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October 04, 2014
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HOME ! UNCATEGORIZED ! TRIBE MEMBER FINDS HERITAGE IN LANGUAGE
UNCATEGORIZED
Tribe member nds heritage in
language
BY REIS THEBAULT OCTOBER 3, 2014
Photos courtesy of Myaamia Center Archive
Miami citizen Daryl Baldwin helps MU tribe students learn what it means to be myaamia
Daryl Baldwin settled down in his new ofce. It was at the end of a long hallway on the third
oor of King Library. Its dimensions were strikingly similar to those of a closet.
It was the rst day of his new job at Miami University.
Now what? he asked himself.
King Library was Baldwins latest stop on his journey to bring his tribes language, myaamia,
back from dormancy.
He had no model and no one to advise him, but in 2001, he began his work with the Myaamia
Project.
It was a moment hundreds of years in the making.
In 1846, the federal government under James K. Polk drove the Miami Tribe, Baldwins
ancestors, from central Indiana to present-day Kansas. In the 1870s, after a second removal
forced members of the tribe to Indian Territory in modern-day Oklahoma, the Miami people were
scattered across the center
of the continent
Baldwin was born to a Miami father and an English mother who raised him near Maumee, Ohio.
I was literally on the landscape where a lot of that history played out, Baldwin said. In many
ways, that landscape is the history book.
He was always aware of his heritage, but never really knew what it meant.
I always knew I was a Miami Indian, he said. But I didnt know much about that as a kid,
because I grew up in an environment where there werent any other native people.Attending
high school in the late 1970s, he experienced rst hand some things that would become
contentious later like mascot issues.
Baldwin attended Anthony Wayne High School the Fighting Generals named after an
18th-century U.S. general. Wayne led American troops in the Battle of Fallen Timbers against,
among others, the Miami Tribe. One of Baldwins ancestors signed the treaty that ended the
ghting. Naturally, Baldwin objected to his schools choice of mascot. He didnt want to be a
Fighting General.
It wasnt until later in his life, though, Baldwin began to dig deeper into his peoples past.
I was in my 20s when I started to ask questions, he said. Things like: Well, wheres our
language? I know we had a language. Where
is it?
Aside from ancestral names, he had never heard the language spoken. It wasnt until he was
leang through his grandfathers papers that he had his rst real encounter with myaamia words.
There, in between old legal documents, was a list of Miami words and their English translations.
It was just a simple word list, the translations dating back to the early 1900s, tapped out on a
typewriter. He started to feel the itch of curiosity.
He decided to visit Miami enclaves in Indiana and Oklahoma and see if there were any speakers
left. There were not. The last, he learned, had died around the same time Baldwin was born in the
early 60s.
Baldwin was not satised.
I had questions, he said. If I was claiming this heritage, well, what does it mean?
Baldwin had begun to study wildlife biology at the University of Montana. But questions about
the lost language haunted him. On a trip to Oklahoma, he crossed paths with someone asking the
same questions. David Costa was a graduate student in linguistics at the University of California-
Berkeley. He had come to Oklahoma in search of a native language to study. He chose myaamia.
The two men began to exchange materials. They kept in touch.
At home, Baldwin and his wife Karen were committing themselves to the language. Baldwin
wanted to learn. He wanted to pass it on to his children. But it was not an easy process. At the
time, Baldwin only had rudimentary word lists the names of birds, animals and household
items. He had no idea how to pronounce them. The family started small. They taped vocabulary
lists to their walls and cupboards. Baldwin kept notes in his pocket throughout the day. They
began to teach the words to their children.
Meanwhile, Costa was traveling to old archives and amassing a huge amount of documentation.
He unearthed centuries-old documents from French Jesuits and translations on eld cards from
Swiss and English linguists.
However, there were no sound recordings of the language and no phonetically spelled words, so
recovering the exact pronunciation was next to impossible. But, Miami-Illinois, as the language
is ofcially called, is in the Algonquian language family. So, Costa was able to use his own
materials and closely related Algonquian languages to construct his doctoral dissertation, which
would become the rst book of Miami-Illinois grammar.
Baldwin had no formal linguistics training when he received Costas work in the mail. The
academic jargon overwhelmed him. He needed to study linguistics. He went back to school.
Baldwin enrolled in a graduate linguistics program at University of Montana. He didnt want to
be a linguist. He just wanted to arm himself for the reclamation of his own language.
With a degree in linguistics, Baldwin was ready to bring myaamia back to his people.
In 1992, Congress passed the Native American Languages Act. The bill set aside money for a
grant program to support language regeneration. The Miami Tribe of Oklahoma applied for one
of these grants and received it. The tribe called on Baldwin to go to Oklahoma and lead the rst
community level workshop for the Miami language.
When Baldwin arrived, he found other like-minded people people in search of their heritage.
I come from a generation of people that are like, Where is my culture? Where is my language?
What happened? he said.
After brief stints working with the tribe in Oklahoma and at a museum in Indiana, Baldwin
connected with Miami University. The tribe and the university have had a long relationship.
Much of the early dialogue between Miami and the tribe focused on the universitys use of the
Native American mascot. In 1996, the Miami tribe urged the university to abandon the
Redskins mascot. By 1997, the university had complied. This forced the two sides to work
through a divisive issue. But what came out of that, Baldwin said, were some really positive
things especially after the mascot was terminated.
One of these positives would become the Myaamia Project, something Baldwin said could not
have happened without the existing relationship between tribe and university.
The tribe and the university agreed to give the project a try and, in three years, to reevaluate.
While Baldwin wasnt certain what would become of it, he knew he wanted to focus on language
regeneration and education.
So, from his ofce in King Library, that is what Baldwin decided to do.
The new relationship proved mutually benecial and the Myaamia Project blossomed into what
is now the Myaamia Center in the Bonham House. Baldwin now has a bigger ofce.
When he arrived on campus in 2001, there were six myaamia students on campus. There are now
26. And they are hungry for more.
A lot of them come here for the opportunity to learn about their heritage and there is no other
institution they can go to learn that, Baldwin said. They want to engage in the process.
When tribe students rst arrive on campus, Baldwin asks them to write an essay: What does it
mean to be a Miami Indian?
Some can be really intimidated when they get asked that question because, for some, not much
was passed on, Baldwin said.
He knows how that feels. And now, he is helping students with the same questions.
That becomes my mission in life, he said. Thats exactly why Im doing it.
Language, Baldwin said, is the key to the Miami tribes past.
When two people use a language thats unique to their culture, they connect in a way that we
cant feel any other way, he said.
Because of Baldwin, Costa, and numerous other myaamia people, more and more kids are
growing up in the language. And while there is still a long way to go Baldwin estimates they
have used just 30 percent of language documents the myaamia language is being spoken
again. What started as the subject of a masters thesis and a gnawing at the back of Baldwins
mind has taken root.
We have reached a point where it doesnt feel like itll zzle out.
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