Last Catawba Speaker

The following is from Deborah Littlewing Moore, posted it to a Virginia Indians list, Virginia_First_Peoples@yahoogroups.com

There are two things I wish to post here:

First, a dear friend and mentor of mine was very close to Red Thunder Cloud. When times were hard, they took him in, gave him shelter, food and friendship. In 1996, this legacy, the last human link to the ancient language of the Catawba, passed on.

This was the obituary posted in his memory.

Red Thunder Cloud, a member of the Catawba Nation who was steeped in the history of the American Indians, died Monday in Worcester, Mass. He was the last human link to the ancient language of his people.

Thunder Cloud, who was 76, died in St. Vincent’s Hospital after a stroke, friends said Thunder Cloud was also know as Carlos Westez and lived in Northbridge, Mass. He was a storyteller and earned money from selling his own line of teas from herbs that he collected in the woods around his home.

“It’s always sad when the last living speaker of a language dies,” Carl Teeter, emeritus professor of linguistics at Harvard University, said on Friday. “There were once 500 languages in North America. About a hundred are still spoken, and half of them are spoken by older people.” Dr. Teeter said the Catawba language, like others, had died off because of prejudice. Not so long ago, he said, Americans who spoke Indian languages “weren’t treated too well.”

Dr. Teeter described Catawba, an oral language with no written form, as related to the Sioux family of languages. He said the similarity indicated that there may have been considerable movement among Indian tribes hundreds of years ago.

In the 1940’s, Thunder Cloud made a complete recording of all he knew of the Catawba language for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. About that time, he also recorded some ancient Catawba songs for the Smithsonian Institution. Derek Jordan of Putney, Vt., a friend of Thunder Cloud’s, recorded two albums of Catawba songs and legends by Thunder Cloud in 1990.

Mr. Jordan said Thunder Cloud had learned Catawba as a boy from his grandfather, Strong Eagle, and from tribal elders. Eventually, there were only two Catawba speakers left: Thunder Cloud and a woman, who died about 40 years ago.

Foxx Ayers of Columbia, S.C., a Catawba and friend of Thunder Cloud, recalled on Friday that he resisted his grandmother’s efforts to teach him the language because he feared he would be ridiculed. “I wish now that I’d learned,” said. Ayers, 71.

Mr. Ayers recalled one happy experiment with the language. One day years ago, he was visiting Thunder Cloud, who used to sell pottery made by Mr. Ayer’s wife, Sarah, who is also a Catawba. Mr. Ayers’s arms were full of pottery when he found his way blocked by Thunder Cloud’s dog. The dog responded only to commands in Catawba. So Ayers tried one phrase he had heard Thunder Cloud use (roughly “Swie hay, tanty,” or “Move, dog”), and the dog obeyed.

Alice Kasakoff, a professor of anthropology at the University of South Carolina, said the conversion of many Catawbas after visits by Mormon missionaries to their enclave in South Carolina may have hastened the decline of the Indian language.

Estimates of the number of living Catabaws range from several hundred to more than 1,000. The nation’s headquarters is in Rock Hill, S.C.

In its scarcity of close relationships, Thunder Cloud’s life seemed to foreshadow the passing of the language only he spoke. Mr. Ayers said he recalled that Thunder Cloud was married for a time to a Blackfeet woman, but that the union dissolved.

Lenora Pena of Center Falls, R.I., who described herself as Thunder Cloud’s closest friend, said he prayed each night in Catawba.

Thunder Cloud left no known survivors. Ms. Pena said that Thunder Cloud had a sister but that they had lost track of each other many years ago.

Secondly, this is a story written by Red Thuder Cloud. The bow and arrow target range he mentions below was run with my dear friend, who is mentioned in the first part of this letter.

Here’s some VA history for ya…….

As children we were told to never mention anything we heard about

being Indian outside of the house.

Indian people came to visit but always sat in the kitchen with the door

closed and whispered as we streached our ears to hear.

Twice a year my grandfather loaded up the car with newspapers, clothing,

pots & pans wire and light bulbs as he installed the first electricity

and wiring and we went to Virginia to visit relatives, spread out from

Port Royal to Champlain to Warsaw.

He always carried fishing tackle and would tell my grandma to get some

corn meal ready for a fish fry, as he and my uncles were going after a

mess of Norfolk spots.

She would say, ” Take the boy” for she knew how badly I wanted to go.

He’d say, No can’t take him, we might have to run!

Rights to fish the Rappahannok River were taken from Indian People until

1981.

Word got arround that we had come. In the evening there was something

in the air. We dressed up and sat on a long bench until it got dark.

when my grandma thought it time we walked to the road and stood there

until it was dark.

We could hear a truck comming with no lights and my grandma would signal

with a flash light.

we would all pile on a truck full of new cut hay and people we could not

see,

By flashlight we met aunt so and so, cousin Ruby, uncle Jack, and so

forth.

The truck rumbbled on in the darkness to someones barn and we entered in

silence because it was illegal for Indian people to assemble more than

six at a time in Virginia.

Inside there were kerosine lanterns and the women all sat on one side.

the men on the other and all of the kids in the center.

There was no drum and everyone whispered.

This was a Gathering and the women greeted each other , took out sewing

and scowled at the kids when we got too loud !

The men smoked , told jokes that only they understood and prayed for

better times.

Before extinguishing the lights we were called to silence and a prayer

was offered,

Slowly the trucks left and we went home quietly under a big fat moon

with the hope of seeing everyone next year and with new addresses to

write to.

This was before I heard Of Powwow, and the gatherings were called

Boulays.

I went to Boulays at Shinnecock, we hid tipi poles in the state forest,

stripped bark from the old birch trees, crumbled it in baggies and

sold, “Princess Snow Flowers Black Birch Tea “,

We also ran a bow and arrow target range, the only Indian enterprise at

Coney Island, Brooklyn NY.