:12.003
"there's no turning back."

00:21:12.003 --> 00:21:14.473
- His words kind of resonated
with both me and Tobe

00:21:14.473 --> 00:21:17.776
and we said, "We should make
a song with those words."

00:21:17.776 --> 00:21:21.513
[all singing in Wampanoag]

00:21:21.513 --> 00:21:24.516
- [speaking Wampanoag]

00:21:25.851 --> 00:21:28.954
Is like,
"must have to do something."

00:21:28.954 --> 00:21:30.288
[speaking Wampanoag]

00:21:30.288 --> 00:21:31.957
[all singing in Wampanoag]

00:21:31.957 --> 00:21:33.225
- The essence of that is,

00:21:33.225 --> 00:21:35.627
"you have to try or endeavor."

00:21:35.627 --> 00:21:36.995
[speaking Wampanoag]

00:21:36.995 --> 00:21:38.296
"There's no returning."

00:21:38.296 --> 00:21:39.297
That's the words...

00:21:39.297 --> 00:21:43.068
[speaking Wampanoag]

00:21:43.068 --> 00:21:44.403
"You just got to
keep moving forward.

00:21:44.403 --> 00:21:45.871
There's no turning back

00:21:45.871 --> 00:21:48.874
[all singing in Wampanoag]

00:21:52.310 --> 00:21:53.311
[drumming, singing silences]

00:21:53.311 --> 00:21:54.312
- Whoo.

00:21:54.312 --> 00:21:55.680
- Whoo!

00:21:59.084 --> 00:22:01.887
- It does give
such a broader perspective

00:22:01.887 --> 00:22:04.489
of your culture, to be
able to learn the language

00:22:04.489 --> 00:22:06.691
and know those things that you
wouldn't have otherwise known,

00:22:06.691 --> 00:22:08.493
that didn't,
for whatever reason,

00:22:08.493 --> 00:22:10.929
get passed down.

00:22:10.929 --> 00:22:12.297
You know, something that,

00:22:12.297 --> 00:22:13.899
if we weren't doing this,
would've, you know,

00:22:13.899 --> 00:22:16.568
been locked on that piece of
paper for who knows how long.

00:22:16.568 --> 00:22:18.570
[stirring music]

00:22:18.570 --> 00:22:20.572
The creation story
that Jessie found

00:22:20.572 --> 00:22:22.941
in one of the documents
that I really like is

00:22:22.941 --> 00:22:25.243
the story of
the first man and woman.

00:22:25.243 --> 00:22:28.447
They were first made
out of stone.

00:22:28.447 --> 00:22:30.916
The creator decided that
the stone man and woman

00:22:30.916 --> 00:22:32.451
weren't going to work because
they didn't love each other

00:22:32.451 --> 00:22:36.388
enough, and so the creator
started from scratch

00:22:36.388 --> 00:22:38.490
and made the first
man and woman out of pine trees

00:22:38.490 --> 00:22:40.625
and that they did love
each other enough

00:22:40.625 --> 00:22:44.429
and so they were
granted life year-long

00:22:44.429 --> 00:22:46.565
and that's why pine trees
stay green.

00:22:49.568 --> 00:22:51.102
- In our Indian ways,

00:22:51.102 --> 00:22:53.605
we understand
the spiritual energy

00:22:53.605 --> 00:22:55.407
of some things that are,
you know,

00:22:55.407 --> 00:22:59.578
like the pine tree
versus hickory tree.

00:22:59.578 --> 00:23:02.047
They're different,
and we recognize those things

00:23:02.047 --> 00:23:04.382
and the language reflects that.

00:23:05.750 --> 00:23:08.753
Even different states of water.

00:23:08.753 --> 00:23:10.422
I mean, in English
we talk about water,

00:23:10.422 --> 00:23:14.292
but then there's moving water
versus a river water

00:23:14.292 --> 00:23:17.562
versus a lake water
versus water that you drink,

00:23:17.562 --> 00:23:20.899
and they're all
referred to differently.

00:23:23.268 --> 00:23:25.570
- If you're reading a document
and somebody says,

00:23:25.570 --> 00:23:29.007
"I lost my land rights,"
they say...

00:23:29.007 --> 00:23:30.876
[speaking Wampanoag]

00:23:30.876 --> 00:23:32.911
[speaking Wampanoag] is
"I fall down.

00:23:32.911 --> 00:23:35.413
I fall down onto the ground."

00:23:35.413 --> 00:23:37.315
- In the early times,

00:23:37.315 --> 00:23:40.685
when the English came here
to our island,

00:23:40.685 --> 00:23:42.754
they dealt with us

00:23:42.754 --> 00:23:45.690
according to the tradition
of our people.

00:23:45.690 --> 00:23:48.260
They understood
who they needed to speak to,

00:23:48.260 --> 00:23:49.327
which was the...
[speaking Wampanoag]

00:23:49.327 --> 00:23:50.896
Of the community,

00:23:50.896 --> 00:23:55.901
who held the ability to
grant land use rights.

00:23:56.902 --> 00:23:59.905
- But as the 17th century
goes on,

00:23:59.905 --> 00:24:03.308
they create this elaborate
legal structure

00:24:03.308 --> 00:24:05.243
that is designed to

00:24:05.243 --> 00:24:08.480
justify their presence
on Indian homelands.

00:24:08.480 --> 00:24:10.181
What they do is
create a legal system

00:24:10.181 --> 00:24:12.551
whereby they purchase the land.

00:24:12.551 --> 00:24:15.487
And this is done through
all variety of

00:24:15.487 --> 00:24:20.158
persuasion, coercion...
that maintains at least

00:24:20.158 --> 00:24:21.993
the appearance of legality.

00:24:23.995 --> 00:24:27.198
- 1834, I believe,

00:24:27.198 --> 00:24:28.633
around that time,

00:24:28.633 --> 00:24:32.971
they made the town
into a district.

00:24:32.971 --> 00:24:38.843
In 1869, they made allotments

00:24:38.843 --> 00:24:41.646
so that they could tax people

00:24:41.646 --> 00:24:45.016
and divide the land up to

00:24:45.016 --> 00:24:47.018
individuals so that they would

00:24:47.018 --> 00:24:49.788
be able to sell it.

00:24:49.788 --> 00:24:52.023
- For Wampanoag people,

00:24:52.023 --> 00:24:53.992
to lose one's land,

00:24:53.992 --> 00:24:57.596
to lose the...right

00:24:57.596 --> 00:24:59.831
to use one's land...

00:24:59.831 --> 00:25:01.566
is to literally
fall off your feet,

00:25:01.566 --> 00:25:03.768
to have no ground under you,

00:25:03.768 --> 00:25:05.537
to fall down.

