Ancient Native Tongues - Endangered forms of artistic expression
First Nations Art
our ancestors learned from very early times to pass different messages to others related to their daily experience through plays, tales, fables, skits, poetry, songs lullabies, by whistling, humming, laughing and crying.
The form in which oral communication has taken place in any given society is known in some linguistics field as “a channelâ€. People have utilized this sophisticated channel since a slow evolutionary process permitted the human larynx to descend into the throat, and all of a sudden we discovered we had vocal cords and learned to make sounds. Speech became from that time on an art form.
Many aboriginal groups have communicated messages to members of their group through many forms of artistic expression as varied and unique as the environment in which they lived. The natural landscape surrounding them, their rituals, and the animals they considered sacred or sacrificed for sustenance, all of this, played an important role when interacting with others. When they drew murals on the walls of caves, the things that they depicted were other people, large animals, arrows, hunting expeditions and the things that hand the closest connection with their natural environment.
In a similar manner, our ancestors learned from very early times to pass different messages to others related to their daily experience through plays, tales, fables, skits, poetry, songs lullabies, by whistling, humming, laughing and crying.
Communication among some North American tribes was possible through the use of a drum that made other tribes aware of the arrival of unwanted intruders. When the enemy approached their camps, native men and women howled in unison their native cries in a savage, mournful manner with the purpose of frightening and chasing their nemesis away.
In all of Mesoamerica and the Central American region, several sophisticated languages were spoken millions of years before the arrival of the Europeans to the New World.
The Mayan Pueblos in Mexico and Guatemala continue to communicate today in their native languages. The Aztecs and Mayas along with the use of speech, were also fine artists, illustrators, writers, and scientists who invented a very elaborate calendar with which they observed important planetary movements and told them the best times for planting and harvesting their crops.
The native groups that lived in the Central American Isthmus spoke many different languages as well; one of the most important was the Chibchan Language. This widespread language was spoken in the northwest corner of South America (Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela) and southern part of Central America: Honduras, El Salvador, Costa Rica and Panama.
A subdivision of the Chibchan Language spoken in the southern region of Costa Rica was the Paya-Chibcha, divided into Paya, Votic and Magdalenic. The ethnic groups who communicated in this Chibchan subdivision were the Teribe, the Viceitic (Bribris and Cabecars), Boruca, Guaymic, Coracic and the Kuna of Panama. Unfortunately very few of these languages have been able to survive to present times.
Many Indigenous rituals performed today among surviving Indigenous groups feature songs, chants, mantras, prayers and some tergiversate phrases in a unusual tongue twisting manner. In both DÃa de los Negritos and Fiesta de los Diablitos celebrated by the Brunkas every December, their voice and language is disguised as part of their festivities. The players make a game of slurring their words or change phonetic emphases and the order of sentences, which is cause of much laugh and celebration.
In northern Costa Rica in the Guatuso region, traditional Malekus still maintain a close connection with their Creator, their land, the trees and forest animals. During their rituals, they give thanks for all of this in their own Chibchan-Maleku language. The Malekus lived in isolated territories in the great Guatuso savannas during the period of the Spanish colony and because of this reason; they were. Thanks to this as well, their language was able to survive and the people in the three Maleku communities in northern Costa Rica can communicate in the same way their ancestors did.