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Texts in the Ioway Language

This Land Here

Oratory by Robert Small (Otoe) with Gordon Marsh (1936)

1. Robert Small and Gordon Marsh

2. Original Text

3. Interlinear Translation

4. Free Translation

1. Robert Small and Gordon Marsh

Gordon Marsh was a graduate student in Anthropology at Columbia University in the 1930s, where he studied under the famous anthropologist Franz Boas. Boas is well-known for having encouraged his students to go out and collect information from Indian tribes all over North America, who were believed to be disappearing at the time. Marsh went to the Iowa-Otoe community in Oklahoma, and he found help through many, especially a husband and wife, Robert Small and Julia Small.

Marsh even had a special typewriter made to record the Iowa-Otoe language, and he worked for several years on this project. He collected many kinds of stories, including the types called Wekan (sacred stories that happened in a time soon after Creation) and Worage (things that happened in more recent times). Robert and Julia Small helped many scholars with their work on the Iowa and Otoe, with perhaps the most famous being Alanson Skinner who wrote many articles on the Ioway (see "Suggested Reading" in this site's Library section).

After all that work, Marsh returned to finish his doctorate. Unfortunately, Boas had retired, and the other professors were not interested in his work. Frustrated and disappointed, Marsh quit school, and he took his typewriter and all his notes and he gave them to the American Philosophical Society. Then he left New York, went to Alaska and became a monk. Really. He died in a monastery in Texas it is said, fairly recently.

Many scholars have used Marsh's materials, but his story is little-known, and sadly he is not often credited for all his work. In fact, the most famous work on the Ioway-Otoe language, "Descriptive Grammar of Ioway-Oto," was published by William Whitman in 1947... but it is nearly the word-for-word work of Gordan Marsh (who was mentioned only briefly in a small footnote), done a decade earlier. And most linguists still look to Whitman rather than Marsh in their studies.

Following is one of Robert Small's Worage stories recorded by Gordon Marsh. It was written down during one of their sessions in 1936 (over 60 years ago). It is about the process of allotment, the dividing up of tribal lands held in common in the old ways into smaller individually-owned parcels. Lands considered to be "surplus" was sold to white farmers, often checkerboarding the reservations in such a way that the tribes are faced today with unmanageable situations. It was supposed by some to be the way to make Indians into useful private citizens and farmers. Instead, it helped destroy Otoe and Iowa tribal life in Oklahoma in the 1890s.

This page then is dedicated to the spirits of these two men, Robert Small and Gordon Marsh, that their efforts may be known and remembered.

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2. This Land Here

by Robert Small (Otoe), 1936 (Recorded by Gordon Marsh, from his notes deposited at the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, PA)

[Original Text]

Mányan járe 'shun

"Nankéli báñyin grébran dówe agrín shágwe wángegìhi mánshun unánge nán aré máyan wathrége hin'únwi ke. Chínan háñiwi aré 'shún bróge wawáshishawi. Aré dahíwahuwi nan chinchínge aré 'shun goóch'i wap'ínhi wegrakiwi kín'inwi ke. Mán'unk'e aré 'shun mányan wakílusheñe aré dalé wanúnje wayínge nanhé 'shun bróge shénanwahiñe ke. Aréchi hánwegi t'únt'una nankélida dáhge hínmáñinwi wíwahgehdáwi ñínge ke.

"Itúgan híñe wawáyin etáwe ajíñe nan aré dagúre nanhé 'shun bróge píshran wewéshtan kenánwinan. Aré mányan wáthrége hin'únwigi. Dagúre bróge áñe aré 'shun. Ihgé shkúñin. Manéhga aré nanhé 'shun. Udwáñinwówak'unawi."

"Mányán wathrége hin'únshkúñinwi. Étagi dagúre bróge pi hinmáñinwi ke. Dagúre hingúnra skuñinwi ke. Wañaré nanhé 'shun hingúnra shkúñinwi. Mányan aré nanhé 'shun tandá hinmínan hingúnra aré nanhé 'shun hin'ún nan hánanhegi áre ke. Shúngaré nanhé 'shun róhan háñigi aré ke. Man'únke ajíñe nan mányan wathrége aré 'shun hin'únwigi dagúre bróge wawáñinge ke."

Mañihu (1936)

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3. [Interlinear (word-for-word) translation]

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4. [Free translation]

This Land Here

"Way back, 46 years ago, the chief took the pen and signed a treaty and we divided up the land. Our village was broken up and from that time we have tried to educate our children. The whiteman then opened up the rest of the land for themselves, and then they made the animals, the birds, everything disappear, all rubbed out. Because of all of this, it can never be today the way it used to be, when we moved around...we will never again be that way.

"The government's officials arrived, and made promises if we would accept allotment, tempting us with everything good. Because of these promises, we accepted allotment. However, we soon found that everything they said was untrue. Indeed they even gave less money to us than they had promised.

"In the old days, we never divided up the land. Before allotment, we all walked together in a good way, we lived well. We did not want for anything. We never lacked meat. Anywhere on the land we wanted to camp, that is where we camped. We used to have many horses. When the whiteman came, the land was divided up, and indeed, because of this allotment, we now have nothing."

---Walks-from-the-Creation-on, Otoe Wolf Clan (1936) (Robert Small)

©1999 by Lance M. Foster . All Rights Reserved.

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