Posoh Mawanew Weyak means ‘hello everyone’ in the language of the Menominee tribe of Wisconsin.Unfortunately, there are only a handful of people today that still speak the language fluently.Teacher and tribal chairman John Teller has made it his life’s work to revive the language and make sure that his people can say more than the basics.Mr Teller will deliver the Colin Horsfield Lecture for Amnesty International Bermuda on Wednesday.He currently teaches in a tribal community college in Wisconsin. While here, he will speak about the history of the Menominee tribe and give an overview of the 2007 United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The declaration details their right to health care and education as well as their right to maintain their own culture, identity and language. It attempts to prohibit discrimination against indigenous people and promotes their right to a say in all matters that concern them.“It is a document that internationally recognises that indigenous people want self-determination in their economy, government, and the right to practise a way of life without interference,” said Mr Teller. “It includes the right to practise religion and spiritual ways.”The United States, along with the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, refused to sign the declaration in 2007. They have all now reversed that decision. President Barack Obama signed it last year.Over the last 200 years those basic rights had not been a given for the Menominee and other Native American tribes and nations. For example, in the 1950s the American government attempted to eliminate the Menominee tribe with the Menominee Termination Act. The act removed federal recognition of the tribe and threatened to deprive Menominee people of their cultural identity. Fortunately, after a long and bitter struggle, the tribe won back its federal recognition in 1973 with the passage of the Menominee Restoration Act. In 1978 the US government passed the Indian Freedom of Religion Act to ensure that indigenous people could practise their traditional life ways without interruption.The Menominee tribe has lived in the area that is now Wisconsin for 15,000 years. This is miraculous considering that they survived the tail end of the Ice Age, European invasion, disease, and the Indian Removal Act of 1830 that forced more than 46,000 Native Americans to move westward from their lands to make way for white settlement of the south. So many people died in forced marches across the United States that these removals have been called an attempt at genocide. The Menominee, through negotiation with the American government, avoided being moved from their land, but various treaties and acts cut their land from ten million acres to around 230,000 acres today. The tribe currently has more than 8,000 members, but their native language struggles for survival.“Menominee is a disappearing language,” said Mr Teller, a professor at the College of the Menominee Nation. “I have devoted 30 years to language revitalisation. Today, we have about 12 native speakers that are fluent in the language. They are all 75 years old and up. We have about 100 near-fluent speakers such as myself .”The good news is that thanks to education programmes, there are hundreds of people who have been exposed to the language and keep making steps towards total fluency. “We don’t yet have school immersion programmes,” he said. “Right now, 90 percent of education is in English. Maybe ten percent of the native language is in the classroom. One of the goals of our tribe is to establish a Menominee language immersion school.“It is a very sad occasion to realise that the last of the native speakers will all be gone in ten years or so. But I think we have done a good enough job that the language will go on. Older people come in and act as a resource. Sometimes they are in the classroom to assist the teacher to make sure the students are saying the words correctly. They help us with developing a curriculum.”Amnesty International is a charity that advocates human rights all over the world. In 1999, Amnesty International became involved in the case of prisoner Leonard Peltier, an Anishinabe-Lakota Indian, who was given two life sentences for killing two Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents in 1977. He was the leader of the American Indian Movement which was seeking to uphold Native American rights. Amnesty did not adopt him as a prisoner of conscience, but questioned the fairness of the proceedings leading to his conviction. It was believed that political factors could have influenced the way the case was prosecuted. In 2009, Amnesty lost a campaign to get Mr Peltier released on parole after more than 30 years in prison.“It was an international case that garnered international support,” said Mr Teller.Wednesday’s lecture will take place in Hallett Hall at the Bermuda College from 6pm to 7pm. The event is $5 for Amnesty International members and students, and$10 for non-members. Tickets can be purchased at www.bdatix.bm or at the door.