(view on the blog here: https://cerberus.bearblog.dev/smalgyax-who-am-i-naayut-nuuyu/)

like i mentioned in my kirby air riders post earlier this month, i feel sad that i've been writing less than i hoped i would be. but a lot has happened. some personal matters, some being bed-ridden sick - and i also was just... really busy! specifically, i was called to do more sm'algya̱x language work than i've ever done in a condensed period of time. in both clerical and interpersonal ways, i've been stepping up to provide more support to people for our collective understanding of sm'algya̱x grammar, which is very different from ḵ'a̱mksiwaamx and feels overwhelming to encounter, even for many longtime learners.

while i was busy with this, i heard from a few people i'd not met who haven't had the access to language i do. i was abruptly reminded of just how many other tsimshians want to know the language, but can only take advantage of sparse community courses, don't have the time or set-up to join classes and groups, or just haven't been clued in to the efforts that exist.

i am incredibly demand-averse, as a creature. i don't like being expected to know things, to represent, to be responsible for something. having thumbs is such a curse - if i had the real paws i was meant to, i would never be expected to hold anything. how nice would that be, to be expected to just be?

still, sometimes we are tapped to take on responsibilities. previously, i've mostly experienced expectation as an exercise in anxiety, a height to measure yourself against - and i'm quite short. reconnecting to my tsimshian/ts'msyen heritage and getting involved in language work has gifted me with another way to relate to expectation: as a function of being in a web of roles, strung together by kinship, a faith in our strengths, and a belief that we are all preciously important in this system. each person that joins us is valued. we all have something to offer.

i am so, incredibly, wildly fucking lucky to have the experience with language reclamation that i've had. the sma'lgya̱x sessions i've had in this general network are the most aggressively safe spaces i've ever been in, it would de-atomize internet edgelords on contact. i credit the time spent and the relationships built in this group with so much of the spiritual purpose and mental grounding i enjoy now. i have felt, for my entire life, a profoundly ingrained sense of being an observer. it was a thought that, while i technically "understood" as being untrue, i still couldn't reason with. i could behold and recognize connections and beauty in the world - but of course, it was better that i not touch it. it wasn't for me to try to transform with my clumsy claws or my unremarkable thoughts. the world is so delicate, too delicate for me. having that Torment Zorb torn into by people who felt that my knowledge, my viewpoint, was not only good to have but necessary to impart on people in the vulnerable position of being a student... it was humbling, but so confusing. how could i end up in a position like this? naayut 'nüüyu - who am i?

ts'msyenu. i am tsimshian. through a series of disconnects my family forgot this role, but i am speaking it back into existence. everything about how you relate to people changes when you are part of a system of discrete relations, instead of a formless smoke between nuclear families and places of business. in pre-colonial times, not having a sm'algya̱x name meant that you were no one. it was so unthinkable, you basically would have to just not exist, to not have a name - of course you're someone. it's like, a tautology that was actually real and applicable.^{1 2} this means people have a responsibility to you and you, yourself, have a role to play. it makes me see how unmoored general society is, how translucent my place in life, when i stray from this kinship space; how based the outside roots are in performance, in self-sculpting and suppression of expression. when i answer the call to sm'algya̱x, i don't... well, i do feel a Little scared. i want to make sure i get it right. but i don't feel judged. i feel encouraged. i feel acknowledged. who i am is valuable, and it matters.

as a kid, and also as a near-30-year-old, i couldn't imagine being an adult in an important position. how could i be trusted with anything necessary? all i have are these paws, and i've been told how they fail me, how they make me unreliable. i can never unhear those words. but i can be, just because i "am". i don't know if i'll ever feel like i deserve to step up, per se; for so long, anytime i thought i had a fresh viewpoint or had identified a new problem, i've held myself back because i thought i would know when i felt worthy to do it. but that sort of certainty seems to be the stuff of movies. i will simply do, i will do my best, and i deserve to have the chance.

'nii g̱a̱n diduulsa sm'algya̱x awil a̱p'aa'pa̱g̱m naat 'nüüm. that is the reason the real language (sm'algya̱x) lives - because we remember who we are. and wilaa naat 'nüüyu, knowing who i am, is not a superfluous act or something that is unimportant in the grand scheme of things, like i've told myself so often when thinking about how large the world's problems are; that i don't even deserve to approach the issue, that's how incapable i am. in reality, it's a deserving part of what needs to happen to address everything, everywhere. indigenous thinkers such as Kim Tallbear talk about making right relations, or being a good relative in the context of critiquing colonial heteropatriarchy. i have tried to see repairing your relationship with yourself as an extension of that. and in return, i've seen how that reframing reverberates out to others, too - without divulging, a class i taught this winter involved a couple moments of cathartic tears from attendees. that happened because i stepped up, because i pushed for it to go the way it did. in an instant, i went from observer to agent upon the world, transforming a small part of the people around me, alongside me, in the process. it is wild to think that i played a critical part in facilitating that space for them.

it's deeply weird, to have my personal struggles (a very Unimportant thing, to my mind) challenged by a collective movement like this (a very Important one, at that). but that discomfort is itself a symptom of what i deserve to have treated. just because i am. and that is all i am expected to be.

footnotes:

1. of course these days, there are plenty of tsimshians without sm'algya̱x names, and contemporarily that is caused by various effects of settler-colonialism and is not a reflection of our existence.↩

2. (also i hope i used tautology correctly here LOL)↩

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