rnest Naquayouma was a speaker of Hopi who played a pivotal role in documenting his own language, working closely with linguist Benjamin Whorf in the 1930s when Naquayouma was in New York. According to historian Robert Edwards, Naquayouma moved from Arizona to escape poverty and seek work in the city — like many on the Hopi Reservation past and present — and lived with his family at several addresses including this one in what was then a diverse working-class area, later completely redeveloped into Lincoln Center. Naquayouma and Whorf frequently worked together on Hopi both in New York City and in New Haven (Whorf was at Yale) and maintained a friendly correspondence. Traces of Naquayouma's life are hard to find, but he seems to have been a skilled artist who also toured with shows and spent time at a kind of summer camp at Indian Point near Peekskill, returning to Hopi territory when he could. Naquayouma later moved to Chicago, where he became an important early leader in that city's Urban Indian community.