Translator: Volume 05 of 08

Put on trial by her cultural leaders for not following the traditions and giving her no time to prepare her defense, Annjuhleesuh is glad that she had suspected something might happen and did her research ahead of time, but nothing could prepare her for the outcome. Encouraged to display her drawings at an art exposition, Reebehkuh is surprised at the results and the unexpected consequences.

A peek inside:

Annjuhleesuh struggles to not lash out angrily, “And you still haven’t answered the question. Which traditions? Which traditions define us as Dahmah?”

“One of them which you seem to have forgotten is that your elders are the cultural leaders and are to be respected.”

“I haven’t forgotten that. I’m trying to find our elders who can answer the simply question of which traditions define us as Dahmah. Only one elder has answered the question of what defines us as Dahmah and none of you could fully understand his answer.”

“And what was his answer?”

“His answer is that our language defines us as Dahmah. Through our language we can know our stories, our laws, and our history. Only by knowing our language can we know anything else about ourselves. Our language makes us unique. When Klara Sohkohlov, the lawyer who did the victim compensation case on our behalf, tried to have a statement written in our language translated into standard, none of the people whom she contacted could translate the statement and the company she works for deals with people from all over the world. She had to come back to us to get the statement translated into standard. I agree with Elder Banlohtee, our language sets us apart as Dahmah. What I don’t understand is how you can claim that we are a unique culture when most of our people don’t speak our language and fewer can even read our language.”

The leading elder says, “Our traditions hold us together even if we can’t speak the language.”

Annjuhleesuh looks directly at him and responds, “Even though those few traditions you’ve admitted to are in direct violation to the laws of Dahmah.”

After several moments of stunned silence, the leading elder asks, “Laws? What laws? The culture of the People is built on traditions that we as the elders have kept intact for generations.”

“Oh?” Walking over to where she was sitting, Annjuhleesuh picks up one of the culture’s bound documents, takes it back, and drops it with a thud onto the table where the elders are sitting and asks, “Then what’s this?”

They look at it for a moment before one of them says, “Good question. What is it?”

Annjuhleesuh can’t hide her surprise, “Can’t you read the title?”

The leading elder hesitates before he answers, “Something about the People.”

She stares at him and his fellow elders for awhile before she turns to the room and asks, “Can anybody read the title of this document and translate it into standard so that our leaders not familiar with our own language can know what is right in front of them?”

A few people hesitantly come up, look at the title, shake their heads and walk away. Sohneetuh comes up, looks at the title, and says, “The title reads, ‘The Laws Of The People’.”

The leading elder looks at her in surprise, “Laws? Are you sure, Mentor Sohneetuh?”

“Very sure.”

“Since when did we have laws?”

“Before they were set aside and ignored in favor of traditions and elder rule.”

“What do you mean?”

“Read our history.”

“Isn’t our history written in our ceremonial language?”

“Of course.”

The elders look at each other while they shake their heads. The leading elder half whispers, “We can’t read enough of our language to understand what is written in our history.”

Sohneetuh pauses to look at each of the elders before she says, “So, you don’t know the history of the People, you don’t know the language of the People, yet you claim to be elders of the People? And then you have the audacity of accusing my great niece of not following the traditions? You’re acting like overseers!”