Native elder saved her tribe’s language. Her Tulare County family vows to ‘keep it going’
Marie Wilcox was once the last fluent speaker of Wukchumni.
She worked tirelessly to change that, what started with writing down words in her native language over 20 years ago.
Today, there are at least three fluent Wukchumni speakers, all members of her family, said her daughter, Jennifer Malone. She’s included in that trio.
Wilcox died Sept. 25 at age 87 in a Visalia hospital with the great hope they will continue her language work. Malone said there’s no question about that.
“Her dream for us was to keep it going,” Malone said on the eve of her mother’s memorial service in Tulare County. “So no matter what, we will do this and teach as many people as are willing to learn.”
A Wukchumni dictionary Wilcox made was copyrighted, and her family is now looking for a publisher for it, Malone said.
Wilcox’s extraordinary work was honored and remembered Friday at a memorial service and celebration of life luncheon.
The Wukchumni are one of numerous tribes under the larger umbrella of the Yokuts, indigenous people in the central San Joaquin Valley. One of the better-known of the Yokuts tribes, the Chukchansi, are federally recognized and operate a casino. Many other smaller bands don’t have that federal status, including the Wukchumni, and have fewer available resources for cultural preservation.
Still, Wilcox persevered and was successful in her mission to save her indigenous language from the brink of extinction. Wilcox’s work got a boost in 2014 when The New York Times made a short documentary showing her diligently typing Wukchumni words and stories into an old computer at her Woodlake home. She lived in that house for the past 53 years.
“I’m just a pecker, one word at a time,” Wilcox said in the film, “and I was slow, just peck, peck, peck.”
The 2014 documentary begins by stating there are fewer than an estimated 200 Wukchumni members left, a small fraction of tens of thousands of Yokuts who lived in the Valley before European contact, and that more than 130 Native American languages are endangered in the U.S.
California sponsored a genocide against American Indians, authorizing nearly $1.3 million in the 1850s to arm militias that slaughtered thousands of indigenous people across the state.
“See I’m uncertain about my language and who wants to keep it alive, just a few,” Wilcox said at the end of the NYT documentary. “It’s sad. ... It just seems weird that I am the last one and, I don’t know, it’s just – it’ll just be gone one of these days maybe, I don’t know. It might go on and on.”
Wilcox was regularly teaching Wukchumni language classes through the Owens Valley Career Development Center. The language classes will continue.
“It makes us feel proud of who we are,” Malone said of helping teach the Wukchumni language.
Valley grandmother: There’s no word for goodbye in Wukchumni
Malone was living with her mother, serving as her caregiver. Wilcox died after attending a birthday party for her 4-year-old great-great grandson, where she suffered a ruptured aorta. She is survived by two daughters and dozens of grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great grandchildren. One of the youngest already understands a number of Wukchumni words, Malone said.
She was a grandma to more than just her family through birth.
“Grandma Marie was what we called her when we saw her,” said Taweah Garcia, a tribal council member for the Dunlap Band of Mono Indians near Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. “She was always smiling and you just wanted to give her hugs. She had so much knowledge of her traditional ways and her passing is a huge loss to our community.”
Wilcox was one of seven children, born Nov. 24, 1933. The lifelong Tulare County resident grew up in foothills northeast of Visalia.
Wilcox worked at a fruit packing house in Exeter for much of her life before becoming a language teacher, Malone said. Wilcox also enjoyed traditional Native American basket weaving.
“So many people have said they will really miss her smile,” Malone said. “Always happy and smiling and sharing all her culture and just always being there for everyone.”
“Inspirational” is a word that comes to mind while thinking about her mom. She made “sure our Native people respected Mother Earth and took care of their family. She was so strong on family.”
Wilcox’s indigenous name was Che’ihmyat’ in Wukchumni.
There is no word for goodbye in the Wukchumni language, Wilcox said in a 2019 video about her culture.
“We don’t have a goodbye because we never said goodbye,” Wilcox explained. “We just said, ‘We’ll see you later. ... I’ll see you when you return.”
This story was originally published October 8, 2021 at 7:56 AM.
