Close-up with Carl Nelson Gorman

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👤 Who Was Carl Gorman?

Carl Nelson Gorman stands in the doorway of the small stone house in Chinle, Arizona, where he was born in 1907.

Carl Nelson Gorman stands outside the house in which he was born in 1907. Chinle, Arizona, 1985. Photograph by Georgia Greenberg, courtesy of the Carl Gorman Collection, from the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian.

Carl Gorman was born in a small stone house in Chinle, Arizona, in 1907. He was the oldest of six children. His home was near a place called , where red rock walls rise high above the valley floor.

Carl's family were Navajo. The Navajo people call themselves Diné, which means “the people.”

Carl's mother and father both saw that he loved to draw, and both of them told him to keep going.

🌟 Fun Fact!When Carl was a grown-up, he helped invent a secret code that no enemy could ever figure out. Then he spent the rest of his life painting pictures and teaching young artists.

Carl grew up to do two big things. He helped keep people safe during a war. And he showed the world that Navajo art was beautiful and important.

Carl Nelson Gorman was born on October 5, 1907, in Chinle, Arizona, on the . The Navajo people call themselves Diné, a word that means “the people.” He was the oldest of six children. Later, when he became a painter, he signed his work Kin-Ya-Onny-Beyeh, a Navajo name meaning “Son of Towering House.”

His mother was Alice Peshlakai Gorman and his father was Nelson Carl Gorman. Both of them noticed that Carl liked to draw, and both of them encouraged it.

Carl would grow up to be two things at once, and he never thought they were separate. He was a United States Marine who helped build a secret code out of the Navajo language. He was also a painter and a teacher who spent forty years making sure Navajo art and Navajo history were taken seriously.

📍 Where He Grew UpChinle sits on the rim of Canyon de Chelly, a canyon in northeastern Arizona where Navajo families have lived and farmed for hundreds of years. Carl painted the land around his home for the rest of his life.

Carl Nelson Gorman was born on October 5, 1907, in Chinle, Arizona, in the heart of the Navajo Nation, or . Diné is the word the Navajo people use for themselves. It means "the people."

His life contains a contradiction that he spent decades thinking about. As a boy, he was sent to a boarding school where children were punished for speaking Navajo. As a young man, the United States Marine Corps recruited him specifically because he spoke Navajo, and asked him to help build a secret military code out of it. He was one of twenty-nine men who did, and the code they built was never broken.

He came home from the Pacific in 1945 and could not tell anyone what he had done, because the program stayed secret, or classified, until it was in 1968. So he did something else with the rest of his life. He became a painter, a professor, and one of the founders of Native American Studies at the University of California, Davis. He directed the Navajo Arts and Crafts Guild. He founded the organization that finally got the Code Talkers recognized.

📅 The Span of His LifeCarl was born in 1907. Native Americans were not legally recognized as citizens of the United States until 1924, when he was seventeen, and some states refused to let Native people vote until as late as the 1950s. He died in 1998. Almost everything in this guide happened inside one man's lifetime.

Carl Nelson Gorman was born on October 5, 1907, in Chinle, Arizona, in Diné Bikéyah, the Navajo homeland. Diné is the word the Navajo people use for themselves. It means "the people."

His life sits on a contradiction he spent decades thinking about, and it is worth stating plainly at the start. The United States government spent the early twentieth century trying to eliminate Native languages through the boarding school system. It then came to the Navajo Nation in 1942 and recruited men precisely because they spoke one of those languages, asking them to build a secret military code out of it. Gorman was one of the twenty-nine who did. The code was never broken.

Understanding why he agreed requires understanding what came before. Native Americans were not recognized as citizens of the United States until 1924, when Gorman was seventeen, and some states refused to let Native people vote until the 1950s. In the decade before the war, the federal government carried out a livestock reduction program on the Navajo Nation that damaged Navajo families economically and culturally for a generation. Gorman worked as an interpreter for that program, and enlisted after being laid off from it.

He came home in 1945 unable to tell anyone what he had done, because the program stayed until 1968. He spent the following fifty years as a painter, a professor, a museum namesake, and the founder of the organization that finally secured recognition for the Code Talkers.

🗣️ Navajo and DinéThis guide uses both words. Diné is the name the people use for themselves, and it means "the people." Navajo is the name used in English, in federal records, and by the Navajo Nation in its own official name. Both are correct, and you will encounter both in the sources listed at the end of this guide. Which name a group is known by, and who chose it, is worth noticing whenever you study a people's history.

