When my parents got the house in Hall Lake, we got our first family Christmas tree ourselves. We made our own decorations. My mother looked stressed out at the time because it was the first house that our family ever had. Until then, we had been living at my maternal grandparent’s house until I was about 8 years old. We lived in a cabin at Pesiw Lake but this was the first time we had a real house.
My mom – nimāmā, wanted to get to get a tree for Christmas like we did at my grandmother and grandfathers house. My dad – nipāpā, had been out line-cutting and would not be back until after Christmas. It was up to my mom to get the tree.
We got our tree but, we did not have many decorations. My mom received some leftover décor from my grandparents, so she cut up some of them and taped the golden strips onto our angel, which was just a cardboard cutout. She made the angel look beautiful. She was happy to see our delighted expressions as she held it up.
My siblings and I joined in to make a chain out of coloured construction paper and made ornaments out of paper cutouts. We did have tinsel and that added a sparkling look to our dismally bald tree.
nimāmā always did the best she could for us. She knew we were used to the big Christmas feasts we had at 101 Reserve and she tried her best to bring cheer to us. We were seemingly isolated from all the family we knew, and she had to do what she could.
The Christmas presents were already purchased while we were in La Ronge at kōmpanihk – The Bay. They were wrapped and not too well hidden. I tried peeking at what was inside them, but I couldn’t do it without ripping the paper. I tried telling by the weight of the present and by the feel of it. I couldn’t even guess what it was.
On a side note, I posted a question on what “kōmpanihk” means on La Ronge Cree Language Group and my friend James Eninew gave me the answer. It means “At the company” in Creenglish (Cree and English mixed together). Thank you James.
nikāwiy – my mother
nimāmā – my mother (the way most of us say it in La Ronge)
nohtāwiy – my father
nipāpā – my father (the way most of us say it in La Ronge)
I decided to purchase what I thought would be an upgrade for my audio recording device. Below is a comparison of both audio devices.
First, is my old mic that I have been using for most of the year 2019, the SF-666. My settings for the device are shown below when I used my Audacity app:
Click to see larger image.
I used an excerpt from one of my stories, Blue Dress:
In a dream, Kristina is holding a birch bark basket, standing at the landing of a beautiful river, much like the one close to her school but with no roads or houses on the side.
My new microphone, the BM-700, used the same settings, however I had to amplify the audio to hear the sound clearly.
Click to see larger image.
I used the same excerpt from one of my stories, Blue Dress:
In a dream, Kristina is holding a birch bark basket, standing at the landing of a beautiful river, much like the one close to her school but with no roads or houses on the side.
I am not a professional sound man, but I think the old mic sounds better than my new mic. It is an extra step for me to amplify the audio for the new mic. I do not have to make adjustments for the old mic unless I have to crop out sound from the beginning or end.
The ads by Amazon are products that are very similar to the devices I am comparing. The old one I use is no longer available and the new one is not listed at this time.
I am sure that there are better options, however, I may stick to my old mic for now and hang on to my new mic in case something happens to the old one.
What do you think of the devices recordings? Please comment on the Facebook post.
On a side note, some of my recording was interrupted by my niece’s cell phone alarm. She wanted me to fix it because her screen is blank but the audio still works. Anyway, here is one of the interruptions from her annoying alarm:
Unfortunately, I am not going to able to fix her cell, she will have to get another one.
I refer to many sources for my website articles. Without these sources, I would be spending enormous amounts of time completing my blogs about Cree. As a semi-fluent speaker, writer, and reader of Woodland Cree, the following sources are invaluable to me.
In my workplace, I have been tasked to train with the web developer and provide revisions and updates. I am currently in training, it is a tech that I am not entirely familiar with. I will keep you posted.
This is an awesome website, it is updated regularly and shared on many relevant Cree language Facebook pages. The promotion of our beautiful language is very well presented and I love our friends from the Cree Literacy Network. Check it out yourself for the video, audio, and text.
I came across this website in 2019 when I was looking for sources. There are many variations of Cree words in the linguistics column search. I use it extensively to this day.
The following websites do not translate or interpret Cree words in any way, however, they can convert SRO to syllabics.
I have not used this website for a long time. Apparently, the audio is based on an Adobe Flash plugin whichis obsolete. Hopefully, they find the resources to replace all the Flash files and insert simple audio files.
Please feel free to share your sources as well, whether it’s a book, Elders, or other online sources.
Regarding SRO to Syllabic converters – I have used them extensively at my workplace and they are real-time savers. Copy and Paste and you are good to go. Please take your time to cross-reference with a chart if you are doing syllabics for a project. I found a glitch here and there (I contacted their support techs). I hope you will find them useful.
The term, more or less means, that there is space or room.
The first memory I have of the word was when I was a boy, maybe about 5 or 6. My uncle Tony, yelled out “tawāw,” when somebody was knocking at the door.
When my parents got the house in Hall Lake, we got our first family Christmas tree ourselves. We made our own decorations. My mother looked stressed out at the time because it was the first house that our family ever had. Until then, we had been living at my maternal grandparent’s house until I was about 8 years old. We lived in a cabin at Pesiw Lake but this was the first time we had a real house.
My mom – nimāmā, wanted to get to get a tree for Christmas like we did at my grandmother and grandfathers house. My dad – nipāpā, had been out line-cutting and would not be back until after Christmas. It was up to my mom to get the tree.
We got our tree but, we did not have many decorations. My mom received some leftover décor from my grandparents, so she cut up some of them and taped the golden strips onto our angel, which was just a cardboard cutout. She made the angel look beautiful. She was happy to see our delighted expressions as she held it up.
nimāmā always did the best she could for us. She knew we were used to the big Christmas feasts we had at 101 Reserve and she tried her best to bring cheer to us. We were seemingly isolated from all the family we knew, and she had to do what she could.
white – wāpiskāw
