Tututni (was...Re: A failure of communication)

[David Lewis]

Hi Henry,

Whether there were Tututni speakers at Grand Ronde...

You may be incorrect. There are currently people enrolled at Grand Ronde
that are Tolowa. There is a debate that Tututni and Tolowa are separate
dialects of the same athapaskan language. From my understanding, Tututni
and Tolowa are mutually intelligible and are basically the same language
except for some minor dialectical differences.  In my research at Smith
River Rancheria with Loren Bommelyn, I found that the Tolowa are
related  to the Tututni and had common shared ceremonies and resources in
some areas.  It would be best to get some Indian experts in on this. Bud
Lane at Siletz has been learning Tolowa for years and would be one of the
best people to contact about this.

So there may have been Tututni speakers at Grand Ronde and without further
information I would reserve my judgement.

Respectfully,
David Lewis

At 10:15 PM 12/2/2002 -0800, hzenk at PDX.EDU wrote:
>Quoting "David D. Robertson" <ddr11 at COLUMBIA.EDU>:
>
>
> > The latest issue I've received of the SSILA Newsletter (XXI:3 October 2002)
> > notes the language revival efforts of the Lower Rogue River Athabaskans or
> > Tututni.  They were one of the many groups removed to Grand Ronde about 150
> > years ago.  To briefly quote, "a few elders retain some knowledge of the
> > traditional language, and one of them, Gilbert Towner...this past summer,
> > spent two weeks near Agness on the Rogue River sharing Tututni with about a
> > dozen learners at a workshop...."
> >
>
>Slight factual adjustment to this:  No Tututni speakers were ever at Grand
>Ronde that I've heard of.  SW Oregon Athapaskan dialects constituted a
>majority
>language at Siletz, which means that Siletz had something that Grand Ronde
>lacked--a majority tribal language.  There were still Tututni speakers at
>Siletz at least into the 70s and 80s, I believe (I don't know the
>particulars).
>The "Rogue Rivers" of Grand Ronde spoke Takelma, one of those "Oregon
>Penutian"
>languages.  I've heard of some recent work debunking the grouping of Kalapuyan
>and Takelma into the same language family.  Anyone know anything about that?
>Henry


David G. Lewis, M.A.
Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde
Department of Anthropology
University of Oregon