The Wampanoag language had gone quiet. Remarkably, Jessie 'Little Doe' Baird brought it back, saving far more than just words.
Jessie"Little Doe" Baird is one of USA TODAY's Women of the Century. To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, we've assembled a list of 100 women who've made a substantial impact on our country or our lives over the past 100 years.
To call it dead would be an insult to the ancestors who left it for future generations, as a way to communicate – and a way to teach. But it was"unspoken" until linguist Jessie"Little Doe" Baird brought it back. Her project's Wampanoag dictionary holds more than 11,000 entries. And she's not done; she may never be done. Words on paper are not a language. A language lives through the people who speak it. So Baird founded the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project. She teaches community classes and family camps. Kids in grade school and high school have the opportunity to learn the language. The Wampanoags have lived for 12,000 years in Massachusetts and parts of Rhode Island. When the Pilgrims met the first Indigenous people? Those were the Wampanoags. The English settlers brought disease that killed thousands – an estimated two-thirds of the Wampanoag Nation died – as well as war and rules that fragmented the tribes. There once were 69 tribes in the nation; now there are three. Baird is a citizen of the Mashpee tribe. Her ancestors left a key to their language. They translated the King James Bible into Wampanoag. They left hundreds of documents in their written alphabet. Baird describes a vision she had where her ancestors helped her see it was time to bring the language home. She began her research, which led her to a graduate degree at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she learned from and worked with other linguists. In 2010, she was named a It's incredibly difficult to reclaim a language, even more so when there are no speakers alive, and even more so when you're driving 90 minutes a day, each way, to attend graduate school, with four small children at home. "I might've been afraid to do the work had I known that," Baird says with a laugh now."But I didn't, and so here we are." Jessie"Little Doe" Baird, a citizen of the Mashpee tribe, wears Wampanoag regalia. Baird is a linguist best known for her work to reclaim and teach the Wampanoag language through the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project.Question: You say your language teaches. Can you share a lesson?In English, you can just say,"She's a mother." But in Wampanoag, you can't say that. You can say,"She's my mother, she's your mother, she's our mother, she's his or her mother." But you can't just say"a mother." And that's the same with all of the kinship terms. Everybody in that circle is defined by the people around them. And that's reflected in the words. There are all sorts of lessons in the language that are not in English because English doesn't have the same . Our families, by recording all of these documents in our language, they left all of the lessons for us.USA TODAYIt's egalitarian where leadership is concerned, but where lineage is concerned we're matrilineal. This means that we reckon our families from our mother's descent. One of the women in my line, her name was Weetumuw and that means"she is sweet." She was really famous for her beauty and for her wampum. Wampum is made from quahog shell, and it was used for trade and for belts and all sorts of things. During the 1670s, we were at war with the colonists. They were pressing Wampanoag people to not move around and they were walling off the property and making rules about where Wampanoag people could or could not live. They really wanted more and more territory. During a battle – what some people call King Phillip's War – she was leading her men across the Taunton River and she was captured. The English men wanted to make an example of her because English women at the time were Wampanoag women were in positions of leadership. When they captured Weetumuw they mutilated her body. They stripped away her wampum and they removed her breasts and they stripped her naked. And as an example to other Wampanoag women and white women, they decapitated her and they hung her head on a pike in the center of Taunton Green for 20 years.Three generations of Wampanoag women gather in Jessie"Little Doe" Baird's home: Mae Alice Weekanashk Baird, 16, back left; Baird, 56; Lauren Dena Fermino, 30;... Three generations of Wampanoag women gather in Jessie"Little Doe" Baird's home: Mae Alice Weekanashk Baird, 16, back left; Baird, 56; Lauren Dena Fermino, 30; Rachael Joan Lovely, 29; Tracy Michelle Kelley, 35; and Jasmine and Isabelle Lee Wilsey, 5. The photo was taken on July 17 by Aubrey Wilsey, Baird's son-in-law, under the direction of USA TODAY photographer Hannah Gaber.In the late 1800s, when U.S. officials were trying to get the Wampanoags to become citizens, you say that was actually a step back for your tribe's women. Mashpee women objected vehemently because they said,"Well, we are leaders in our community. And if we were citizens of your government, then we wouldn't have the same right to vote because your women can't vote." And so they lost some of the say they had in their own community. And it wasn't until 1920 that non-Native women would be fighting and win that fight for the vote.I want to make sure that my voice is heard for my kids. I think women need to step up and take more of a leadership role because"mutumwuhsuhs" is a woman in my language and it literally means"the one with say and judgment." If I'm not going to bother to step up and vote, I've put my own hand over my own mouth. I've tied my own hands together.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Chrissy Teigen was scared after realising she was pregnant during boob jobChrissy Teigen was left feeling scared after she discovered she would have been pregnant at the time she went under the knife for her boob job
Read more »
Chrissy Teigen Didn't Know About Pregnancy During Implant RemovalThe 34-year-old model admitted that 'it's quite a story' and that she was 'scared' when she did find out about baby No. 3.
Read more »
Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli Will Get a Fresh Start in a Simple $9.5 Million “Farmhouse”Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli have the privilege of starting over—well, one day
Read more »
Chrissy Teigen Had No Idea She Was Pregnant During Breast Implant Removal SurgeryChrissy Teigen Reveals How She Found Out About Her Pregnancy
Read more »
Beyoncé Was Forced to Revise Black Is King Due to the Coronavirus'We were shooting so much content that we never fully watched or listened to, so we had to go back and create from what we already had'
Read more »
Help! My Date’s Job Is to Make Spam Calls All Day.She says it’s just a job. I think it’s predatory.
Read more »