🗣️ The Code No One Could Break

When Carl was a boy, he went to a school far from home. At that school, children were not allowed to speak Navajo, and they were punished if they did. Carl did not like the strict rules or the way the children were treated, so one day he ran away. His father listened to him and understood, and did not make him go back.

Years later, something surprising happened. The country needed a secret way to send messages, and it asked Carl and twenty-eight other Navajo men to build one out of the very language that school had tried to take away.

🦅 Try This!In their code, the Navajo word for eagle, atsá, meant "airplane." Why do you think they picked eagle for a plane?

The men used more than two hundred Diné words to build a that only they could understand. They kept it in their heads instead of on paper, and nobody outside the group could ever figure it out.

As a boy, Carl was sent to the Rehoboth Mission School in New Mexico. Children at schools like Rehoboth were punished for speaking their own languages. Carl did not like the harsh rules or the way he and the other children were treated, so he ran away. His father understood how he felt and let him stay home instead of sending him back. Later he went to the Albuquerque Indian School, where things went much better. He played football and boxed, and he graduated in 1927.

In 1942, the United States was at war, and the Marine Corps came looking for men who spoke both Navajo and English. Carl was older than the Marines usually accepted. He did not tell them his real age.

On May 4, 1942, Carl and twenty-eight other Navajo men joined the Marines together. They became 382, the first all-Navajo platoon in Marine Corps history. Their job was to invent a code, and they built one with a little over two hundred terms in it.

🔐 How the Code WorkedThe men picked an English word for each letter of the alphabet, then translated that English word into Navajo. So a listener would hear real Navajo words, but the words did not mean what they seemed to mean. Iron fish meant submarine. Buzzard meant bomber. Shark meant a kind of warship.

There is a hard irony at the center of Carl Gorman's life, and he knew it.

As a child he attended the Rehoboth Mission School in New Mexico, where children were punished for speaking their own languages. Boarding schools like Rehoboth existed to replace Native languages and traditions with English and mainstream American culture. Carl objected to the harsh rules and to how the children were treated, and he ran away. His father did not force him back, and sent him instead to the Albuquerque Indian School, where he graduated in 1927.

Then in 1942 the United States Marine Corps came to the Navajo Nation looking for exactly what those schools had tried to erase. Carl was over the age limit, so he did not tell them his real age. On May 4, 1942, he and twenty-eight other Navajo men were sworn in. They became Platoon 382, the first all-Navajo platoon in Marine Corps history, and they were handed an assignment with no instructions: build a code in your own language.

What they built was doubly . First they chose an English word to stand for each letter of the alphabet. Then they translated that English word into Navajo. On top of that they invented Navajo terms for military equipment. A submarine was an iron fish. A bomber was a buzzard. A transport plane was an eagle, atsá. They memorized all of it. The codebook stayed in the classroom and was never carried into combat.

Carl served in four campaigns in the Pacific, including Saipan and Tinian. He was discharged in 1945 as a .

🔒 Twenty-Three Years of SilenceThe code was so valuable that the military kept the whole program classified until 1968. Carl came home in 1945 and could not tell his family, his neighbors, or anyone else what he had done in the war. Even other Navajo speakers who had not been trained in the code could not understand it. They would hear only strings of ordinary words that made no sense together. The Navajo code is the only spoken military code in modern warfare that was never broken.

The boarding school system was not incidental to this story. It was policy. Schools like the Rehoboth Mission School in New Mexico, which Gorman attended as a boy, existed to replace Native languages, dress, names, and religious practice with English and mainstream American culture. Children were punished for speaking their own languages. Gorman ran away. His father did not force him back and sent him instead to the Albuquerque Indian School, where he graduated in 1927.

📑 A Note on SourcesAccounts of Gorman's boarding school years differ. The Smithsonian says he objected to the harsh rules and to how the children were treated, and that he ran away. Other sources state directly that he was punished for speaking Navajo.

In the 1930s he worked as an interpreter for the federal livestock reduction program, which forcibly reduced Navajo herds. The program was justified as a response to soil erosion. In practice it destroyed the economic basis of many Navajo families and remains one of the most resented federal actions in Navajo memory. Gorman was the bilingual man standing between his own people and a policy that harmed them. He was laid off, and in the spring of 1942 the Marine Corps came looking for Navajo speakers.

