First published in Songlines Magazine issue 155, March 2020.
Language is the lens through which we view the world. It’s what we use to construct our own thoughts and pass those thoughts on to other people; when we use different languages, we literally think in different ways. It contributes to the awesome diversity in human culture around the world – there are an estimated 6,700 languages spoken across the planet today. But that may not be the case for very long. Around 43% of languages are thought to be in danger of disappearing within a handful of generations and, alarmingly, most of those endangered languages belong to indigenous communities
1. If these languages are lost then so many unique and important cultures, histories and lineages will be lost with them.
As part of an effort to quell this loss, 2019 was proclaimed the International Year of Indigenous Languages (IYIL) by UNESCO. The main objectives of the year were to bring an international focus to the risks that indigenous languages face, to bring attention to current work in sustaining endangered languages and to empower indigenous language speakers through international co-operation and intercultural dialogue.
At WOMEX 19, the topic of the IYIL led to various conferences and panel sessions centred on indigenous issues, with many discussions of indigeneity in the frames of language, sovereignty and music, as well as performances from indigenous artists from around the world. There, I spoke to four prominent activists in indigenous music-making – Airileke
2, ShoShona Kish
3, Māmā Mihirangi
4 and Sandra Márjá West
5 – about how music can be used in conjunction with language and indigenous populations.
Music and indigenous language
The importance of language in music is clear – we use language to create songs, to teach music and to talk about it. It works the other way too: music is just as crucial in the life of language, especially for indigenous or endangered languages. “
One of the most important things for maintaining a language is to have songs. Language is preserved in song,” says Airileke, a drummer and producer from Papua New Guinea. “
Language evolves and changes so quick, within a generation our language will go through all kind of changes. One thing that song does is preserve it, it freezes the language at that time. We have traditional songs in my village that are really old and they’re in a language that’s not spoken any more. There are other songs that were picked up by people we used to trade with 1000 years ago, and we sing their songs. It maintains that relationship. We don’t have a written history; our stories are preserved in spoken word and song.”
But music doesn’t only suspend a language in time, it can help to encourage its use and even facilitate its evolution. Airileke has seen language use change through music even in the last five years: “
There’s a rapper called Sprigga Mek, he was the first hip-hop artist to get a number one in PNG, and he was also the first artist to rhyme in our indigenous language [Mekeo].
His approach was obviously rapping, and we don’t normally write poetry to rhyme as a rapper does, so he was the first one to do it with our language. People loved it! They’d never heard that before. In that way, the influence of a Western approach to music actually helped to develop our language. Now we can rhyme in our language. That’s no threat to our language, it didn’t replace anything, it just added to our own diversity of music.”
As well as helping the language itself, indigenous-language music allows its speakers a literal voice in larger conversations of culture. Sandra Márjá West sees this from the point of view of the Sámi, the traditionally semi-nomadic people of the Sápmi region in the north of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia: “
I think music can be a bridge to the dominant culture of the majority society, just making a presence, like ‘here we are,’” she says. “
Singing in Sámi can create an understanding that we are our own nation, we have our own culture, our own language. There are artists such as Ella Marie Hætta Isaksen, who mix Sámi and English lyrics. She has really managed to break through in mainstream pop in Norway. There’s something there for everyone to understand but there’s also the use of Sámi language and joik
, and we need those. We need action to keep up our language and revitalise it, but for Sámi youth to see somebody they can look up to, somebody who’s cool and uses our language, that’s very important.”
Language and land
It quickly becomes obvious that the issues surrounding indigenous languages and music can never be considered in isolation. Instead, language and music are just two nodes in a whole constellation of issues in which indigenous voices need to be elevated, empowered and listened to. One element that was raised again and again at WOMEX was the importance of land, environment and climate for indigenous peoples, whose traditional cultures and lifestyles often work in harmony with their surroundings and who often have the most to lose in the environmental crisis. Many even define their own indigeneity in relation to the land.
For Aotearoa Māori artist Māmā Mihirangi, indigenous language itself can help to maintain the environment. “
Indigenousness is our personal relationship with the environment. If you have a lineage relationship with an area, then your entire being from all your ancestors has been made by that land. That’s indigenousness and everyone has it. Let’s reconnect to nature and be the protectors of the area we’re from and fight for it. We have a saying in our culture – ‘ko au te reo, ko te reo ko au,
’ – it means ‘I am my language, my language is me.’ Without the language, you don’t have a gateway into the culture. When you know the language and maintain it, you maintain the pathways to the culture and to the land, the connection to the environment and everything that pertains to the culture itself. The loss of the language is detrimental to the entire culture, really.”
