Winnebago Tribe incorporates language into billboards and public signs on reservation

Friday, March 8, 2019

By Kevin Abourezk

If all goes as planned, this time next year the Winnebago Reservation will look a lot different.

An indigenous language program is planning to transform many of the billboards and public signs in the northeast Nebraska community to incorporate HoChunk language.

The HoChunk Renaissance program is even planning to host an Easter egg hunt and baseball tournament this spring that will be infused with tribal language.

“It’s pretty awesome that we’re collaborating a lot as a community with these activities,” said Bleu St. Cyr, director of HoChunk Renaissance.

Bleu St. Cyr serves as director for the HoChunk Renaissance program. Courtesy photo

He said the theme of these spring and summer activities is the United Nations’ declaration of 2019 as the Year of Indigenous Languages. The 2016 declaration was meant to raise awareness of the fact that 40 percent of the world’s nearly 6,700 languages are endangered, and most of those languages belong to indigenous people.

St. Cyr said HoChunk Renaissance decided to use the U.N. declaration as the inspiration for a series of events and classes to motivate Winnebago tribal citizens to learn their Native language.

While HoChunk Renaissance plans to provide specific times for events closer to the date of the events, some of the events being planned for this spring include:

• HoChunk language bingo: March 19, Blackhawk Community Center.

• “Cooking with Our Language”: March 21 and 27.

• Porcupine roach making workshop: March 23 and 30, Little Priest Tribal College (Hawk Building).

• Ribbon shirt making workshop: April 10 and 17, HoChunk Renaissance building.

• Drum group: Tuesdays in April, HoChunk Renaissance.

• Golden Egg Hunt: April 8-19, HoChunk Renaissance.

Other events being planned for this spring can be found at: hochunklanguage.com.

This fall, the tribal program plans to host a green corn dance in an attempt to revive the ancient custom that typically heralded the fall harvest, St. Cyr said.

HoChunk Renaissance also plans to add tribal language to community and government buildings in Winnebago and even plans to include labels around food items within the tribe’s convenience stores.

And the tribal program plans to replace some stop signs within the community with signs that will be identical to regular stop signs but will feature the HoChunk word for stop, “hiyusa re.”

“It’s definitely a longer word, but it fits on there,” he said.