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:
“What journeyings on foot and on horseback through the wilderness, to preach the gospel to these minks and muskrats! who first, no doubt, listened with their red ears out of a natural hospitality and courtesy, and afterward from curiosity or even interest, till at length there “were praying Indians,” and, as the General Court wrote to Cromwell, the “work is brought to this perfection that some of the Indians themselves can pray and prophesy in a comfortable manner.””
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Small, black, as flies hanging in heat, the Boys,
Until the distance throws them forth, their hum
Bulges to thunder held by calf and thigh.”
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“Hast ‘ou fashioned so airy a mood
To draw up leaf from the root?
Hast ‘ou found a cloud so light
As seemed neither mist nor shade?”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)