The spirit within Indigenous languages is shared through generations by the language of the land. This research works with Indigenous communities to find patterns of actions that had traumatic impacts on language loss and disconnection to the spirit of the language and land, and provides community-identified resources for healing from that disconnect. This research provides an academic resource for nêhiyawak and other Indigenous Peoples to assert sovereignty over their own Indigenous language learning and community building in ceremony and healing in a self-determined and community-based way. 

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As with most Indigenous-led research, this work is conducted in ceremony, community visits, and sharing circles with Elders and community members. Those collaborating with us in the sharing circles and community visits spoke towards land-based Indigenous learning pedagogies, various sharing and learning methods as a part of living the language, and conducting the work through ceremony. These community conversations also identified the holistic worldview of the language as being from and of the land, therefore of its own spirit. 

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These discussions also identified problems of previous research around Indigenous communities and languages, intellectual ownership of conversations shared, hesitations around institutional involvement, and the historical and ongoing consequences of colonization, capitalism, and residential schooling — as each affects Indigenous relationships with the language, land, and ancestral governance and kinship systems.