MIAMIS MAINTAIN CULTURE AGAINST ODDS

Small part of tribe with origins here keeps continuity

On a cool day in early November, the Miami Nation of Indiana hosted a native craft show at the Chief Richardville House in Waynedale.

Outside, men played drums and chanted. The scent of wood smoke from two fires filled the air. Buffalo stew and fry bread cooked over one of the open-pit fires, and elders talked around the other fire. It was a friendly atmosphere; greetings of "Aya aya niihka," or "Hello, my friend," were spoken back and forth.

This scene is familiar to Greg Tippman, 16, whose mother is one-fourth Miami and a direct descendant of Chief Richardville.

"My mom has been (involved with the) Myaamia (or Miami) culture for as long as I can remember. . . . She's participated in just about every aspect of the Myaamia culture about 10, 11 years. That's how I was introduced," he explained.

The Miami culture is important to Greg. It is also important to his sisters, Mary, 18, Gloria, 8, and family friend Jaycob Hartleroad, 9, and that's why the four are involved in reviving one of its key ingredients -- their native language. The four attend or have attended language camp in Peru, Ind. At the Miami language camp, students spend a week or more practicing old words, learning new ones, and spending time with friends from around the state. They may also attend weekend trips.

"There's been a lot of progress there, getting involvement not only from the elders, but also from the youth of the tribe," said Mary.

The Miamis have a divided history. In 1846, 327 members of the Miami Nation were forcibly relocated to a reservation in Kansas Territory, but five extended families remained in Indiana. In 1870, the group in Kansas was split again, with the majority of the Miami being sent to Oklahoma. Today, approximately 2,600 (the figure is from the Miami Nation Tribal Secretary) members of the Miami tribe live in Indiana.

With cultural assimilation, many tribal members stopped speaking Myaamia and began using English. As a result, Myaamia began to die out as native speakers ceased teaching it to new generations. Myaamia was basically dormant for 26 years.

"I think people got so into the mainstream society, just wanting to learn English and wanting to fit in," Mary explained. "My grandfather had to learn English, and (the federal government) wanted him to be a white man; they didn't want him to be Miami. He had to stop using the language and start using English so that he would fit into society and not be an outcast.

"People had to assimilate into mainstream society. They didn't pass (Myaamia) on to their children because they wanted their children to be American. That's why so much of the language died and wasn't used. And now that's also why we have a hard time bringing it back up," said Mary.

Young people like these four are helping to revive the language by participating in the Myaamia Project, which is helping to restore the language and culture of the Miami Indians through education and projects.

"When we were younger, we started with flashcards. We'd have pictures on one side and the word would be on the other, and we'd practice back and forth with each other like that," said Mary. The family also used nametags with Miami words to label household objects such as a cup, broom or cupboard. "Just using it at home, just little phrases every now and then you start to work it into your daily life and language," said Mary.

The Myaamia Project has made a lot of progress, but is hampered by a lack of federal recognition. There is a similar project in Oklahoma, which is federally funded.

While the tribe in Oklahoma is recognized as such by the United States government, the tribes in Indiana and Kansas are still seen only as fragments and cannot therefore receive federal funding. This has made hard to let people know about cultural reclamation.

The last conversant Miami speaker died in the early '60s, and the Myaamia Project, founded by David Costa and Daryl Baldwin, has been actively reviving the language since 1995.

The project began in 1988 as linguist Costa's doctoral thesis. Baldwin, a member of the Miami tribe of Oklahoma and director of the Myaamia Project at Miami University of Ohio, has helped re-create the language by introducing new, modern words and teaching Miami descendants at language camps.

The Tippmans became involved in the project through Baldwin.

"My mom, through family and other connections in the Miami Nation, found out about this language camp put on every year (in Indiana)," said Greg. "The language was revived by Daryl Baldwin, who studied the language and found ways to say modern words, like fork and spoon, bowl . We've been going (to language camp) every year."

Baldwin has formed new words out of older words to describe an object or idea. For example, train is aahkoleeki ?oohkwaakani , which translated literally means smoking sled. Often, a new word will describe an object, rather than define it.

