55 | When The Spirit Of The Culture Comes Out - Episode Transcript
Brooklyn, USA | February 9, 2022

[INTRO]
[MUSIC BED: Alsarah & The Nubatones live performance on B-Side, produced by BRIC TV]

Khyriel Palmer: You’re listening to the Brooklyn, USA podcast – an occasional audio love letter from Brooklyn to the world.

Khyriel Palmer: In the first episode of the season, Ross Perlin of the Endangered Language Alliance took us on a deep dive into the linguistic history of the region we now know as Brooklyn. In this next installment, we’re going back to the beginning of that history, to learn more about the languages spoken by Brooklyn’s first inhabitants.

Khyriel Palmer: Producer Jasia Kaulbach spoke with the descendants of those original Brooklynites about what their people lost, what they held onto, and how their language is the key to the resiliency of their culture.

[FADE OUT MUSIC]

[LENAPE LANGUAGE STORY]
[MUSIC + SOUND BED: Gentle synth, wind] Curtis Zunigha: Luwànëmihëna, "We experience the winter." I want to speak to the power of indigenous languages. All things culture are based in language. Language is the foundation of all things culture. Part of the erasure of the Lenape people through conversion and through domination of our Lenape societies by European colonists, so that they could have control and power over the land and commerce and natural resources and the like. [FADE OUT MUSIC] [FADE UP ambient sound of chanting and singing] Everyone was forced to learn to speak English. I believe that's still going on today around the world.

Curtis Zunigha: My name is Curtis Zunigha and I'm an enrolled member of the Delaware Tribe of Indians, where I work in our tribal cultural center at headquarters in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. The Lenape Center for the last 10 years has sought to establish a presence, a very visible presence to promote the history, the arts, the culture, the language, and the enduring presence of the Lenape people in New York City. I am a co-director, that is correct, but I am greeting you today from our tribal cultural center in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, which is also the home of the Lenape Talking Dictionary which is a product and an ongoing project of the Delaware Tribe of Indians. [FADE OUT ambi] We carried with us the Unami dialect, and that's principally what is spoken here and has been taught, has been preserved. Unami and Munsee dialects are noticeably different enough when they are spoken. You know, the regional differences, use of different words, slang, all of these things put together can be attributed to looking at Lenapehoking, and let's just say the greater New York City area all the way up the Hudson. [FADE UP ambi of singing and chanting] Think of it the same as looking at a map of today and looking at different towns and different geographical locations that are separate enough that the use of a common language develops its own identity with the, again, the dialect, the inflection, the nuance in the slang terms.

Nikole Pecore: My name is Nikole Pecore, I am from the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Nation. I am the Munsee language teacher for the language and culture department. There's different nations of Lenape people, so we have the one here in Wisconsin, the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Nation. Then we have two in Ontario, the Munsees, and then Moraviantown. And then there's the Delaware Tribes down in Oklahoma, in Anadarko and Bartlesville. The Delaware Tribe and the Delaware Nation. And then there's families scattered throughout the East Coast and some in Kansas. [FADE OUT ambi] [FADE UP MUSIC: Gentle, ethereal synth] It's a sensitive issue. Our elders and even, even our young elders still struggle with the identity of, you know, culture and language loss. It wasn't until, you know, the 70s that we were able to freely practice our language and our culture. So, you know, my generation was alive then. So, it's my parents' generations, and their parents' generations who still struggle with that. And it's getting them to a comfort level of being able to, just being able to use it, being able to identify with it, being... And if you've spoken English in your life, any change or anything different is awkward at first, even if it is your own because you have never been able to connect with it. There's a lot of uneasy feelings, you know, even though they know it's safe now, it's still just bringing it to a comfort level. And that's one of the reasons why I've decided to do family classes, you know, just to go and be in their environment so that they can feel safe. [MUSIC SWELLS]

Curtis Zunigha: Language persevered, language survived even after attempts to abolish it. Yes, America has a history of abolishing native languages by putting children into government run boarding schools. [FADE OUT MUSIC] That experiment began in the late 1880s, taking Indian children out of the homes, off the reservation, putting them in Christian and government run boarding schools, forbidding them for speaking their language, and forcing them to learn English (in a sense of, this is the only way you're going to survived in the White Man's society is to learn their language and become educated enough so that you can work and be a productive member of society.) After colonial contact, there is documented evidence in great quantity, and, which causes most people to get pretty disturbed when they find out that what was ostensibly a welcoming partnership between the European colonists and the indigenous people, the Lenape in New York. It really became an effort to run the Lenape off their homeland through everything, including massacres, murder, and theft of land. And by pushing the Lenape westward out of their homeland and ridding the area of all of the native people, the Europeans -- first the Dutch, then the English, and later the Americans -- basically took over what's now New York City. [FADE UP MUSIC: Gentle, ethereal, synth]

