Apisa Tuchina
"Lesson Three"Charley Jones
"Many years ago, Billyray is delivered by our Choctaw midwife."
afammi pokoli ihimmak, Taha pim Chahta hoyo alla eshi apistikeli im atta.
Ten years later, Taha is delivered by our Choctaw midwife."
kash - "ago" ihimmak - "later"
You will learn about pim and im in lesson four coming up in a few pages.
Those are simple beginner level sentences which are easily understood but not grammatically perfect. With help of Byington's Dictionary, you can figure out the gist of those sentences. You know "afammi" is "year", you know "lua" (luak) is "many" just as you know "ash" (kash) is "last" or "previous" and you know "pokoli" is ten. You can figure out "hoyo" is a form of "ohoyo" - woman and you certainly know Chahta is Choctaw. Toss in "alla" and you know this is "human baby", there you are, enough information to figure out the meaning of those sentences of mine. Using Byington's dictionary, you would understand every word.
Point here is those are a type of sentences I urge you to begin writing. Do not fret over perfect Choctaw grammar, this is not as important as being understood. Buy yourself a Byington dictionary online from Howard at Native Languages, his web site link is at bottom of every page. Start writing out sentences no matter how crude nor messed up. Within a year your dictionary will be dog-eared and pert near worn out! I use two copies of his dictionary to look up a word in English and in my other copy, same word in Choctaw. Having two dictionaries makes this much easier, left dictionary an English word, right dictionary same word in Choctaw. You do not have to flip through pages as you would with only one dictionary. This is a real time saver and makes this so easy.
Meanwhile back in Eagletown, Oklahoma, all in our family were born on the same bed, in the same bedroom, in our farmhouse a hundred miles from the nearest doctor. We were delivered by the same Choctaw midwife except for our daughter who was delivered by the daughter of our Choctaw midwife! There is quite a legacy within our family.
My future husband held me in his arms the day I was born. I know in my heart this is the day I fell in love with him. Chased after the boy for well over a decade, finally roped him, hog tied him and made him my husband. We have been together all our lives and unofficially married for over thirty years. Best husband and father a girl could ever want, if you don't mind putting up with a traditional cowboy who tend to be a bit on the wild side, you know, whiskey drinking, poker playing, rodeo riding, Mexican whores, the usual cowboy stuff.
1970 up there is a year after he came home from a combat tour of duty over in Vietnam, came home all shot up and near death. VA doctors just about killed the boy. He went AWOL from a VA hospital, got himself on a Greyhound, showed up on our old dirt road out front, bleeding, hunkered over, near death from fever and bound determined to stay alive. He knew Choctaw medicine would save his life, just as he knew those VA doctors did not care if he died.
Not too many years later but enough to not cause your wig to flip, we are out in a corn field knocking down weeds and picking ticks off each other, an old, an ancient Choctaw elder comes walking out tells us we are married and to make a baby. When a Choctaw elder says you are married, you are really married, no backing out. You never disobey an elder. Besides, only cost me a fruit jar of white lightning to have my elder tell Billyray we are married. I am a tad bit ornery and well smartened by my medicine animal, Coyote the Trickster.
Less than a year, we have a baby, our daughter. Cost us a gallon of milk and a quart of white lightning to pay our Choctaw midwife fee. We were very poor, she made monthly payment arrangements for us. Gallon of milk from our cows, no problem. A quart of white lightning, well, takes a bit of time to still a quart and not be caught by those damn government revenuer boys who were always poking their noses into our business. Sure made me mad when those g-men shot .38 bullet holes in an uncle's Chevy front fender, and we didn't have a bootleg load!
Life was much different back then, so much more real and rewarding than today. Nonetheless, never use changing times as an excuse to not honor our ageless traditional ways. Learn traditional Choctaw, learn to be a traditional Choctaw and you will learn how to be an American Indian truth speaker, you will learn how to honor your ancestors and how to honor your family. As you know, traditional American Indians are highly respected and for good reasons.
And don't believe this bullshit cowboys and Indians can't get along!
Chahta anumpa enjoys two versions of English "while". Which version to use depends upon of all things, CONTEXT!
A difference is our Choctaw "while" does not involve deceit nor wasting time.
Our two versions of "while" are osh and o with "o" nasalized as "ohn". Which to use is easy to resolve but first some explanation of how "while" works in a sentence although "to while" is to be lazy, to avoid work.
"He is hanging on while his horse is trying to throw him."
Easy to read our "while" behaves a lot like a conjunction, and, but, also, while hooking together two independent sentences which address a same topic or similar topics.
this because of that - OSH
this while that - O
Chahta anumpa "hosh" is another special word which has some complex rules which change on you! Slowly and a little at a time, you will enjoy this more.
Our "hosh" leads to my teaching of "hosh" and "ho" in a shorthand format: OSH and O. Both shorthand words derive from "hosh". You can see there is something in common for both, our letter "H" which, in Choctaw, signals an action verb is a topic, much like "K" in "KMA" signals an action verb or no action verb depending on pronunciation.
Here are deep technical details. Use of "hosh" is a "particle" which joins together sentences which contain verbs used in a third person sense either singular or plural. Our "third person" means we are talking about a person who is NOT present:
Traci! Look at Billyray rodeo ride that wild stallion!
"Billyray" is a "third person". We are talking about him but he is out in a rodeo arena getting his butt busted.
Oh, but this goes much deeper! Not too much, too soon, darling!
You can talk about yourself in a "third person voice". Way back up there my example sentences use "I was" and "We went" both of which are third person. What do those two snippets have in common? Past tense! WAS and WENT. In Chahta anumpa I used our time modifier "tuk" to signal immediate past. I am talking about "I" and talking about "We" but neither are present, both are in the PAST much like Billyray is out in a rodeo arena. You can use "third person" for all time tenses, past, present and future. You can also make yourself a "third person"!
Our word "hosh" is used like "while" and is only used when verbs are in a "third person voice".
We use "hosh" when two sentences are highly related:
"While I was cutting meat, I cut my finger." This is more about action and less about context.
"We went while it was still raining." This is less about action and more about context.
My first example sentence is about cutting meat whether hog or human. There is not much surrounding context. You
do not know if this is outside butchering a strung up five-hundred pound Duroc hog or if this is in a girl's pretty
kitchen while she is slicing up pork chops for supper.
My second example sentence is about leaving and going out into rain. This has a lot of surrounding context. We are leaving home, it is raining, we are becoming wet. This sets quite a bit of surrounding context, a person listening to you can imagine what this is like; cold and wet, miserable.
Some good guidelines are use "hosh" when emphasis is upon action and less upon context, and use "ho" when emphasis is upon context and less upon action. Context makes all the difference when speaking Chahta anumpa, or English.
Just when you thought this could not go any deeper, it does!
There is a distinct difference between "WHILE" and "AND". We use WHILE when two or more related events occur within the same box of time. We use AND when two or more events happen in sequence, one after another.
Not too much, too soon.
Click on "NEXT" to begin apisa ushta - lesson four!
