The last native, fluent speaker of Catawba was Samuel Taylor Blue, who died in 1959.

Village wátra ye makeruɁre Red Thunder Cloud, an impostor, born Cromwell Ashbie Hawkins West, claimed to be Catawba and the last speaker of the Catawba language.

He was promoted by anthropologist Frank Speck, who introduced West to the Catawba community.

The Catawba told Speck that West was not Catawba, but Speck ignored them and continued to promote West and include him in his work, even recommending him as an expert to other anthropologists.

At his death in 1996 it was revealed that West was neither Catawba nor even Native American, but had learned what he knew of the language from books, and from listening to the last known native speaker, Samuel Taylor Blue and his half-sister, Sally Gordon, when Speck brought him to the Catawba reservation.