Nami Bates
5405010226
Sociolinguistics
March 13th, 2014
ENDANGERED LANGUAGES: WINNEMEMWINTU TRIBE
The endangered language I have chosen to research is the language of the Winnemem
Wintu Tribe. I chose to research this tribe because they’re an Indian tribe from the states that is
not recognized and because their language is very close to being endangered, their entire culture
may hold that same fate. I thought it would be interesting to learn more about them and their
culture before it is gone. I will talk about their culture and how their envorinment holds a big
influence over their culture and history and how their language ties into it. Then I will go into
detail about the causes of the languages downfall and what the tribe itself is doing to preserve
their language and culture.
The language the Winnemem Wintu speak is called Wintu. There were two other dialects
called Namlaki and Patwin that were spoken, but Wintu is now the only one that exists. The
word ‘Winnenmem Wintu’ directly translates to ‘Middle Water People.’ This name is a product
of their environment. The Winnemem Wintu tribe is predominantly from northern California
and they reside in the middle of three branches of water called the McCloud River which
conjoins and becomes the lower Sacramento River. The Winnemem Wintu tribes culture,
language and the way they live their lives is very much influence by their environment which I
will talk about later.
First, lets take a look at their history. As a tribe, they were responsible for looking after and
maintaining Native American sites and cultural assets in California. Archeologists and
ethnographers have researched and found that this tribe has lived peacefully in the McCloud
River area in Northern California for well over 6,000 years. In 1854, there was an event in time
known as the KaiBai creek massacre. This was when the white settlers came across the tribe and
slaughtered forty-two men, women and children in a short period of time. This was a result of
the wager that was going on among white settlers where they would be paid 5 dollars for every
Indian they killed in the late 19th and 20th century. It was also the beginning of this tribes
population diminishing. The Winnemem Wintu tribe use to have a population of roughly about
14,000 people with an average 12,500 speakers of the Wintu language alone. But through many,
many years of conflict and war with the white settlers, epidemics and enforced assimilation,
their numbers have dropped significantly. By 1910, there were only 400 Winnemem Wintu
people alive. Today there are even less, adding up to a mere 150 people. 1851 was the year the
Winnemem were first acknowledged by the United States government. Because of the land
which had been stolen from them by the settlers, they were promised through the cottonwood
treaty (along with several other native American tribes) by the government that they would have
a 25 to 35-square mile reservation created for their people. Unfortunately there was conflict
between the legislators of California and they didn’t want to give up that amount of land, so the
treaty had failed to be ratified and the Winnemem Wintu along with the seventeen other tribes
never received any kind of compensation for the loss of their homelands. This in turn created a
large amount of homeless Indians who no longer have land of their own.
As I stated earlier, The Winnemem Wintu tribe’s culture, beliefs and traditions were very
much influenced by their environment. One element of their environment that was very
important to them was water, hence their name. The Tribe carries out their traditional ceremony
of rights of passage for women along side the river which is a spiritual practice for them when a
young woman comes of age. They inhabited the central water ways that feeds into the
Sacramento river and had extensive knowledge of the route of Salmon. In the 1940’s, the dam
known as the Shasta dam was constructed and it caused many problems for the tribe. It took
from them the mass majority of their homeland as well as two other water ways to create the
reservoir. Hundreds of villages, cemeteries, tools, objects and historical sites that were
considered very sacred to the Winnemem Wintu now lay to rest at the bottom of the Shasta dam
now nearing 70 years. Within a little less then thirty years after the construction of the Dam was
in motion, 280 acres more of land was taken from the tribe to create a government reservation
fish hatchery establishment alongside the McCloud River. Winnemem people were able to work
there because the government found use for their knowledge of Salmon.
Even though much of their history is covered beneath water, there are still quite a few
historical sites that remain above it. This is due to the fact that the water levels rise and fall
depending on the season. During the dry season is when you can see a lot of their land that use
to always be above water. But this may not be true for long as the United States federal
government wants to raise the levels of the water by a whopping 18 feet. Their reason for
raising the water levels is simply to secure water for agricultural business in nearby counties.
Whether it is understood or not, the governments decision to raise the water is taking away a
lot of important sacred land which the Winnemem people practice medicinal and spiritual
practices. The damage that is being done to their land is equivalent to having a hospital or
religious site such as a church or temple be taken away from them or destroyed. Unfortunately
for the Winnemem Wintu, since 1985, the government has denied to give federal recognition to
the tribe. This is the governments unfair way of determining who qualifies as a Native America.
Without this recognition from the government, they continue to be denied any governmental
benefits and it continues to be easy for their land to be taken away from them. ---- A speaker of
the Wintu language by the name of Caleen Sisk says “[O]ur beginning of life comes from Mt.
Shasta, so all those stories up and down the river have meaning – from Yellow Jacket Mountain,
to Fox Mountain, to the Sucker Pools, all these have stories that belong to the Winnemem
people and songs that go with them.” Quoted in National Geographics she says “This land is our
church.” She also states loss of land and loss of language are connected.
From my own research and readings from Language Death, I have noticed a pattern for the
reason of languages becoming endangered. As stated in Language Death, there are three types
of ‘language death’ occurrences. One type would be ‘death through change’. Another type
would be the sudden death and dissemination of a language. And the last type would be
language shift. When a culture is infiltrated by another culture, especially if it is more
dominant, their culture will be affected. When their culture is affected, everything is affected
and that includes their native language. Some cultures are infiltrated by Western cultures and are
forced to not speak their own language. The imposition of a new language over the native
language begins to change a culture. Other cultures are infiltrated in a process of extermination
where the majority of the people are killed off and those who are taking over become the
dominant culture. This would be roughly describing both ‘death through change’ and ‘ sudden
death and dissemination’. In the case of the Winnemem wintu, they are experiencing these two
types of language death.
