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Reflections on the summer of 1969.

Article Excerpt
This paper is based on the fieldwork I did on the Chemehuevi language during the summer of 1969 on the Colorado River Indian Tribes Reservation near Parker, Arizona. To the best of my knowledge, prior to 1969, there had not been any published research on the Chemehuevi language. (1) Subsequently, two publications of Chemehuevi that include phonology have appeared (Laird 1976; Press 1979).

According to Press (1979), the Chemehuevi reside in the eastern areas of San Bernardino and Riverside counties of California, as well as near Parker, Arizona, on the Colorado River Indian Tribes Reservation, where I did my research. Chemehuevi is part of the Southern Numic languages and is closely related to Southern Paiute, briefly described by Sapir (1930).

When I arrived in Parker in mid-July 1969, it was a typical summer day, the temperature hovering around 120 degrees. I managed to rent a trailer with an evaporative cooler (swamp cooler), which kept the room temperature at about 95. My first concern was to find a Chemehuevi who spoke Chemehuevi (there did not seem to be many) and who was willing to work with me. This proved to be no easy task. The only speakers I could find were mostly more than sixty years old, and the first few I spoke to politely refused to work with me. I pointed out that the Chemehuevi language would be lost if someone did not record it, since the only living speakers were past middle age and the children were not learning it. I would record, transcribe, and analyze Chemehuevi; my tapes and resulting paper would then live in the reservation museum for future generations. However, my arguments did not convince them. George Fisher, a middle-aged Chemehuevi I met soon after my arrival, was very friendly to me and we became casual friends. He seemed interested that I was going to study Chemehuevi. I visited him several times before asking him if he would be willing to work with me. He then pointed to his head and said, "Chemehuevi stays right here." End of conversation.

When I met Bessy Waco, who was in her sixties, she seemed surprised and intrigued that I wanted to learn Chemehuevi, since as a child she had been beaten in Indian school when she spoke Chemehuevi. When I told her that my work would be permanently stored in the museum, she became interested in working with me. My daily meetings with her, with her granddaughters playing around us, proved to be very enjoyable. While we were working, Mrs. Waco wove beautiful baskets (which I wished I could have afforded to buy), made from sayass 'willow.' When I made the recordings, we had to turn off the swamp cooler because of the noise. This made working conditions a bit hot.

Mrs. Waco's granddaughters (ages about 6 and 8) found it strange that a white man was learning "their" language--though Chemehuevi was a language that neither they nor their parents spoke....

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