Lynda Pierson, of Jefferson, holds up the certificate she received recently for completing the first class in a Meskwaki language course. “I want to see it all the way through,” says Pierson, who grew up in Jefferson, removed from Meskwaki-speaking relatives in the Sac and Fox Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa. The tribe’s language is classified as “critically endangered” by the United Nations. ANDREW McGINN | JEFFERSON HERALDIn 2013, the Meskwaki were among more than two dozen tribes honored with Congressional Gold Medals for their service in World War II as code talkers. Their native languages were never deciphered by the Axis powers, which speaks to their steep learning curve.Lynda Pierson has been traveling weekly to Tama County with her spiral notebook to learn the language of her Sac (Sauk) and Fox (Meskwaki) ancestors. The Meskwaki Nation has accelerated efforts in recent years to save its language from extinction, a threat facing many indigenous languages in North America. There’s even now a Meskwaki Language App for phones. ANDREW McGINN | JEFFERSON HERALD

DOING HER PART

Jefferson resident inspired to learn the endangered language of her ancestors
‘Mesquakies will remain Mesquakies as long as they choose to do so.’ – Sol Tax University of Chicago anthropologist 1953

By ANDREW MCGINN

a.mcginn@beeherald.com

At 51, it’s hard enough to learn a new language — any language — let alone a language that so baffled the Third Reich during the Second World War that the Nazi regime lost its grip on North Africa.

Lynda Pierson probably won’t be drafted anytime soon as a Meskwaki code talker, but the lifelong Jefferson resident is working diligently to finally make sense of a language that has followed her through life like a ghost.

“Most of it is just remembering how it’s pronounced,” Pierson explained on a recent afternoon, glancing down at the spiral notebook she takes weekly to Tama, where she’s enrolled in a Meskwaki Language for Adult Beginners course.

Despite being a certified blood member of the Sac and Fox Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa, Pierson is essentially a 51-year-old toddler, learning words like “train,” “duck” and “cow” — or “weskotewi,” “didiba” and “nenoswa,” respectively.

And how you just pronounced them in your head is probably dead wrong.

Weskotewi, or train, is pronounced “washgoodaywee,” while nenoswa, or cow, is “nan-nooce.” And, saving the best for last, didiba (duck) is actually pronounced “she-sheeb.”

“I was, like, ‘What?’” Pierson said.

The letter “d” always carries a “sh” sound, according to the handwritten reminder in her notes.

It’s no wonder the United States called on American Indians to relay secret messages during World War II. Whether it was the Meskwaki in North Africa or the Navajo in the Pacific, their codes defied every enemy attempt at breaking them.

Of course, it remains oh-so-ironic that the U.S. was able to free the world of tyranny by weaponizing the same indigenous languages it systematically tried eradicating in the first place.

Pierson’s interest in learning the language of her ancestors stems largely from her no longer wanting to “look like a tourist” at the annual Meskwaki powwow in August, which she has been attending most of her life.

But she also acknowledges a desire for the Meskwaki language to persevere, which may not, in spite of the tribe’s best efforts.

UNESCO — the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization — keeps a running tally of endangered dialects in the “Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger.”

The Sauk-Fox language — the Fox people have always called themselves Meskwaki — is considered by UNESCO to be “critically endangered.”

Back in 1995, an article in the Bilingual Research Journal predicted that, of 155 indigenous languages spoken in North America, 105 would be extinct by 2025.

Joining Sauk-Fox on the “critically endangered” list is Mandan, whose people watched over Lewis and Clark as they wintered in present-day North Dakota in 1804, and Nez Perce, whose people are forever symbolized by Chief Joseph, the leader born in present-day Idaho who uttered the famous words, “I will fight no more forever.”

Even the Navajo and Sioux languages are classified as “vulnerable,” no doubt owing to the fact that it was English that won the West.

So, who else do you know in Jefferson who’s currently doing their part to save a critically endangered language from extinction?

“At the beginning, it was intimidating,” Pierson said. “I didn’t really know what to expect.”

The course — a program of the Meskwaki Language Preservation Department — comprises five classes, each 12 weeks in length. Pierson in January completed the first, Level 1. 

Twelve of them started the class in September; only four finished.

“I want to see it all the way through,” she said.

Theoretically, by this time next year, she should be able to say, “Nekasketa e baskiseki wabamoni/motai” with relative ease. Translation: “I heard the bottle or mirror break.” It’s the first sentence she’s been asked to learn.

A woman of two worlds

For Pierson, the learning curve is especially steep. She jokes that she frequently has to ask for help. “English for one, please,” she’ll say, alluding to her upbringing away from the Meskwaki settlement in Tama County.

A 1988 graduate of Jefferson-Scranton High School, Pierson and her siblings were, for years, the darkest-complected kids at school in Jefferson, leaving classmates to guess that they were either “Mexican” or “part black.”

