H Miracle Review With excellent description in you articles, I want to thanks for your blog providing a large amount of knowledge and enlightenment..H Miracle Review
responding to Lionel Hello - I am responding to Lionel's comment from Nov. 18 2010. (Also see my more detailed comment, Nov. 7 2009).
I'm not really sure why you assume the Yagán (Yámana) are not doing anything to preserve their language. I've just returned last night from a trip to Navarino Island: Puerto Williams and Ukika. I would just like to assure you that the Abuela Cristina Calderón and her grand-daughter Cristina Zárraga are actually working miracles on the language project - recording and translating everything the Abuela knows as well as teaching the language to the children. For an almost-unfunded project undertaken by a handful of people, they are making more progress than many better-funded projects amongst peoples that still have many more speakers than the Yagán have.
Also, if anyone is interested, we are working to re-release the book of traditional Yagán (Yámana) tales Hai Kur Mamashu Shis, which has been out of print since 2006, in English edition this year. There is more info about it on my website (which is my full name with com at the end) and people can contact me directly if they would like to be informed when it is released.
Jacqueline Windh, Tofino, Canada
last Yaghan speaker Hello,
I've found your comments about the last Yaghan speaker search and desillusion quite interesting. It's a sad thing that things are working like that and nothing has been done to transmit the language. But this lady and the other one you talked about (the other speaker), as well as the whole community must have felt the weight of being imposed spanish in school, and in all their life (being mocked because they talked their language or what).
Also the fact that the two ladies don't speaking together can be explained by the fact that, sometimes, two persons, not speaking often, and thus becoming less fluent with a language, can hesitate to enter a conversation using "their" language (this could lead one to being ashamed by the other if she doesn't remember a word or doesn't understand a word or can't answer rightly. This "becaming ashame" can be socially destructive so that kind of people, i.e. "last speakers", often prefer to use the more general language, here spanish, if they ever have to discuss together. This has been shown and seen at different places in the USA, with Indian languages that are no more spoken, or that are only spoken by 2 or 3 persons).
Anyway, your experience at the Yaghan village must have been a good one, and at least you saw and had contact with a piece of humanity centuries old and soon to become extinct.
Best regards,
Lionel.
Spikey Lizard is HARMLESS!! Hey, that Spikey lizard is a small, harmless and very gentle Thorny Devil. You could pick him up and hold him, no worries! I have lots of times. They eat ants and termites, which they 'lick' up with their tongues.
Hundreds of these gorgeous little guys get squashed on outback roads every year.
Also... THANK YOU for calling my home town 'Alice', and not 'The Alice' as many ignorant Australians and overseas tourists do. And thanks for not buying one of those awful full leather 'outback hats' that say: I am a dorky tourist, too!
A great post on Alice Springs and Central Australia, weel done :)
you're picture is very nice. i have seen all your pictures,they are very nice,you know,i am indonesian,but i never go there,i am so suprise,you came very far place only to see the orang utan in bukit lawang.so good for me to motivate myself to care of all animals that live in the junggle.thanks.reply if you have free time.
shiba man of many talents i have meet up with Shiba on many visits.he and his family are doing well
he never misses a trick to sell you something, nature trip or cooking. etc
you forgot to mention that he remembers everyones name and speak
lots of languages.
any one reading this go to goa it's great.
just do it Cool. Talking about makes sense. Is recognized. Hope that it will often share such a good text. I will always be concerned about, because you can learn some knowledge, thank you for sharing,
funny rabbit creature The funny rabbit creature isent a rabbit. Matter of fact its not even in the same family. Its a degue...a rodent. They live in rocky areas like the chinchilla does. The reason the degue is not in the same family as the rabbit is because its a rodent-2-4 incisors and rabits have 28 teeth (2 incisors and 2 peg teeth on the maxilla, 2 incisors on the mandable then a diastima, maxilla-2 rows of 2 premolars 3 rows of 2 molars, mandable-3 rows of 2 premolars 3 rows of 2 molars.)But I would like to see a degue..they seem quiet interesting...your trip looked fun by the way!
need ur help.. i'm a newly backpacker..i have plan to go to bali this january 26..i have no friends/family there, so could u please give me a clue to other backpacker in bali so i can join them..big thx 2 u!
Testimonials If you anyone wants to email a testimonial after a jungle trek with thomas please send to: jungleman_thomas@yahoo.com
or to: mattsuch@hotmail.com
how much do you know the most economy way to get to easter island from Santiago? what do you recommend while visiting Chile.? If you only have two weeks to see as much as possible.
hellooooo I cannot believe that I type Pai into google and there you are Catherine. This is Sebastian, we lived at the Univeristy Halls of Residence together from 1996-1997. The funny things---I have also been to Thailand and India in the past two years and we didn't bump into each other!!!!!
