Descendants of Sask. elders who made Plains Cree language recordings work to translate them

When Caroline Poorman, 77, listens to recordings her father made of oral stories in the Plains Cree language, memories flood back to her.

Poorman can hear the crackling of the woodstove, smell tea and cigarettes. She and her siblings are told to hush while her dad works a reel-to-reel tape machine.

Over 50 years later, she sits in the Touchwood Agency Tribal Council buildings near Punnichy, Sask., about 100 kilometres north of Regina, with five elders working to translate and transcribe those recordings into English.

"I walked into the building here and they were playing the tapes and I just stopped and I blurted out 'Hey, that's my dad,'" said Poorman.

"They were surprised that I recognized his voice."

Poorman, who is from Kawacatoose First Nation, said she never knew what happened to the recordings.

At the time, the Provincial Museum of Alberta (now the Royal Alberta Museum) in Edmonton was collecting artifacts and Poorman's dad Lawrence Tobacco made the suggestion of collecting recordings of oral stories. 

Bill Strongarm, a Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations senator from the Touchwood Agency Tribal Council, said he first heard about the recordings in the late 1980s. He remembers his Uncle John, a hereditary chief, was involved with the project.

He approached Andrew Miller, an associate professor at First Nations University in Regina, in 2020 for help and in 2021 they went to Edmonton along with other members of the community to take a look at artifacts at the museum and to get a better sense as to the recordings in its holdings.

Terry O'Riordan, audiovisual conservator with the Provincial Archives of Alberta, said they worked for a number of years to identify necessary steps and who they would need to speak to in order to get the right recordings to the right communities.

"In this case, we were fortunate enough that Professor Miller and Senator Strongarm were able to help us identify these for the community. They knew what they were looking for," said O'Riordan.

"We were really excited to be able to work with the communities in order to more fully appreciate the recordings and provide access back to the communities."

Strongarm said the elders in the recordings are speaking what is considered high Cree — which Miller compared to Shakespearean English. 

He said the elders are happy to be working on a project that retells stories like the Battle of the Big Belly River, which saw leaders like Piapot and Big Bear raid Blackfoot territory, and traditional ecological knowledge.

"I think one of the attractions for them is that they're hearing Cree spoken in a way that they don't hear anymore," Miller said.

"Nobody speaks this way anymore. Nobody uses these words anymore. So they're very excited."

Miller said there are 75 recordings with close to 100 stories, each of them being about 45 minutes in length, so it will take them into the next year to finish the work.

The value of language

Poorman said her dad always instilled the importance of the Plains Cree language and history.

"He taught us that in order for me to know my true identity, I must speak my language," said Poorman.

Poorman and her siblings were able to retain their language as their father always spoke it to them. She later taught Cree in Kawacatoose to elementary grades and said many children didn't know about ceremonies like giveaway dances, the horse dance or rain dances, but wanted to learn more.

She feels that is why her dad and the other men on the tapes shared these teachings in the recordings.

"For me to go back and finish what he has started, I feel proud, I feel humble," said Poorman.

"I feel like my dad … he'd be telling me 'I'm so proud of you, my girl.'"

Poorman said she is teaching her four-year-old granddaughter to speak Plains Cree and it makes her so happy to talk to her in the language. She also likes to get together with her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren to play games, using their language.

"I think in order for it to survive, the important thing is sharing what we all know," said Poorman.