Voices of the Earth

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The 2009 Voices of the Earth Threatened Languages Poetry Reading featured 12 languages. Hosted by the Harwood Art Center, there was a good turnout.

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Luis Garcia followed Harriet with a song and a poem in Nahuatl. James Mondloch told a story in English and Quiche Maya. Michiko Pierce ended the program with Shigin poetry.

2008 Voices

2008-01-23T18:15:00.001-08:00

Lawrence Shortman, Cheyenne elder, begins the program with a prayer in Cheyenne. He told me, "No one ever asks me to pray in my own language." Behind him and to the left are Hepari and Komene.

2008 Voices

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Harriet Marmon from Laguna Pueblo shares a story in English and Keres, a story that her grandmother told her.

2008 Voices

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George Ann Gregory leads the audience in a Choctaw sing along.

2008 Voices

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James Mondloch reads from the Popol Vuh. This is written in Quiche Maya, a language still spoken in parts of Guatemala.

2008 Voices

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The Garcia family shares traditional Nahuatl songs. Can you see Mia peeping from behind her mother's skirt? Nahuatl is spoken by about a million people in central Mexico. Despite these numbers, it is a threatened language.

2008 Voices

2008-01-23T18:05:00.000-08:00

Mapitzmil reads his first poem created in Pure, his ancestral language. Pure is a language isolate in Mexico.

2008 Voices

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This trio brought us songs in different dialects of Quichua, spoken in Ecuador. While the language is still strong in many villages, the language is losing ground to Spanish in some areas.

2008 Voices

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The Maori enter Winning's from the rear. In front, there are the beautiful feather earrings created by Paula.

2008 Voices

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These young men electrified the audience with traditional haka.

2008 Voices

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Junior takes the lead here.

2008 Voices

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2008 Voices

2008-01-23T17:55:00.001-08:00

After the event on Sunday, Komene, Hepari, and Junior visited three reservations schools: Sky City Community School, To'hajiilee , and Santo Domingo. These are high school students at To'hajiilee. They aren't quite sure at first what to make of all this.

2008 Voices

2008-01-23T17:53:00.001-08:00

This is a haka. This always brings a smile on the faces of the audience. These students loved it as did the teachers and students at the other schools. Later, they taught some of the boys how to do a haka.

2008 Voices

2008-01-23T17:51:00.000-08:00

To'hajiilee students learn how to use the poi. The students really enjoyed this part. Afterwards, some of the students sang veteran and flag songs for Komene, Hepari, and Junior. this was a real cultural exchange.

2008 Voices

2008-01-23T17:50:00.001-08:00

The teacher, George Platero, drums a round dance , a traditional friendship dance. After this, several seniors take Komene, Hepari, and Junior to visit a Navajo language class and fill them in on the history and culture of the community. It was very good for our young people to see these three young men speaking their own language and demonstrating their own culture.

2008 Voices

2008-01-23T17:48:00.001-08:00

Here Komene, Hepari, and Junior share their experiences with bilingual teachers enrolled in a linguistics class at New Mexico Highlands University at Rio Rancho. People were a little shocked at first to hear these three introduce themselves in Maori first. Later, the teachers ahared some of their own experiences in either being able to grow up with their own languages or not having access to it. The fact that these young men were so willing to share their language gave them courage. This was the case everywhere these young men visited.