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Jane Hill
Department of Anthropology, University of Arizona

Abstract

In Cupeņo, a Takic (Uto-Aztecan) language of California, a 'reportative evidential' particle marks clauses as containing information that the speaker knows only at second hand. Texts regarded as 'traditional' have these particles in almost every sentence. However, the particle is a fairly flexible resource. The paper reviews the use of the particle by one of the last speakers of Cupeņo, Roscinda Nolasquez, to negotiate the shift of her recollection of events in which she participated, the expulsion of the Cupeņo from their homeland, into a genre of authoritative community history.