Lucille Robedeaux
{{Short description|Osage cultural leader}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Lucille Robedeaux
| image =
| alt =
| caption =
| birth_name = Lucille Matin
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1915|06|10}}
| birth_place = Wynona, Oklahoma
| death_date = {{Death date and age|2005|11|03|1915|06|10}}
| death_place =
| other_names = Lucille Roubedeaux
| occupation = tribal leader of the Osage of Oklahoma
| years_active =
| known_for = last surviving native speaker of the Osage language
| notable_works =
| father = Walter Jones
| mother = Maggy Helen Matin
}}
Lucille Belle Robedeaux ({{nee}} Matin, June 10, 1915 – November 3, 2005), sometimes spelt Roubedeaux, was a tribal leader of the Osage of Oklahoma and the last surviving native speaker of the Osage language.{{cite web|url=http://www.endangeredlanguages.com/lang/osa|title=Endangered Languages Project - Osage|publisher=endangeredlanguages.com|accessdate=2015-08-16}}{{cite web|url=http://ageoftheosage.typepad.com/blog/2011/09/words-of-the-tribe.html|title=Words of the Tribe - Age of the Osage|publisher=ageoftheosage.typepad.com|accessdate=2015-08-16}}
Life
Lucille Belle Matin was born in Wynona, Oklahoma, a daughter of Walter Jones and Maggy Helen Matin of the Eagle Clan. Her parents soon moved to Hominy, where she attended school.{{Cite web |title=Lucille Belle Robedeaux - 2005 - Chapman Black Home |url=https://www.tributearchive.com/obituaries/386752/Lucille-Belle-Robedeaux |access-date=2025-04-07 |website=www.tributearchive.com |language=en}} She was one of the last Osage to have a traditional marriage, with the exchange of many horses.{{Cite book |last=Swan |first=Daniel C. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ToC0DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT172 |title=Wedding Clothes and the Osage Community: A Giving Heritage |last2=Cooley |first2=Jim |date=2019-10-21 |publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=978-0-253-04305-4 |language=en}} On November 4, 1946, she married Lee Robedeaux, and they had children.
Robedeaux worked at St. John's Hospital, Tulsa, as a nurse's aide from the 1950s until she retired in the late 1970s. An active member of the Altar Society of St. Joseph's Catholic Church and of the Mound Valley Homemakers, she became a community leader, as an Elder of the Osage Nation and as advisor of the Tribal Dance Committee, promoting the carrying on of Osage traditions. She was fond of bull fights and the horse races in Hot Springs, Arkansas, and traveled around the US and also to Hawaii, Mexico, and Europe.
By the time of Robedeaux's death in 2005, aged ninety, she was the last native speaker of the Osage language. A program had been initiated to revive the language, but with little success: "This is the last train out. If we can't get it done this time around, then that's it. There is no more after this" said "Uncle Mogre" of the Osage, who had been working to preserve the language.{{cite web|url=http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?cat=83&paged=2|title=Language Log » Endangered languages|publisher=languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu|accessdate=2015-08-16}} The Osage language had then been dwindling for nearly 200 years.{{cite web|url=http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2203|title=Language Log » Talking Osage|publisher=languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu|accessdate=2015-08-16}}
References
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Category:Last known speakers of a Native American language
Category:Native American people from Oklahoma
Category:20th-century Native American women
Category:20th-century Native American people
Category:21st-century Native American women
Category:21st-century Native American people
Category:People from Osage County, Oklahoma
Category:21st-century American people
Category:21st-century American women