Researchers: Preserve code talker legacy

 

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The recent deaths of three Navajo code talkers were a tragic loss for the Navajo Nation.

But they should also serve as a wake-up call to preserve their legacy, said two people who have been chronicling the code talkers' lives for decades.

"It's making me kick myself in the butt to get my history degree and start one of the books I've been thinking about," said Zonnie Gorman, daughter of the late code talker Carl Nelson Gorman and perhaps the leading expert on the history of the code talkers.

 "I'd really like to see a code talker museum while some of them are still with us," said Kenji Kawano, who has photographed and interviewed about 100 of the estimated 400 men who were recruited to communicate messages in a Navajo-language code during World War II.

Keith Little, president of the 40-member Navajo Code Talkers Association, said he's a bit surprised people are reacting so strongly to the deaths, within two weeks, of John Brown Jr., Thomas Claw and Willie Kescoli Begay.

"It's to be expected," shrugged Little, 85. "The youngest of us are in their late seventies now."

Little estimated between 100 and 200 former code talkers are still alive, although the majority haven't joined the association.

But Gorman said people tend to take the code talkers for granted until one of them passes on.

"You always kind of think your parents are going to be there forever," she said. "You hear them tell a story and you think, 'Oh well, I'll hear it again.' Then all of a sudden they're gone and you think, 'Why didn't I write that down? Why didn't I get him to identify the people in this photograph?'"

Kawano, who was picked up hitchhiking by Gorman's father in 1975 and has been photographing code talkers ever since, said it struck him at last year's Navajo Nation Fair Parade how few code talkers are left.

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"When I first came to the Navajo Nation (in 1974) you would see 20 or 30 of them marching in a parade," he said. "Last year, there were less than 10. In a few years, you cannot really see them in a public place."

While several books have been written on the code talkers, including Kawano's pictorial essay "Warriors," none has been written by a professional historian, and that worries Gorman.

"I'm reading (Navajo historian) Jennifer Denetdale's book 'Reclaiming Navajo History,' and I was thinking about how she really legitimized Navajo history in Western historical circles, because she has a Ph.D.," Gorman said. "I would love for that to be done for the code talkers, because I don't see any of the books that have been written about them really being taken seriously by academic historians."

With the paucity of Navajo historians, Gorman said the only way she can think of to make that happen is to get a Ph.D. herself.

"With a full-time job (as project coordinator for the Circle of Light Navajo Educational Project), I don't see how I'm going to go back to school, but I need to make it happen somehow," she said.

She added she has five books on the code talkers "in my head," ranging from fiction to a very academic history.

The code talker story itself is taking on a legendary quality, Gorman said, and the lines between fact and fiction are becoming blurred - even by the code talkers themselves.

"For instance, I was traveling with a code talker to give a lecture, and he started telling the people about the symbolism of their outfit," she recalled. "He was saying the black shoes were like obsidian arrowheads, the khaki pants were the color of the earth, all the way on up to his hat.

"Well, I happened to be at the association meeting where they decided on a uniform, and I don't remember hearing any talk about symbolism. It was more like, 'Black shoes and khaki pants look military, and then we should have a bright-colored shirt to stand out.'

"But I think that's common in Native cultures. We incorporate our heroes into the fabric of our culture until they become these legendary figures, and everything about them takes on a symbolic, almost spiritual quality."

Both the myth and the historically verifiable accounts are part of the code talker legacy, Gorman said, and need to be preserved.

Like Kawano, she sees the need for a code talker museum, though she hasn't puzzled out exactly what it should be like. As she thought about it, however, ideas came spilling out.

"It should have a permanent exhibit and rotating exhibits, and a space for archives and research," she said. "It should put the code talker story in the context of the times: the assimilation policy, the livestock reduction, the fact that we were being told we were 'less than' and not being allowed to speak our language in school."

Kawano would like to see the museum on Navajo land, run by the Navajo Nation rather than a nonprofit corporation, as is being discussed now.

"The Navajo people need to decide how they want to tell this story, both to their children and to the outside world," Kawano opined.

Ironically, the former Navajo Nation Museum curator who helped the code talkers start their association isn't sure he likes the idea of a museum specifically dedicated to the code talkers. Martin Link thinks the code talker legacy is already a bit overblown.

"In the first place, singling people out for glory is not the Navajo way," Link said. "Even Manuelito is buried in an unmarked grave ...

"Secondly, there seems to be this common misperception that the code talkers single-handedly won the war. You don't think two atomic bombs had something to do with it?

"And thirdly, I think it does a disservice to the thousands of other Navajo veterans. What about the 1,200 Navajo Marines who served in World War II and weren't code talkers? What about the Navajos who served in the Coast Guard? There were Navajo women in the WAC and the WAFT who you never hear anything about.

"If there is to be a museum, I would like to see it done in such away that it honors all Navajo veterans."

A museum of any kind is still years away, as are Gorman's books, and in the meantime, Gorman urged Navajos who have code talkers in their families to start doing a little amateur documenting.

"If your father is willing to talk, ask him, 'Can I record this?'" she advised. "Get it on a tape recorder, a video camera, even a notepad if that's all you have. If he has any old photographs, get him to tell you who the people are and where it was taken."

Battle gear, war souvenirs, medals and other memorabilia of the time should be stored in a safe place where they're protected from dust and weather, Gorman suggested, noting that Gallup trader Ellis Tanner is contemplating building a Navajo archival facility where families can securely store such items.

Of course, all the documenting in the world won't bring back the code talkers who have passed on. Kawano, the only Japanese-American to be named an honorary member of the Code Talkers Association, said he feels a pang every time he hears of another death.

"I really miss them," he said.

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