He was over the age limit and lied about his age. On May 4, 1942, he and twenty-eight other men were sworn in as Platoon 382, the first all-Navajo platoon in Marine Corps history, and handed an assignment with no instructions: build a code in your own language.

What they produced was doubly . Each letter of the English alphabet was assigned an English word, and that word was then translated into Navajo. On top of that they invented Navajo terms for military equipment. A submarine was an iron fish, a bomber a buzzard, a transport plane an eagle. They memorized all of it. The codebook stayed in the classroom and never went into combat.

The security of the code rested on something no machine could replicate. Navajo was spoken by almost no one outside the Navajo Nation, had no widely available written form an enemy could study, and its grammar and tone were extremely difficult for an adult learner. That is what made the code unbreakable. It is also what made the men themselves irreplaceable.

🔒 Twenty-Three Years of SilenceThe program stayed classified until 1968. Gorman came home in 1945 and could tell no one what he had done. Consider what that cost: no public credit, no recognition tied to the work, and no way to correct the record while the men who did it were still young. The did not come until 2001, fifty-six years after the war ended.

🎨 He Came Home and Picked Up a Brush

Carl Nelson Gorman and his son R. C. Gorman stand with Lloyd L. House among their paintings at an exhibition of their work in San Francisco in 1967.

Carl Gorman (left) and his son R. C. Gorman (center) with Lloyd L. House at the Museum of Indian Art, San Francisco, July 16, 1967, at a two-man show of their work. House, who was Navajo and Oneida, was the first Native American lawmaker in Arizona.

Coming home from a war is hard. Carl had seen frightening things.

An old friend who was a Navajo medicine man offered to help him. He sang for Carl through the night. Carl said afterward that he felt a heavy weight lift off him, and that he felt rested.

Then Carl did something wonderful. He went to art school and became a painter. He painted the ceremony that had helped him. He painted horses and dancers and the red rock country where he grew up.

🎨 Fun Fact!Carl painted, made pottery, printed pictures on cloth, and even designed jewelry. He liked trying everything.

War is hard on the people who fight in it, and Navajo families have to help a soldier come home and feel whole again. The Navajo word for that kind of balance and beauty is .

Carl had grown up Christian and was not sure he still believed in the old ceremonies. He also did not have money to pay for one. But an old friend who was a offered to sing over him for one night for free. Carl said that during the sing he felt a great weight leave his mind and his body, and that he understood he needed to make peace with what he had been through.

Later, Carl painted that ceremony. The painting is called The Black Pot Drum of the Enemy Way. You can see it on the Smithsonian's Native Words, Native Warriors website.

In the 1950s he went to the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles, paid for by a program that helped go to school. He worked as a technical illustrator, drawing detailed pictures of airplane parts. He started his own printing company. And he kept painting for the rest of his life.

🖌️ A Rule He BrokeIn those years, many people expected Native artists to paint in one flat, simple style. Carl refused. He mixed what he learned about European painting with his own Navajo world, and he worked in paint, clay, tile, printed cloth, and silver.

Carl came home from the Pacific in 1945 to a problem he could not talk about with anyone.

Navajo tradition has ceremonies designed for exactly this. When a soldier returns, the family may sponsor a ceremony, and a spiritual leader decides which one fits what the soldier has been through. The ceremony is used for soldiers who were in combat, captured, or wounded. Its purpose is to restore , a state of balance and beauty in a person's relationship to the world.

Carl had been raised Christian and said he was no longer sure he believed in the ceremonies. He also could not afford one. An old friend who was a medicine man suggested he have one anyway and offered to perform a one-night sing at no cost. Carl later described feeling a great weight leave his mind and body, and realizing that he needed to make peace with the war.

He then painted that ceremony. The Black Pot Drum of the Enemy Way is his, and the Smithsonian uses it to illustrate the tradition on its Native Words, Native Warriors website. An artist who once doubted a ceremony ended up making the image that teaches it to other people.

In the 1950s he studied at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles on the , where he formally studied the European masters. He worked as a technical illustrator for the Douglas Aircraft Company and founded his own silk-screen business.

