When the time arrived for Cob-moosa to move to his new home in Oceana County he refused, but he asked his followers to go and adopt the white man's way of living. He said: "I am an Indian and can be nothing else, I wish my children to be civilized, I know their ways are superior to ours and that my people must adopt them or die, but I cannot change. The young can adopt new ways but the old cannot, I shall soon die - living and dying an Indian. You can bend a young tree but not an old oak." Ogema Cob-moosa

My 4th Great Grandfather is quoted above as saying that our people must adopt the white ways, which he believed to be superior to the Indian way, or die! I believe that our people must remember and revive our ancestral ways or die! While in his sense of the word "die" it was meant quite literally, my use of the word is figurative. We will cease to exist as a people, as a tribe of Grand River Band Odawa Indians, but continue as part of this society which we have grown accustomed to living in. Grandfather’s time was harsh and death was a real part of life. The color of your skin or the language which you spoke dictated how you lived...or died.

Superiority has nothing to do with the ways in which we live today. Our language is all but gone; ceremony is just a “show” for many of our young people and a memory for many of our elders. Traditional art, hunting and fishing, and daily living are almost forgotten, save a few (Honor those who teach tradition, for they are our Warriors today). In the past twenty to thirty years there has been a resurgence of traditional values, language, and education, but it isn’t enough. People like Helen Roy, who is a language and traditional teacher at Michigan State University, are difficult to get to, and are too few to go around. I don't believe this was my Grandfathers wish.

I truly believe that there is a common ground where both worlds exist, where walking two paths, living two coinciding lives, speaking two contrasting languages, and experiencing one world, can become reality. It is nonsense to believe that we can adopt one way over the other and exist in today’s society. We are Indian and must accommodate both ways into our daily lives. As many people have said in the past, and will continue to say in the future: “when a language is lost, the civilization that belongs to it is lost”. Our language is the starting place, and without it we will not translate our traditions to their true meaning. English does not translate well into Anishinaabemowin…and vice versa.

It is with great sadness that I convey my feelings, but it is my hope that our people will stand together and fight to recapture what is almost lost. It is the responsibility of each one of us to remember our past…to protect our future. Our children can only learn our language if we ourselves speak it, no matter how little. Our children can understand our songs, but only if we teach them. Our children will live with traditional values and understanding, but only if we live traditionally. Our children are our future, our greatest hope for survival, and our leaders of the next seven generations.

You and I can only learn our language if we are willing to give up a little of our time, pass some Asema to our elders and ask to learn. We can only learn our songs if we go to a drum and pass some Asema and ask if we can sit with them and learn. We will only have traditional values and understanding if we go to our elders and pass Asema and ask what they are. These things aren’t difficult, they aren’t humiliating, and they aren’t out of our reach. They won’t break us or make us poor. They won’t kill us, and they won’t demoralize us. But if “WE” don’t do these things, I can guarantee that our children won’t have a starting place. They won’t remember their past, and it will be that much more difficult for them to forge our future.

During the Boarding School Era many of our elders were sent to live in places like Mount Pleasant or other government boarding schools. “Kill the Indian and save the man” was Pratt’s idea. It worked! They learned things like English, Christianity, sewing, cooking, and how to be slave labor. Assimilation took away much of our language and tradition, but left us with the “white way” which Grandfather wished us to have. And even though they were forbidden to speak their language, many of our elders refused to forget.

Uncle Bill “Little Bill” Stone is the last of the “first speakers” in our family. Grandma (Aunt Margaret) Marge, Aunt Julie, and Aunt Lil understand it, but don’t speak it. Aunt Julie told me once…”It’s Aniish-na, with a nasal sound like a sneeze”. She said I know some words, and can understand conversations, but I don’t speak that language anymore.

Uncle Bill “Big Bill” also understood our language, but he said “it was too many years ago for him to remember how to talk that way”. His passing left a hole in my heart. At my Grandpa’s funeral Uncle David and I sat with Uncle Bill and asked him questions about his childhood. He went on about the farm, Grandma and Grandpa Negake, and tried to give a rundown of all the children he could remember. He started with Elizabeth and thought that she was the oldest, and he remembered the twins, but they were little when they died and he couldn’t remember their names. His recollection was pretty good for his age, and his sense of humor was and is unmatched. In all he said “there were sixteen kids…I think”.

Our oral tradition gives us what the creator wanted us to have. Our elders, veterans (foreign and domestic wars), and our children are our greatest assets. To learn our language we must turn to our elders, to learn our history we turn to our elders, to learn our customs we turn to our elders. And one day, like Uncle Bill “Little Bill” told me, you’ll look around and realize that you are the elder.

Go to an elder in your family, pass them Asema, and ask if you can listen to them talk for a while. If I know nothing else, I know that you will get more than you expect. Our elders are the key to our past just as our children are the key to our future. Elders remember the old ways; the ways which Great Grandfather thought to be inferior to the ways we now know. It has been an experiment gone awry, and in the end, like him, I can do no more than die an Indian.