Watt Sam in 1908 holding a bow. From a series of photos taken by John R. Swanton, near Braggs, Oklahoma. Watt Sam (October 6, 1876 – July 1, 1944) was a Natchez storyteller and cultural historian of Braggs, Oklahoma and one of the two last native speakers of the

Natchez language The Natchez language is the ancestral language of the Natchez people who historically inhabited Mississippi and Louisiana, and who now mostly live among the Muscogee and Cherokee peoples in Oklahoma. The language is considered to be either unrel ...

. Around 1907 he worked with anthropologist John R. Swanton who collected information about Natchez religion. Swanton commented that Sam, having lived among the

Cherokee The Cherokee (; chr, ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, translit=Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, links=no, translit=Tsalagi) are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, th ...

and Creek his whole life and being fluent in both languages, had absorbed so much of their oral tradition that it was difficult to know the extent to which his stories reflected original Natchez tradition. For some of passages in the narratives that had sexual content, Swanton only provided a translation into Latin. In the 1930s he worked with linguist

Mary Haas Mary Rosamond Haas (January 23, 1910 – May 17, 1996) was an American linguist who specialized in North American Indian languages, Thai, and historical linguistics. She served as president of the Linguistic Society of America. She was elected ...

who collected grammatical information and texts. In 1931, anthropologist Victor Riste made several

wax cylinder Waxes are a diverse class of organic compounds that are lipophilic, malleable solids near ambient temperatures. They include higher alkanes and lipids, typically with melting points above about 40 °C (104 °F), melting to give low ...

recordings of Watt Sam speaking the Natchez language, which were rediscovered at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

in the 1970s by Archie Sam and linguist Charles Van Tuyl. One of the cylinders is now at the Voice Library at the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

. He was the biological cousin of the other last speaker of Natchez, Nancy Raven, who in Natchez kinship terminology was his classificatory aunt, and through his father Creek Sam (b. 1825) he was the great-uncle of Natchez scholar Archie Sam. In some of his stories he used a register of Natchez that he referred to as "Cannibal language" in which he substituted some words with others.Kimball, Geoffrey (2012). Natchez Cannibal Speech. ''International Journal of American Linguistics'', Vol. 78, No. 2 (April 2012), pp. 273–280 As among the Natchez the language was generally passed down matrilineally, Watt Sam did not teach the language to any of his children. He is buried at the Greenleaf Cemetery at

Tahlequah, Oklahoma Tahlequah ( ; ''Cherokee'': ᏓᎵᏆ, ''daligwa'' ) is a city in Cherokee County, Oklahoma located at the foothills of the Ozark Mountains. It is part of the Green Country region of Oklahoma and was established as a capital of the 19th-cen ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sam, Watt Natchez people People from Braggs, Oklahoma Last known speakers of a Native American language 19th-century Native Americans 1876 births 1944 deaths