weekly Perspective
Our view
Leftovers will require
government attention
Town aad county government recorded
lone achievements to be proud of during
ISM.
Among them was the decison by the
county commissioners to seek funding to
study water quality in area rivers.
Another proud moment was the
dedication of the addition to Perquimans
County High School. Hertford officials
can point to their second straight
designation as a Community of Ex
cellence.
And the town of Winfall is taking a
progressive step in seeking to initiate
souing.
But local government also enters the
new year with plenty of unfinished
business to attend to.
The moct immediate problem is what
to do about the county recreation
department. The town of Hertford says it
wants to shift its SO per cent share of the
budget over to the county .
County officials say they can afford to
allocate no more than their present share
of the budget, or $31,000.
We have advocated a larger share of
the recreation department budget for the
county, but something less than a 100 per
cent {takeover.
The town of Hertford, however, must
cootinue to wrestle with a budget deficit,
and somewhere or another, cuts are
going to have to be made.
In addition, the county must work to
extend its water system so that it can
serve all county residents. The county
should also work to improve the
operation of its system to the extent that
complaints of bad water will eease to
exist.
The town of Hertford must make
Missing Mill Park a top priority for 1M1,
before inflation makes the waterfront
park "missing" from now on.
There are many more left-overs that
need to be attended to. In brief, local
government has its work cut out for it in
the coming year.
Looking back
By VIRGINIA WHITE
TRANSEAU
JANUARY IMS
JANUARY QUOTA FOR WHITE MEN
REDUCED BY TWENTY PERCENT:
The January call for white men from the
local Selective Service lists has been
reduced twenty percent, according to
Mrs. Ruth Sumner, clerk of the board,
and Perquimans County will be expected
for furnish a total of 36 white men on Jan.
23, instead of 45 as orginally called. The
call for Jan. 23 will be filled from the
following list of men: Haywood Um
phlett, Vivian Dail, Norman Stallings,
Bernard Proctor, Kyres Copeland, Kelly
White, Linwood Onley, Johnnie Winslow,
William Cox, Lester Layden, Emmett
Landing, Emmett Umphlett, Thomas
Trueblood, Johnnie Jordan, Trafton
White, Judson Miller, Riley Monds,
Ernest Phillips, George Fields, Horace
Cartwright, Leroy Dail, Glenwood
Stallings, Lloyd Chappell, Guy Webb and
James Elliott.
WORK OF RENOVATING BANK
UNDERWAY HERE: The work of
renovating the Hertford Banking
Company building is progressing. '
Indians lived simply
Before the arrival of European ex
. plorers at the close of the sixteenth
; century, the Indians who inhabited our
* area had long followed their simple way
of life with little interruption save the
vicissitudes of nature and the wars
between villages and tribes.
In establishing villages, the Indians
; preferred fertile, forested ground near
; water. What is now Perquimans County
contained many desirable sites. It is near
water that the Indians left us traces of
their habitation. It is upon the waters
that they left us fragments of their
language. ?
Ray
WinxltHC
, uur major nver ? ana our county
itself ? bears the Indian name
Perquimans. According to local lore, the
word means "land of beautiful women."
No confirmation of this translation has
been produced; there is some reason to
speculate the notion originated with
medicine-showman George Nowitxky in
the 1810s.
Yeopim River and Yeopim Creek
recall the presence of the Yeopim In
dians. Then, at the opposite side of the
county is Little River, whose Indian
line was variously spelled
Kecoughtanke, Kitotin, Katotine, and
KatoUne.
Muddy Creek once bore the name
Awosoake, while Suttons Creek or one of
the smaller creeks nearby, was called
Curratkks.
The Indian villages were generally
small, many containing only ten or
twelve houses. These houses were not the
teepees most people imagine as the home
of all Indians; movies and television
have seldom depicted the many varying
forms of tribal life accurately.
Our local Indians built wigwams and
long houses. Poles were set into the
ground, their tops bent over and
fastened, and the framework covered
with bark or mats of reed. The smaller
houses were circular in form, the larger
ones rectangular.
Inside such a house were pole benches
covered with mats of skins, serving for
sitting and sleeping. In the center was a
fire for heating and cooking; smoke
escaped through a hole in the roof. The
sides of the house could be rolled up to
ventilate the interior during the long hot
summer.