"It's very different (from English)," said Mary. "Obviously it's not the same, and we have different names for things, like we have spiritual sides to some objects that have different endings. More things seem living than in the English language, so there are totally different ethics on how we view things that come out in our language, and we use words in a different way."

As evidenced by the word for train , Myaamia can be a difficult language to learn. Greg, who has studied the language every summer for several years, finds that when he's away from active studies for a few months, it becomes harder to remember different words, but the language becomes easier with more practice.

"Miami has no roots in any language," Greg explained.

Myaamia word structure and pronunciation are drastically different from English, making it difficult both to pronounce and to read; the only common element is the letters used, and often, similar to Welsh, the letters have very different sounds (for example, K is pronounced as G). To help with the language, students are taught using flash cards, CDs, software programs, tapes, and recitation using objects.

"The hardest part is that some of the words do have syllables in common with other words. You can confuse them very easily," said Greg.

"Like the word for fork and the word for four, there's one difference because a fork has four tines and the word in Miami literally means four sticks. It's very easily confused," continued Greg. "Other than similar things, modern words are made up of old words, and so if you're not listening very well, you can confuse them with other words."

"It's difficult learning any language, but especially when it's not spoken so much. Only among our tribe is it spoken," added Mary. "It's easier when you're learning a language like Spanish or French because you will find other people that can speak it fluently. Miami would probably be hard because you don't hear it so much and you don't get to hear the language half as much as you would other languages."

Despite the challenges of learning the language, all four students plan to continue studying it. They also enjoy sharing the language with friends.

"I have taught my friends at school how to say 'dog' ( alemwa ), 'monkey' ( elaalaah?iwia ), and 'skunk' ( ?ikaakwa )," said Greg.

"I taught them 'aya aya' which means 'hi, how are you,'" added Gloria.

Mary, who is planning to enter college this fall, said, "I still want to help (my siblings) learn the language and my children and grandchildren. And once I get out of high school and everything else, I'd like to get more involved in the tribe and help to restore and revise the language through the different things that they're involved in with the project."

In addition to teaching the language, Mary celebrates her Miami heritage in a variety of other ways.

"We go to powwows. . . We go to schools, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and historical societies, giving presentations and teaching others about our culture. I (demonstrate) dance lessons and we talk about the plants and animals and our heritage and clothing and things like that to help other people learn about our culture," Mary said.

By restoring Myaamia, the four youth hope to remind people that the Miami culture is indeed, alive.

"So many people, when they think of Indians and Native Americans, think of the past. They don't think of us being here in the present. But we are still alive and we still do participate in our traditional cultural events," Mary said.

"And so I think that this project will help to enlighten people and help them to realize that we are still here, we are still present, and we never died. You know, we're still a living and thriving culture."

REPORTERS: Laura Mangan, 11, Jonathan Gainer, 13, and Utah Davis-Kinsey, 11.

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About Miamis

The Miami tribe was split up by the federal government in 1846, when most of the tribe in Indiana was forcibly moved to Kansas. Five extended families remained in Indiana. Later on, in 1867, the tribe in Kansas was moved again to Oklahoma.

The Miami tribe is indigenous to Indiana, western Ohio, eastern Illinois and lower portions of Wisconsin and Michigan. However, the only federally recognized tribe is in Oklahoma.

Chief Richardville, who was the leader of the tribe at the time of the move to Kansas, negotiated for his family to stay in Indiana. His house, which was added on to by his son, is in what is now Waynedale.

The Miami tribe lost 5.3 million acres of land north of the Wabash River. The land was purchased by the U.S. government under a treaty signed Oct. 23, 1826.

Miami words

Dog: alemwa

Monkey:

elaalaahsiwia

Skunk: sikaakwa

Hi: aya or aya aya

I don't know: kihkeelintansiwaahni

What: Keetwi

-- Cindy Mangan and Luke Hovee

Sources: Star Library, the Eiteljorg Museum, Dani Tippman