Belfry at Mission San Juan Bautista

To summarize the linked story, Ascencion was a Native American and the last known native speaker of the Mutsun language spoken by the Amah Mutsun tribe in the Central Coast area of California (roughly San Luis Obispo to Santa Cruz.) In 1929, Ascencion was visited by the noted Smithsonian linguist John Peabody Harrington who recorded her oral history. After seeing a photograph of Ascencion in the San Francisco Chronicle, her story came to the attention of Fresno State University professor Helene Joseph-Weil who then created a libretto version that was set to music by her colleague, composer Benjamin Boone. (If you are interested, there is a nice audio slideshow with an excerpt from the piece linked to the NPR article. )

When I first saw the article, I was immediately reminded of the story of Ishi, the last known surviving member of the Yahi tribe, who in August of 1911 wandered into Oroville, California. (Very near where I completed my undergraduate degree.) Ishi was subsequently moved to San Francisco where he provided a wealth of information about his people and his native Yana language.

What I found particularly interesting though, is that one of the University of California linguists who worked with Ishi was a gentleman named Alfred L. Kroeber who in turn gave several lectures attended by a student at nearby Stanford University by the name of John Peabody Harrington. Perhaps not a surprise, but I like finding these sort of connections.