00:25:05.537 --> 00:25:09.007
And prior to
white people coming here,

00:25:09.007 --> 00:25:11.042
our feet never left the ground.

00:25:11.042 --> 00:25:12.210
We didn't have horses,

00:25:12.210 --> 00:25:13.211
we didn't have carts,

00:25:13.211 --> 00:25:14.279
we didn't have carriages.

00:25:14.279 --> 00:25:15.714
Your feet never
left the ground.

00:25:15.714 --> 00:25:17.449
And when you say "my land"...
[speaking Wampanoag]

00:25:17.449 --> 00:25:20.118
"My land that is
not separate from my body."

00:25:20.118 --> 00:25:22.153
So it's always attached to
the bottom of my feet,

00:25:22.153 --> 00:25:23.822
whatever I do.

00:25:25.223 --> 00:25:27.325
- I left the country in 1970,

00:25:27.325 --> 00:25:29.861
and when I came back to,
you know, Cape Cod,

00:25:29.861 --> 00:25:33.498
I was, like, shocked
at all the housing

00:25:33.498 --> 00:25:37.002
and all the trees that
they had cut down.

00:25:37.002 --> 00:25:39.671
My landmarks were
no longer there.

00:25:39.671 --> 00:25:42.674
You know, I was having trouble
finding my way.

00:25:44.409 --> 00:25:47.412
- The Mashpee Wampanoag people
once owned

00:25:47.412 --> 00:25:50.148
50 square miles here,

00:25:50.148 --> 00:25:53.952
five miles wide
and ten miles long.

00:25:53.952 --> 00:25:57.622
And now look what we have.

00:25:59.357 --> 00:26:01.359
You know...

00:26:01.359 --> 00:26:03.828
it just got away from us...

00:26:03.828 --> 00:26:05.563
you know, through--through

00:26:05.563 --> 00:26:08.233
manipulations and the laws.

00:26:11.136 --> 00:26:12.871
- I don't know that
I get heartbroken by it,

00:26:12.871 --> 00:26:15.006
but it just gives me
more motivation

00:26:15.006 --> 00:26:18.343
to fight for my language.

00:26:18.343 --> 00:26:19.377
- That have to be N, right?

00:26:19.377 --> 00:26:20.378
- It's N.
- Because it moves.

00:26:20.378 --> 00:26:21.513
- Okay.
- It does move.

00:26:21.513 --> 00:26:23.214
- Yeah, let's go through
an example.

00:26:23.214 --> 00:26:25.216
- That one--the other one--
- We're going to get there.

00:26:25.216 --> 00:26:26.651
Gonna get there.
- There we go.

00:26:26.651 --> 00:26:27.719
- I'm going to--
- [laughs]

00:26:27.719 --> 00:26:29.387
- I'm going to name off
some nouns

00:26:29.387 --> 00:26:31.222
and I want you to tell me
whether or not they are animate.

00:26:31.222 --> 00:26:32.323
- Okay.
- And if they are animate,

00:26:32.323 --> 00:26:34.325
tell me which rule there...
- Applies.

00:26:34.325 --> 00:26:35.627
- Yeah.
- Okay.

00:26:35.627 --> 00:26:38.630
[laughs]
- What about the stars?

00:26:38.630 --> 00:26:39.631
- They're animate.

00:26:39.631 --> 00:26:41.266
There's shooting stars.
[laughs]

00:26:41.266 --> 00:26:42.500
- Because stars,

00:26:42.500 --> 00:26:44.969
they actually change their
position in the sky.

00:26:44.969 --> 00:26:46.938
So what about the sun?

00:26:46.938 --> 00:26:48.306
- Inanimate,

00:26:48.306 --> 00:26:50.975
because it doesn't move.

00:26:50.975 --> 00:26:55.313
- They knew the world was moving
and not the sun.

00:26:55.313 --> 00:26:56.815
Yet they knew the moon was.

00:26:56.815 --> 00:27:00.985
They were really brilliant
about their environment.

00:27:00.985 --> 00:27:02.721
So, that was huge for me.

00:27:02.721 --> 00:27:03.955
When I learned that, I'm like,

00:27:03.955 --> 00:27:05.757
"Oh!"
You know?

00:27:05.757 --> 00:27:06.958
Europeans just figured this out

00:27:06.958 --> 00:27:07.959
a few hundred years ago,

00:27:07.959 --> 00:27:10.161
and we've known straight along.

00:27:10.161 --> 00:27:11.463
But if you figured
there was a time

00:27:11.463 --> 00:27:13.031
when there was nothing else
here but the earth...

00:27:13.031 --> 00:27:15.033
- You have a kind of access to
your own language

00:27:15.033 --> 00:27:18.036
that you can never have to
somebody else's language,

00:27:18.036 --> 00:27:20.004
so there are all kinds of
linguistic insights

00:27:20.004 --> 00:27:23.141
that are only available to
native speakers.

00:27:23.141 --> 00:27:25.143
- All the birds,
all the animals,

00:27:25.143 --> 00:27:27.545
all the bugs, all the flies,
all animate.

00:27:27.545 --> 00:27:28.813
- So there are
all kinds of things

00:27:28.813 --> 00:27:30.448
that we can only learn
about these languages

00:27:30.448 --> 00:27:34.018
if native speakers will begin
to work on them.

00:27:34.018 --> 00:27:35.320
- So how did you become fluent?

00:27:35.320 --> 00:27:37.188
Because you didn't have
anybody to talk to.

00:27:37.188 --> 00:27:39.891
- I recorded stuff
and talked to myself.

00:27:39.891 --> 00:27:42.660
So...and I still do it.

00:27:42.660 --> 00:27:46.664
So I'll take a document and
I'll record a conversation.

00:27:46.664 --> 00:27:49.200
I'll type out a conversation

00:27:49.200 --> 00:27:52.203
based on what I have
in the record

00:27:52.203 --> 00:27:55.206
and I will record
that conversation,

00:27:55.206 --> 00:27:57.876
I'll record questions,

00:27:57.876 --> 00:28:01.279
and so I'll talk to myself,
basically.

00:28:01.279 --> 00:28:03.114
So I actually teach myself.

00:28:03.114 --> 00:28:05.917
Okay, so you have
these documents.

00:28:05.917 --> 00:28:07.352
How do you know, then,

00:28:07.352 --> 00:28:09.521
without a speaker,

00:28:09.521 --> 00:28:11.189
if you're on the right track?

00:28:11.189 --> 00:28:12.991
Like, how to pronounce things.

