the Watson Conference on Rhetoric and Composition: Reawakening: Reclaiming Chatino Prayers and Political Speech will be held on March 7 - 9, 2024 at University of Louisville. Speakers of the Chatino language in Oaxaca, Mexico, perform prayers and speeches—composed with parallelism, repetition, and metonymy, typical patterns of pre-Columbian poetic traditions—in all aspects of daily life. The performance and transmission of these art forms is quickly declining due to migration of youth to Mexican and US cities and because public schools in the region only teach Spanish. Twelve of these prayers were published by anthropologist Carmen Cordero Avendaño de Durand in her 1986 book, “Stina Jo’o Kucha (Our Sacred Father Sun).” The Chatino texts were presented in blocks of texts, written by hand in an orthography that contemporary Chatinos cannot read. Chatino language activists, faculty, and students will come together to translate these Chatino prayers into English and Spanish so that Chatinos can incorporate them in their daily rituals as well as allowing larger society a window to these magnificent oral traditions.

More information: https://louisville.edu/conference/watson/2024-watson-conference/projects/reawakening