We use hands-on demonstration and education to accomplish our mission to protect and promote the cultural resources and traditions of the Konkow Maidu people. Cultural revitalization begins with the indigenous language. We believe the worldview of any culture is expressed in it’s language. And, that languages develop in response to the natural environment.
In 2017 we received a National Science Foundation - Documenting Endangered Languages grant to make archival language material accessable online. Our long-term relationship with the Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival led to the realization of this NSF grant. Through attending several Breath of Life workshops at UC Berkeley we experienced second language acquisition methodologies from linguistics professors and "how to search archives" lessons from graduate student mentors. The Survey Room holds the student papers and documentation of the Konkow language collected by Russell Ultan in the early 1960s, as part of his PhD studies at UC Berkeley.
www.konkow.org is the result of this grant.
The website uses the 1960 vintage recordings. The recorded stories are available in full and some are analyzed down to the morpheme level and the wordlist elicitations are organized into an Audio Dictionary. All materials directly reference the archival data including noun and verb suffixes presented in interactive charts, basic grammar lessons, and interactive practice exercises.
Since 2005 we have been able to implement several language and traditional arts practices programs thanks to funding from the Alliance for California Traditional Arts, Living Cultures Grants, the Seventh Generation Fund, and the Strong Foundation for Environmental Values.
In 2015, we were honored to help facilitate the donation of an original copy of the unratified 1851 Treaty (G) signed at Bidwell’s ranch. This piece of local history had been handed down mother to daughter to granddaughter since it’s signing 170 years ago. It now resides at CSU Chico, Merriam Museum, Special Collections, within eye sight of where it was signed.
The document can be viewed online: here
