Comments On Speaking of Faith's "Sustaining Language, Sustaining Meaning"

While I do keep tabs on the radio/podcast program Speaking of Faith (NPR), much of their programming is oriented towards the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim populations. That was not the case with this episode, "Sustaining Language, Sustaining Meaning." Tippett talks with an Ojibwe named David Treuer about his efforts to revitalize the Ojibwe language, and the relationship the language has to the cultural identity of this Native American nation. For language geeks like me, this interview melts in the mouth like European chocolate. Those of us who have a more spiritual bent will hear a refreshing perspective on faith.

One section I found particularly neat makes me think of the relationship between Hellenic values such as kharis and eusebia, or traditions like the first fruit offerings, and Native practices. Treuer says:

And people shouting things, my favorite epithet, shouted at Ojibwe people spear fishing in a treaty area, "Indians, go home," which I think it's just so funny (laugh). In any event, so it's political and spiritually too. Whenever an Ojibwe person takes something — this is one of our few instructions — is to, you know, always, at least in our cosmology, honor the other beings. The fact of the matter is that those fish were here a long time before we were, right?

I mean, humans evolved many millions of years after these fish did. So the fish are our elders in a sense and respect is owed them as elders in a way. So you harvest the fish. You kill them with spears is probably the best way to put them or you trap them in nets, which also kills them. You fillet them and then the first bunch you eat for the season, you'll have a feast and a small ceremony, usually it's just a family thing, where you'll give thanks to and for the fish. But it's a way of becoming closer to them.

[. . .]

It is counterintuitive. So there's a sense that, you know, you can become closer, if you want to put it another way, by killing.

While I of course wouldn't call their practice Hellenic, it does show striking parallels between these religious practices that predate Christianity. In Hellenic Polytheism (and Reconstructionism), people will traditionally offer a piece of their meal to Hestia, who keeps the hearth, and libate to the Agathos Daimon, as a way of honoring the Theoi. The difference is that, according to Treuer, the honor and thanks goes to the animal instead in Ojibwe practice (and do correct me if I'm wrong).

To really know them, you become related by the taking and the giving, because then the fish is disbursed to people who don't fish, and it's also a chance for one's ancestors to come back and to eat the food that they would have eaten in their lifetime, to feed them. So this is done for fish, it's done for the first batch of maple syrup, it's done for first kills in the fall, you know, in terms of animals that one might shoot, deer, ducks, rabbits, things like that. It's done particularly for wild rice, which is our biggest food and probably our most important food.

First fruits, anyone?

The Speaking of Faith web site also posts the raw interview feeds, complete with microphone problems and feedback issues, for those interested in hearing the unedited conversations. If you prefer reading to listening, they also have a transcript available. The link for the fifty-three-minute-long NPR radio podcast "Sustaining Language, Sustaining Meaning," is here. I encourage you to check it out and see what you think of the program.