00:28:12.991 --> 00:28:14.559
There was a time,

00:28:14.559 --> 00:28:15.994
some thousands of years ago,

00:28:15.994 --> 00:28:19.097
where all of the people in the
Algonquian-speaking communities

00:28:19.097 --> 00:28:20.832
came from one community,

00:28:20.832 --> 00:28:24.002
so there are roughly
40 languages in the family.

00:28:24.002 --> 00:28:26.437
A lot of these languages
are still spoken,

00:28:26.437 --> 00:28:29.941
so if we're really not sure
what's going on with an item,

00:28:29.941 --> 00:28:32.110
we can look at
the spelling of the item,

00:28:32.110 --> 00:28:34.646
approximate it to something
in Proto-Algonquian

00:28:34.646 --> 00:28:36.247
or these other languages,

00:28:36.247 --> 00:28:38.216
look at the corresponding
sound changes

00:28:38.216 --> 00:28:39.617
across the vowels
and consonants,

00:28:39.617 --> 00:28:40.852
and know exactly, predictably,

00:28:40.852 --> 00:28:42.987
what the sound ought to be.

00:28:42.987 --> 00:28:45.690
Okay, so here they've spelled

00:28:45.690 --> 00:28:48.359
"long-A SHG" as "ASQ,"

00:28:48.359 --> 00:28:51.062
which has to be "OSHK," right?
- Mm-hmm.

00:28:51.062 --> 00:28:53.231
- So you can see that
people spelled things

00:28:53.231 --> 00:28:55.433
any old damn way
they felt like it.

00:28:55.433 --> 00:28:57.435
- So you're taking that
from the Bible,

00:28:57.435 --> 00:28:58.603
or from where?

00:28:58.603 --> 00:29:00.205
Well, you could find something
in the Bible

00:29:00.205 --> 00:29:02.040
or in other documents,

00:29:02.040 --> 00:29:03.541
but this is where
these things come from.

00:29:03.541 --> 00:29:04.909
So they come from documents.

00:29:04.909 --> 00:29:08.079
So we're actually pulling words
out of documents, okay?

00:29:08.079 --> 00:29:11.349
This one happens to come from
the Wampanoag Bible.

00:29:11.349 --> 00:29:14.352
[gentle music]

00:29:17.222 --> 00:29:19.224
Okay, so all of the consonants,

00:29:19.224 --> 00:29:21.793
"PKTSQ," right?

00:29:21.793 --> 00:29:23.528
They're grouped into one
because, really,

00:29:23.528 --> 00:29:25.831
they don't do anything
all that fancy.

00:29:25.831 --> 00:29:30.168
So, find the language
in question, right?

00:29:30.168 --> 00:29:32.204
And tell me what
it's going to go to.

00:29:32.204 --> 00:29:33.205
- Would it be this one?

00:29:33.205 --> 00:29:34.372
- It would be that one.

00:29:36.174 --> 00:29:39.177
- John Eliot, who was
a missionary here from England,

00:29:39.177 --> 00:29:42.614
was engaged in the translation
of a Bible into Wampanoag.

00:29:42.614 --> 00:29:45.016
It's the first Bible that was
published in this hemisphere--

00:29:45.016 --> 00:29:46.017
it was a Wampanoag Bible,

00:29:46.017 --> 00:29:48.186
it was published here in Boston.

00:29:56.094 --> 00:29:57.929
First of all, his goal was

00:29:57.929 --> 00:29:59.197
a certain amount of
destruction of

00:29:59.197 --> 00:30:00.832
Wampanoag traditional culture,
right?

00:30:00.832 --> 00:30:02.234
He was a missionary.

00:30:02.234 --> 00:30:04.803
He was trying to get rid of
Wampanoag religions.

00:30:04.803 --> 00:30:06.238
- And the missionaries had
a choice.

00:30:06.238 --> 00:30:08.907
They could either try to
teach 100,000 Indians

00:30:08.907 --> 00:30:10.876
how to speak English,

00:30:10.876 --> 00:30:13.211
then try to convert them
to Christianity,

00:30:13.211 --> 00:30:16.815
or convert all of
the Christian materials

00:30:16.815 --> 00:30:18.650
into their language
and have them learn

00:30:18.650 --> 00:30:21.152
in their language--
which is what they did.

00:30:23.154 --> 00:30:25.357
- I think the pressure was,
you know,

00:30:25.357 --> 00:30:27.359
convert or die, basically.

00:30:27.359 --> 00:30:30.061
You know, get killed or harassed

00:30:30.061 --> 00:30:32.197
out of town or harassed

00:30:32.197 --> 00:30:34.065
out of life.

00:30:34.065 --> 00:30:39.070
- People come here and,
all of a sudden, you know...

00:30:39.070 --> 00:30:43.208
we're called "savages"
and the cross comes.

00:30:43.208 --> 00:30:44.843
- "When I first heard
instruction,

00:30:44.843 --> 00:30:47.279
"I believed not,
but laughed at it,

00:30:47.279 --> 00:30:50.916
"and scorned praying to God.

00:30:50.916 --> 00:30:52.584
"I did think of running away

00:30:52.584 --> 00:30:55.820
"because I cared not for
praying to God.

00:30:55.820 --> 00:30:57.956
"But because I loved
the place where I lived,

00:30:57.956 --> 00:30:59.891
"I thought I will pray to God

00:30:59.891 --> 00:31:03.194
"so that I could still stay
at that place.

00:31:03.194 --> 00:31:05.564
"Therefore I prayed not for
the love of God,

00:31:05.564 --> 00:31:08.567
but for the love of the place
I lived in."

00:31:08.567 --> 00:31:10.669
Monequassun.

00:31:10.669 --> 00:31:16.508
- I mean, the cross becomes
your right to take my land,

00:31:16.508 --> 00:31:18.176
to kill me,
because I'm a savage

00:31:18.176 --> 00:31:22.013
and "you're not following
this cross."

00:31:22.013 --> 00:31:24.182
- "Now I believe in God,

00:31:24.182 --> 00:31:26.318
"one God who made
all the world,

00:31:26.318 --> 00:31:28.954
"yet this I only said
with my mouth,

00:31:28.954 --> 00:31:32.791
I did not truly believe it
in my heart."

00:31:32.791 --> 00:31:34.793
Nookau.

00:31:39.431 --> 00:31:42.434
- [speaking Wampanoag]

00:31:44.469 --> 00:31:47.305
"I am a person.
I am a person.

00:31:47.305 --> 00:31:50.675
I am a person."

00:31:50.675 --> 00:31:53.645
- Wampanoag people made
lots of notes in their own,

00:31:53.645 --> 00:31:59.250
personal bibles, and the notes
are really disturbing.

