Takelma Language Project

Thomas Doty - Storyteller, Author, Teacher

Takelma Language Project

Biographies

John Michael Greer — Co-Director

John Michael Greer is a writer and linguist whose published works include translations from Latin and Renaissance French. He lives in Ashland, Oregon.

Thomas Doty — Co-Director

Thomas Doty is a native storyteller, author and teacher. He lives at Dragonfly Place near Ashland in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon.

Agnes Baker-Pilgrim (Taowhywee) — Advisor

Agnes Baker-Pigrim is the oldest living Takelma. She is a spiritual leader, Keeper of the Sacred Salmon Ceremony and a member of the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers. She is the great-niece of Frances Johnson (Gwisgwashan) who was the main Takelma language, myth and culture source for the work of Sapir and Harrington. Grandma Aggie's parents, George and Evelyn Baker, as well as her brothers, accompanied Harrington on his 1933 visit to the southern Oregon homeland of the Takelma people.

Dr. John Medicine Horse Kelly (Clealls) — Advisor

Dr. John Medicine Horse Kelly, a Haida whose Aboriginal name is Clealls, has studied the Takelma language and culture extensively over the past 25 years. Dr. Kelly earned his doctorate at Oregon State University in 2000. Currently he is continuing his work with Aboriginal languages as the co-director of the Centre for Indigenous Research, Culture, Language and Education (CIRCLE) at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada

Frances Johnson (Gwisgwashan)

Frances Johnson was the sole source for Sapir and Harrington on the Lowland dialect of the Takelma language and the last fluent speaker. Her native village was Dak'ts!asin near Jumpoff Joe Creek, north of the Rogue River and slightly east of Grants Pass. She was a young girl during the Rogue River wars of the 1850s and walked the long Trail of Tears from her homeland to the Siletz Reservation on the Oregon coast. Her brother, George Harney, was the first chief at Siletz. Sapir visited her at Siletz in 1906 and collected stories and language material. In 1933, she accompanied Harrington on his trip to southern Oregon. Frances Johnson died in 1934.

Molly Orton

Molly Orton (sometimes called Molly Orcutt) was a Takelma from the Ashland area of southern Oregon and spoke the Upland dialect of the Takelma language. She was a language and culture source for Harrington and Drucker and claimed close kinship with Frances Johnson. After living at the Grand Ronde Reservation in northern Oregon, she and her husband Steve returned to her Rogue Valley homeland in the latter part of the 19th century. She witnessed the completion of the Oregon-California Railroad in Ashland in 1887 and lived for a time in a cabin near the Takelma village of Tilomikh. Here she was befriended by Old Man Walker ('Eymehet-kwat) who taught her the Sacred Salmon Ceremony traditions. In 1933, Molly Orton accompanied Harrington on his trip to southern Oregon.

Edward Sapir

Edward Sapir (1884-1939) was a brilliant linguist and ethnographer. In 1906, he visited the Siletz Reservation on the Oregon coast and interviewed Frances Johnson (Gwisgwashan). From her he collected cultural and linguistic material. A few years later he published Notes on the Takelma Indians of Southwestern Oregon, The Religious Ideas of the Takelma Indians of Southwestern Oregon and Takelma Texts, which included myths, customs and personal narratives, medicine formulas and a Takelma vocabulary. In 1922, Sapir published The Takelma Language of Southwestern Oregon.

John Peabody Harrington

John Peabody Harrington (1884-1961) was an eccentric and prolific linguist and ethnographer. During forty years of field work, he amassed thousands of pages of field notes on nearly every native linguistic group in North America, including Takelma. In 1933, Harrington made several trips to Siletz to collect Takelma cultural and linguistic material. That fall, accompanied by Frances Johnson (Gwisgwashan) and Molly Orton as well as Agnes Baker-Pilgrim's parents and brothers, Harrington drove to southern Oregon and visited places important in the Takelma culture. This resulted in hundreds of pages of field notes. Harrington worked mostly alone with little contact with his colleagues for fear they would pirate his work. His wife, Carobeth Laird, wrote a book about their seven years of marriage called, Encounter With an Angry God: Recollections of My Life with John Peabody Harrington.

Philip Drucker

Anthropologist Philip Drucker (1911-1982) worked with Molly Orton. In 1936, he published The Tolowa and Their Southwest Oregon Kin which included a short section on the Takelma people.

James Owen Dorsey

James Owen Dorsey (1848-1895) was an ethnologist and linguist. In 1884 he collected Takelma place names.

H. H. St. Clair

In 1903, linguist H. H. St. Clair visited the Siletz Reservation and collected notes on Takelma culture and language.

W. H. Barnhardt

In 1857, W. H. Barnhardt collected a comparative vocabulary list of Takelma words.

W. B. Hazen

In 1857, W. B. Hazen collected upper Rogue River vocabularies, including Takelma.

Dell Hymes

In his long career as a sociolinguist, anthropologist, and folklorist, Dell Hymes has worked extensively with the Takelma language. He is the author of Reading Takelma Texts and How to Talk Like a Bear in Takelma. Born in 1927, he lives with his wife in Virginia.

Daythal Kendall

Daythal Kendall is a professional linguist whose 1977 doctoral dissertation was A Syntactic Analysis of Takelma Texts. He has assisted in the preparation of the lessons in Yawìth Takélma ... Talking Takelma.