Marie Wilcox | |
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Born | |
Died | September 25, 2021 Visalia, California | (aged 87)
Marie Desma Wilcox (November 24, 1933 – September 25, 2021) [1] [2] [3] was a Native American who was the last native speaker of Wukchumni, a dialect of Tule-Kaweah, which is a Yokutsan indigenous language spoken by the Tule-Kaweah Yokuts of California. [2] [4] She worked for more than 20 years on a dictionary of the language. [5]
Wilcox was born on a ranch in Visalia, California, the youngest of seven children of Beatrice Arancis and Alex Wilcox, a farm hand. She was raised by her grandparents in a one-room house in the Venice Hills and after completing eighth grade, she also became a farm hand and a fruit packer. With Joe Garcia, she had four daughters and a son. She lived in Woodlake, California and died in a hospital in Visalia after her aorta ruptured when she was leaving a grandson's birthday party. [3] [4] [5]
Wilcox's grandmother spoke Wukchumni; after her death, Wilcox began working on a dictionary of the language as a tribute, with computer and other assistance from Nicholas Luna, an Apache. [1] [3] She included sound recordings of each word in the dictionary, and after the appearance in 2014 of a documentary on her work in the New York Times op-ed section, [1] [2] [6] [7] her family and other members of their tribe became interested in reviving the language. [3] She and her daughter taught it; at her death Wilcox was teaching classes at the Owens Valley Career Development Center, which are to continue. [4] [5] The dictionary was copyrighted in 2019, but is unpublished. [3] As of 2014, it was estimated that the Wukchumni tribe had fewer than 200 members. [1] [2] [7] In the early 2010s, when a relative died, Wilcox became the last remaining fluent speaker; [3] at her death, there were at least three, including one of her daughters. [4] [5]