Voices from the past: Young teacher brings old lan

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Voices from the past: Young teacher brings old language to new audience
Sunday, October 22, 2006
By ROY HOFFMAN
Staff Reporter
Watch and listen as Alex Alvarez describes the Muskogee language and teaches a class at the Poarch Creek reservation - www.al.com/press-register/video/creek.ssf

ATMORE-- Growing up in Fort Walton Beach, Fla., Alex Alvarez knew little at first of his family's American Indian heritage. Creek on his mother's side, Alvarez went to a powwow when he was 8 years old and was captivated by the stories of the elders.

"An old Indian sat beside me and started talking to me like he'd known me for a long time," recalls Alvarez, 24, at his office at the Poarch Creek Band of Indians reservation near Atmore. "I just sat and nodded my head."

That powwow began Alvarez's interest in Creek music, drumming, religion and the Creek language, known as Muskogee.

Now serving as cultural education coordinator at the Poarch Creek reservation, Alvarez is teaching a new generation of kids -- and their parents -- to speak the language of their forefathers.

"This is the heart of what I call cultural revitalization and retention," he says of the Muskogee tongue.

He began his work only a few weeks ago.

Daniel McGhee, chairman of the Poarch Creek education committee, says the language instruction is the first at the reservation in at least 10 years, and the most ambitious yet.

"I think it's a way to get in touch with your past, with your identity," McGhee explains. "You have something very specific to Native Americans -- a different language altogether."

It's a challenge to learn Muskogee. Even the alphabet is tricky.

On Alex Alvarez's desk is a copy of the textbook he uses for his twice-weekly classes: "Beginning Creek," published by the University of Oklahoma Press. Beneath the English letters are the words in the native language: "Mvskoke Emponvkv."

The "v," he explains, is pronounced "uh," the "p" as "buh" and the "k" usually as "ghee." The "k" is sometimes pronounced as a traditional "k."

He sounds out the words: "Muh-sko-ghee Em-bu-nah-ga."

"I've been learning Creek since I was 16," he says. "Ever since then, I've been trying to pick up words. Now, I'm trying to pick it up on a more professional level. On my trips to Oklahoma, I try to ask elders as much as I can. I try to listen to everything they tell me."

Alvarez has a dark, cherubic face and straight black hair that he keeps in a braid down his back. He explains that, in addition to his mother's Creek heritage, he has Cuban lineage on his father's side and some white ancestors, too.

But it is the American Indian side of his background that spellbinds him, in part because of his closeness to his mother.

"I might go to a Hispanic dinner or an Irish gathering, but I am Indian. I go to sleep an Indian and wake up an Indian.

"Ever since age 8, I've been performing, dancing and singing in powwows."

As a teen, he traveled often from Florida to the Poarch Creek reservation and made friends among other young tribal members.

He'll drum and dance in late October in Ahoskie, N.C., with the Meherrin tribe, and the first weekend of November in Niceville, Fla., at an inter-tribal gathering. On Veterans Day, he'll be at the powwow of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians.

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He'll drum and dance in late October in Ahoskie, N.C., with the Meherrin tribe, and the first weekend of November in Niceville, Fla., at an inter-tribal gathering. On Veterans Day, he'll be at the powwow of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians.

He composes some of his own music, too.

When asked to offer a number in Muskogee, he stands straight and chants a song he wrote. He translates the lyrics:

"When we sing, we can shake the earth."

The Poarch Creek reservation, on the western edge of Escambia County, covers 386 acres about a mile from Interstate 65, eight miles south of Atmore. The tribe, says Arthur Mothershed, tribal council treasurer, owns about 6,200 acres altogether.

Mothershed explains that the Poarch Band of Creek Indians was historically part of a Creek nation that covered parts of Alabama and Georgia.

Shortly before it's time for class, Alvarez drives a van through the reservation, pointing out the flat landscape of one-story brick homes, the ballfield and rodeo ring. "The reservation is like its own city," he says. "We even have our own police."

The tribe is one of several federally recognized ones in the Southeast, Alvarez explains, the remnant of Indians who stayed behind -- "hiding, escaping, surviving in godforsaken places" -- after the Indian Removal Act of 1830. He lists others: the Eastern band of Cherokee in Cherokee, N.C., the Mississippi Choctaws near Philadelphia, Miss., the Seminole and Miccousuke in Florida, and the Catawba in South Carolina.

Alvarez's Indian ancestors were from the tribal town of Eufaula -- the site that inspired the Alabama city of the same name -- and "were removed to Oklahoma. But some escaped and came to Florida, where they ran moonshine in the backwoods."