Thank you for visiting Miro's garden restaurant Dear Sir/Madam,
Greetings from Miro's Garden restaurant, Ubud, Bali.
We would like to thank you for visiting our restaurant during your holiday in Bali. We do hope we will be able to serve you again in the near future.
With best regards,
Mira Novianti
Sales & Marketing
Miro's Garden restaurant, Ubud, Bali
www.mirosgardenrestaurant.wordpress.com/
time with Cristina Calderón I spent several weeks in the home of Cristina Calderón, and I'd like to offer a bit of insight into why she might not have been very welcoming , and why her family charges money for her "appearances".
Can you imagine the sadness of seeing the people of your family, your culture, die out completely in the space of your own lifetime? Can you imagine abruptly realizing, with the death of your sister, that there is no one left in the world with whom you can speak the language of your childhood? (Regarding the NY Times reporter's witty little comment - great journalism line, but I don't believe it. I am pretty sure that Emelinda is nowhere near fluent).
Cristina Calderón is treated like an oddity - a celebrity by virtue of the tragedy of being last one left. Maybe there were no tourists queuing up to see her the day that you were there, but she gets plenty of people queuing up to see her: linguists, anthropologists, politicians and, yes, curious tourists come to see, as you put it, this "old woman who lived in a nearby village who was the only person left in the world who spoke the dying out indigenous language of Yaghan." It's not some academic thing, this indigenous language of Yagán, it is the language of her childhood and her people.
She is not interested in all of these strangers coming to her. And she doesn't feel that she owes anyone her audience.
She and her family live in poverty. They have little opportunity to earn any money, and the Chilean government has stripped the Yagán of their traditional rights to use resources on their land. Her sons are not permitted to collect bark to make traditional canoes and, even if they were, they are not allowed to paddle in their people's traditional waters without a permit anyway. Last I was there, there was talk of the government authorizing permits for companies to mine the peat bogs where the reeds they collect for basket weaving grow. I don't know if that went ahead or not.
She has had so many people who come because they want something from her: linguists and anthropologists want information, journalists want interviews, tourists want photos, they all want her time. She is really not interested in it - and few of them ever give her or her community anything back in any way. That's why she charges money for her time. She is an old woman with a sadness so deep that I don't think any human on our planet can imagine. She is not interested in talking to strangers about it, or being gawked at. She names her price - and usually it is quite high because she just doesn't want to do it - and the visitors can decide whether they want to meet her on her terms or not.
I will add how I got to know Cristina and her family. I am a writer and photographer who is very interested in indigenous rights. In a visit to Puerto Williams, I became friends with Cristina Zárraga, granddaughter of Cristina Calderón. I was interested in the work that she was doing with her grandmother - recording as much as she could of her knowledge and about the language, and also working to teach Yagán language that she was only just learning to children in Ukika. She was interested in my connections to other indigenous peoples working at similar aims around the world, and the knowledge I could offer her.
I was, of course, very interested in meeting Cristina Calderón, but I was also conscious, from what native friends of mine elsewhere have told me, of this tendency of people to come in from outside - well intentioned, yes, but with not a clue of what really is happening in these native communities, where people often live in dire poverty and where their culture and language are struggling for mere survival - people coming and only asking, asking, asking. I wanted to come, in a position where I could ask but I could also give. I offered to translate the book that they were working on, "Hai kur mamashu shis", to English. It was a lot of my time, and for no pay of course, but at least it was something that I could give that I knew would have value to them.
Cristina Calderón was so kind to me for the weeks that I stayed in her home. She taught me to weave baskets, we stripped bark and collected reeds, and we chatted around the fire at night. They shared their meals with me some nights, and other nights I went out and bought groceries and cooked for the entire extended family. She is a lovely and kind woman. I am sorry that your experience with her was not what you had hoped for, but I hope that you have a better understanding now of why.
Jacqueline Windh, Canada
well, i'd like to inform you the origin of the Moai statue and how could it placed there.
the history began when polinesian people discovered the Easter Island.when they arrived, the island was full of plants, animals, just like heaven. As the polynesians lived peacefully, they began to show how sophisticated their civilization was. so, they carved many stones and cutted many trees around the island.
the conclusion is that the Moai origin was from the polynesians people who wanted to show how great they were.
Alice OH ALICE Alice Springs, you either love it or hate it. Visit the place and see which category you fit into to. Exploring anywhere is better than not exploring at all
poor management In the rainy season,It may be creat more problem,Due to the cause of stagnent condition of water inside the cave,therefore we move toward improvement it through the drainage of water through the outside of cave.THANKYOU.
tonya
non-member comment
do you recall the name? or location? headed there in a few weeks. thanks!