View Four: Kutenai Text

This is a text written in the Kutenai language, and is part of the revitalization effort for the language. However, the text was not written by a Kutenai person; it was written by a French missionary. There are many Christian texts that are being saved as part of the effort to save the Kutenai language from extinction, yet there are very few texts that feature traditional Kutenai folklore or culture. There is a book, Kutenai Tales, written by Franz Boas, which features traditional Kutenai folklore. However, even these tales were handed from person to person before being written down in Kutenai and English. The lack of Kutenai writing that even can be preserved that was created by Kutenai people is a sad sign of how much Kutenai culture has been erased. However, these texts are still extremely valuable to the effort to revitalize the Kutenai language, despite their biases, and have certainly contributed to the creation of an online language database.