00:31:59.250 --> 00:32:01.319
- "I am a pitiful man.

00:32:01.319 --> 00:32:02.821
"We have disease
in the whole world

00:32:02.821 --> 00:32:05.757
because we do not believe."

00:32:05.757 --> 00:32:07.392
- If a person writes,

00:32:07.392 --> 00:32:10.962
"I am no longer able to
defend my territory,

00:32:10.962 --> 00:32:13.898
I am no longer able to
defend my people,"

00:32:13.898 --> 00:32:18.570
and then the person writes,
"I am so pitiful,"

00:32:18.570 --> 00:32:20.505
and the person is pitiful.

00:32:20.505 --> 00:32:22.407
I mean, what a pity, that,

00:32:22.407 --> 00:32:26.344
in order to breathe and eat

00:32:26.344 --> 00:32:29.914
and have a family,
you're subjected to

00:32:29.914 --> 00:32:32.283
having to say,

00:32:32.283 --> 00:32:33.818
"I am a sinner

00:32:33.818 --> 00:32:38.690
"and I was born into
this disgusting state

00:32:38.690 --> 00:32:44.496
"and if I disagree or I just
will not actively participate,

00:32:44.496 --> 00:32:45.730
"then I could be killed.

00:32:45.730 --> 00:32:49.501
And what if I have a family?"

00:32:49.501 --> 00:32:51.169
- "But then I was angry
with myself

00:32:51.169 --> 00:32:52.604
"and loathed myself,

00:32:52.604 --> 00:32:55.540
"and thought that God will not
forgive me my sins.

00:32:55.540 --> 00:32:57.475
"For when I had been abroad
in the woods,

00:32:57.475 --> 00:32:58.843
"I would be very angry

00:32:58.843 --> 00:33:02.781
and I could not find the way
how to be a good man."

00:33:02.781 --> 00:33:06.818
- There were panels of
white ministers,

00:33:06.818 --> 00:33:08.086
English ministers,

00:33:08.086 --> 00:33:10.321
who listened to Indian people

00:33:10.321 --> 00:33:11.956
give their confessions of

00:33:11.956 --> 00:33:14.592
their conversion to
the English religion

00:33:14.592 --> 00:33:16.294
and, of course, they're recorded

00:33:16.294 --> 00:33:18.363
because the Puritans were
obsessed with

00:33:18.363 --> 00:33:20.532
writing everything down.

00:33:20.532 --> 00:33:22.832
[poignant music]

00:33:22.834 --> 00:33:24.769
And one of the things
that happens is,

00:33:24.769 --> 00:33:27.639
John Eliot uses
these confessions.

00:33:27.639 --> 00:33:30.408
He has them published
and sold in England

00:33:30.408 --> 00:33:32.244
to raise money to bolster

00:33:32.244 --> 00:33:34.079
the whole process
of missionization.

00:33:34.079 --> 00:33:36.348
We have these
incredible records

00:33:36.348 --> 00:33:40.352
of native peoples relating
their conversion experiences.

00:33:45.524 --> 00:33:47.792
- They put in all this
psychological warfare,

00:33:47.792 --> 00:33:50.862
so anything associated with
your own culture is

00:33:50.862 --> 00:33:53.598
a bad thing to do.

00:33:53.598 --> 00:33:55.767
And you get the elders

00:33:55.767 --> 00:33:57.235
who don't want to teach the kids

00:33:57.235 --> 00:34:00.772
because they don't want them to
go through that humiliation.

00:34:00.772 --> 00:34:02.340
- And we were told that

00:34:02.340 --> 00:34:06.211
you speak English
and speak it well, you know.

00:34:06.211 --> 00:34:09.548
"Life is going to be hard
for you, anyways."

00:34:10.949 --> 00:34:14.586
"And in order for you
to survive,

00:34:14.586 --> 00:34:15.720
"to make it in this world,

00:34:15.720 --> 00:34:17.155
"you're going to have to
speak English

00:34:17.155 --> 00:34:21.226
and speak it as well or better
than the people around you."

00:34:21.226 --> 00:34:24.229
[man speaking Wampanoag]

00:34:25.897 --> 00:34:28.900
"And his leaf
shall not wither."

00:34:32.337 --> 00:34:34.839
- It's definitely ironic that

00:34:34.839 --> 00:34:38.209
a large base of the materials
that we have now,

00:34:38.209 --> 00:34:40.912
as far as the written language,

00:34:40.912 --> 00:34:45.483
comes from the Bible
and the other documents

00:34:45.483 --> 00:34:51.323
that were produced to convert us
to Christianity.

00:34:53.024 --> 00:34:56.094
- This is a Xeroxed copy of
the book of Job,

00:34:56.094 --> 00:34:58.430
from the second edition
of the Bible,

00:34:58.430 --> 00:34:59.497
the Wampanoag Bible,

00:34:59.497 --> 00:35:03.134
so this from 1685, I guess.

00:35:03.134 --> 00:35:05.337
I work with Jessie on
producing things

00:35:05.337 --> 00:35:06.805
like the dictionary,

00:35:06.805 --> 00:35:09.541
which we've been working on
for eight or nine years now.

00:35:09.541 --> 00:35:12.744
The main thing that we do is
read through the Bible,

00:35:12.744 --> 00:35:15.714
looking for words that we don't
yet have in the dictionary.

00:35:15.714 --> 00:35:18.650
So for example, one new word
in Job is the verb...

00:35:18.650 --> 00:35:19.651
[speaking Wampanoag]

00:35:19.651 --> 00:35:21.219
Which means "to block."

00:35:21.219 --> 00:35:23.088
So it shows up in Job.

00:35:23.088 --> 00:35:26.791
[speaking Wampanoag]

00:35:26.791 --> 00:35:29.227
Which means,
"he hath fenced up my way,"

00:35:29.227 --> 00:35:31.997
that is,
"he built a fence in my path."

00:35:31.997 --> 00:35:33.398
That was a new verb for us.

00:35:33.398 --> 00:35:35.834
Yeah, so for example,
this is our entry for...

00:35:35.834 --> 00:35:36.935
- So,
let's talk about something

00:35:36.935 --> 00:35:38.136
that we know exists
in the world--

00:35:38.136 --> 00:35:40.472
can't find it
anywhere in the Bible.

00:35:40.472 --> 00:35:44.009
I don't know.
"Dog" existed.

00:35:44.009 --> 00:35:45.944
We know that there were dogs.

00:35:45.944 --> 00:35:48.313
If there's something in
the realm of possibility

00:35:48.313 --> 00:35:49.614
or in the environment,

00:35:49.614 --> 00:35:51.316
then we know there's got to be
a word for it.

