Refreshing Memories of the Cree Language

Horace Daychief with his Cree languge notebook.

     Horace Daychief has been leading Cree language classes in the Downtown Eastside community for the past four years.  He says that he enjoys teaching these classes, held at Life Skills on Cordova St. across from Oppenheimer park, because he’s good at it and he likes saying the Cree words over and over again. Horace also enjoys teaching the language  because he’s a fluent speaker.

    Growing up in Alberta, Horace learned from his mother (who was a kindergarten teacher) and Elders how to speak his Cree language. His Elders also taught him how to hunt and tan hides.  Horace is proud that he comes from a family of good hunters. 

    In 2007, Horace made the journey from his home in Alberta to  Vancouver on foot.  After arriving in Vancouver, he began studying for his GED with Wendy Henderson at the Union Gospel Mission. Horace explains that he respects Wendy as both a strong woman and teacher; unsurprisingly then, the Cree name he uses for her can be translated into English as iron.

    How does Horace structure his Cree classes? At the start, he begins with a smudging. He then asks  his students, who are both Cree and non-Cree, what they want to know. “I do what’s going on in their lives,” he says. Once, one of his students was going camping and he jokingly told her to watch out for missi monous, which means cougars or ‘big cat’ in Cree.  Another time, it was lightly raining outside and he taught the class gimm moo a sin, meaning ‘little showers’.  On cold days, he tells his students to dress warm, or spug see who. This was something his own mother would often say to him when he was growing up. (The Cree transliterations have been provided by Horace: “You’ve got to spell it like you say it”, he explains).

    Over the years, Horace has seen some of his students advance from using single words in the Cree language to speaking in sentences.  “Being in my class brings back their language, it  refreshes their memory. I help to bring it back and it makes them happy.”  Horace helps his students to learn the language by telling them Cree stories. He also brings to class his notebooks in which he has written down a large collection of Cree words and phrases. He says that the words often come to him at 2 or 3 in the morning when he’s alone, and he feels compelled to write them down.  So far, Horace has filled five notebooks with Cree words and expressions.

    Since coming to Vancouver, Horace does not often have the opportunity to speak Cree with others in conversation. However, he still speaks in Cree with his family back in Alberta  when they talk over the phone.  “I’ll  never forget Cree,” Horace reflects. “It will always be here.”