Tillicum Wawa, 11-11-10

On Thursday, November 11, "Tillicum Wawa: Voices of the People,"aired its pilot program on KBOO, 90.7fm. Our guests were Eric Bernando, Urban Scout (aka Peter Bauer), and Robert Miller.
We had a format, but prior to the show airing, we were listening to the conversation about language between Robert, Eric, and Peter, that Shusli suggested we continue with that conversation on the air, and it worked out very well. Robert asked most the questions of Eric and Peter, and when I attempted to ask Robert questions about his work, he seemed like, "yeah, I wrote a couple of books and teach law. So, Eric, how did you get involved in learning the Chinook Jargon." I'm exaggerating of course, but it was really charming how it worked out.

It was really interesting to listen to Urban Scout talk about learning the language because he is not Indian. He took to heart that saying when you go to another country you should try to learn that country's language. If you wish to contact Eric and Urb about learning the language, you can check out their website, Learn Chinook Jargon.

We did get Robert Miller to talk a bit about his work, but as Robert mentioned his ownership of a rare language dictionary, I realized we did exactly what we wanted to do with this show, made connections between communities. I am grateful to be a part of this show! Robert wrote the book "Native America Discovered and Conquered," and more recently, "Discovering Indigenous Land," both dealing with the doctrine of discovery which is the legal document the Euro's used to steal the world from the rest of us.

I read my "Angry Indian Minute" piece and Shusli read her "Honoring the Veterans" piece. To her, warriors are more than just folk who don a uniform in the military, they are folk who fight for the land, struggle for their communities, etc.

The show is still up in the air as far as being a regular program, so we'll see what happens.

We had a great time and learned a lot in that little hour. It was fun!

I ran into Rolf Semprabaun on the way out and at some point he is going to help us to podcast so if you missed the program, we'll hook you up.

Too bad you all weren't there, but maybe next time.