Ken Lonewolf

Posted by Ken Lonewolf on January 20, 2009 at 12:32pm in Madoc

Please do not call my people "Welsh Indians", but refer to my people as Shawnee-White Madoc Native Americans. That is the proper term for us. And please don't call our Mandan brothers in South Dakota "Welsh Indians" either. They may be part Welsh, as we are, but they are Mandan Native Americans. They may have adopted a few Welsh people in the distant past, but they are not Welsh.

Prince Madog may well be one of my long-ago grandfathers, but make no mistake, my Native American heritage is primary. Your Welsh people became Shawnees through no choice of their own. They were captives. My particular Shawnees did not become Welsh people. They became us through adoption.

My people near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania at one time prior to about 1830 spoke a combination of Algonkin mixed with Welsh, which we called our "white grandmother tongue". We did not use the term "Welsh" for our words, but the European settlers whom we fought in the 1700's in western Pennsylvania told us that some of our words were of the Welsh language.

And these 1700's European settlers were looking at Shawnees who weren't too happy with these white settlers "squatting" on our lands without our permission, most of these squatters being Scots and Germans. We forcibly removed many of them. The warfare with them and the hated Yengese (English) lasted for over sixty years without a break (1754-1814).

We Shawnee-White Madocs were some the "savages" that the British and British-American armies met in battle in 1754-1755 near Pittsburgh, when they came to steal our land. We were their worst nightmare!

They never won a battle fighting against us in the French and Indian War (1754-1763)! British Col. George Washington being one of the many whom we defeated every time he went against us. His Virginians were particular "targets" for my people! Washington personally started this war in 1754 when he came to steal our land in western Pennsylvania. We never forgot who started this warfare, and they were going to pay dearly. Many a dead Englishman had dirt stuffed in his mouth to satisfy his "hunger" for our land.

By the mid-1800's, we were simply being overwhelmed by white Europeans. After the War of 1812, we scattered in the local area. Many of us are still there. No "myth"involved with us!

You can believe these words, or you may dismiss me as some sort of crazy person, that is your choice. However, I am the last "wisdomkeeper" of my Shawnee-White Madoc people, and I carry the oral history of my people.

Take care my Welsh friends,

Ken Lonewolf / M'Weowa-Ni of the Wolf Clan of the Shawnee-White Madoc Native Americans

My e-mail address is: lonewlf99@aol.com

Replies to This Discussion

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Reply by John Good/Sioni Dda on January 20, 2009 at 12:52pm

Thank you / Diolch i chi M'Weowa-Ni / Ken Lonewolf, we will use your name, Shawnee-White Madoc Native Americans, with greater care in the future.

As Welsh-Americans / AmeriCymry we appreciate your sensitivity in this matter and applaud you in your efforts to set history straight! Diolch eto/thanks again, Sioni Dda/John Good

P.S. Are there any recordings of your traditional music? As a musician and Welshman I'm very interested in this area.

Reply by Martin C N Williams on January 20, 2009 at 12:57pm

Hi Ken,

It is good of you to share the history with us and we should never diminish your self and your people by calling you by a name you do not want or deserve. The name Welsh also has a sad history behind it (meaning Foreigner or slave), and was given ironically be invading foreigners, so we should know better and should act accordingly. Maybe we should push the true name for the Welsh people which is Cymru (pronounced Kimree) meaning something like "family".

Please pass on your knowledge so that the oral tradition can persist and people like your self can defend history and truth.

Martin.

Reply by Fionnchú on January 20, 2009 at 3:21pm

The English-born, of Welsh parentage, critic Stephen Knight in "A Hundred Years of Fiction," his study of the past century's Welsh writers in English, comments that we should discourage the use of "Welsh" for the language and promote "Cymraeg." I wonder if this has gained more acceptance? The substitution of "Cymric" as an adjective for "Welsh" never seemed to make it, although people tried this around 150 years ago.

Reply by Martin C N Williams on January 23, 2009 at 9:51am

HI Fionnchu,

Cymraeg is indeed the Welsh word for the language. However, I believe linguists use the word Cymric and I have seen it in use quite frequently. Makes me wander what the Irish word is for their Language. e.g they use the word Gaelic but I do not think that is a Gaelic word. Any one know.

