ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, January 14, 1996 TAG: 9601150055
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: NEWS OBIT
SOURCE: DAVID STOUT THE NEW YORK TIMES
THE STORYTELLER took to the grave Catawba, an ancient language that died off because of prejudice.
Red Thunder Cloud, a member of the Catawba nation who was steeped in the history of American Indians, died Monday in Worcester, Mass., apparently taking to the grave the last human link to the ancient language of his people.
Thunder Cloud, 76, died in St. Vincent's Hospital after a stroke, according to friends.
Thunder Cloud was also known as Carlos Westez and lived in Northbridge, Mass. He was a singer, dancer and storyteller and earned money by 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,'' Dr. Carl Teeter, emeritus professor of linguistics at Harvard University, said Friday. ``There were once about 500 languages in North America. About a hundred are still spoken, and half of them are spoken by older people.''
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.''
Teeter described Catawba, a verbal 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 1940s, 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. Derrik Jordan of Putney, Vt., a friend of Thunder Cloud, recorded two albums of Catawba songs and legends by Thunder Cloud in 1990.
Jordan said Thunder Cloud had learned Catawba as a boy from his grandfather, Strong Eagle, and from tribal elders. Eventually, there were only two living 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 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, a retired painting contractor.
Ayers recalled one happy experiment with the language. One day years ago, he was visiting Thunder Cloud, who used to sell pottery made by Ayers's wife, Sarah, who is also a Catawba.
Ayers' 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 following 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 Catawbas 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.
Thunder Cloud left no known survivors.
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