A new documentary film looks at the preservation and promotion of the Nakota language.
To Wake Up the Nakota Language is the latest project of Regina filmmaker Louise BigEagle.
BigEagle says the deaths of her grandparents was one of the catalysts that made her decide to pursue the project.
“It made me realize when my grandma passed away two years ago and she was fluent in Cree and my grandfather passed away 20-some years ago and he was fluent in Nakota, and none of us, their children or their grandchildren, knew the language, Cree or Nakota,” she says. “So, to me, that was a big deal.”
The focus of the film is BigEagle’s uncle Armand McArthur, a 69-year-old fluent Nakota speaker from Pheasant Rump First Nation who is committed to revitalizing the language and passing it on to future generations.
“I had seen that he was going to the communities, teaching young people who want to learn it, the language,” BigEagle says. “So, I just came with this idea to showcase him trying to revitalize the Nakota language. Especially when there’s less than 100 speakers entirely, in United States and Canada.”
The film was made with the assistance of Doc Lab Saskatchewan which is a collaborative training initiative between the National Film Board of Canada, Creative Saskatchewan and the Saskatchewan Filmpool Cooperative.
The six-and-a-half-minute feature premiered earlier this spring.
The Nakota language is spoken mainly in the Treaty 4 area of southern Saskatchewan.
BigEagle is a member of the Ocean Man First Nation.
Her past work includes the film Sounds of the Sundance, dedicated to residential school survivors, and the documentary I Am a Boy.
Robin Schlaht and Joe Montes also worked on To Wake Up the Nakota Language.
(PHOTO: Armand McArthur of Pheasant Rump First Nation is the subject of a new documentary film about revitalizing the Nakota language. Photo courtesy of the National Film Board of Canada.)