Catawbas revive heritage in own words (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

Catawbas revive heritage in own words

By Denyse Clark The Herald
http://www.heraldonline.com/local/story/4246875p-4039913c.html

[photo inset - Claudia Priest, linguist at the Catawba Cultural Center,
paints a sign Friday in preparation for today's Yap Ye Iswa festival.
The sign shows the Catawba word "wide-buye," which means live deer.]

(Published November 27‚ 2004)

CATAWBA INDIAN RESERVATION -- People know vaguely who the Catawbas are,
tribal officials say. But now, there's a spoken language to teach the
community how the Catawbas sound in their native tongue.

The annual Yap Ye Iswa festival will be today from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at
the reservation's Catawba Cultural Center.

This year's festival features the tribe's official language in words,
phrases, stories and songs. People can learn to count, greet friends
and talk about the weather, said Claudia Priest, the tribe's linguist.

"We're doing this to make people aware of the Catawba language," Priest
said. "It's a way to show what the language looked like and how it
sounded."

Priest painted a language sign Friday with the word "wide-buye,"
(pronounced weedah-bo-yae), meaning a live deer, and not the meat, she
said.

A display above the center's fireplace shows three ways to speak of
"smoke" in the Catawba language, Priest said. It includes the Catawba
word for chimney -- "suksuré" (pronounced sook-soor-ray), meaning
"smoke there is."

Displays throughout the cultural center show plants, animals, cooking
utensils and everyday life ways of the tribe.

The "At Home With The Catawba Language" display includes the words for
mother, yaksu (pronounced yauk-soo), and father, nane (pronounced
nah-nay).

Catawba Cultural Center executive director Wenonah Haire said the tribe
wants to get the language more in use rather than just in classes at
the cultural center.

"It's a language that hasn't been used," Haire said. "We've tried hard
to get it into the community."

Several Catawba language classes were held to help revive the use of the
language among the tribe, Haire said. But only a few tribal members
attended those sessions.

The language now is available on compact disc with a companion text for
$15, center officials say. The CD includes recordings of Catawba tribal
members and the tribe's linguist sharing numbers, phrases, children's
stories, poetry and much more. It is designed to teach ways to use the
language and not just how to say the words, Priest said.

Tribal officials also plan to apply for grants to expand the use of the
Catawba language in distance learning projects, Haire said.

"We want to take Catawbas out of a book and put their heritage into use
in everyday language," Haire said.

Denyse Clark • 329-4069
dclark at heraldonline.com