Curtis Zunigha: Language must be dynamically preserved, and it's different from pulling a book off the shelf because language. It has a spirit, that spirit comes out when a word is spoken, when that word is heard by someone else and a response comes back. It creates a circle of communication. And in doing so, that's where the spirit of the culture comes out, and that's how we must preserve our language by using it. [MUSIC SWELLS]

Nikole Pecore: Language and culture are one and the same. For me, and that's what it is, I think the language is the key to understanding our connection with this world. And so, for me to be able to give that to people and to work on doing my part to keep it going is, I take pride in it and knowing that that's going to be here for my grandchildren and my children, you know. [FADE OUT MUSIC] Every sound that exists in the language has a visual meaning to it. So we say "squirrel" in English, we say "squirrel". You know, that doesn't have any more meaning. It just tells us that that's the name of that animal. In Munsee, they say "Pùsùkwàlìnzhaw", which means "the playful one". So you could call a squirrel "Pùsùkwàlìnzhaw", but you could also call a little kid "Pùsùkwàlìnzhaw". Another one that I like to share with people is, in English we say, "I love you", in Munsee, we say "it is you I love" – "Ktaʔwãanin". Because when you are talking to somebody, they're first, they come first. [FADE UP MUSIC: Gentle, ethereal, synth] That's a sign of respect and, and love, you know, to put that one first. So the way that the language is designed and understood, it's a way of being that's built into the language. The way you see and understand how everything is connected and how the world is in its natural state. It's all built in the language. [MUSIC SWELLS AND FADES]

Curtis Zunigha: What is pretty important to me is that we inspire a younger generation to want to learn the language. It is happening to a very small degree. There's certainly interest because it's empowering. It's very empowering because when we speak our language, when we sing old songs in the tribal language, we are connecting with our ancestors and our ancestors sacrificed so much during that westward migration, during the days when they were in the Indian boarding school as children, sneaking around and whispering to each other in their language so that they weren't forced to give it up. Even with threats of punishment. And today we have the opportunity to benefit from those sacrifices, in the name of those ancestors, and develop ways that we can continue to speak our language. And I'm ever so grateful that I'm part of this effort. Some of the linguists, and some of the educators, and some of the old government agencies, and the like classify Lenape as an endangered language in the sense of it being gone forever. [MUSIC + SOUND BED: Gentle synth, wind, bird sounds] It's not going to be gone forever. Certainly on my watch, thanks to the work of Lenape Talking Dictionary. My job here with the Delaware Indian Tribe is working with our language project director, Mr. Jim Rementer, to continue building data into the Lenape Talking Dictionary. For the benefit of your listeners, we actually have a website www dot, talk, hyphen, lenape, dot org. It is an amazing online apparatus of lessons, stories, videos, historical examples of the language. [MUSIC SWELLS]

[CLIP of conversation from Lenape Talking Dictionary]

[MUSIC + SOUNDS SWELL AND FADE]

James Rementer: Yeah, my name is James Rementer. And I live in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. And I work with the Delaware Tribe of Indians here in Bartlesville. And I'm the director of the language project. Curtis and I are basically coworkers, trying to preserve tribal culture and work on a museum. But we're also good friends. [FADE UP MUSIC: Gentle synth] We've been friends for a number of years. Starting about 1998, we started developing what would eventually become the Lenape Talking Dictionary. And, to the best of my knowledge, it's the first online dictionary of a Native American language that has sound files. The sound files that are with the Lenape Talking Dictionary were mainly made from recordings we made with our tribal elders. These were people who grew up with Lenape as their first language. The Delawares here are not on a reservation like some tribes where they've got their own reservation. When the Delawares were forced to leave their next to last homes, which were in Kansas, they moved to Indian Territory, which became Oklahoma. But they got stuck into the Cherokee Nation instead of getting land of their own. So they really didn't grow up speaking much Lenape. And that's why my time, once I moved out here permanently in 1962, was spent with the older generation. It always makes me so happy and glad when I see the younger people. Like at a Tribal Council meeting several months ago, one of the younger people on the Tribal Council opened it with a prayer in Lenape. [music swells] I was actually talking to Aunt Nora at some kind of a function, and this young guy, he kind of got me to one side and he said, "Well, you outta quit talking at foreign language." I said, "Wait a minute." I said, "You're the one speaking a foreign language, you're talking English." I said "That was brought over here." And he studied about it, and he said, "Yeah, I guess you're right about that."

[CLIP from Lenape Talking Dictionary] [Kwëshkwësh Mëlimu or “Pig Is Crying” sung and told by Mary Townsend Crow to Dayna Bowker Lee in 1994.]

Mary Townsend Crow: This is a little song my Grandfather did with us when we were little kids, and this was a sort of a little animal song that he taught us.