Members of the Poarch Creek community affiliate with an array of Christian churches. But there are ancient Creek rituals, too. Alvarez says the older spiritual practices appeal to him greatly.
While the grounds are not officially off-limits to visitors, on this particular afternoon, it is inhabited by elders mourning a tribal leader who has just died. Alvarez drives on.

Beyond the reservation, Alvarez finds that American Indians are stereotyped by people outside of his culture. "People ask me," he says, "'Do you live in a teepee? Are you a real Indian?'"

He says that, for decades in Hollywood films, Indians were depicted in certain ways. One of them, he complains, was as "a drunk Indian going 'woo-woo,' chasing a white woman around the cabin."

And the Indian roles, he says, were often played "by white people with brown shoe polish on their skin. The real Indians were used for extras."

He sees the opposite movement, though, in popular culture today.

"Now, Indians are glamorized, glorified. People want to claim native blood."

As Alvarez tours the reservation, he sees a young teen ambling down the road. He rolls down his window and calls out to him, "Coming to class tonight?"

"I don't think I can make it."

"Hope to see you next time," Alvarez says.

Teenagers are of particular interest to Alvarez, who has helped in efforts to prevent substance abuse by Indian teens in Louisiana and Kansas. He says that his focus on language and culture helped save him from traveling perilous paths of his own.

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He's trying to promote a Tribal Youth Council, to bring together Poarch Creek teens.

Young people "are less inclined to mess up their lives with drugs and juvenile crime when they are involved with culture, when they have that as an outlet."

In the spring, he hopes to have additional teachers from Oklahoma, hired for the semester to lead advanced classes beyond his introductory Creek.

"Creek is in the process of dying," he says about the language, estimating that only 5 percent of the Creek population of Oklahoma is fluent. The Muskogee speakers, he says, are mostly of the older generation.

Too often in the past, he says, Indians had to choose between "giving up their culture and surviving."

His goal is to encourage other Indians "to have one foot in the past and one in the present. To speak Muskogee and suit up in a three-piece suit."

The students who show up for Alvarez's evenings classes are of all ages.

There's Johnny McGhee, 56, whose great-uncle, Calvin McGhee, was a famous chief. "My parents and grandparents could say a few words," McGhee says of Muskogee. "The language died out."

There's Rosalind Smith, who has long, curly black hair and attends the class with her son, Tyler, 10. Smith emphasizes how important cultural education is to the sense of "being proud." Language, she says, "is a part of it."

Daniel McGhee, the tribal council member, also a descendant of Calvin McGhee, comes to the class with his sons Brice, 10, and Xan, 8.

McGhee manages the Poarch Creek gaming hall with its 24-hour bingo, which helps generate the revenue for education funding, including Alvarez's salary.

McGhee says he's delighted to be able to take the class with his sons. "This is our home," he says, speaking of his Creek ancestors. "This is where it originated."

Looking at dark-haired Brice and blonde Xan, McGhee explains that, as Indians, "we run a spectrum of how we look."

Part of that spectrum comes from other racial and ethnic groups that may be mixed into a Creek heritage.

Mazie Gartman, 78, says she is three-quarters Creek and that her father, who was full-blooded Creek, had few educational opportunities open to him and his generation. "He was illiterate," she says.

"That's why I've enrolled in this class," she says, expressing her commitment to lifelong education.

Young and old, the classmates turn their attention to Alvarez as he stands before the blackboard. The evening's lesson is animals.

With chalk he writes: "este-papv," pronouncing, "este-bah-buh. Lion." He says the words literally mean, "person eater."

"Este bah-buh," the class repeats.

"Kono," he says. "Skunk."


"Kono," they chorus back.

"Kowike," pronouncing it, "ko-we-ghee. Whale."

"Ko-we-ghee."

Pony. Horse. Dove. Buffalo. He goes through the list in Muskogee, with call and response on each one.

Then they play a game, each person offering clues to an animal, having the rest of the class guess the animal's name in Muskogee.

Council treasurer Arthur Mothershed is at the second class of the evening with his three daughters, Katie, 15, Shelley, 11, and Kamryn, 7.

Alvarez has the class play a game, in which students think up an animal, then tell a few clues as to its identity. The others have to guess the animal, calling out its name in Muskogee.

Little Kamryn Mothershed is having trouble coming up with clues. She summons Alvarez to help her, but quickly dismisses his advice.

She reads her clue aloud: "It likes cat food."

The class, in a spirit of camaraderie, laugh and in unison chime the answer: "Pose," pronouncing it, "boh-zay."

"Yes, boh-zay," Alvarez says. "Cat."