It was almost show time, and the costumed students were running in and out of the Gnoozhekaaning Community Center on the Bay Mills Indian reservation and rehearsing their lines. Joan Jerman, Deborah Pine, Teresa Magnuson, Lindsay McPherson, Effie Abel and Jill Cadreau stood a few feet away in a small group, coaching each other and laughing as they struggled to pronounce the lines. It's an important responsibility.
Language is what holds the culture together.
The audience of about 70 people, many of them fluent Ojibwe speakers and elders, showed their approval with loud applause. What the students are doing here is getting it back.