Late Code Talker snuck pollen into chewing gum

Posted by Bill Donovan | Sep 8, 2016 | News |

WINDOW ROCK

Navajo Code Talker Joe Hosteen Kellwood passed away in Phoenix Monday. He was 95 years old.

Kellwood joined the 1st Marine Division in 1942 at the age of 21 and operated as a Navajo Code Talker until the war ended in April 1945.

He took part in several battles in the Pacific Theater, including the Battle of Cape Gloucester, Peleliu, and Okinawa.

He had been living in the Phoenix area since 1951.

According to newspaper accounts of his life, he was born in Steamboat and spent his early years herding sheep and chopping wood.

At the age of 10, the BIA ordered his family to send him to a military school where he would be taught how to survive culture shock.

Kellwood would say later that this was not a happy time for him because, like many Navajos who went to boarding school in the 1930s, he was punished any time a teacher or member of the staff heard him speak to another student in Navajo.

He would later recall those days with a chuckle, pointing out that while he was punished as a boy for using the Navajo language, he was praised in the 1940s for using the language to help the U.S. win the war in the Pacific.

In an interview when he received his Congressional silver medal from the federal government for his service as a Code Talker, Kellwood said he did not worry about dying because he followed the Navajo Way and offered prayers before he went into battle.

This statement was reported by Betty Reid, a former reporter for the Navajo Times, in a story she wrote for the Arizona Republic in 1999.

Kellwood told Reid that on the day his unit was transported to Australia, he found himself facing a religious dilemma.

His uncle had given him some corn pollen telling him to use it during his journey when he prayed.

He was concerned, however, that if he asked his superiors for permission to take the corn pollen, he would be denied so he came up with an alternative way of taking the corn pollen – he mixed it with chewing gum since he knew there were no restrictions against using chewing gum and when the time came, he sat out in the Pacific Ocean, saying to himself, “I shall return safely.”