Reply by Fionnchú on January 23, 2009 at 12:29pm

I want to thank both Martin & Tam. A quick return to my question: I wonder if there's headway in reclaming more Celtic terms used in English discourse for "Welsh" identity? Cymru, Cymric, Cymraeg, maybe even the Latinate or geological Cambrian? There's an inherent problem in using the Saesnag terms for one's self-definition, unlike the Irish Celtically-derived counterparts.

Don't want to get off track too far from the Madoc thread, but pedantry makes me clarify that "Goidelic" (cf. "Brythonic" for the other branch of the Celtic languages) is primarily a linguistic and slightly antiquated term. The "Gaelic word" in Irish is not "Goidelic," for that's a coinage from "Gael." In Irish, that is, "Gaeilge," we'd use that particular word for the Irish language.

Often in the diaspora, I find "Gaelic" substituted, but that leads to confusion with "Scots Gaelic," so the adjective tends to be added to distinguish its Irish from its Scots version.

Either usage beats the fusty Hibernian rendering-- dangerously open to punning-- to "Erse," however! There's a tendency to use now "Irish" vs. "Scots Gaelic" it seems. And in Scotland they tend to say more often "the Gaelic" (as in a shorter "a" for "Gallic") vs. Irish usage of the longer "a" sound. ! You can't simply refer linguistically in Gaelic to "Scots" alone-- as that's linked to their venerable version of English there!

Reply by BEE RICHARDS on January 20, 2009 at 3:12pm

Hello Ken, good to hear from you. Glad to know you are still out there. Thought it had gone quiet on Madoc and that this site was a good place to launch discussion on my pet topic. May be some new information will come to light and maybe a lot more people will become acquainted with something which is fascinating and very probably true. Best........ Bee

Reply by BEE RICHARDS on January 23, 2009 at 2:22pm

Hi Ken, going over to see the stone forts and whatever else we can find out in April. Any suggestions????

Best........................ Bee

Reply by Martin C N Williams on January 26, 2009 at 10:09pm

Hi Ken,

Interesting to hear about the Roman sentry stations. North Wales and especially Gwynedd has a long known special relationship with the Romans. As a Prince of Gwynedd and son of Owain, Madoc was descended from the men who drove out the invading Irish (known then as Scotti or pirates). I think this was in the sixth century AD. These men were a mix of Roman descendants, (Romano British), and the Votadini tribe (Roman Name), a great and powerful tribe that originated in what is now East Scotland, but called Gododdin today (pronounced God-Othin I think). They were also accompanied by a horde of Manau Picts. I could go on but I should get to the point. If any else who can correct or elaborate on my previous words please do. So I would say that it is quite possible that Madoc and his followers were well acquantied with such construction.

Another interesting historical fact is that the Votadini built very large forts in Britain such as atTrapain Law (pictures are on the web) and their name literally means the "fort dwellers". So there is a long history of fort building for the people of Gwynedd. The irony today is that they now live in the shadow of Norman-English castles.

Martin.

Reply by BEE RICHARDS on February 8, 2009 at 3:28pm

Hi Ken, thank you so much for the info. i will email you with a more detailed itinerary. Where were the European locations Would be interesting to compare. Bee

Reply by BEE RICHARDS on February 8, 2009 at 3:38pm

Hi Ken, cannot find your email address. My computer was down over Christmas. if you would like to send it to me on my email address which is b.richards83@ntlworld.com I would love to hear from you. Best..................... Bee

Reply by Morgan Hen on January 21, 2009 at 4:50am

The great chief Tecumseh was a Shawnee, was he not? A great defender of the traditional ways of the Shawnee peoples against that of that the whites. I dislike referring to your people as Native Americans or Indians. I understand that Tecumseh fought with the British in the war of 1812.

Reply by Claudio Vincent Williams on January 21, 2009 at 4:15pm

Very interesting Ken, my respects to the Shawnee-White Madoc Native Americans.