Uncle Coyote by Sam Johnson

The late Sam Johnson (1929 - 2023) shares a traditional shikonno'pa' (possum story) about Uncle Coyote. Sam was a long-time member of the Chickasaw Language Committee and a recipient of the Silver Feather Award, the highest cultural award bestowed by the Chickasaw Nation on its citizens. He was a minister of the gospel and pastored at Johnson Chapel for many years. He was a skilled orator of the Chickasaw language and recorded many traditional and biographical stories over the last years of his life.
Transcriptions: If what was said cannot be heard well enough, it is marked as being (inaudible). In some instances, a speaker may go back and correct themselves, and these are marked like \this\, to indicate that \this\ replaces the previous word or phrase. Sometimes we are unsure what the speaker was saying but we give a best guess using a star*. If a speaker is shortening a word, we give the fuller form in (parentheses) next to it.
Translations: The English translations were done with guidance from native speakers. Sometimes, some clarifying words were added in [brackets], although this information is not part of what was actually said in Chikashshanompaꞌ.
Recording: This audio was recorded on March 7, 2012, as part of a Documenting Endangered Languages / National Science Foundation grant (BCS-1263699 and BCS-1263698). This work was supported in part by an American Rescue Plan grant, #90XN0047.
Image: Photograph by Ryan RedCorn (Osage).
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