Story of Choctaw Code Talkers told at Reims event

via the Choctaw Nation Biskinik newsletter

Tiajuana King Cochnauer presented Telling Our Own Story: Choctaw Code Talkers, at an international conference in Reims, France, in April.

Luke Clay of Rattan, Oklahoma, great-great-grandson of Tobias Frazier, one of the original Code Talkers.This location is near the World War I battlefields where the 19 young Choctaws from Oklahoma were tasked to communicate military messages in Choctaw. Their messages confounded the German army because they could not translate the Choctaw messages. As a result of their successful efforts in October 1918, they later became known as the original Code Talkers.

Tiajuana, a professional heritage and environmental interpreter, is a Certified Interpretive Guide through the National Association for Interpretation. She will leave Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma flags, provided by the Choctaw Nation, at the battlefields where these Choctaws fought.

Included in her presentation will be a video clip of young Luke Clay of Rattan, Oklahoma, who portrays his great-great-grandfather, Tobias Frazier, one of the original Code Talkers. Her international audience will also learn how the Code Talkers Association and the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma are honoring and recognizing the contributions of these first Code Talkers.

Tiajuana is the Dyer, Labor, King and Cochnauer families’ historian and is a registered Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma artist. She has a Special Collections of Choctaw and family material begun at the Oklahoma History Center in Oklahoma City. She is donating a quilted wall hanging of the Code Talkers to their Association as a fundraiser. She resides in Aiken, South Carolina.

Read more about the first Code Talkers on the Choctaw Nation web site.

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