Red Thunder Cloud (May 30, 1919 – January 8, 1996), whose English name was Cromwell Ashbie Hawkins West and who was also known as Carlos Westez, was the last native speaker of the Catawba Indian language. His obituary was later published in this language in the New York Times. Born in Newport, Rhode Island, of African-American parents, Cromwell West developed a passion for Native American history during his teenage years. He embraced a Native American identity and throughout his life, studied Native American languages extensively.
Gordon (2005) reports the other last native speakers of Catawba died before 1960. There are claims that Red Thunder Cloud is apparently an impostor and he is not really a native speaker of Catawban.
Famous quotes containing the words red, thunder and/or cloud:
“look the spangles
that sleep all the year in a dark box
dreaming of being taken out and allowed to shine,
the balls the chains red and gold the fluffy threads,
put up your little arms
and i’ll give them all to you to hold”
—E.E. (Edward Estlin)
“It is the mind that is woven, the mind that was jerked
And tufted in straggling thunder and shattered sun.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“To go where? In that Dark—that—in that God? a
radiance? A Lord in the Void? Like an eye in the black cloud in a
dream? Adonoi at last, with you?”
—Allen Ginsberg (b. 1926)