By Monique Balas
Green Bay News-Chronicle
Her Oneida name is "She Remembers."
A more fitting name for Oneida Nation elder Maria Hinton would be hard to find, for it is thanks to Hinton that the Oneidas can remember, too: Their stories, their language, their culture.
One of only 20 remaining native-speaking elders in the Oneida Nation ("Maybe less, maybe less," she mused as she thought about those who have since passed), Hinton, 93, spoke recently about what it means to learn those things that need to be remembered.
"Oneida language is culture. It's just our way," she said. "It all goes together. You don't say, 'I'm teaching your culture,' you're teaching the language. That's the way I feel."
Prim but with plenty of spunk, the Oneida matriarch was raised by her grandmother and didn't learn English until she was 10. "She remembers" were the instructional words Hinton's grandmother would say when Hinton was supposed to be learning.
"When I was growing up, and my grandmother used to teach me things, she didn't say, 'Now, this is culture, now this is the language.' She just taught me."
So it was an odd twist of fate that Hinton would be named "She Remembers" in Canada, at the age of 46.
Over the next 40 years, Hinton would grow into that name and make it her own.
When a movement in the 1970s for Oneidas to get back in touch with their linguistic roots starting from the elementary-school level, Hinton would find herself being asked to help.
"Because my brother and I were native speakers, well, then they put their attention on us," Hinton said.
So in 1973, at the age of 63, the former teacher thought nothing of going back school to pursue her bachelor's degree in linguistics through the University of Wisconsin System (she spent two years in Milwaukee before coming to Green Bay to receive her degree at UWGB in 1979).
That's how she ended up becoming one of the founders and first teachers at the Oneida Nation Turtle Elementary School, one of 185 Bureau of Indian Affairs-funded schools nationwide that integrates native American language and culture into the primary school curriculum, said Sheri Mousseau, school administrator of the Oneida Nation School System.
When they opened the school in 1980, Hinton taught language and culture to kindergartners and spent some time teaching middle-schoolers as well; the Turtle School serves children from kindergarten through eighth grade. Hinton also spent time as a language curriculum developer at the school, where she taught the Oneida language to teachers.
"A lot of us look to her as a role model and mentor," said Mousseau, who taught special education in the classroom next to Hinton's and has known her for more than 20 years.
"With her determination and willingness to mentor, to unconditionally provide support for anyone who wanted to learn, it's like the passion that a teacher has for a classroom, she had that passion for teaching her craft, teaching her language, the Oneida language."
Hinton's ability to remember was a key reason why she, along with her late brother, Amos Christjohn, was a natural person to ask when the Oneida Grants Office offered $18,000 for the compilation of an Oneida dictionary.
The dictionary is one of the Oneida's most tangible representations to keep the language alive and a valuable tool for linguists.
Hinton and Christjohn worked daily over the course of two years to put the book together. Now sold at the Turtle School, the reference work is requested nationally and as far away as Russia.
In addition to the dictionary, Hinton has also put together several translations of Oneida short stories and is currently working on another. But for now, she has other concerns to keep her occupied.
Her 30-year-old great-grandson (she has 22 great-grandchildren in all) is expected to be coming back from Iraq later this month. He has been deployed there with the U.S. Army for nearly two years and Hinton is planning a big homecoming celebration at her home.
Although she wishes he weren't in the military, she said he wants to be there to help people who are less fortunate than he is.
"It makes you feel good to think he has that attitude," Hinton said.