00:35:51.316 --> 00:35:53.318
That's how human language works.

00:35:53.318 --> 00:35:56.888
If there's a concept
that can be had in any culture,

00:35:56.888 --> 00:35:58.356
then there's a word
for that concept,

00:35:58.356 --> 00:36:02.594
or the item, whether it's
concrete or abstract, right?

00:36:02.594 --> 00:36:05.664
And I just can't find
the word for "dog."

00:36:05.664 --> 00:36:07.165
I just can't find it anywhere,

00:36:07.165 --> 00:36:09.334
in the native written documents,

00:36:09.334 --> 00:36:12.003
I can't find it in
the Proto-Algonquian dictionary.

00:36:12.003 --> 00:36:13.204
What am I going to do?

00:36:13.204 --> 00:36:15.373
Well, I can appeal to
some other languages,

00:36:15.373 --> 00:36:18.143
to see what they have
as an item.

00:36:18.143 --> 00:36:21.146
Let's get online for a minute.

00:36:21.146 --> 00:36:23.148
Let's look for the word "dog."

00:36:23.148 --> 00:36:26.017
Okay, it says "dog,"

00:36:26.017 --> 00:36:29.354
obviative, sort of like
fourth-person dog,

00:36:29.354 --> 00:36:32.657
in Passamaquoddy--and this
language is still spoken.

00:36:32.657 --> 00:36:37.662
So we have O-L-O-M-U-S-S.

00:36:39.164 --> 00:36:41.499
So, let's see what we can
make of our sound chart.

00:36:41.499 --> 00:36:46.237
And I'm not sure about the
orthographic conventions here,

00:36:46.237 --> 00:36:48.106
but we have Passamaquoddy,

00:36:48.106 --> 00:36:50.275
so this is interchangeable,

00:36:50.275 --> 00:36:52.510
so let's go with A.

00:36:52.510 --> 00:36:53.678
So what I'm doing now is,

00:36:53.678 --> 00:36:55.246
I'm making
the corresponding sound changes

00:36:55.246 --> 00:36:57.615
from Passamaquoddy
to Wampanoag, right?

00:36:57.615 --> 00:36:59.718
Do we know what we're
going to do with the L?

00:36:59.718 --> 00:37:01.653
- Uh...it's an S.

00:37:01.653 --> 00:37:03.521
- So there's an L there,

00:37:03.521 --> 00:37:04.656
so what do we want in Wamp,

00:37:04.656 --> 00:37:06.491
if we have an L here?

00:37:06.491 --> 00:37:08.793
- N.
- Yes, we want an N

00:37:08.793 --> 00:37:12.397
and we have an M here.

00:37:12.397 --> 00:37:16.901
So here is the rebuilt word
for "dog": anum.

00:37:16.901 --> 00:37:19.237
So this is how we find items
that we cannot find

00:37:19.237 --> 00:37:20.405
in the extant,

00:37:20.405 --> 00:37:22.107
and we already know what
the pronunciation is,

00:37:22.107 --> 00:37:24.442
so there's no big mystery.

00:37:24.442 --> 00:37:26.311
In Algonquian linguistics,

00:37:26.311 --> 00:37:28.279
you know,
the continuum of learning

00:37:28.279 --> 00:37:29.748
is just--there's not
a beginning and end.

00:37:29.748 --> 00:37:31.182
There's just so much to know.

00:37:31.182 --> 00:37:33.418
We want the actual
correspondents chart.

00:37:33.418 --> 00:37:36.221
It was hard, sometimes,
attending MIT,

00:37:36.221 --> 00:37:39.491
because I was going
back and forth from the Cape.

00:37:39.491 --> 00:37:42.494
I had a family to take care of.

00:37:42.494 --> 00:37:44.295
Okay, so...

00:37:44.295 --> 00:37:46.131
There were times when
I was at the computer

00:37:46.131 --> 00:37:47.866
until 3:00 or 4:00
in the morning.

00:37:47.866 --> 00:37:50.869
And why isn't this printing?

00:37:50.869 --> 00:37:53.404
While I was there
for that first year,

00:37:53.404 --> 00:37:54.839
Ken continually said,

00:37:54.839 --> 00:37:56.441
"I'm not going to be able to
teach you enough

00:37:56.441 --> 00:37:58.443
in this one year, probably."

00:37:58.443 --> 00:38:00.545
You can attend
graduate school there

00:38:00.545 --> 00:38:02.514
without an
undergraduate degree,

00:38:02.514 --> 00:38:08.520
provided you have
some substantial work

00:38:08.520 --> 00:38:10.588
under your belt.

00:38:10.588 --> 00:38:12.223
And I submitted the work
that I had done

00:38:12.223 --> 00:38:13.758
during the research fellowship

00:38:13.758 --> 00:38:16.594
to meet my
undergrad requirement.

00:38:16.594 --> 00:38:21.032
I went into Ken's office, like,
a week later, I think,

00:38:21.032 --> 00:38:26.004
and he was, like, all excited
and animated about something.

00:38:26.004 --> 00:38:27.205
He was saying, "Hot damn!"

00:38:27.205 --> 00:38:30.475
And I said, "What?
What, what, what?"

00:38:30.475 --> 00:38:32.043
So he reads me this e-mail:

00:38:32.043 --> 00:38:33.611
"Her work is really good.

00:38:33.611 --> 00:38:35.113
"We really need to
have her here.

00:38:35.113 --> 00:38:37.115
"This is groundbreaking work.

00:38:37.115 --> 00:38:39.117
I support this 100%."

00:38:39.117 --> 00:38:41.119
And he's like, "Look."

00:38:41.119 --> 00:38:42.120
He printed it out.

00:38:42.120 --> 00:38:44.088
He says, "Noam Chomsky."

00:38:44.088 --> 00:38:48.993
And I said, "Wow, Ken,
that's really great!

00:38:48.993 --> 00:38:51.496
Who the hell is Noam Chomsky?"

00:38:51.496 --> 00:38:54.032
- I'm sure it was
a perfectly selfish act.

00:38:54.032 --> 00:38:55.567
I thought the work was great,

00:38:55.567 --> 00:38:56.968
and she's just
the kind of person we want

00:38:56.968 --> 00:39:00.371
in the department,
to carry it forward

00:39:00.371 --> 00:39:02.440
intellectually and socially

00:39:02.440 --> 00:39:03.908
and every other way.

00:39:03.908 --> 00:39:06.211
I mean...the fact that people

00:39:06.211 --> 00:39:09.013
can come in without
a formal background

00:39:09.013 --> 00:39:11.516
and carry out such
dramatic achievements

00:39:11.516 --> 00:39:13.518
is exciting.

