Arapaho language alive and well

By Janice Kurbjun
Times staff writer

Through the story of the fox and the wood tick, children of the Arapaho tribe learn how to be clever.

“I can beat you!” said Merle Haas, a Northern Arapaho from the Wind River Reservation. Her exclamation imitated a voice characteristic of a tiny insect, the wood tick, which challenged the fox to a race. Haas’ laugh then mimicked the fox, which claimed the wood tick would have no chance.

Cleverly giving the vain, furry beast a head start, the wood tick jumped onto the fox’s tail just as he took off. At the end of the race, the bewildered fox found that the wood tick crawled from tail to nose, hopping off as they arrived at the finish line. “I beat you!” Haas chirped in the wood tick’s taunting voice.

Haas wears many hats, the most prominent of which is that of a storyteller. She is also a co-founder of the Wind River Tribal College and an educator. Her brother-in-law, Alonso Moss, is also a Northern Arapaho and native of the Wind River Indian Reservation. His mission is to keep the language of his people alive. The two spoke as part of the “Power of Place: Legacies of Carbon County” lecture series earlier this week.

“Stories are considered sacred because they contain the old way of life, passed from generation to generation,” Haas said.

There are parable-like stories that have a moral lesson as well as what Haas called “how it came to be” stories that illustrate such questions as “why does the raccoon have black eyes?” The Arapahos also have ceremonial stories, often based around religion. “We also have trickster stories,” Haas said.

Haas plans to lead an effort to create a map of Wyoming which lists the Arapaho names for places.

Haas told her stories in English, but Moss insisted that the stories are only pure if told in Arapaho.

Moss is notorious on the reservation for speaking only his native language when only about 8 percent of the tribal members speak the native tongue. His Arapaho name is “Ridge Walker.” “They told me I’m going to walk right along the ridge. No one is going to pull me this way or that. I’m going to be myself, they said. It’s true. I’m doing what I want.” By speaking the native tongue to everyone he encounters, he hopes to educate them through immersion and set the example for parents and grandparents to do the same.

Moss delivered a crash course in the Arapaho language at the lecture, teaching the audience how to pronounce the letters and how to translate a few words. Often, non-natives who visit the reservation can speak the language better than the natives. “If they can learn it, then why not the Arapahos?” Moss asked.

“People today like to blame the missionaries or the teachers,” he said. “But that didn’t stop the old people like me. I got beat up, but I kept talking, because I was crazy. I told people not to excuse themselves. Right now, the opportunity is there to learn it. We’re through with excuses.”