Tony Tillohash
Tony Tillohash was a Paiute Native Americans in [the United States|Indian] who worked with linguist Edward Sapir to describe the Paiute language">Southern Paiute">Paiute language.
In 1910, Tillohash was removed from his home in Utah to the Indian [Industrial">Native Americans in the United States">Indian [Industrial School] in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. There Tillohash began working with Sapir, then employed at the nearby University of Pennsylvania.
Together they recorded many Paiute songs, and Sapir describes Tillohash's musical memory with some amazement:
Despite his five years' absence from home, Tony's musical memory was quite remarkable. Besides the myth-songs spoken of here, over two hundred other songs of various kinds were obtained from him.
The work ultimately led to a book-length description of the language, now considered a classic in linguistics.
After his studies at Carlisle, Tillohash returned to Utah and married a Shivwits Paiute woman named Bessie Simon. Together they raised a family and ran a cattle ranch. He was elected chairman of the Shivwits Band of Paiutes. He and Stewart Snow observed the changes that the Great Depression and the Indian New Deal brought to their tribe, when they wrote in 1940: "For the past six years we have depended largely on the various Federal Relief Agencies. Our farms have been somewhat neglected." He served on the tribal council through the 1940s.