Hand-made clay pots and woven
baskets served for storage. Indian
foodstuffs were obtained by hunting,
gathering, fishing, and simple planting.
Indian men with bow and arrow hunted
bear, deer, squirrel, rabbit, raccoon,
beaver, and even skunk. Fish of all sorts
were arrow-shot, trapped in weirs or
poisoned. Nuts and berries were
gathered from the forests.
Agriculture was left primarily to the
women. Small patches of ground were
cleared as well as crude tools and bur
ning would allow. Corn, beans, peas, and
squash were planted for food; gourds for
making containers; and tobacco chiefly
for religious uses.
Hunting grounds, fishing waters, and
crop patches were close to the village. It
was often not safe to wander far away,
since wild animals and enemies were
constant threats. Many villages were
fortified by encirclement with stout
upright poles set close together.
(Pat 4 next week)
1 984 ? three more years , or now ?
"We are not intereated ia the food of
othen; we are interested nlcj ia power.
Not wealth or huury or lcog Ufe or
happiness; only power, pure power."
It is O'Brien speaking, and the year is
1964, in the novel of the same name. Only
three more years ? or is 1964 already
upon us?
One could write off George Orwell's
bone-chilling prediction and say that the
gloomy depiction of Oceania merely
reflected the pessimism of a fading man.
After all, Orwell wrote in 1949, and his
forecasts of atomic war and increased
poverty have not been fulfilled.
But that would be to miss the point of
the novel, 1964. What Orwell was warning
us against was the onset of the in
stitutionalized state, of the control of the
masses by a small group of men hungry
for power ? the "Inner Party."
He uttered a protest and a warning
against the "Ministry of Truth" ? that
arm of deception by which
totalitarianism would first gain power
and then perpetuate itself.
Noel Todd
McLaughlin
The characters in 1M4 are wooden, like
cardboard cut-outs. But this does not
reflect on Orwell's skill as a writer. His
style characterizes the erosion of in
dividual thought when the mind has
become a slave to the "Ministry of
Truth."
If freedom of expression does not
reign, the ability to express weakens, as
does the abQilty to make critical choices.
Citizenship then becomes a blind
obedience, which is exactly what the
"Inner Party" wants.
Three more years ? or is 1984 already
upon us? The 20th century has already
seen a steady drift toward
totalitarianism. Oceana is a reality for
millions and millions. In many parts of
the world, opposistion groups are ban
ned, their leaders jailed, or worse. The
press is censored and the Inner Party
discloses only what it wants to disclose,
and even then it is embellished.
Ironically, it is always in the name of
"freedom."
And what of America, the Land of thrift)
Free? The possibility of 1M4 is more real
than most people care to admit. We have
already witnessed the abilitly of the
"Inner Party" to manipulate public
opinion. We are told there is a fuel
shortage, and then later we find that the
oil companies are experiencing a sur
plus.
We are told that the Shah of Iran is our
friend, and then later we learn of his
crimes against his countrymen. *
We are told that every possible method v
of freeing the American hostages from
their Iranian captives has been in
vestigated, yet they remain.
Three more years? Or is 1M4 already
upon us?
[ Pacing South
a syndicated column:
voices of tradition
in a changing region
CULLMAN, Al. ? There are roads and
roads and roads...
There is the modern freeway, spewing
traffic at dizzying pace; the jammed city
street, reeking with exhaust fames; the
meandering farm-to-market road; and
all too infrequently now, the old forgotten
road, wandering like a free spirit, to
nowhere.
That is my kind of road. I offer it as a
sure cure for melancholia,
claustrophobia, pressures, and the
general feeling that there is really
nothing interesting in the world any
more.
In Cullman, Alabama, an old road ran
behind the subdivision where we lived.
The road was a deletion, a series of
curves bypassed by man in his efforts to
build straighter highways. It left the
paved farm-to-market road just below
our house and appeared to end after a
quarter mile or so.
My little girl and I went walking one
afternoon. Half a mile from the last
juncture, we found what at first ap
peared to be no more than a rift in the
honeysuckle growth; peering through,
we saw again our wayward road,
frolicking through a stand of young
pines, heading, eventually for tall tim
ber.
