Possums Tail, by Pauline Brown

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The late Pauline Brown (1931-2022) shares a shikonnoꞌpaꞌ (a traditional animal story) about how Possum got his tail. Pauline was born in Filmore, Oklahoma, and spent her childhood in the country on her mother’s allotment of land, later attending Goodland Indian Orphanage for schooling because her mother had died and her father was rarely home. She used her language in service to her people during her career as a nurse, helping monolingual speakers understand their medical care. She was a member of the Chickasaw Language Committee and contributed greatly to the development of Rosetta Stone Chickasaw.

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 (the Chickasaw language).

Recording: This audio was recorded on June 24, 2015, 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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Keywords: Chickasaw, Chickasaw language, Native language, Indigenous Language, Traditional Narratives, American Indian, Native American, First American, National Science Foundation