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Creating Legitimized Literacy and Authorized Speakership in Koasati

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Creating Legitimized Literacy and Authorized Speakership in Koasati W&M ScholarWorks Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects 2015 "Written in Indian": Creating Legitimized Literacy and Authorized Speakership in Koasati. Stephanie Hasselbacher College of William and Mary Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd Part of the Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Hasselbacher, Stephanie, ""Written in Indian": Creating Legitimized Literacy and Authorized Speakership in Koasati." (2015). Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects. Paper 1593092108. https://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21220/m2-j719-kv69 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. “Written in Indian”: Creating Legitimized Literacy and Authorized Speakership Koasati Stephanie Hasselbacher Peoria, Illinois Master of Arts, School of Oriental and African Studies, 2005 Bachelor of Arts, The College of William and Mary, 2004 A Dissertation presented to the Graduate Faculty of the College of William and Mary in Candidacy for the D egree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Anthropology The College of William and Mary August, 2015 © Copyright by Stephanie Hasselbacher 2015 All Rights Reserved APPROVAL PAGE This Dissertation is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Approved by the Committee, July 2015 Committee Ghair Professor Kathleen Bragdon, Anthropology The College of William and Mary Research \nthropology Professor Jack Martin, English The College of William and Mary Assistant Professor Neil Norman, Anthropology The College of William and Mary COMPLIANCE PAGE Research approved by Protection of Human Subjects Committee Protocol number(s): PHSC-2014-05-05-9595 PHSC-2013-05-28-8758 PHSC-2012-05-15-7967 PHSC-2011-06-01-7360 Date(s) of approval: 05-06-2014 05-28-2013 05-15-2012 06-01-2011 ABSTRACT In 2007, a small group of concerned speakers of Koasati, a Muskogean language used in Louisiana and Texas, gathered to address a mutual concern that their community was heading toward monolingual English use. In less than one year, that group developed into the volunteer Koasati Language Committee and the official Heritage Department of the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana! Based on participant observation and interviews conducted between 2009 and 2013, this dissertation examines the language documentation and revitalization efforts of the Language Committee and the Heritage Department from a linguistic anthropological perspective. Using a theoretical approach emphasizing Bourdieu’s work on language and symbolic power and Peirician semiotics, it explores the ways in which conservative ideologies of authority and linguistic legitimacy articulate with novel language practices, particularly novel local literacies, created in an effort to reverse language shift. Throughout the process of documenting and attempting to revitalize Koasati, the authorial and pedagogical practices of the Coushatta Heritage Department have challenged discursively salient ideologies of linguistic purism, but simultaneously harmonized their creative efforts with concepts of “authentic Koasati.” The first half of this dissertation provides ethnographic descriptions of Koasati language practices, the history of language shift that sparked the revitalization movement, and the direct effects of that history on the structuring of the revitalization. It explores changing perceptions of the relationship between language practices and self-perceived Coushatta identity, as such perceptions become articulated through the direct socialization of Koasati language learners in an effort to define and measure Koasati speakership. The second half focuses on the Heritage Department’s process of creating new genres of Koasati literacy, which began with the introduction of a new committee-created writing system in 2007. Examination of both new and historical forms of written Koasati demonstrates that they derive a degree of authority from their indexical associations with standardization and scholarliness, but are sometimes challenged as lacking in "authentic Coushattaness." I conclude with an analysis of how the processes of language shift, documentation, and revitalization reconcile seemingly contradictory language ideologies by ensuring that new authorial processes rely on overt displays of consensus and a sense of Coushatta locality to recreate extant social structures and reinforce current forms of linguistic authority. TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ii Dedications iii List of Figures iv Chapter 1. Kowasaati Aathilhilka 1 Chapter 2. Triangulating the local language community: Theoretical approaches to the relationship between language change, literacy, and identity 37 Chapter 3. “Saying we are Indians”: Causes and effects of Koasati language shift 59 Chapter 4. Legitimized language and authorized speakership in Koasati 93 Chapter 5. Koasati vernacular literacy: A creation story 126 Chapter 6. “School and all that”: Social indexicalities of emerging Koasati literacies 146 Chapter 7. Old literacies for new practices: Legacy language data, documentation, and revitalization 181 Chapter 8. Conclusion 207 Appendix A Sample pedagogical material: Piila Naathihok! 