💡 Did You Know? Rebel in Indian ArtArt dealers and teachers of that era expected Native painters to work in a flat, two-dimensional decorative style. Carl refused to be limited to it, and moved between painting, ceramics, tile, silk screening, and jewelry design. In 1964 he and his son R.C. showed together at the Philbrook Art Center in Tulsa in an exhibition titled New Directions in American Indian Art. When the two of them exhibited at the Heard Museum the following year, an Arizona newspaper ran the review under a headline calling the father and son rebels in Indian art.

Gorman came home in 1945 carrying something he was forbidden to discuss.

Navajo tradition has ceremonies for exactly this situation. A spiritual leader determines which ceremony fits what a returning soldier has experienced. The Enemy Way ceremony is used for those who were in combat, captured, or wounded, and its purpose is to restore hózhó, a state of balance and beauty in a person's relationship to the world. Gorman had been raised Christian and said he was no longer sure he believed in the ceremonies, and he could not afford one. An old friend who was a medicine man offered to perform a one-night sing at no cost. Gorman later described a great weight leaving his mind and body, and understanding that he needed to make peace with the war.

He then painted that ceremony. The Black Pot Drum of the Enemy Way is his, and the Smithsonian uses it to illustrate the tradition. There is something worth sitting with in that: a man who doubted a ceremony produced the image that now teaches it to other people.

In the 1950s he studied at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles on the , formally studying the European masters, and worked as a for the Douglas Aircraft Company. He founded his own silk-screen business.

💡 Refusing the Expected StyleDealers, teachers, and buyers of that era expected Native painters to work in a flat, two-dimensional decorative style, and rewarded those who did. Gorman refused, and said he resented the expectation. He moved between painting, ceramics, tile, silk screening, and jewelry design. In 1964 he and his son R.C. exhibited together at the Philbrook Art Center in Tulsa in a show called New Directions in American Indian Art, and when they showed at the Heard Museum the following year an Arizona Republic reviewer ran the piece under a headline calling the father and son rebels in Indian art. Consider what an artist is choosing when they refuse a style a market rewards.

🌉 Building a Bridge

Carl became a teacher. He taught college students about Native American art, and he was so proud of their work that he hung it all over his office. His college later named its art museum after him.

Carl also wanted people to know what the Navajo men had done in the war. He started a group so the Code Talkers could tell their story together. In 1982 the United States made August 14 a day to honor them, so that every year people would remember what they did.

🌉 What He SaidCarl said he was building a bridge. A bridge is something you walk across in both directions.

His son R.C. became a famous painter. His daughter Zonnie became a historian who teaches people about the Code Talkers. The bridge is still standing.

After the code was made public in 1968, Carl spent the rest of his life making sure people understood two things: that Navajo art belonged in museums, and that the Code Talkers deserved credit.

From 1969 to 1973 he taught at the University of California, Davis, where he was one of four professors who started the Native American Studies department. He built an art studio there for Native students and filled his office with their work. In 1974 the university opened a museum named after him.

He had managed the Navajo Arts and Crafts Guild back in the 1960s, before he went to Davis. Afterward he went home again, taught at Navajo Community College, which is now Diné College, and led a project recording the memories of Navajo elders so they would not be lost.

And he founded the Navajo Code Talkers Association, becoming its president in 1973. In 1982 the United States named August 14 National Navajo Code Talkers Day.

🌉 What He Called ItCarl said he was building a bridge. A bridge is something people cross in both directions. He said he was not interested in telling anyone their culture was no good. He wanted to trade ideas and look for what was good on both sides.

🏅 A Medal He Never SawCarl died in January 1998 at the age of ninety. In July 2001, the original twenty-nine Code Talkers were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. His wife, Mary, accepted his medal in his memory.

Carl Gorman described his life's work as building a bridge. A bridge, he said, is something you cross in both directions. He said he would never stand up and declare another person's culture no good. He wanted to trade ideas and knowledge and look for what was good on both sides.

He spent fifty years building it. From 1969 to 1973 he was one of four founding faculty of the Native American Studies department at the University of California, Davis He created a studio workshop there specifically for Native artists, and he displayed his students' work so persistently in his own office that the university opened a museum named for him in 1974. It is still open and still shows contemporary Native artists.

He had managed the Navajo Arts and Crafts Guild during the 1960s, before Davis. Afterward he went home to Gallup, served the Navajo Nation as Director of Native Healing Sciences in the late 1970s, taught at Navajo Community College, now Diné College, and at the University of New Mexico in Gallup, and led an oral history project recording Navajo elders.