For the Winnemem Wintu tribe, they believe their language is more than just speaking and
communicating. They feel that it is what makes their culture and hold it together. It is the
preservation of their culture. Because so much of their culture is based on spiritual and sacred
aspects, when describing the forest or singing traditional songs, it can only be sung in their
language because that is the only way to get the full meaning of what they’re saying. The
language and words that are conjoined with these concepts and information does not exist
within the English language. For generations now, sadly the majority of Native American
students have had to attend government boarding schools where they were beaten if they spoke
their own language. Because of so many governmental rules and schooling policies, native and
indigineous languages have been extremely stripped from the people who speak them. This in
turn results in near extinction of these languages. For Wintu specifically, for centuries, it has
been an oral language. There was no written alphabet for the language because at the time, there
was no need for a written language. When there is no record of a language, it can make it that
much easier for it to become endangered especially under the circumstances of being under the
strict and brutal control of forced assimilation.
Looking at the culture of the Winnemem Wintu, they have a much different lifestyle then the
mass majority of the United States population today. Because their culture is so different from
their dominant western surroundings and the suffering they have been through and are still
going through, it would make it difficult to maintain their language. This is because their
language ties directly into their culture where they have specific traditions and beliefs that are
different and maybe even opposing to the dominant western mainstream traditions and beliefs.
One main example of the difference of their life in comparison to the western United states
culture is that the Winnemem Wintu are very much dependant on free flowing rivers and
streams where as the United states culture is dependant on the exact opposite, reservoirs and
dams. They are shunned because they are a smaller population of people and are rejected by
even the government, being pushed aside to make way for corporate projects for mass business
investments. It shows there is little to no care for their culture, language or existence. This gives
the Winnemem much less power in which their voice can be heard. When people in a culture
who have been rejected by the entity of a different culture that holds the most power in the
quality of life that they have, they are almost driven or forced from their own culture to become
part of the dominant one. This does not mean specifically that they’ll lose their culture all
together once becoming a part of the dominant culture, but over time, the melding of languages
and cultures will create something totally different from the root of the original culture.
As with lots of other endangered language cultures, the newer generation of Winnemem
Wintu are being raised in a new time period where both cultures are presented to them, but the
dominant one has the upper hand. In order to get an education and make money for themselves
and their family to live a comfortable life or to just live, they have to go through the western
system or adapt to it in some shape, way or form. In this case it means to abandon your mother
language and spiritual traditions on a regular basis. Because they no longer have their land with
so many sacred and spiritual sites or access to the natural resources as they once did less than a
few hundred years ago, they have to adjust themselves to this unfortunate situation. When a
culture does not have the full freedom to practice their language and traditions, it begins to fade
away.
Even through the struggle, the Winnemem Wintu people are trying to fight back against the
oppression they have been under and are still experiencing. In present time today, the last of the
Winnemem Wintu people are trying to preserve their language and culture through the help of
linguists. They are currently putting together a written alphabet, a dictionary and instructional
schooling material of their language to help the new generation regenerate their own cultural
background and language and to teach them the core values and traditions of their culture. The
first dictionary translating English to Wintu is currently in the process of being made. Stephen
Liedtke, from Munich, Germany is a linguist who is helping the Winnemem put the dictionary
together. It has been an ongoing project since 1999 till the present day. The dictionary itself is
more than just a word for word dictionary. It will also translate full Wintu phrases and give
insight into the culture where necessary in relation to the text or words being translated. When
Stephen came to California to meet the Winnemem in 1994, he did a lot of research and created
a documentary with the help of Florence Jones, Emerson Miles and Margie Charles, a few of the
last true fluent speakers of the Wintu language. Individuals from outside such as Stephen are
trying to help bring back and revive the language of the Winnemem people. There are also quite
a few gatherings and organizations to help the Winnemem people such as the Global Village
School which is a home school program curriculum that is very welcoming and open to teaching
more then just the core subjects and is in support of giving an education to the Wintu people
without taking anything away from them and allowing them to apply their traditions to their
studies.
In conclusion, the Winnemem Wintu language is definitely endangered and even with their
fight back to keep their language and culture alive, the fact is that there has not been a
significant amount of increase in the population, nor the use of the language. Sadly, It seems
unlikely that their language will ever be fully revived because there language does not hold that
much importance or relevance in the world we live in today. Not to mention that the Winnemem
wintu are labled as “unrecognized” by the federal government, which in some ways deletes their
existence from any record being kept by those in charge. As their land continues to be taken
away from them, the culture continues to die. With no respect or recognition from the
government, they are likely to go from an endangered language to extinct.
“ One language dies every 14 days. By the next century, nearly half of the roughly 7000
languages spoken on earth will likely disappear, as communities abandon their native tongues in
favor of English, Mandarin or Spanish. What is lost when a language goes silent?” - Russ
Rymer, Vanishing Voices.
After reading this quote, I believe that when a language goes silent the purity of a whole culture
is lost. But what my question would be is how will anyone ever know there was a culture to
begin with when no one can speak for its existence? That is the unfortunate path the Winnemem
Wintu tribe seems to be going as a tribe of an endangered language.
Sources Cited:
http://www.winnememwintu.us/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/timeline_screen.jpg
http://www.winnememwintu.us/journey-to-justice/
- http://www.winnememwintu.us/language-preservation/
- http://www.winnememwintu.us/who-we-are/
http://www.native-languages.org/wintu.htm
National Geographics Magazine, Russ Rymer, 2012, pg.74, pg.104
http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/~survey/languages/wintu.php
Companion to Sociolinguistics, Language Death, pg. 199-200