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The
song is featured in the final scene of the Oscar best-picture
nominee “Killers of the Flower Moon,” a drama directed by Martin
Scorsese and starring Indigenous actor Lily Gladstone and Oscar
winner Leonardo DiCaprio.
“The song itself is telling our people to get up,” George, a
member of the Osage Nation, told Reuters during a rehearsal of
the Oscar-nominated song at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles.
"It's ‘Wahzhazhe no-zhin te-tha-bey,’ which means just ‘to stand
up,’ and then the next phrase is ‘Wa-kon-da they-tho gah-ka-bey,'
which means 'God made it for us,'” he added.
For George and others in the Osage tribe, the performance of the
song before millions Oscar viewers on TV will remind everyone
that their people still exist.
“We still have what we've always had for thousands of years.
It's sitting here and here it is in front of you," he said.
“Wahzhazhe” will be performed live by members of the Osage tribe
who will gather in a circle around a sacred drum.
George wants the audience to watch the performance with an open
mind.
“Most people, they don't hear our music. They hear the same
thing, and they think all of our songs sound the same,” he said.
“But if you'll train your ear for it, you'll know every one is
different.”
The song's title, “Wahzhazhe,” refers to the original name of
the Osage people before it was changed by French colonizers who
could not pronounce it.
Colonization also took a toll on the native Osage language,
which now barely survives.
"It's in an endangered state,” Vann Bighorse, an Osage performer
and cabinet minister for language, culture and education, said.
"We don't have any more fluent speakers, but we are working
towards fluency the best we can."
For the Osage people, the tradition of song helps keep the
language and culture alive.
"We're not doing any of this for ourselves. We just do it for
our love of our culture,” said one of the Osage singers, Angela
Satepauhoodle Toineeta.
(Reporting by Rollo Ross and Danielle Broadway in Los Angeles;
Editing by Mary Milliken and Matthew Lewis)
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