And he founded the Navajo Code Talkers Association, which he was elected to lead in 1973, five years after the program was finally declassified. That organization is the reason the recognition eventually came. In 1982 the United States designated August 14 as National Navajo Code Talkers Day. In 1990 the University of New Mexico gave him an honorary doctorate.

He died in Gallup on January 29, 1998, at ninety.

💡 In His Own WordsLate in his life, around the time Northern Arizona University unveiled its Code Talker monument in 1995, Gorman was asked why he had fought for a country whose government had treated Native people badly. He answered that this whole land had been Indian country before anyone else arrived, that the Navajo still consider it their land, and that this is why they fight for it. Then he added: "I was very proud to serve my country."

🌉 Three GenerationsIn 1995 Northern Arizona University unveiled a Code Talker monument, a bust of Carl sculpted by his son R.C., who had become one of the most celebrated Native artists in the country. In July 2001 the original twenty-nine were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, and Carl's wife Mary accepted his in his memory. His daughter Zonnie Gorman became a professional historian of the Navajo Code Talkers, and still lectures on them. Carl spent his life arguing that Navajo language, art, and history mattered. His children carried the argument forward.

Gorman described his life's work as building a bridge, and defined a bridge as something people cross in both directions. He said he would never stand up and declare another person's culture no good, and that he wanted to trade ideas and knowledge and look for what was good on both sides. Holding that position is not obvious for a man whose language the government tried to school out of him and whose people's herds it destroyed.

He built it for fifty years. He managed the Navajo Arts and Crafts Guild in the 1960s. From 1969 to 1973, the years immediately after the code was declassified, he was one of four founding faculty of the Native American Studies department at the University of California, Davis, and the first person to teach Native American art there. He created a studio workshop for Native artists. In 1974 the university opened a museum named for him, which is still open and still exhibits contemporary Native artists.

Then he went home. He served the Navajo Nation as Director of Native Healing Sciences in the late 1970s, taught at Navajo Community College, now Diné College, and at the University of New Mexico in Gallup, and led an oral history project recording Navajo elders. In 1990 UNM awarded him an .

He founded the Navajo Code Talkers Association and was elected to lead it in 1973, five years after declassification. That organization is the reason recognition eventually arrived. In 1982 the United States designated August 14 as National Navajo Code Talkers Day. Gorman died in Gallup on January 29, 1998, at ninety.

💬 In His Own WordsLate in his life, around the 1995 unveiling of the Code Talker monument in Flagstaff, Gorman was asked why he fought for a country whose government had treated Native people badly. He answered that this whole land had been Indian country before anyone else arrived, that the Navajo still consider it their land, and that this is why they fight for it. Then he added: "I was very proud to serve my country." That answer reframes the question. He was not defending the government's record. He was describing a different reason for service.

🌉 Three GenerationsIn 1995 Northern Arizona University unveiled a Code Talker monument, a bust of Carl sculpted by his son R.C., who had become one of the most celebrated Native artists in the country. In July 2001 the original twenty-nine received the Congressional Gold Medal, and Carl's wife Mary accepted his in his memory. His daughter Zonnie Gorman became a professional historian of the Navajo Code Talkers and still lectures on them. Carl spent his life arguing that Navajo language, art, and history mattered. His children carried the argument forward.

Timeline

⏳ Carl Gorman's Life Journey

Learning Level: K–1

1907

Born in Chinle

Born in a small stone house in Chinle, Arizona. Born October 5, 1907, in Chinle, Arizona. Oldest of six children. Born October 5, 1907. Native Americans were not recognized as U.S. citizens until 1924, when he was seventeen. Born October 5, 1907. Native Americans were not recognized as U.S. citizens until 1924, and some states barred Native voting into the 1950s.

1917

Runs Away From School

He did not like his faraway school, so he ran away. His father understood. Left the Rehoboth Mission School, where children were punished for speaking Navajo. His father did not send him back. Left Rehoboth Mission School, where Navajo children were punished for speaking their language. His father did not make him go back. Left Rehoboth Mission School. Federal and mission boarding schools were designed to replace Native languages and traditions with English and mainstream American culture.

