The country, which has 6.8 million “native” Americans – 2% of the population – celebrated this second “National Day of Indigenous Peoples” on October 10, proclaimed Friday by a decree by Joe Biden, after a decision unpublished from the Democratic president in October 2021.

This new American holiday now corresponds to "Columbus Day", a holiday increasingly ridiculed by the anti-colonialist left, defender of minorities and who wants to unbolt the statue of the Genoese navigator Christopher Columbus, "discoverer" of America on October 12 1492.

powwow

In New York and Newton, Massachusetts, hundreds of descendants marked October 10 with ceremonies, prayers, dances and pow-wows in a festive atmosphere.

Women and men of the Shinnecock Indian Nation of Long Island, a spit of land east of New York, gathered at sunrise with breathtaking views of the megalopolis and gathered on a beach on Randall's Island, an island in the East River wedged between Manhattan and Queens.

Further north on the Atlantic coast, in New England where the first English pilgrims were welcomed in 1620 by Wampanoag Indians, many Native Americans from the United States and the Caribbean also met to dance, sing, pray, dialogue and eat.

Members of the Wampanoag Native American tribe dance during a ceremony to mark "Indigenous Peoples Day" on October 10, 2022 in Newton, Massachusetts Joseph Prezioso AFP

While their ancestors were decimated by centuries of colonization, their descendants today express the anguish of seeing their languages ​​swallowed up by English and Spanish in one generation.

"21st Century Invasion"

"It's really possible, it's the invasion of the 21st century", breathes AFP Anthony Sean Stanton, 64, chief of the Narragansett tribe, who "encourages all indigenous peoples to cling to what 'they have because once (the language) is lost, it is lost forever".

In the center of the country, the Lakota, of the Sioux group, established in North Dakota and South Dakota, also fear the disappearance of their language spoken by 1,500 speakers against 5,000 twenty years ago, underline in a video interview with the AFP linguists and activists Wilhelm Meya and Travis Condon.

"For the Lakota and most (Native American) communities in the United States, language transmission stopped in the mid-1980s," says Mr. Meya, president of The Language Conservancy (TLC), an organization in Indiana which fights for the preservation of thousands of languages ​​and dialects.

Chenae Bullock, of the Shinnecock Indian Nation marks with a religious gesture the "Day of Indigenous Peoples" on October 10, 2022 in New York Yuki IWAMURA AFP

"When a language does not develop, does not reproduce (...) it has reached a peak, it begins to decline because it is not renewed by other speakers", worries the expert. , whose association "is trying to prevent a complete collapse of indigenous languages ​​in North America".

"90% of languages ​​will disappear"

According to TLC, "of the 7,000 languages ​​spoken in the world, 2,900 are endangered. At this rate, nearly 90% of all languages ​​will be extinct in the next 100 years".

And the Amerindian languages ​​"are dying out at an even faster rate with more than 200 already eradicated" out of the 400 to 500 once spoken from the Atlantic to the Pacific, before the arrival of Europeans.

Native Americans gather in New York on October 10, 2022 to mark "Indigenous Peoples Day" Yuki IWAMURA AFP

To stop the bleeding, we must “teach our Amerindian languages ​​in public” schools, which “the federal government authorized from the 1970s”, recalls Mr. Meya.

He also campaigns for "making dictionaries, training teachers, developing teaching materials, translating cartoons and documentaries (...) everything that can affect young people who are very thirsty to learn their language".

"Part of what I am"

Like Miya Peters, an 18-year-old Wampanoag who is learning her language through a partnership between her tribal school and her public school.

"I like it, it's difficult and very different, but it's part of who I am," says the young woman.

Undated photo of educator, artist and Native American Lakota language advocate from the Sioux group, Kevin Locke, who died on September 30, 2022 - The Language Conservancy/AFP

Mr. Meya points out that "the federal government has taken 100 years and billions of dollars to eradicate Native American languages ​​through the school system" in the United States.

"It will take the same resources to revive these native languages ​​in North America. It's much harder to create than to destroy."

MM.

Meya and Condon want to continue the work of a renowned personality in the United States and abroad of Native American culture: Kevin Locke, ardent defender of his Lakota language, "fighter for his tribe, ambassador for humanity", flutist, hoop dancer, educator and storyteller who died suddenly on September 30, at age 68.

© 2022 AFP