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 and taught it.[5]

Marie Wilcox
Wilcox in 2016
Born	(1933-11-24)November 24, 1933 Visalia, California
Died	September 25, 2021(2021-09-25) (aged 87) Visalia, California

Life

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]

Wukchumni language

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the Owens Valley Career Development Center, which are to continue.[4][5] The dictionary was copyrighted in 2019, but is unpublished.[3] As of 2014, it was estimated that the Wukchumni tribe had fewer than 200 members.[1][2][7] In the early 2010s, when a relative died, Wilcox became the last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]

References