My little girl took my hand. "Where
does it go, Daddy?"
"Back into the past," I said. "Bad
into the sunset."
"Can we go. Daddy?"
"Yes, baby, we can go."
So we went, u often as we could, af
ternoons, weekends, and at odd in
tervals, exploring the old road.
We saw the plums green in springtime
and see-through red or yellow come
summer; we saw mocking birds playing
chase in the hedgerows, stitching the
trees with lace; we heard the insects'
rasping symphony in the ancient corn
field; we saw the field mice scurrying for
cover at our intrusion.
My little girt was most fascinated with
the oid homesite we found. The house had
been rased, and all that was left was the
chimney, rearing tall against the sky.
She could stand inside the big fireplace,
and see the clouds through the top.
I explained to her how peitaps a
thousand fires had been lit there on cold
mornings, issuing dense black smoke;
and bow, in the evening when the fire was
low and had to be re-kindled, a little
plume went up into heaven so lazily that
you could almost climb it like a stair.
We found the well, its curbing rotted
and gone, overgrown with vines and
weeds. Out away from the well the barn
had stood, the ghost at a single-tree, a
Letters
Chief sets
record straight
Editors, THE PERQUIMANS
WEEKLY:
I wodd^e to aet the record straight is
regard to Mr. Joseph Williams' letter to
the editors hi last week's PERQUIMANS
WEEKLY.
datfcs aad^recpoodhU^M. ooe of them
betog the capture and or disposal of stray
SLU* 'kZZilfSvt! ffSTfS^U
Among them are vaccinating your dog
with anti-rabies vaccine, providing your
dog with a collar and identification,
buying a dog tag from the town of Hert
ford and laat bat not least, keeping your
dog on a chain and or leash in compUuce
with Article 3, Section Ml of the town of
Hertford Ordinance.
The police department received
numerous complaints in regard to stray
dogs at Wyan Fort Court None of the
people we tafted to would claim the dogs.
We had no idea they belonged to anyone,
bocauea they did not have a cedar on, a
dog. We dont like this put of our Job any
more than you do, bat until all dog
owner* comply with the law, it wfll
happen.
Marshall Merritt
Hertford Chief of Police
Thanks expressed
for Christmas
Ramble
and Mr. Carlton Boyce.
Alio, thanks to the guest demon
strators who shared their talents and
exhibits: Mrs. Helen North, postage
stamp art; Mrs. Hazel Bailey, wood
earring; Mrs. Emily HarreD, hand
painiwi Christmas Ornaments; Mrs.
Rheta Dodd, handmade dolls; Mrs.
Maude EDis. baskets; and Mrs. Nancy
Hobta, Christmas tree ornaments
BPW appreciates
holiday support
Editors. THE PERQUIMANS
WEEKLY;
Tke Hertford Business aid
Professional Women's Club wishes to
express oar deep appreciation to tke
many people who honored and or
remembered a loved one on oar annual
Christmas tree.
TMs annua) project has added to the
rusty clevis, and pieces of a "Ball" fruit
jar, blue as my little girl's eyes.
"People lived here, Daddy? Where did
they go?"
"To town, perhaps, as we did."
"Tell me about them, Daddy; tell me
about the people."
So I told her about them, how some of
them lived and died and never got out of
the state in which they were born ? my
father, for one, her grandfather. But how
do you explain deprivation to a modern
four-year old?
Winter-time along the old road was
helpful in this respect. On sunny days,
with my little girl bundled up in warm
clothes, we walked the frown path on
mushrooms of earth-encrusted ice.
above us, the starlings were always
webbing the bright sky, crying their
defiance at their poor tack in finding
food.
She had stopped letting me carry her in
the presence of others, but, homeward
bound along the old road, I got a bonus on
many an evening ? the pleasure of
"toting" her sound asleep for perhaps
the last quarter mile.
J.C. JINKS, Jr. I
freelance
Chiktersburg, AL
THE!
Mik* McLaughlin
Noal Todd McLaughlin
Co-Editors
Pat Mansfiald
Bp s
ft
Circulation Monagor
NEWS AND ADVERTISING DEADLINE
MY
jvovcnprron I
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ONE YEAR '7.50 HI COUNTY
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