A Language Is Not Just A Body

Cultural Survival Is Not About Preservation, Sequestering Indigenous Peoples In Enclaves Like Some Sort Of Zoological Specimens. Change Itself Does Note Destroy A Culture. All Societies Are Constantly Evolving. Indeed A Culture Survives When It Has Enough Confidence In Its Past And Enough Say In Its Future To Maintain Its Spirit And Essence Through All The Changes It Will Inevitably Undergo.

We Accept It As Normal That People Who Have Never Been On The Land, Who Have No History Or Connection To The Country, May Legally Secure The Right To Come In And, By The Very Nature Of Their Enterprises, Leave In Their Wake A Cultural And Physical Landscape Utterly Transformed And Desecrated. What's More, In Granting Such Mining Concessions, Often Initially For Trivial Sums To Speculators From Distant Cities, Companies Cobbled Together With Less History Than My Dog, The Government Places No Cultural Or Market Value On The Land Itself.

What Could Be More Lonely Than To Be Enveloped In Silence, To Be The Last Of Your People To Speak Your Native Tongue, To Have No Way To Pass On The Wisdom Of The Elders, To Anticipate The Promise Of The Children. This Tragic Fate Is Indeed The Plight Of Someone Somewhere Roughly Every Two Weeks.

Change Is No Threat To Culture.

Risk Discomfort And Solitude For Understanding.