227 References 260 i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I want to offer my thanks to the Koasati Language Committee. The following members provided a deep well of expertise, voluntarily sitting in front of a recorder answering seemingly endless questions about pronunciation, transcription, and translation: Ronnie Abbey, Claudine Hasting, Barbara Langley, Edith Langley, Clifford Poncho, Lorenda Poncho, Adrian Sylestine, Dan Sylestine, Janice Sylestine, Norman Williams, and Rodney Williams. In particular, Bertney Langley and Dr. Linda Langley worked closely with me to develop my ethnographic research in harmony with their ongoing work in the Coushatta community. They welcomed me into their home while I was in residence in Elton, as did Paula Manuel and Jill Crawford, for which I am most grateful. I also wish to acknowledge past and present staff members of the Coushatta Heritage Department who have welcomed me as a colleague: Director Jaime Hill, Jill Crawford, Jonas John, Keith Langley, Kathy Peoples, Kassie Henry, Crystal Williams, Heather Williams, Loretta Williams, and Emerald Skye Byrd. Many other members of the Coushatta community granted me interviews, helping me to understand their language and their lives. For their openness, I would like to thank Doris Battise, Lelia Battise, Leonard Battise, Marjie Battise, Mellie Battise, Sharon Crosby, Darlene Dunnehoo, Carla Fisher, Dakota John, Harold John, Joe John, Marion John, Terrell John, Winston John, T ee LaBuff, Eleyna Langley, Eli Langley, Jeanette Langley* Louis Langley, Missy Litteral, Paula Manuel, Judy McCarley, Florine Pitre, Eric Robinson, Cindy Savant, Chris Sylestine, Calvin Sylestine, Sandra Walker, Becky Wilson, Dee Williams, Peggy Williams, Verlis Williams, Wynema Williams, Dennis Wilson, and Myrna Wilson. Also, thank you to my advisor Dr. Kathleen Bragdon, and the members of my dissertation committee: Dr. Linda Langley, Dr. Jack Martin, and Dr. Neil Norman. Finally, completing this research would not have been possible without the steadfast support of my family: Jam es Berryhill, Henry Berryhill, Thomas Hasselbacher, Marti Kuhns, and Stacy Hasselbacher. Thank you all. This Ph.D. is dedicated to my family and to my many friends and colleagues in Elton. iii LIST OF FIGURES 1. Language map of the southeastern United States 4 2. Alabama and Coushatta coalescence ca. 1600 5 3. Map of historical Coushatta sites 8 4. Koasati picture dictionary 113 5. Koasati alphabet poster 129 6. Cherokee syllabary 130 7. Cree syllabary 131 - 8. Front matter to Ittooyat Naathiihilkas 168 9. Sample pages from Burnham’s 1979 Naas mathaali & Naas onapa 190 10. Screenshot of “Koasati for Kids” online language lesson 216 11. Screenshot of “Koasati for Kids” homescreen 217 12. Sample page from “Koasati Teaching Grammar” 219 iv Chapter One Kowassaati Aathiihilka In February 2009, the staff of the newly formed Coushatta Heritage Department produced its first indigenous-language newsletter, named Kowassaati Aathiihilka [trans. Koasati News]. A Department employee left a stack of the newsletters on the counter of the Coushatta Cafe, a popular spot for reservation residents and Tribal employees to eat lunch. When Loretta Williams, a Heritage Department employee and the primary transcriber for the Koasati language documentation project, would go to pick up her food or visit her daughter (one of the cafe cooks), she would be questioned on the authenticity of the newsletter. Diners would ask her to read it out loud, to demonstrate that the text did in fact encode their language. “Is it really,” one man asked, “written in Indian?” The newsletter was one early artifact of the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana’s organized effort to promote the use of their Muskogean language, Koasati. In 2006, Dr. Linda Langley and Bertney Langley began recruiting participants for a community-led Koasati documentation and revitalization effort. The leaders of the Koasati language language project created vernacular forms of Koasati literacy to diversify the genres of Koasati language use, in the hope of engendering opportunities to
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