Youth American Indian interpreters share Crow language, history

BUFFALO — For Jacob Brien, a love of language runs in the family.

Growing up on the Crow Reservation in southeastern Montana, Brien learned to speak the Crow language from his grandmother, who was the language teacher at his high school.

Before too long he realized that he wanted to “speak Crow all day long and study it.”

That led him to an internship working on a Crow language dictionary and, later, to working toward a degree in sociology and Crow studies at Rocky Mountain College in Billings.

Now, Brien is working as one of the youth American Indian interpreters at the Fort Phil Kearny Historic Site in Johnson County and at the Medicine Wheel National Historic Landmark near Lovell.

Since early June, Brien has been hosting ranger talks, providing feedback on signage and exhibits and educating visitors on the rich Crow history at the two sites.

“The average person has no clue we even exist,” Brien said of the Crow tribe and American Indians in general. “I’m learning to tell an engaging story that your average person can understand and provide context to visitors.”

The spark for the new youth interpreter program came from the Fort Phil Kearny / Bozeman Trail Association, Wyoming State Parks and a slew of partners ranging from the U.S. Forest Service to advisers such as Sheridan College instructor Donovin Sprague.

The goal of the program is to bring young American Indian voices to historic sites that had historical ties to local tribes. The program provides free training for the young interpreters, while also giving staff feedback on how they can improve the interpretation at their sites.

Officials at both sites have long worked with a coalition of local tribes to manage the sites, but it’s the first time that these government agencies have centered young American Indian voices.

Brien began the program with a weeklong training on historical interpretation hosted by Wyoming State Parks interpretive ranger Linley Mayer. Afterward, he spent four weeks at the Medicine Wheel site before finishing up at Fort Phil Kearny.

“When I tell people the Crow story, it’s like Christmas morning to them,” Brien said of his interpretive work at the Medicine Wheel site. “So many people had no idea.”

At Fort Phil Kearny, he has provided feedback on signage and some of the exhibits, while also giving talks on different aspects of Crow history.

Brien thinks it is important to tell visitors to the Kearny site that the 1851 Fort Laramie Treaty set aside the area including the Fort and the entire Bighorn Mountains for the Crow Reservation. The original treaty area extended over the entire area west of the Powder River to the Shoshone Range in present-day western Wyoming, and from near Billings in the north to near present-day Lander in the south. Parties to the treaty broke it almost immediately after inception.

He also tells visitors that the Crow tribe sided with the U.S. government during the Indian Wars but were later “betrayed” by the Americans.

He shared a quote by Crow warrior Two Leggings from the book “Two Leggings: The Making of a Crow Warrior”: “We helped the white man so we could own our land in peace. Our blood is mixed in the ground with the blood of white soldiers. We did not know they were going to take our land. That is what they gave us for our friendship.”

Sharie Shada, the park superintendent for Fort Phil Kearny, said that having youth American Indian interpreters at the site helped to broaden the history being told and strengthen the experience for visitors.

“People are curious and want to know more,” she said. “They want to open that dialogue and the way we speak about the history that’s happened here, to show both sides. We’re just trying to be open and show both sides accurately and evenly, and bring all the voices in.”

Shada also said that because so much of the U.S. Army history at the fort had been written down, the interpretation had placed an emphasis on those voices, whereas tribal history has typically been passed down orally.

She said that the program had already secured funding to pay the youth interpreters for future years.

“All of the hopes for the program have come true and more,” Mayer said.

Brien said that over the course of the program he has tried to spread the word about the importance of the Crow language and the effort needed to revitalize the language among the next generation of speakers.

The language is marked as endangered by UNESCO.

After he finishes his undergraduate work at Rocky Mountain College next year, he plans to get his master’s degree in linguistics. He hopes that will lead him into a long career in language revitalization work.

“My eventual goal is to help in the revitalization of my language,” he said. “Only about half of the tribe speaks it.”

By Peder ShaeferBuffalo BulletinVia Wyoming News Exchange