1942

Joins the Marines

He wanted to help, so he joined the with 28 other Navajo men. Over the age limit, he did not give his real age. Sworn in May 4 with 28 others as Platoon 382. Spring 1942. He was over the Marine age limit, so he lied about his age. Platoon 382 was the first all-Navajo platoon in Marine Corps history. Spring 1942. Laid off from federal livestock reduction work, and over the Marine age limit, he lied about his age. Platoon 382 was the first all-Navajo platoon in Marine Corps history.

1942–1945

The Pacific

He sent secret messages on a radio so people would stay safe. Served in four campaigns in the Pacific, including Saipan and Tinian. Spent much of the war with a radio in his hands. Four campaigns. Fellow Marines who did not know about the program sometimes mistook the code for Japanese. Four campaigns. The code was never broken. Marines outside the program sometimes mistook it for Japanese, and the men could tell no one what they were doing.

1945

Comes Home

A friend sang for him all night. Carl said a heavy weight lifted off him. Discharged as a Private First Class. A medicine man who was an old friend performed a one-night sing for him at no cost. Discharged. He said he no longer quite believed in the ceremonies and could not afford one, but felt a great weight leave him during the sing. Discharged. He said he no longer quite believed in the ceremonies and could not afford one, but a medicine man performed a one-night sing for free and Carl described a great weight leaving him.

1950s

Art School

He went to art school and became a painter. Studied at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles, paid for by a program for veterans. Otis Art Institute on the GI Bill, studying the European masters. Also worked as a technical illustrator for Douglas Aircraft. Otis Art Institute on the GI Bill, studying the European masters, while also working as a technical illustrator for Douglas Aircraft.

1969

Teaches at UC Davis

He became a teacher and showed everyone that Navajo art matters. Became the first professor to teach Native American art at UC Davis, and helped start a whole new department. The year after the code was declassified. Helped found Native American Studies and built a studio workshop for Native artists. The year after declassification. One of four founding faculty in Native American Studies, and the first to teach Native American art at Davis.

1973

Founds the Association

He started a group so the Code Talkers could share their story. Elected president of the Navajo Code Talkers Association. UC Davis opened a museum named after him the following year. Elected to lead the Navajo Code Talkers Association, the organization that drove recognition. UC Davis opened a museum named for him in 1974. Elected to lead the Navajo Code Talkers Association, the organization that made recognition possible. UC Davis opened a museum named for him in 1974.

1982

August 14

The country picked August 14 as a day to honor the Code Talkers. The United States named August 14 National Navajo Code Talkers Day. Thirty-seven years after the war ended, the United States designated August 14 as National Navajo Code Talkers Day. Thirty-seven years after the war ended, the United States designated August 14 as National Navajo Code Talkers Day.

2001

Congressional Gold Medal

The Code Talkers got a special gold medal. The original twenty-nine received the Congressional Gold Medal. Carl had died in 1998, so his wife Mary accepted his. July 2001. Carl died in January 1998, three years short of it. His wife Mary accepted the medal in his memory. July 2001. Carl died in January 1998, three years short of it. His wife Mary accepted the medal in his memory.

💬 Discussion Questions

1Carl's parents saw that he liked to draw, and they told him to keep going. Who notices the things you are good at?
2The code words were things from nature, like eagle and iron fish. If you made a secret word for "school bus," what would you pick?
3Carl said he built a bridge. What is a bridge for?

1Carl went to a school where children were punished for speaking Navajo. Years later, the Marines asked him to use Navajo to help win a war. How do you think that felt?
2The Code Talkers had to memorize everything instead of writing it down. Why do you think that mattered?
3Carl came home in 1945 but could not tell anyone what he had done until 1968. What would be hard about keeping a secret that long?
4After the war Carl became an artist and a teacher. Why do you think he chose those jobs?

1Carl and many other Code Talkers attended schools where children were punished for speaking their own languages. Years later, the United States military recruited them specifically because they spoke those languages. Using what you have read, how would you explain that change?
2Carl refused to paint in the flat style dealers expected from Native artists. What was he arguing for by refusing?
3Carl described his work as a bridge, something people cross in both directions, and said he looked for what was good on both sides. Based on his life, what do you think led him to see it that way?
4The Code Talkers received no public recognition for twenty-three years. Carl founded the association that changed that. Why might recognition matter so much to a community, even decades later?
5Carl painted the Enemy Way ceremony after doubting it and then being healed by it. What does that say about how he thought about his own traditions?

