2023: Promoting Ecological and Linguistic Connections for Gayogo̱hó:nǫʔ People in Their Traditional Homelands
The overarching aim of this project is to host and teach a week-long Gayogo̱hó:nǫʔ Language Camp for up to 50 Gayogo̱hó:nǫʔ people from across the United States and Canada to achieve the following objectives: (1) transfer and assess critical Gayogo̱hó:nǫʔ geographic, agricultural, and climatic knowledge through Gayogo̱hó:nǫʔ language instruction to displaced Gayogo̱hó:nǫʔ people; (2) reintroduce dispersed Gayogo̱hó:nǫʔ people to their ancestral homelands while contextually grounding language acquisition; (3) gather perceptions from Gayogo̱hó:nǫʔ participants around future pathways for language, culture, and land-reclamation efforts. The camp will be hosted by the Ithaca-based Gayogo̱hó:nǫʔ Learning Project in collaboration with a Gayogo̱hó:nǫʔ historian and first language speaker, as well as an interdisciplinary team of Cornell scholars. Through this investment in the diverse knowledge base specific to this region, this work hopes to cultivate healthy relationships between Gayogo̱hó:nǫʔ people and their homelands and with non-Indigenous people of the Ithaca area.
Investigators: Josephine Martell (Cornell CALS/Office of Research Development), Troy Richardson (Cornell CALS/American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program), and John Whitman (Arts & Sciences/Linguistics), in collaboration with Stephen Henhawk (Cornell Research Associate, Lingustics and AIISP)