The Shinnecock language has been passed down orally for generations, but it isn't spoken by all tribe members. One Shinnecock artist has led the effort to revitalize the language through an exhibit opening this weekend.
Although there are still Shinnecock speakers today, there aren’t many recorded references for language learners. Wunetu Tarrant wants to change that. Tarrant is one of several members of the Shinnecock Language Revitalization Collective. They are working to create a dictionary and video resources to teach tribal members the language.
Tarrant is a doctoral student at the University of Arizona, studying linguistics. She said the collective has consulted language experts and other tribes that have undertaken language revitalization projects.
"It was really an interesting process to see what those tribes have been doing," Tarrant said. "And the fact that we can learn from what they have, even though their language is different, there are enough similarities that we can use that combined knowledge to really get to the translations that we want to work on them."
The First Literature Project will be unveiled in an exhibition at Guild Hall, where Tarrant is an artist-in-residence. The project was developed over two years and received the Creatives Rebuild New York Artist Employment Grant. It is meant to showcase Shinnecock language and history.
Tarrant said historically academic anthropologists have come to tribes to record what they want and then take it somewhere else. She hopes to change that dynamic.
“So what we're doing is we're changing that and making it a community-generated archive that really is representative and reflective of the people,” she said.
Tarrant said she grew up listening to family members speak the Shinnecock language. Although it continues to be used today, she wants more tribal members to engage in the revitalization project. She hopes that the youth especially make an effort to come back to the language.
“At this point, we don’t have any fluent speakers left," she said. "I believe the last fluent speakers were the generation of my great-grandfather. So, our language is not that far away, it's not that distant in the past."
Part of the exhibition will include virtual reality media using a headset. Participants can watch a story being told in the Shinnecock language. The story is translated and narrated by Tarrant. She wanted to make the experience available to a wider audience by making it digital.
“We decided to use a virtual reality platform to tell this story to emulate... the in-person experience of active listening, while you're engaging with a storyteller,” Tarrant said.
The story is called Padawe (Pod-Ah-Wee), and it’s about the importance of the whale hunting tradition. It was originally written in English by Chee Chee Elizabeth Thunderbird Haile, who was a storyteller and teacher. She was also Tarrant’s grandmother. Now, Tarrant can continue the practice of the oral tradition.
“We are retelling this story about these significant places that, you know, the everyday East Ender will pass by without the knowledge of what that place means and the significance to our people,” Tarrant said.
The project also received funding from the Library of Congress’ Connecting Communities Digital Initiative (CCDI) award. It is part of the Library’s Of the People: Widening the Path initiative, which will be submitted to the Library of Congress for consideration as part of its digital collection.
The exhibition will open Saturday and run until July 15 at Guild Hall. Admission is free but a reservation for timed entry is required to experience First Literature Project’s virtual-reality work.