1This guide tells you two things about the United States government and the Navajo language: what the boarding schools were designed to do, and what the Marine Corps wanted in 1942. Using evidence from the guide, describe both. Then identify what the guide does not tell you that you would need to know in order to explain why the change happened.
2Gorman interpreted for the livestock reduction program, a federal policy that harmed Navajo families, and then enlisted to serve that same federal government. What does his position as the bilingual man in the middle suggest about why he later described himself as a bridge?
3Asked why he fought for a country whose government had treated Native people badly, Gorman answered that the land was Indian country first and the Navajo still consider it theirs. How does that answer change the question being asked?
4The code was classified for twenty-three years, and this guide names several consequences of that silence. Choose the one you think was most serious and defend it using evidence from elsewhere in the guide.
5Gorman refused the flat decorative style that dealers and teachers expected from Native artists, and said he resented the expectation. What was he arguing for by refusing? What might an artist risk by refusing what a market rewards?
6The Smithsonian and the journalists who interviewed Gorman describe his boarding school years with different degrees of severity. They had different audiences, different purposes, and different access to him. Which of those differences do you think best explains the gap, and how would you go about finding out?

🌟 Explore More

🎨 Creative

Paint Where You're From

Teacher-led Carl painted the red rock country around Chinle for his whole life, even after he moved far away from it. Ask students to draw or paint a place that matters to them: their room, a yard, a street, the view from a window. Then have each student point to one thing they put in on purpose and say why. Tell them Carl painted the same canyon over and over for fifty years, and ask why someone might do that.

💭 Reflection

Someone Noticed

Teacher-led Carl's mother and father both saw that he loved to draw, and both of them told him to keep going. Sit in a circle and ask each student to name one thing they love to do. Then ask: who in your life has noticed that about you? After everyone has shared, ask the class how it feels when somebody notices something you love.

🎵 Music

A Song for the Veterans

Teacher-led Navajo communities honor people who have served with songs made for that purpose. The Smithsonian's Native Words, Native Warriors exhibit has a short piece of the Navajo Veterans' Honor Song, which honors the Code Talkers and all Navajo veterans. Play the excerpt. Ask students how the music makes them feel and what they think it is trying to do. Then ask how their own family or town shows respect to people who have served.

⭐ Bonus

Name It By Describing It

Teacher-led The Code Talkers needed words for things that had no Navajo name, so they described them instead. A submarine became an iron fish. A plane became an eagle. Hold up or name a familiar object: a refrigerator, a school bus, an umbrella. Ask the class to invent a name for it by describing what it does or what it looks like. Write the best ones on the board.

💭 Reflection

Both Directions

Teacher-led Carl said he was building a bridge, and that a bridge is something people cross in both directions. Draw a simple bridge on the board. On one side, have the class list things they know how to do, or things about their own families. On the other side, list something they have learned from someone different from them. Then ask: what has to be true for a bridge to work in both directions? Ask what would happen if traffic only ever went one way.

🖌️ Art

Try It Two Ways

Teacher-led Carl refused to stick to one material. He painted, he made pottery, he printed pictures onto cloth, he worked with tile, and he designed silver jewelry. Give students one simple subject, such as a horse, a bird, or a mountain. Have them make it twice using two different materials available in the room: pencil and torn paper, crayon and clay, marker and yarn. Then ask which version they liked making more, and whether the two versions say different things about the same subject.

🏛️ History

Many Jobs, One Person

Teacher-led Make a list on the board of the jobs Carl held: interpreter, United States Marine, code builder, art student, technical illustrator drawing airplane parts, business owner, college professor, museum founder, guild director, oral history collector, and president of the Navajo Code Talkers Association. Ask students which job surprises them most. Then ask what they think connects all of them. Guide toward the idea that most of his jobs involved carrying something from one group of people to another.

⭐ Bonus

Say It By Describing It

Teacher-led The Code Talkers needed Navajo words for things the language had no words for, so they described them instead. A submarine became an iron fish. A bomber became a buzzard. A transport plane became an eagle. Give the class a list of modern objects: a school bus, a microwave, an escalator, a vacuum cleaner. In pairs, students invent a descriptive name for each using only words a person a hundred years ago would know. Read the names aloud and see whether the class can guess the object. Then ask which names were easy to guess, and why. A good code word has to be easy for your side to remember and hard for anyone else to work out.