00:39:13.518 --> 00:39:15.520
- Hell's bells.

00:39:19.424 --> 00:39:22.760
- Ken and Jessie and Norvin
were able to

00:39:22.760 --> 00:39:25.330
reconstruct what
the language must've been,

00:39:25.330 --> 00:39:28.233
probably very accurately.

00:39:28.233 --> 00:39:30.335
There's nothing that I know of
that's anything like

00:39:30.335 --> 00:39:32.670
the Wampanoag case,
and it would've been

00:39:32.670 --> 00:39:36.241
considered impossible--
if I'd been asked, say,

00:39:36.241 --> 00:39:37.942
"Could it be done?"
I would've taken for granted

00:39:37.942 --> 00:39:40.945
that it's impossible,
it was gone.

00:39:42.413 --> 00:39:45.083
- Ken Hale became one of
my greatest friends

00:39:45.083 --> 00:39:47.752
I've ever had.

00:39:47.752 --> 00:39:51.089
We lost him to cancer.

00:39:51.089 --> 00:39:54.092
[speaking Wampanoag]

00:40:11.609 --> 00:40:13.711
Ken, my friend,

00:40:13.711 --> 00:40:18.216
look at me now and hear me now.

00:40:19.884 --> 00:40:22.353
Because of your good work,

00:40:22.353 --> 00:40:25.356
I am speaking Wampanoag.

00:40:27.926 --> 00:40:29.594
- At his memorial service,

00:40:29.594 --> 00:40:33.164
Jessie said that
she was weeping now,

00:40:33.164 --> 00:40:35.967
but she was not going to
cry forever...

00:40:35.967 --> 00:40:37.969
and that she was going to
be able to go on

00:40:37.969 --> 00:40:40.972
and do the work that
he'd taught her to do.

00:40:43.141 --> 00:40:46.144
[both speaking Wampanoag]

00:40:59.874 --> 00:41:03.878
- I'm not exactly sure
how I came to do the work,

00:41:03.878 --> 00:41:05.880
but a vision,
if it's necessary,

00:41:05.880 --> 00:41:07.882
you can't just walk away.

00:41:10.285 --> 00:41:13.288
[speaking Wampanoag]

00:41:23.765 --> 00:41:27.802
- You can only teach it
by speaking it.

00:41:27.802 --> 00:41:30.071
Now, when my kids ask me,

00:41:30.071 --> 00:41:31.706
"How do you say...?"

00:41:31.706 --> 00:41:33.408
they don't say,
"Do we have a language?"

00:41:33.408 --> 00:41:35.743
They say, "How do you say...?"

00:41:35.743 --> 00:41:38.077
[both speaking Wampanoag]

00:41:38.079 --> 00:41:40.515
- When you get those
forms of paper from school

00:41:40.515 --> 00:41:42.717
and they say, "Do you speak
any other language?"

00:41:42.717 --> 00:41:45.921
they say, "Yes, Wampanoag."

00:41:45.921 --> 00:41:48.323
- [yelping]

00:41:48.323 --> 00:41:51.960
- [speaking Wampanoag]

00:41:51.960 --> 00:41:53.628
Children always drive
language change.

00:41:53.628 --> 00:41:55.964
Adults don't drive
language change, children do.

00:41:55.964 --> 00:41:58.633
[speaking Wampanoag]

00:41:58.633 --> 00:42:01.536
[laughter]

00:42:01.536 --> 00:42:04.606
[feigning sobbing]

00:42:05.740 --> 00:42:09.544
[speaking Wampanoag]

00:42:09.544 --> 00:42:10.545
[exclaims]

00:42:10.545 --> 00:42:13.548
[laughter]

00:42:14.749 --> 00:42:16.985
It's believed, by linguists,

00:42:16.985 --> 00:42:20.622
that all humans have
something in common,

00:42:20.622 --> 00:42:22.991
which is grammar,
and one of the things

00:42:22.991 --> 00:42:25.126
that the brain will do is
try to make language

00:42:25.126 --> 00:42:27.729
as efficient as possible.

00:42:27.729 --> 00:42:30.732
You could say that
languages have revolution,

00:42:30.732 --> 00:42:33.368
and it's the children
that change it constantly.

00:42:33.368 --> 00:42:34.869
- [squealing]
- [speaking Wampanoag]

00:42:34.869 --> 00:42:36.171
- I think it's
our responsibility

00:42:36.171 --> 00:42:39.107
to leave our children
possibilities.

00:42:39.107 --> 00:42:40.408
It doesn't mean
they have to act on those,

00:42:40.408 --> 00:42:44.412
but, at minimum, I think,
on our watch,

00:42:44.412 --> 00:42:47.115
we shouldn't shut down
possibilities for our children.

00:42:47.115 --> 00:42:49.584
[speaking Wampanoag]

00:42:49.584 --> 00:42:52.587
[stirring music]

00:42:52.587 --> 00:42:55.590
- [speaking Wampanoag]

00:43:08.236 --> 00:43:09.671
- In the early times,

00:43:09.671 --> 00:43:13.608
the children were being taken
out of our communities.

00:43:13.608 --> 00:43:15.777
The courts could mandate that

00:43:15.777 --> 00:43:19.681
you or I had a debt to repay.

00:43:19.681 --> 00:43:22.684
Maybe you have
five or six children.

00:43:24.686 --> 00:43:27.589
And you know, "Well, if I go,

00:43:27.589 --> 00:43:30.325
"what's going to happen
to my six children?

00:43:30.325 --> 00:43:34.896
"However, if I send
one of my children away

00:43:34.896 --> 00:43:37.399
"to satisfy this debt,

00:43:37.399 --> 00:43:40.135
I can at least keep my other
five children together."

00:43:41.503 --> 00:43:43.171
You start
taking the children away

00:43:43.171 --> 00:43:45.707
and sending them off to Boston

00:43:45.707 --> 00:43:48.877
and other points unknown

00:43:48.877 --> 00:43:53.248
for years at a time--

00:43:53.248 --> 00:43:58.620
10, 15, 20 years--

00:43:58.620 --> 00:44:00.889
they are completely
indoctrinated

00:44:00.889 --> 00:44:05.960
in the community
that they were living in.

00:44:05.960 --> 00:44:07.362
Guaranteed,
they're not speaking

00:44:07.362 --> 00:44:11.666
their traditional language.

00:44:11.666 --> 00:44:15.970
Without our children,
the community dies.

00:44:15.970 --> 00:44:18.506
Which was the point, I believe.

00:44:20.575 --> 00:44:25.580
- Family and language and
culture is all-important.

00:44:25.580 --> 00:44:27.182
And it grounds you.

