Comanche language teacher shares importance of keeping culture alive

Martie Woothtakewahbitty has been teaching the Comanche language at the Life Ready Center since 2022.

It’s her way to keep the culture alive.

Throughout her childhood, her family has helped her pave the way to her career.

“I grew up and went to school in Elgin College in Bacone,” Woothtakewahbitty said. “I grew up with my great-grandma until she passed away and she taught me a lot that I kind of faded away because I was still really young. Then my grandfather raised me for the majority of my life and he taught me a lot as well, along with his siblings. By the time I hit seventh grade, (I got) my first language teacher in school. I was blessed enough to be able to have Comanche language in my public school. She taught me from seventh grade until I graduated”

Raylisha York-Stanley, Lawton Public Schools Indian Education Liaison, reached out to Woothtakewahbitty for the position and the rest is history.

“She was looking for people and she found me and brought me here,” Woothtakewahbitty said. “I started in Elgin as a Special Ed Paraprofessional. They were looking for somebody because their language teacher left. They found out that I spoke and asked me to be a teacher. At that point in time, I wasn’t certified yet, so I had a bit of help getting certified to get to that point. Within a year, I got all that taken care of and I started teaching at Elgin until I moved here.”

Woothtakewahbitty’s favorite thing about teaching is her kids.

“I love getting to teach them and seeing them learn in that ‘Aha!’ moment,” she said. “I love when they come back to school and say they were talking Comanche at home and their parents are like, ‘Whoa!’ and they get to teach their parents and or grandparents. That’s the biggest part of my job, they take the language home with them, they have it in their home and it spreads like that. It’s amazing what these kids can do and how much they absorb when they really want to do something.”

When it comes to keeping the heritage and culture alive, one thing’s for sure.

“You can’t separate language and culture,” Woothtakewahbitty said. “The culture is embedded within the language. As you speak and learn, you grow in that. That’s how you keep it alive, you just be you and you live that, speak that.

“If we don’t pass it on, it’s not going to continue,” Woothtakewahbitty said. “We teach endangered languages and that is important to our people. It’s important to these kids, their identity. To have your language, you understand who you are. For these kids, that is important. To be able to have that language, it gives them that confidence, that sense of identity. To be able to pass it on to them, it’s the most important thing in the world to me.”

When she’s not teaching, Woothtakewahbitty loves being with her horses and teaching her kids the language.

“My family rodeos, and I love that,” Woothtakewahbitty said.