It’s a mind-set that extends across the globe. Anishinaabe singer ShoShona Kish believes that indigenous language and environmental protection are one and the same issue. “
When we talk about language, it comes directly from the land. My language is Anishinaabemowin. It has many dialects, and each of those dialects is specifically influenced by the land that it comes from. Those languages actually can’t be lost, because the words live in the land. When we talk about language preservation, continuity and transmission, it’s a critical issue because we are disenfranchised from our land. My people have been forcibly removed from our land and the language has been taken. We aren’t in contact with that land to continue to hear it speak to us in our words. My belief is that if we all – human beings – had our original languages that came from the land, we would have very different teachings about how to take care of her, our first mother, because we would be given those instructions of how to care for her. And because music lights us up in that way, it becomes a powerful remembering of who we are and those words and that voice from the land.”
Music, indigeneity and responsibility
One of the reasons that indigenous philosophy creates a respect for the environment comes from the positioning of the speaker in regard to the rest of the world. Kish explains a common First Nations outlook, and how music can help to broaden one’s view: “
For us as indigenous people, we have a teaching about looking seven generations behind to our ancestors and carrying that to look seven generations in the future. Every step that we make upon the earth, every breath that we make is dreaming the reality for those seven generations in the future; that is the world that they live in. We understand that the choices we make now will impact far into the future. From that responsibility and generosity, there’s a desire to build the bridges, and the easiest way to do that is to speak the same languages. I do believe that music can move beyond language barriers, but let’s cut straight to the chase! And let’s talk to each other and have this conversation.”
This conversation is all-important, and we all must sit together and take part, internationally, indigenous or otherwise. Music can facilitate this conversation, and musicians are using their own power to make it happen. Whenever she performs abroad, Mihirangi’s contract stipulates that the organisers must facilitate a meeting with local indigenous groups, to learn about their culture and land and to request permission to perform on that land. “
I actually can’t perform unless I meet with the local indigenous elders. It’s a cultural thing for me, it’s who I am, it’s my spirituality. It’s really empowering, when you go on stage you feel like you’re becoming part of the local family and that you have a right to be there. You’re connected through the family you’ve met who’ve supported you and nurtured you by opening this space for you. I suggest everyone do that, not just indigenous people.” It is a strategy that has created beautiful moments for all involved. One of her first such experiences came from a meeting at a festival in Canada. “
The local indigenous people had never had that sort of meeting happen before. They were so honoured by it that they came to the festival and caught salmon in the local river and fed the entire festival in honour of being
honoured. Just that little act alone gave them responsibility, gave them a sense of purpose and empowerment of their own culture, of their own land.”
Indigeneity in the music business
It’s easy to see the positive impact that indigenous-language music and musicians can have on disempowered and colonised people around the world. The music industry, however, can still be problematic for indigenous people to navigate while maintaining their language and culture. As a prominent Sámi person in the music industry in Norway and the Sápmi region, West has seen many obstacles that indigenous people face. “
Most Sámi people live in the north [of Norway]
, and the music industry isn’t as developed there as in the south. We don’t have any Sámi labels, we don’t have Sámi booking agents or managers. That means we have to find Norwegian managers. Maybe they understand the Norwegian music industry, but can they understand the Sámi people, the indigenous music industry? And when you are applying for funding – where the biggest money for artists and music is – you have to write all the applications in Norwegian.” Such a system naturally favours those with more connections to non-indigenous culture, and silences many without such access.
This lack of a dedicated industry for indigenous musicians only makes it harder for indigenous voices to be heard, and easier for them to be exploited. Slowly, things are starting to change for the better. Kish reflects on recent developments: “
There was no mainstream radio or record label that was amplifying traditional music in the language. There was no interest. It was seen as ‘less than’: less sophisticated, less interesting, everything. Now the challenge is that there continues to be almost exclusively white people determining what indigenous music gets heard. We’re really working hard to try to challenge the industry to allow us to curate what should be heard based on our own aesthetic and sense of value. There is still a lot of work to be done, but we’re certainly more industry-savvy and engaged than ever before. And we are also making our own spaces, we’re making our own festivals, our own record labels, our own ways of entering the space so that we don’t have to go through mainstream gatekeepers to engage in community-building. That’s exciting. It’s not new, but there’s a new wave of that happening and it’s powerful.”