00:44:27.182 --> 00:44:30.251
It keeps you connected.

00:44:30.251 --> 00:44:33.021
I think,
when we lost connection

00:44:33.021 --> 00:44:34.456
with that language,

00:44:34.456 --> 00:44:37.525
we lost connection with
everything else,

00:44:37.525 --> 00:44:40.729
because the influence
and things,

00:44:40.729 --> 00:44:44.265
so today,
we're not allowing that.

00:44:44.265 --> 00:44:45.767
- [speaking Wampanoag]

00:44:45.767 --> 00:44:47.569
- And I believe we're strong,

00:44:47.569 --> 00:44:50.672
and that strength comes from
living in two worlds...

00:44:50.672 --> 00:44:52.841
[both speaking Wampanoag]

00:44:52.841 --> 00:44:57.212
- And being able to deal with
them both at the same time.

00:44:57.212 --> 00:44:59.881
- Look, Anne, we decorated.

00:44:59.881 --> 00:45:00.982
And my mom did it.

00:45:00.982 --> 00:45:04.052
- [speaking Wampanoag]

00:45:07.555 --> 00:45:09.324
- And maintaining your culture,

00:45:09.324 --> 00:45:11.126
that can't be touched.

00:45:11.126 --> 00:45:14.028
- [speaking Wampanoag]

00:45:14.028 --> 00:45:17.398
Mae is our first native speaker
in seven generations.

00:45:17.398 --> 00:45:20.401
That she uses Wampanoag is
an extreme blessing.

00:45:20.401 --> 00:45:21.770
[speaking Wampanoag]

00:45:21.770 --> 00:45:22.771
- Yeah.

00:45:22.771 --> 00:45:25.106
- [speaking Wampanoag]

00:45:25.106 --> 00:45:28.009
- Yeah...but I wanted to go...

00:45:28.009 --> 00:45:31.012
[both speaking Wampanoag]

00:45:33.047 --> 00:45:36.050
- I'm going to get
a new present for him.

00:45:36.050 --> 00:45:37.519
- If it's just her father and I

00:45:37.519 --> 00:45:39.854
and she hears Wampanoag,
that's all she'll use,

00:45:39.854 --> 00:45:41.322
but as soon as
she hears English,

00:45:41.322 --> 00:45:43.324
it's over with, party's over.

00:45:43.324 --> 00:45:46.327
[all speaking Wampanoag]

00:45:54.035 --> 00:45:56.805
- I try to speak some Wampanoag

00:45:56.805 --> 00:46:01.009
with my wife and
my little daughter every day.

00:46:01.009 --> 00:46:04.078
[both speaking Wampanoag]

00:46:08.817 --> 00:46:10.051
- Because.

00:46:10.051 --> 00:46:11.886
- [laughs]
[speaking Wampanoag]

00:46:11.886 --> 00:46:12.887
- She was busy.

00:46:12.887 --> 00:46:15.690
- Oh.
[speaking Wampanoag]

00:46:15.690 --> 00:46:17.258
I know my daughter's
always going to love me

00:46:17.258 --> 00:46:18.426
and she's not going to care

00:46:18.426 --> 00:46:20.094
whether I say something wrong
or not.

00:46:20.094 --> 00:46:21.462
And, usually,
she knows if I do,

00:46:21.462 --> 00:46:22.730
but it doesn't bother her.

00:46:22.730 --> 00:46:25.733
[both speaking Wampanoag]

00:46:28.069 --> 00:46:30.738
- Ah.
[laughter]

00:46:30.738 --> 00:46:32.340
- One of the first
language classes we did,

00:46:32.340 --> 00:46:34.242
we were asking, what would...
[speaking Wampanoag]--

00:46:34.242 --> 00:46:37.979
our word for "man"--
what would it mean, really?

00:46:37.979 --> 00:46:39.280
And our language teacher said,

00:46:39.280 --> 00:46:41.683
"surface walker," you know,

00:46:41.683 --> 00:46:42.717
and all the guys were like,

00:46:42.717 --> 00:46:43.952
"Yeah, that's so cool,"
you know,

00:46:43.952 --> 00:46:45.687
"we're surface walkers."

00:46:45.687 --> 00:46:46.754
And so us women were like,

00:46:46.754 --> 00:46:48.156
"Wait, well, what is--
what would...

00:46:48.156 --> 00:46:50.859
[speaking Wampanoag]
mean?"--our word for "woman."

00:46:50.859 --> 00:46:54.262
And it was interesting to find
that it meant, you know,

00:46:54.262 --> 00:46:57.265
the "one who has complete say
or judgment,"

00:46:57.265 --> 00:46:59.133
and so all us women were like, "Yeah!"
[laughing]

00:47:00.001 --> 00:47:02.637
- [speaking Wampanoag]

00:47:02.637 --> 00:47:04.372
Is a "crow."

00:47:04.372 --> 00:47:07.242
But all those different
parts of it

00:47:07.242 --> 00:47:10.645
mean different things
that describe that crow.

00:47:10.645 --> 00:47:16.051
- Knowing how to say it
and what it means.

00:47:16.051 --> 00:47:17.385
[speaking Wampanoag]

00:47:17.385 --> 00:47:19.588
"Welcome."

00:47:19.588 --> 00:47:22.591
[all chanting Wampanoag]

00:47:28.997 --> 00:47:32.000
- [singing Wampanoag]

00:47:34.336 --> 00:47:36.972
- [speaking Wampanoag]

00:47:36.972 --> 00:47:38.506
- It started with

00:47:38.506 --> 00:47:41.076
Aquinnah, Mashpee,
Herring Pond,

00:47:41.076 --> 00:47:44.279
and then Assonet,

00:47:44.279 --> 00:47:47.415
and it's just going on
and spreading out.

00:47:47.415 --> 00:47:49.150
- [speaking Wampanoag]

00:47:49.150 --> 00:47:51.152
When I speak Wampanoag,

00:47:51.152 --> 00:47:53.655
how much I love this language.

00:47:53.655 --> 00:47:54.789
I love the sound,

00:47:54.789 --> 00:47:57.158
I love the way
that the words combine

00:47:57.158 --> 00:47:58.159
in meaning,

00:47:58.159 --> 00:47:59.628
I love being able to

00:47:59.628 --> 00:48:01.463
understand a different way of

00:48:01.463 --> 00:48:04.032
seeing the world
through the words.