✏️ Writing

Twenty-Three Years

Teacher-led The Navajo code stayed classified until 1968. Carl came home in 1945 and could not tell his family, his neighbors, or anyone else what he had done in the war. Ask students to write a short piece from Carl's point of view in the year 1950, describing a moment when someone asks about his service and he cannot answer. Remind them not to invent facts about the code itself, only to imagine the silence around it. Afterward, discuss what it costs a person to keep something important private for that long, and why the military thought the secret was worth it.

🔍 Sources

Read the Photographs

Teacher-led

Show students three wartime photographs from the National Archives:

1. Pfc. Carl Gorman at his observation post on a hill above Garapan, Saipan, June 27, 1944.
National Archives Catalog, NAID 100378149

2. Pfc. Preston Toledo and Pfc. Frank Toledo, Navajo cousins in a Marine artillery regiment in the South Pacific, relaying orders over a field radio, July 7, 1943.
National Archives Catalog, NAID 100378007 (local ID 127-MN-57875)

3. Cpl. Henry Bake, Jr. and Pfc. George H. Kirk, serving with a Marine Corps signal unit on Bougainville in December 1943, operating a portable radio in a jungle clearing they cut themselves.
Shown in “Semper Fidelis, Code Talkers,” National Archives Prologue, Winter 2001, and held in the digitized series at NAID 532395.

All three are public domain U.S. Marine Corps photographs. The full series of twenty-five is described at NAID 532395, and the National Archives discusses several of them, with identifiers, on The Unwritten Record.

For each one, ask what the men are doing, what equipment they are using, and what you cannot tell from looking. Point out that a photograph of someone speaking cannot show you what was said, and that in these photographs what was being said was the most important thing in the frame and also the most secret.

Then ask who took these pictures. All three were made by Marine Corps photographers, which means the Marine Corps decided what got recorded. Ask what we might see if Carl had been holding the camera. Then tell them that later in life he was the one making pictures, including a painting of the Navajo ceremony that helped him come home.

⭐ Bonus

Build a Code Like Theirs

Teacher-led

The Navajo code had two layers. First the men assigned an English word to each letter of the alphabet. Then they translated that English word into Navajo. A listener heard ordinary Navajo words, and even a fluent Navajo speaker who had not been trained could not recover the message.

Have students build a two-layer code. Layer one: assign an English word to each letter, from a category the class picks. Layer two: agree on a way to disguise those words further, such as replacing each with a rhyming word or with a description of the thing instead of its name. Pairs encode a short message and trade to decode.

Then discuss what the Code Talkers had that no machine could copy: a second layer built on a language almost nobody outside their nation spoke, and which had never been written down in a form an enemy could study. Ask why that made the code unbreakable, and why it also made the men themselves irreplaceable.

🔍 Sources

Two Accounts, One Childhood

Teacher-led

Give students two descriptions of Gorman's boarding school years. The Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian writes that he disliked the harsh rules and the way he and the other children were treated, and that he ran away. Journalists who interviewed him directly reported that he described being punished for speaking Navajo.

Ask which account tells you more, which they would be more confident repeating, and how they would establish which is accurate. Then ask what could account for the difference: audience, purpose, how directly each writer heard it from Gorman, or something else. Note that a difference between two sources does not by itself mean either one is lying, and that "this source says" is often a more honest construction than "this happened."

⚖️ Analysis

The Man in the Middle

Teacher-led

Present the sequence: the federal livestock reduction program forcibly reduced Navajo herds in the 1930s; Gorman worked as its interpreter; he was laid off; he enlisted in 1942 and helped build a code out of the language schools had tried to take from him.

Have students write a short argument answering one question: what does standing between two sides do to a person? Require at least two pieces of evidence from the guide. Push them past easy verdicts in either direction, and note that Gorman himself supplied the metaphor when he called his life's work a bridge crossed in both directions.

⭐ Bonus

Why This Code Held

Machine ciphers of the Second World War were broken. The Navajo code was not. Have students identify the specific properties that made the difference: two layers of substitution, a language with very few speakers outside one nation, no widely available written form for an enemy to study, grammar and tone difficult for adult learners, and nothing written down in the field.

Then have them build a two-layer code of their own and trade messages. Afterward, discuss the part that cannot be replicated in a classroom. The second layer of the real code was a living language belonging to a living people, which meant the men themselves were irreplaceable and could never be rotated out or replaced by a machine. Ask what that meant for the men who carried it.