Hello, my friends, my relations. It is good to see you today.
We have lost our languages. Please help us. I have walked a long pathway.
Long ago, in the winter, I walked about while I was on this cold land. I visited 41 first nations communities. I met so many Cree, my relatives: the Dakota, the Oji-Cree, the Plains Ojibwe or Saulteaux, the Métis, the French people. I heard them, the people, wish for their children to have flourishing lives.
In this great structure, you have money. In the beginning, I was told my work has started for all Canadians. We must all work collectively together, since Canada has written the promises and how processes unfold.
We are related. If things have not happened right, we will change things. Help me. Help me to respect one another.
Treaties are about respect and brotherhood. Indigenous peoples have always had treaties. The Cree and the Blackfoot made treaties using common sense. There was to be no fighting in the winter, as it was too cold and not good to move women, children, and aged populations from their homes to different locations at this time.
If one tribe made war, they sought out the other chief and explained the reason they were making war. Quite often it was that the young warriors had too much energy and were bothering the whole camp. The old people knew that the best way to do things was to send them off to war against the enemy they knew. The two chiefs would talk, and one would be given time to move the women and children and old people. It worked for them, and later in peacetime they would talk about it.
The creation stories we tell about Weysakechak are about treaty. Those world treaties are about water, earth, air, fire, and of course the Great Spirit.
For instance, when a child is born, the mother's water breaks, and this signals that the child is to be born. He then gets his first breath of precious, sacred air, and he is a live human being. He's then wrapped in the warm hide and fur of an animal and enjoys the warmth of the fire and the life-giving milk of his mother. Soon he is playing with the other children outside on their own land, which happens to be Canada.
When the Creator finished creating the land, sea, and air creatures, he called everyone forward and told them to ask for the gifts they wanted to have for themselves, and thus he made treaties with all life on earth. Many of them asked to serve mankind, but they were warned about mankind and what he would be like as the best and worst of all creation. They accepted and understood his warnings. For their understanding and sacrifices, they were granted a place in the hereafter. They would and should be honoured by man in ceremony, which indigenous peoples still do to this day.
It is for these teachings that we respect air, fire, and water in a sacred way. They are included in all our prayers and ceremonies. It is a good way to live.
We all have our own languages, understandings, and ceremonies. As indigenous peoples, we respect the earth and all the children of the feathered, furred, scaled, two-legged, four-legged, and winged citizens. We know mankind is the only creation that breaks treaties continuously. The others have never broken their sacred treaty with us.
By our own common sense, we must pray for the earth and all who dwell here. For over a hundred years, we have signed treaties between our different peoples and countries. The original idea was not about subservience, but rather respect.
Languages must be used to be useful. They must be used by our children in schools, in the homes, and in the rest of society. Our languages must be on TV so that we can see and understand why, where, and when, and see what is happening in our Parliament. It is important to have language.
I saw a written sign on the entrance to a graveyard in Lac la Ronge in northern Saskatchewan. It said, “If we could not as brothers live, let us here as brothers lie”.
Man is represented by fire. Interestingly enough, women are represented by water. With just a single word or a single glance, she can destroy or elevate us. Personally, I would rather be a brother to my fellow mankind than perish in a dirty flood of prejudice, jealousy, anger, and fear.
Language can convey respect and meaning. It represents culture and it defines who we are, our self-identity. It is about learning, education, and knowledge.
Elder Winston Wuttunee asked me to talk about how language is important and related to our belief structure. There are four elements—water, air, land, and fire. Language is related to these four elements. When you take a word in Cree and break it down, there are additional meanings within that word.
Let us take water as an example. Water is women, life, connection to all of creation. It is beauty itself.
Let us look at air. There's fresh air and dirty air. It all has an impact on how healthy we are. It is life, breath. Animals fly in air. We need good air to be healthy.
Let's look at land. We live and we die. When we die, we become the land, and the land is our relatives. It feeds the grasses. It feeds the bison. It feeds us. It is us.
Think upon fire. Fire is also life. It keeps us warm—to cook, to survive. It cleans the land. It is also men. It works best with water.
Let us take one word of the Cree language, nikamoun, which means “to sing”. Nika means “in front”, and moun means “to eat”. Nikamoun, therefore, means “to be fed song”, as it is. If you break it down further, it could mean “to be fed food by the one in front”. This could also be the Creator. To take it a bit further, it means “whoever is in front is feeding us”. This is where the greed for money becomes our sustenance. This has quickly become a starvation diet for us all—nature and mankind too. Do we have the responsibility and the ability to respond, to learn and save ourselves, our children, our mankind, and our world?
Without language, who are we as individuals? We become without a past, unable to understand the thoughts of the past, unable to understand our ancestors in ceremony. They in turn are unable to understand us when we can't communicate in our own language.
Our modern Parliament has a role to play in helping indigenous peoples. You can add to the scales of justice, ensuring that our Canadian languages, our indigenous languages, do not become museum pieces relegated to the back of anthropological shelves on linguistics but are living, alive, and adapting to a modern world—yet they must always remain spiritually connected to the past.
I dream of a moment when the Canadian state, which has for too long tried to ignore and terminate these languages, is part of the process in Parliament of breathing life into our common languages.
Tapwe. Thank you very much.