Native People’s live in a multi-lingual world. Always have and, likely, always will. There are linguistic definitions and analyses about us, our languages, and the health status of our languages. We have dictionaries, and grammars, and other studies of our languages, usually from an academic perspective. But there is also our perspective which often sees our languages as the essences of our beings.
Araráhih Kich! is a god-send. There is a growing Karuk language community here in northern California. It is the latest part of a resurging of Karuk identity. We, and our neighbors, have restored so much our culture. Still, the essence of much of our culture has been beyond our experience: we sing, we dance, we create regalia, we pray, we tell our stories, we identify completely as Karuk. As children we have been told that we are Karuk, and often hear of Karuk Pride. And yet there is one part of our being that has always been in the room (so to speak), but unseen, unheard. And that is our language.
Húukava nanúhih? To where has our language gone? Araráhih Kich! is a newly established effort to answer this question without words, choosing instead to answer with action. The elevator pitch that describes our effort is: “We are creating new speakers. We are updating many of the language revitalization approaches that have been in use for several decades now. We are bringing together those of us who are the writers, the artists, the singers and cultural creatives to make art that is based on our language as its source: our oral and printed stories, our personal histories, our yearning to return the people’s language to the people.”
Araráhih Kich! is a project of the Institute of Native Knowledge, a native founded and directed non-profit located in northwestern California. The organization’s founder, Julian Lang, has led this organization since its inception in 1989. His vision was Return Native Knowledge to Native Peoples. The goals of the organization include and combine multi-media art forms, writing and music, with Karuk cultural ideas and thought—to make our ancestral language central central to to our everyday lives.
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