S1 | Ep. 009 | Oomagelees | Cynthia Wilson

Young & Indigenous

Young and Indigenous Presents Oomagelees Cynthia Wilson from Lummi- another one of our beloved elders. She is a Lummi Language teacher. She didn't just teach me language, though, she taught me how to sing, dance and make give away items for ceremonies. She taught us many things about our culture. I am thankful she did because I would have never known these valuable cultural traditions without her. We talk about the importance of Lummi Language in this episode while having a general conversation. She has been a teacher in our community since I started elementary school. I am 26 now so she has been teaching us for a long time. She speaks the language and returns it back to our community; again, I find this very important because our language was almost lost except for a few elders speaking and preserving it. She has gifted the language to so many children and I can't imagine how thankful our ancestors are for her contributions to our community. Hy’shqe and thank you for all that you do for us in our Lummi community- our hands go up to you \o/ I also want to bring light to the fact that her father was taken from his family as a child and placed in a residential school. Cynthia says that they would take the older child of siblings because they wouldn't want them to be teaching the culture to the younger ones. You will get to hear the story of how that happened and the reason for this. I want to bring awareness on the subject of the 215 children and how our people were a part of the residential school era as well. The things that happened need to be acknowledged because we didn't ask for it, it was forced on us.