Mary Townsend Crow: Kwëshkwësh mëlimu, Kwëshkwësh mëlimu. [English: Pig is crying, Pig is crying (or squealing)]

Mary Townsend Crow: Opinkw pënasu, Opinkw pënasu. [English: Opossum is watching, Opossum is watching.]

Mary Townsend Crow: Ho wi ho, ho wi ye, ho wi ye, ho we ye hi ne [English: vocables]

[MUSIC continues] Nikole Pecore: I think that it's really important, especially in our homelands, to recognize that, you know, there were people there and that they lived. That's one of the things that I've noticed in our travels is that when we go back home, we're like, you know, have this emotional experience. Because our ancestors walked and lived on that land for thousands of years. And there's been so many things that have happened there, good and bad. You know, so it's so emotional. I can see my people living there, and it's such a beautiful place. And then, you know, we get moved, and they moved us into the most undesirable places because, you know, they didn't want that land. It just offends me because, you know, we're, our nations are all separated when we once lived amongst each other in this beautiful land that we no longer have. And that's where the footsteps of our ancestors, that made it possible for us to have the life that we have, existed. [FADE OUT MUSIC]

[FADE UP ambient sound of walking in the forest, footsteps, bird sounds]

Curtis Zunigha: Typically, the Lenape language, in describing or naming a place, the words are characteristic of the visual that is seen in the application of that word. [FADE UP MUSIC: Gentle synth] [stream] I think for me, whenever I go back to New York or Pennsylvania or New Jersey, I go to the waters and I try to say a few things in Lenape, give a prayer of thanks, offer tobacco. When I do that on the actual homeland of the ancestors, that is incredibly empowering, and it is also humbling. [FADE OUT MUSIC] Because, in a sense, it gives the feeling to me that I -- I'm like an orphan, you know, as a, as a, the Lenape were pushed westward. You know, I'm out here in Oklahoma, and there's been the home of the Delaware tribe for 140 years now. And yet when I go back to the Hudson River, I feel like I have returned to my mother, Earth mother. [FADE UP MUSIC: Quicker synth] As an orphan, to be able to come back and reconnect with, with my Earth mother is so, not just empowering, not just humbling, but it completes that circle that I talk about, about coming back to the homeland and reconnecting and realizing that we are still here.

[CLIP of story from Lenape Talking Dictionary]

[FADE OUT MUSIC]

[VOICE MEMO]
[“Dreaming in Gujarati” by Shailja Patel, read by Sriyanka Ray]

[BEEP] [voicemail audio] Sriyanka Ray:
Listen:
my father speaks Urdu
language of dancing peacocks
rosewater fountains
even its curses are beautiful.
He speaks Hindi
suave and melodic
earthy Punjabi
salty rich as saag paneer
coastal Kiswahili
laced with Arabic,
he speaks Gujarati
solid ancestral pride.
Five languages
five different worlds
yet English
shrinks
him
down
before white men
who think their flat cold spiky words
make the only reality.

[BEEP]

[CREDITS]
[MUSIC BED: Jomion & The Uklos live performance on B-Side, produced by BRIC TV]

Khyriel Palmer: Brooklyn, USA is produced by me Khyriel Palmer,

Emily Boghossian: and me Emily Boghossian,

Shirin Barghi: and me Shirin Barghi,

Charlie Hoxie: and me Charlie Hoxie,

Mayumi Sato: and me Mayumi Sato,

Khyriel Palmer: with help this week from Jasia Kaulbach. You can find Jasia at jasiafilm.com. That’s J-A-S-I-A-F-I-L-M dot com.

Khyriel Palmer: Thank you to Curtis Zunigha, Nikole Pecore, Jim Rementer, the Lenape Center, and Sriyanka Ray. Sriyanka read the poem Dreaming in Gujarati by Shailja Patel.

Khyriel Palmer: Listen to more Lenape words, sentences, stories, grammar, songs, and lessons at www.talk-lenape.org. The Lenape Talking Dictionary is the intellectual property of the federally-recognized Delaware Tribe of Indians in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. The use of any written or audio material from this site shall require the advance-written permission of the Delaware Tribe of Indians.

Khyriel Palmer: To learn more about the Endangered Language Alliance, support their work, and view their interactive language map, visit www.elalliance.org.

Khyriel Palmer: If you want to tell us a story, or somehow end up on the podcast, check the show notes for a link to our guide on recording a voice memo on your mobile phone and sending it to us on the internet. And if you like what you hear or think we missed something, comment, like, share and subscribe, and follow at BRIC TV on twitter and instagram, for updates. For more information on this and all BRIC Radio podcasts, visit www.bricartsmedia.org/radio.

Khyriel Palmer: We are on the unceded territory of the Lenni Lenape, Canarsie, Shinecock, and Munsee people. We acknowledge the many Indigenous Nations with ties to this land and we recognize that the Lenape still call Manahatta home.

[FADE OUT MUSIC]

Google doc transcript: https://bit.ly/3HOydwf