Where next?
UNESCO’s IYIL is a worthy cause and a great way to draw attention to the issues of endangered and oppressed languages of indigenous peoples. However, it can only really be seen as a starting point. Any real change requires people and – more importantly – governmental support and money. Airileke’s point of view on UNESCO’s project is particularly all-encompassing. He sees PNG as a best example for indigenous languages, where over 850 distinct languages co-exist; most people speak English and Tok Pisin as
lingua francas, as well as at least two or three indigenous languages. However, as an Australian resident, he can also see the effect of oppression on indigenous language, music and wider culture. He explains that the IYIL is “
especially relevant for the places that are losing their language. Somewhere like PNG, most people won’t have a clue it’s the Year of Indigenous Languages because we’re a stronghold, whereas somewhere like Australia, it’s a different story. It needs to be resourced, absolutely. The revival of language needs to be valued, it needs to be put in curriculums in schools and integrated into educational systems. You can’t just expect it to happen, you actually need to do something. Because if we lose languages, especially in a colonised place like Australia, it’s a loss for everyone, not just for those indigenous people. It gives people access to the culture. Politicians just need to listen to those who represent indigenous people. Indigenous people should be the ones directing their own future, not depending on non-indigenous politicians to do it. All the politicians should be doing is listening and implementing the wishes of that community.”
When it comes down to it, no focus on indigenous languages can be complete or make any headway without also embracing factors as wide as culture, environment, sovereignty, land rights, music and many more that are inextricably linked. It is important to remember why so many indigenous languages around the world – including Welsh, Scots Gaelic, Irish and Cornish in the UK – are classified as endangered. Indigenous populations have been persecuted and disempowered by colonisers for hundreds and sometimes thousands of years. It is not something that can take one year to fix; only long-term, well-funded and intense dedication can achieve progress. On Canada, Kish says: “
I would like to see the government making a commitment to investing in culture and language revitalisation with equal measure and resources to what was applied to supressing our languages and cultures and the cultural genocide which has occurred, and we’re not seeing anything like that.” Hopefully UNESCO’s International Year of Indigenous Languages will help to spur real movement soon.
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1What is indigeneity?
Indigeneity is a very complicated concept to pin down, to the degree that even the UN itself refuses to define ‘indigenous.’ Instead they offer a broad description of indigeneity that includes historical continuity to pre-colonial societies, strong links to land or territory, a distinct culture and, most importantly, the self-identification of the community themselves as indigenous. Different people and cultures naturally have their own definitions and descriptions. You can read more in the UN’s
‘Who Are Indigenous Peoples?’ factsheet.
2Airileke
Airileke is originally from the village of Gabba Gabba in Papua New Guinea and is now based in Australia. His first language is Motu. As a drummer and bandleader, Airileke brings a whole host of Melanesian music into electronic styles. His album
Weapon of Choice was Top of the World in
Songlines #91.
3ShoShona Kish
ShoShona Kish is a member of the Anishinaabe First Nation and the lead singer of blues-rock group Digging Roots. She is a powerful and outspoken activist for indigenous people and culture in Turtle Island (North America) and across the world; she received the WOMEX Professional Excellence Award in 2018 for her work.
4Māmā Mihirangi
Māmā Mihirangi is a musician from Aotearoa (New Zealand) who creates contemporary Māori music with her group The Māreikura, mixing beats, bass and loops with traditional forms and bilingual lyrics in English and te reo Māori.
5Sandra Márjá West
Sandra Márjá West is the festival director of the Riddu Riđđu festival held annually in Kåfjord near Tromsø, Norway each July. Riddu Riđđu started as a festival of Sámi culture and pride in 1991 and has since expanded to celebrate indigenous cultures from all across the world. West speaks Northern Sámi and is a member of the Sámi Parliament in Norway.
Photos from top: The Global Sound of Indigenous Resistance and Resurgence panel at WOMEX 19 in Tampere, Finland with (l-r) ShoShona Kish, Sámi artist Sara Ajnnak and Māmā Mihirangi, by Yannis Psathas; Airileke, by Carlo One Rebel Collective; ShoShona Kish, by Skye Polson; Māmā Mihirangi; Sandra Márjá West, by Carl Johan Utsi.
