NATIVE AMERICAN ISSUES

How the lost Mohican language is being revived in Wisconsin with help from a New York initiative

Frank Vaisvilas
Green Bay Press-Gazette

The last fluent speaker of the Mohican language died nearly a century ago, but Brock Schreiber of Bowler is trying to find ways to revive the Indigenous language.

A citizen of the Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican Nation, he said some people still know words and phrases of the language on the reservation in and around Bowler where about 500 of the tribe’s 1,500 citizens live.

“The more I learn (the language), the more I understand how important it is,” Schreiber said. “In conversations with Menominee people and with different elders I’m learning that language is the key to everything from how we (Indigenous people) viewed things and our respect for each other and for everything around us.”

For the last several years, he has been working to restore the language through classes and potluck dinners and is currently working to establish more Mohican, or Mã’eekuneeweexthowãakun, language teachers.

“A lot of people in the community want to learn the language,” Schreiber said.

RELATED: Indigenous languages being revitalized in Wisconsin in efforts to reclaim, maintain identity

RELATED: New York island returned to Wisconsin-based Mohican Nation after hundreds of years

Brock Schreiber

As the author of three children’s books written in the Mohican language, he also is fully immersing his youngest child, a boy younger than 1, in the language.

“With my son, I only speak Mohican to him and I’m excited to watch his development,” Schreiber said.

With no fluent speakers of Mohican, he said one of his main sources of research are the historical written records of European missionaries who had lived with the tribe and had translated the language into their own languages. So, researchers also have had to translate from other languages, such as German, that the missionaries spoke.

He’s hoping to get a boost in his work this year thanks to a $25,000 fellowship from the newly created Forge Project based in New York.

The Mohican people originally lived in the New York and Massachusetts areas and had even fought for America during the Revolutionary War, but were eventually forced to relocate to Wisconsin by new European immigrants who coveted their land.

RELATED: Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican officials aim to prove feast with George Washington happened

As part of the fellowship, Schreiber was invited to make use of the Forge Project property in the Hudson Valley to devote time to his practice.

He’s planning to be there this month and it will be his first visit to the land of his ancestors.

“I’ll see where we came from,” Schreiber said. “It’s been something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time.”

The Forge Project was founded by Becky Gochman and Zach Feuer, who are non-Indigenous. The Gochman family has a net worth of about $2.5 billion, according to Forbes.

Becky Gochman has long been interested in social justice issues, climate change and sustainability, according to a Forge Project spokesperson. She also is motivated to support and promote Indigenous leaders in architecture, social justice, art and language because of the history and impact of colonization on Indigenous communities.

The Forge Project is led by Executive Director Candice Hopkins, who is a member of the Carcross/Tagish first nation in Canada, and Heather Bruegl (Oneida/Stockbridge-Munsee), who had recently worked as the director of cultural affairs for the Mohican Nation.

Bruegle knew (or knew of) this year’s four fellowship recipients, all of whom are from Wisconsin.

The other three recipients are Chris Cornelius (Oneida), who is an architect focused on designing spaces through the translation of Indigenous culture; Sky Hopinka (Ho-Chunk/Pechanga), a visual artist and filmmaker; and Jasmine Neosh (Menominee), an advocate for environmental justice, climate change education and Indigenous sovereignty.

Neosh is working on a field guide to restore knowledge loss surrounding food systems and native plants. With her fellowship, she’s planning to create a podcast highlighting Indigenous environmental issues such as redlining, foraging and trespassing on stolen Indigenous land.

Much of Neosh’s research brought her to the Menominee Forest, which has been managed in a sustainable way by the tribe for thousands of years and is the healthiest tract of native forest in the region.

Bruegl said that although all of this year’s recipients have Wisconsin roots, she is looking to reach out to all Indigenous nations, including from western states.

Frank Vaisvilas is a Report For America corps member based at the Green Bay Press-Gazette covering Native American issues in Wisconsin. He can be reached at 920-228-0437 or fvaisvilas@gannett.com, or on Twitter at @vaisvilas_frank. Please consider supporting journalism that informs our democracy with a tax-deductible gift to this reporting effort at GreenBayPressGazette.com/RFA.