Tsa Ch'ayah How the Turtle Got Its Squares: A Traditional Caddo Indian Children's Story

Bilingual Edition in English and Caddo Language How The Turtle Got Its Squares is a traditional Caddo Indian story that reaches back through countless generations into the Caddo past in what is now Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas and Oklahoma. In those days much of the entertainment and education of Caddos took the form of stories and songs that were passed from generation to generation in the Caddo language. They explained the natural world, history, and moral lessons. In the late 1950's linguist Wallace Chafe met storyteller Sadie Bedoka Weller, recorded this story and transcribed it in an alphabet customized to the sounds of Caddo. In recent generations the Caddo language has fallen almost completely out of use; stories like Tsa Ch'ayah have rested silently in archives and scholarly books. Now the Kiwat Hasinay Foundation has brought the story to life again, with original illustrations by Caddo artist Robin Michelle Montoya. The text is written in Chafe's alphabet, and the actual voice of Sadie Bedoka can be heard on a CD that is available to accompany the book. Tsa Ch'ayah, with its bilingual format and CD, helps children read and write English, read and write Caddo, understand and even speak a sample of spoken Caddo. Above all, it brings the wisdom and culture of the past once again into the present and future of the Caddo people. --Alice Anderton, Intertribal Wordpath Society Retold for the first time in print with Caddo language and English text and delightful illustrations, this charming book introduces a story told by generations of Caddo Indian Nation storytellers to capture the imaginations of their children. The story of "How The Turtle Got Its Squares" will fascinate and entertain new storytellers and their young listeners alike. --Cecile Elkins Carter, Caddo Historian and Storyteller, Author of Caddo Indians: Where We Come From


About the Author
Sadie Bedoka, later Sadie Bedoka Weller, was born in Anadarko, Oklahoma in 1901 and died in 1970. She contracted polio when she was still a very young girl, and she walked for the rest of her life on crutches. Because of her handicap she was sent to live with relatives near Binger, and it was through them that she acquired a broad and deep knowledge of Caddo customs and grew up as a fluent speaker of the Caddo language. One can easily believe, as she did, that physical restrictions on her movements came together with inborn mental abilities to lead her to focus throughout her life on matters of an intellectual nature. She took great pride in her knowledge and was eager to share it with those who were anxious to preserve the Caddo language and traditions with which she was so familiar. I first met Mrs. Weller in 1959 and worked with her intensively on the Caddo language in the summers from 1961 to 1965, visiting her sporadically after that until she passed away. Her interest, enthusiasm, and collaborative attitude made her a pleasure to be assoicated with. She remembered a number of what she called children's stories from her own childhood. It was typical of those stories that they explained some well-known characteristic of a particular animal, and this story of how the turtle got its squares is a good example. Wallace Chafe