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Article: Finding the words.(Features)(Once beaten for speaking his native tongue, Gilbert Towner is helping to resurrect a language and its culture)
- Article from:
- The Register Guard (Eugene, OR)
- Article date:
- October 6, 2002
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 The Register Guard. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: KAREN McCOWAN The Register-Guard
AGNESS - On the same riverbank where Army troops burned his great-grandfather's village in 1856, Gilbert Towner teaches his disappearing native language to a new generation of tribal descendants.
Ten learners from all over the Northwest have converged here, deep in the Coast Range canyons of the Rogue River, this hot, still September weekend. Their camping chairs form a semicircle around Towner, a spare, soft-spoken Korean War veteran. As he smiles at a student, crinkles frame his gentle eyes like tributaries on a map.
The very way he pronounces their tribal name is a reminder that Tututen is a ...