“Sure, you got called a few different names,” Pierson explained, “but what kid doesn’t? I didn’t let that stuff discourage me.”

The thought that the family might actually be American Indian, however, never seemed to cross anyone’s mind until the day in middle school that Pierson brought a pair of moccasins to Mr. East’s history class.

“Why’d you bring those?” she specifically remembers classmates asking. “Aren’t you Mexican?”

“That’s part of the ignorance and innocence of kids,” she said.

Pierson’s mom, Delima, had grown up on the Meskwaki settlement before being placed in foster care in Des Moines at the age of 14. Her marriage to Lewis Pierson, whom she met at school, eventually brought them to Jefferson, where Lewis’ sister lived.

Her mom doesn’t talk much about her upbringing, and Pierson knows not to bring it up.

Pierson and her siblings grew up in Jefferson with all the same experiences and memories of any other local kids — it’s just that they had relatives near Tama who not only spoke frequently in a language they couldn’t decipher, but seemed to have an almost foreign way of life.

Sometimes, it still seems so foreign.

The first time, Pierson showed up to her 6:30 p.m. language class at promptly 20 minutes past 6.

“And there’s not a soul in the parking lot,” she said. “I thought they said 6:30?”

What Indians jokingly refer to as “Indian time” holds true.

Pierson, who is now the only one in her language class without an Indian name, remembers visits as a girl to see her mom’s aunt.

“No electricity. The outhouse was up the hill,” she said, remembering her mom having to explain that her aunt chose to live that way, not because she couldn’t afford modern conveniences.

“We were kind of freaked out at first,” Pierson added with a chuckle.

The first Meskwaki word Pierson would come to know was “kwesha” (pronounced “gwesha”).

It means baby, or little one.

Pierson’s daughter, Maryssa, was once the kwesha at funerals and other family gatherings.

“You’d hear the older ladies talking and pointing,” Pierson said.

With time, the kwesha had a kwesha of her own. Pierson now prizes time with her 3-year-old granddaughter, Hadleigh.

In 2014, tribal leaders accelerated efforts to preserve their native language — an Algonquian language, in contrast to Siouan — by implementing a language immersion program in the early childhood and Pre-K programs at the settlement school.

It’s safe to say that learning Meskwaki would be easier for Hadleigh than for her grandma.

A 2018 study by cognitive scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology showed that learning a new language becomes much harder after the age of 17 or 18. In fact, they say it’s “nearly impossible” to achieve the fluency of a native speaker unless instruction begins by 10.

Pierson is determined to stick it out.

And, as history has proven, never underestimate a Meskwaki.

The tribe’s legacy is that of perseverance.

Forever resilient

Once branded “perfidious enemies of God and church” by Jesuit priests — a decree that fueled French attempts to exterminate them in the early 1700s — the surviving Fox, as the French called them, regrouped south of the Great Lakes and allied with the Sauk, or Sac.

The United States would come to combine the two tribes as the Sac and Fox for treaty purposes, eventually leading to their removal altogether from Iowa (but not before nicking the names of their leaders, including Black Hawk, Keokuk, Appanoose and Wapello, for the names of four new counties).

And then, in 1857, the tribe did the impossible, buying back the first 80 acres of their old land in Tama County from the state of Iowa. Today, the Meskwaki settlement — it’s never been a reservation — comprises more than 8,100 acres.

Even still, the Meskwaki wouldn’t be immune from persistent attempts by the federal Office of Indian Affairs to convert them to Christianity and to pressure them to give up traditional communal land ownership.

Even Iowa Gov. Francis M. Drake, the benefactor and namesake of Drake University, would come to champion assimilation in the 1890s, telling the tribe that the American way of life was “the better way to live.”

And that, in a nutshell, is how their language came to be classified as “critically endangered.”

While Pierson is the first in her immediate family to take an interest in learning it, there are subtle signs of curiosity from others. 

Mom Delima has started accompanying her daughter on the weekly ride over to the settlement.

“But she won’t go in,” Pierson said, half-amused. “She sits in the car.”

Older brother Lewis, she explained, was pretending like he wasn’t listening over Thanksgiving as she showed off the Meskwaki Language App on her phone. (Yeah, there’s an app for that.)

Finally, she said, Lewis spoke up, asking her the word for dog.

Years ago, as a kid, Lewis asked their grandma the name of her dog. She answered, “Anemoa” (pronounced “Annamoo”), which he assumed was its name.

The app brought up the word for dog.

Anemoa.

“Wait,” Pierson said, recalling her brother’s confusion, “that’s just the Indian word for dog.”

But, finally, the word made sense.

“While the Muskwaki Indian must still be reported as a blanket Indian and many of the older members of the tribe cling tenaciously to the moccasin, legging, breechcloth, loose flowing shirt and blanket, there has been in recent years considerable improvements in their dress, and the younger element, both men and women, are adopting articles of clothing used by the white people.” – Horace M. Rebok, U.S. Indian agent, 1898

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