00:48:04.032 --> 00:48:06.768
[speaking Wampanoag]

00:48:06.768 --> 00:48:08.870
- [speaking Wampanoag]

00:48:08.870 --> 00:48:10.071
- [speaking Wampanoag]

00:48:10.071 --> 00:48:11.940
I feel so much more connected
to the person

00:48:11.940 --> 00:48:13.341
that I'm talking to,

00:48:13.341 --> 00:48:15.343
knowing that it's almost like
a little secret club,

00:48:15.343 --> 00:48:17.412
like "we're talking Wampanoag,"
you know,

00:48:17.412 --> 00:48:19.414
"and how excellent is that?"

00:48:19.414 --> 00:48:20.448
- And I'm just like,

00:48:20.448 --> 00:48:23.218
"oh, thank God.
Oh, thank God,"

00:48:23.218 --> 00:48:25.086
you know, that we got people

00:48:25.086 --> 00:48:27.288
that are doing this again.

00:48:27.288 --> 00:48:28.356
So it's great.

00:48:28.356 --> 00:48:32.027
It just overwhelms me.

00:48:32.027 --> 00:48:35.030
- [speaking Wampanoag]

00:48:37.999 --> 00:48:40.101
The people who
first attended classes

00:48:40.101 --> 00:48:42.570
are now able to teach others,

00:48:42.570 --> 00:48:45.240
at least some of
the beginning stuff.

00:48:45.240 --> 00:48:48.243
[speaking Wampanoag]

00:48:55.183 --> 00:48:57.952
- On the continuum of
proficiency in speakers,

00:48:57.952 --> 00:48:59.654
we're just not there yet.

00:48:59.654 --> 00:49:01.322
- Shoo.
[speaking Wampanoag]

00:49:02.991 --> 00:49:04.325
- I mean,
we've got to get people

00:49:04.325 --> 00:49:06.761
to be able to have
casual conversation first,

00:49:06.761 --> 00:49:08.830
without a break,
without having to stop

00:49:08.830 --> 00:49:10.065
and think about every word,

00:49:10.065 --> 00:49:11.700
and we just don't
have that yet.

00:49:11.700 --> 00:49:14.703
- [speaking Wampanoag]

00:49:15.704 --> 00:49:18.707
- [speaking Wampanoag]

00:49:24.212 --> 00:49:25.513
- [speaking Wampanoag]

00:49:25.513 --> 00:49:28.516
[all speaking Wampanoag]

00:49:33.855 --> 00:49:36.858
[laughter]

00:49:41.029 --> 00:49:42.997
- [chanting in Wampanoag]

00:49:42.997 --> 00:49:45.166
- A language is not just words.

00:49:45.166 --> 00:49:48.136
I mean,
it's culture, tradition,

00:49:48.136 --> 00:49:49.971
the unification of community,

00:49:49.971 --> 00:49:52.474
a whole history that creates

00:49:52.474 --> 00:49:53.942
what a community is...

00:49:53.942 --> 00:49:55.310
- [speaking Wampanoag]

00:49:55.310 --> 00:49:57.912
- It's all embodied
in the language.

00:49:57.912 --> 00:50:01.116
- [drumming and chanting]

00:50:01.116 --> 00:50:03.418
- So it's really
the revival of a culture

00:50:03.418 --> 00:50:05.420
and a way of life.

00:50:05.420 --> 00:50:08.823
- I'm so happy that we have
the ability to

00:50:08.823 --> 00:50:11.493
do something about the past
with the language.

00:50:11.493 --> 00:50:14.129
[speaking Wampanoag]

00:50:14.129 --> 00:50:16.131
[all speaking Wampanoag]

00:50:16.131 --> 00:50:19.033
- It's an excellent way to make
lemonade out of lemons.

00:50:19.033 --> 00:50:20.502
We were given lots of lemons,

00:50:20.502 --> 00:50:22.537
as a result of our history.

00:50:22.537 --> 00:50:25.807
Now we have to find a way to--

00:50:25.807 --> 00:50:30.111
to find happiness
in our life and in our culture.

00:50:30.111 --> 00:50:33.114
- [chanting in Wampanoag]

00:50:35.884 --> 00:50:37.886
- And so that's what
the language does for me.

00:50:37.886 --> 00:50:39.120
It brings me
a lot of happiness,

00:50:39.120 --> 00:50:40.955
being with my people.

00:50:40.955 --> 00:50:43.958
[all chanting in Wampanoag]

00:50:49.230 --> 00:50:51.900
- I think that
that pleases the creator.

00:50:51.900 --> 00:50:54.903
[all chanting in Wampanoag]

00:51:00.708 --> 00:51:01.910
- We are given knowledge

00:51:01.910 --> 00:51:04.579
through visions,
through dreams.

00:51:04.579 --> 00:51:07.315
Part of the mysteriousness
of life is,

00:51:07.315 --> 00:51:09.651
why is one child born
a great hunter

00:51:09.651 --> 00:51:13.121
and another one couldn't
find a deer in a zoo?

00:51:13.121 --> 00:51:16.624
[all chanting in Wampanoag]

00:51:16.624 --> 00:51:18.359
Some of the elements of
being a leader

00:51:18.359 --> 00:51:20.495
are greater than
the person themselves.

00:51:20.495 --> 00:51:23.498
[all chanting in Wampanoag]

00:51:23.498 --> 00:51:24.666
- In our Indian ways, you know,

00:51:24.666 --> 00:51:26.634
leaders don't tout themselves.

00:51:26.634 --> 00:51:30.738
They don't stand in the front
of the line to be chosen.

00:51:30.738 --> 00:51:32.841
They rise up from the ranks.

00:51:32.841 --> 00:51:37.844
- [all chanting in Wampanoag]

00:51:44.286 --> 00:51:45.487
- Part of our prophecy says,

00:51:45.487 --> 00:51:46.821
during the seventh generation,

00:51:46.821 --> 00:51:48.523
language will come home.

00:51:48.523 --> 00:51:50.125
And there we have Mae,

00:51:50.125 --> 00:51:52.894
our speaker,
our native speaker.

00:51:52.894 --> 00:51:54.095
If she's the first,

00:51:54.095 --> 00:51:55.797
there necessarily
has to be a second

00:51:55.797 --> 00:51:58.366
and a third and a fourth.

00:51:58.366 --> 00:52:02.537
Language can come home again.

00:52:02.537 --> 00:52:05.607
- It's really hard to project
ten years down the road

00:52:05.607 --> 00:52:09.144
for our language.

00:52:09.144 --> 00:52:10.211
We've done great things,

00:52:10.211 --> 00:52:12.213
but there's a lot more work

00:52:12.213 --> 00:52:15.216
ahead of us, I think,
than what's behind us.

00:52:17.886 --> 00:52:20.889
[both speaking Wampanoag]

00:52:29.264 --> 00:52:31.533
[native music]

00:52:31.533 --> 00:52:34.536
[man singing in Wampanoag]