Red Lake tradition is concentrated at Ponemah

At the end of the road-literally-elders in a small Red Lake community hold tight to the vaznishing Ojibwe traditions

 

By Dalton Walker
Star Tribune

 

PONEMAH, MINN. - Tucked between Upper and Lower Red Lake is a sacred place, rich in culture and a unique way of life. But those same qualities might have a headlock on the community and its growth.

To the 900 people who live there, Ponemah is either a sanctuary or an abyss. Some view it as one of the few traditional places remaining for Indians, while others consider it just another poor town on the Red Lake Indian Reservation coping with drugs and alcohol abuse.

Red Lake's elders lament that younger generations have ignored the Ojibwe culture, and the gap between the youth and those who know the traditions is growing.

Nowhere does that conflict show itself more intensely than in Ponemah, the most traditional community on the northern Minnesota reservation.

Sacred ceremonies still take place in Ponemah. Traditional burials with Ojibwe prayers and offerings are the norm, as are other ceremonies that elders neither teach nor explain -- they must be learned by observing and participating.

At one time, all Red Lake members had traditional naming ceremonies, understood the significance of the clan system and spoke fluent Ojibwe.

The most significant change, some say, is the loss of language.

"We are strong believers in our ... culture and religion," said 75-year-old Eugene Stillday. "But in recent years that has kind of changed. Now we've got faster modes of travel, new modern things that come into our lives like television, cell phones. We are more into the white man's ways. I can attribute that to the loss of our language."

Today, about 50 fluent Ojibwe speakers live in or near Ponemah, said Stillday, who lives a few miles east of the town. Most tribal members speak some Ojibwe words, such as boozhoo (hello), miigwech (thank you), or niijii (friend), but only a few can speak full sentences.

The people of Ponemah are known as Obaashinwininiwag, after the village name Obaashing, meaning "A place where the wind blows over the point or land."

Stillday said he tries to teach those who want to learn, but few step forward. To his surprise last winter, 42 people came together in Ponemah to begin learning Ojibwe. He said it was the largest turnout in years, but the numbers dipped as people quickly turned to other priorities, he said.

"Without the language, we're wandering out there with an uncertain future where we don't know who we are," he said.

Carol Barrett, 58, speaks Ojibwe to her grandchildren but said it's tough to explain certain words without being able to talk with other Ojibwe speakers. She said the loss of the language and culture can be traced to parenting.

"It's the home environment," she said. "Our parents made us come inside when the sun was going down; they didn't let us run all over. [Today] parents let the kids raise themselves."

The Ponemah community

The heart of the village is located on a peninsula near the shoreline of lower Red Lake.

Most of the 5,000 tribal members live across lower Red Lake in the towns of Redby, Little Rock and Red Lake. State Hwy. 1 travels through the three communities, while Indian Hwy. 18 leads to Ponemah. The road dead-ends a few miles past town.

A small town market with an attached laundromat is at the center of the village. A tiny post office sits across the road. The clinic near the school is the community's largest building. Homes sit in clusters with area nicknames such as Sesame Street and Up the Hill.

The nearest McDonald's or shopping center is a 100-mile round trip, in Bemidji. The town of Red Lake is 30 miles away. The only non-tribal members who venture to Ponemah are food vendors, medical people or educators and sometimes a small church group.

"We kept our own culture," Barrett said. "The older people just continued with the culture, practiced ceremonies. The traditional ways, the only ways Ponemah has ever known."

In the week after last year's school shootings on Red Lake, in which 10 people died, Ponemah's elders held a healing ceremony -- inviting teenagers to partake in traditional rituals and talk about what was happening on the reservation.

Teaching Ojibwe

A road sign near Battle River, a few yards off the road, cites Ponemah as the home of the Ojibwe language.

Brett Dow drives past the sign nearly every day on his way to and from work. He said every time he reads it a sense of pride overwhelms him.

"I'm proud to be from Ponemah," said Dow, 24. "I do believe it is home of the Ojibwe language, because most of the old people here are fluent. I want to learn the language, too, before I get old. I am trying, slowly making my way back."

The word Ponemah came from baanimaa, an Ojibwe word, meaning "later" or "after a while." Elders explained that years ago the old chiefs tried to abstain from "black robes' " church and "the white man's education" by saying, "baanimaa."

The first government boarding school in Ponemah opened in 1901. It was met with resentment at first but slowly was accepted by Red Lakers. The school expanded in 1917 and again four years later. Now, the building is a public school.

Stillday recalls attending the government school in the 1930s. He said he was hit on the hands with rulers when he spoke Ojibwe. He said his father told him to learn and accept the white man's ways, but never to forget his culture.

That same culture today seems to bounce off younger tribal members and into history.

"I don't think the young kids around here talk or even understand [Ojibwe]," Dow said. "Everything's going to be gone. Sure, they've got those Ojibwe classes, but I don't see anyone attending them."

Jerry Kingbird has been an Ojibwe language teacher at Ponemah since 1989.

"Some of the little kids that come here, you can just tell their families don't even care about tradition, values or the language," Kingbird, 57, said. "Some of them just come out and say 'What do I have to learn this Chinese for?' "The only thing I can do is teach them the basics," he said. "Everybody thinks I can get them fluent. It's not that easy. ... There is only me against all this white education."

Said Dow, who has two young children: "I see some parents around here who care for their kids. "Not all kids are bad around here. But [some] don't have a person in their life to tell them what's right from wrong."

Vernon Whitefeather, 59, recently retired from the Red Lake school district after 25 years of teaching Ojibwe language and American Indian history.

He also taught for two years at the Red Lake Nation College, and through his years of teaching has met only one young person who became fluent to the point of sounding like a native speaker.

"Ojibwe is a hard language to learn," Whitefeather said. "In order for you to learn the language you would have to hear it, almost on a daily basis. If the language is strong, your culture as you know it grows stronger."