Published each Thursday since January 18,1973
? ~ ' *** ? *??}&' l[ i ' ~ *? * ' * ' 1
Carolina Indian Vtoice
e, NC . Robeson County
"Building communicative bridges in a tri-racial setting"
VOLUME 19 NUMBER 93
THURSDAY, JUNE 4 1991
26 CETfTS PER copy
Hie Congressional Hearing on Lombee Recognition to
be held at PSU" a Chavis Center has been postponed. Hie
Hearing should be rescheduled within the next several
According to Ruth Locklear, Director of Tribal
Enrollment, major bills are pending in the Congress and
die Congressmen must be in attendance.
MEDIA CENTER NAMED FOR EPFS
The dedication of the Magnolia School media center
was held Sunday afternoon. May 26, at the achooL The
center has been named the Frank H. Epps Media Center
as a tribute to Mr. Epps, beloved principal from 1988-66.
Noah Woods, principal, presided and introduced the
participants. Afleen Holmes, a member of the school
board; and Bill Herndon, county commissioner, spoke of
die appropriateness of such a dedication. Major David R.
Green, chairman of the school board, read the
proclamation from the plaque then presented it to Lena
fyps Brooker, daughter of Mr. Eppa. Adeline Maynor,
former teaeher and close a?ociate of Mr. Eppa, spoke of
his admirable qualities as a person and as an educator.
Following the prayer of dedication by Rev. Earney
Hammonds, Ms. Brooker gave an intimate tribute to her
"daddy"- - as she referred to her father.
A reception was held in the media center following the
dedication.
Boss of
the Year
Dr. Barlam Lowery, Director <4
Certified Araowl for the Public
Schooli of Robeson County, wi
honored as Boss of the Year daring
the PSRC Educational Office Person
nel banquet last week. She roeefoed a
plaque and roaea. Ma. Sally
Mitchell, payroll, was named E.O.P.
of the Year and also received roses
and a plague.
UPCOMING ACTIVITIES
BENEFIT GOSPEL SING PLANNED
A benefit gospel sing for Jubilee House Ministry of
the Robeson County Church end Community Center will
be held Saturday, June 15 at Lumbeiton Junior High
School on Marion Rood in Dumbarton. The event will
begin at 6 p.m. and last until 9 p.m. Free admission. The
sing will feature James Mason and Voices of Faith from
Georgia, the Lumber River Quartet, the McNeills, the
Cummings Family and the Happy Echoes.
SELECTEDFORNC SCHOOL OF SCIENCE AND MATH
Jody Allen Cummings son of Rev. Michael and Quae
Cummings of Pembroke and Dwayne Allen Loddear, son
of Milton and Freda Loddear of Pembroke were selected
to the N.C. School of Science and Mathematics.
The school, located in Durham, is a public residential high
school for students of exceptional ability and potential in
science and mathematics. Students apply ad are selected
during their tenth grade year for enrollment in the 11th
and 12th grades.
Admission to the school is baaed on grades and test
scores, writing samples, special talents and accomplish
menu, an interview, and evidence of commitment to
lramirg Jody and Dwayne were selected because they
are outstanding students at Purnell Swell High School
STRIKE AT THE WIND ART DINNER AND AUCTION
FUNDRAISER PLANNED
The outdoor drama "Strike at the Wind" will holds
its annual Art Dinner and Auction Fundraiser on July 2,
1991 at the Chavis University Center in at Ffembroke State
University. A reception for featured artist EJlis Sampson
will begin at 5:90 p.m. Dinner will begin at 7 p.m. Ares
artists will have art on display and for sals. Ticksta are
$25 per peraon and $50 per couple. For more information,
please call SATW at 919-521-3112.
STRIKE ATTHE WIND BEGINS JULY 8
The outdoor drama "Strike at the Wind" begins ita 19th
production season July 6. 1991 and continues through
August 24, 1991. Performances are Thursday through
Saturday beginning at 8:90 p.m. at tits Adoiph Dial
Amphitheater located on the grounds at the North
Carolina Indian CuHaml Center in Pembroke. Pre-show
cabaret begins at 8 p.m. Tickets are $7 adults, $6 ??
citizens, and $4 for children. Groups at tea or more
receive $2 off regular ticket prices. Fhr more information
or reservations, please call 919-521-3112.
VACATION BIBLE SCHOOL BEGINS
Vacation Bible School will be held at Cherokee
Chapel Holiness Methodist Church on Monday, June 10
Friday, June 14 from 7 p.m. untO 9 p.m. Theme will he
"Animals Presenting the Gospel." VBS will also feature
Aunt Millie, the ventriloquist, and ftmahine.
The church is located off Highway 71 between Red
Springs and Maxton, across the roade from Onandfaw
School.
Rev. Julian Ransom cordially invites everyone to
attend.
BAKE SALE AND CAB WAS!
A bake sale and car wash wUl be held at Cherokee
Chapel Holiness Methodist Chnrch on Saturday. June 8
from 8 a.m. until 1 p.m. The church is located off
Highway 71 between Red Springs and Maxton, across
from Oven dine School The public is encouraged to come
and support the youth.
BECAUSE ft IS RIGHT
Testimony Recommendina The U.S. Government Recognize The Limbee I
\ EDITOR'S mm The following Utbmony wil be
given by Dr. Stanley Knick, Director of PSVe Native
American Resource Center, before the Congreerionai
Hearing for Leanbee Recognition.
? ^
by Dr. Stanley Knick
- Why should the Lumbee be recognised by the federal
government? There are a great many answer* to this
Question, based on various Unas at evidence and
reasoning. Hoe I want to concentrate on archaeological
and anthropological answers most at which have not
generally been discussed, but all of which point hi the
same direction: the Lumbee should be afforded full
recognition by the U.S. government
' The archaeological record at Robeson County, North
Carolina, the ancestral homeland of the Lumbee Indians,
is a very rich record indeed. Occupation at the county
extends back as far as 14,000 years before the present
when the last ice Age was melting down. There are no
gaps in this archaeological record as it proceeds from
PSleo-Indian times through early, middle, and late
Archaic times, through early, middle, and late Woodland
times, through Colonial times and the remainder of the
historic period (Knick, 1088). Indian people have always
been here.
Survey of the archaeological record at Robeson County
reveals several important things in addition to the fact of
continuous occupation. One at these concerns the
presence at diverse cultural influences; this is especially
important given that arguments against Lumbee
iX'Ugaition have frequently been based on the assertion
that the Lumbee represent a port-con tact amalgamation
of Indian people from various sources, including Souan,
Iroquoian, and Algonkian people. But the archaeological
e ride nee collected in Robeeoa County shows that diverse
cultural influenceshave been the normal patten for a
audi laager time.
Beginning in the middle Archaic period (8,000 to 5,000
years ago), artifacts from outside this region appear
amongst the moan predietible local artifact assemblages.
The presence of stoos (and later, commie) artifacts which
indicate culture] enchange from afar continued for the
lemainder at the archaeological record. Artifacts which
would be mom at horns in Florida, Tennesson, and
Virginia, oo the outer coastal plain as well aa in the
piedmont and the mountains, have been found alongside
artifacts which "belong" ham ia Bohseoa County. Tbeee
date tell us that this region has tar thousands of years
been a sons of cultural interaction (Mathis and Gardner.
J086; Knick. 1988)..
Urns we should not bo surprised to find that Native
American people Hring hem at the time of European
auditions' MsMng t- avoid theanateught at European
shows that thane was
already ar indigenous tribe ?r nation living horn, a
people jabo ahiradjhsir nam# with tho riser along which
reioari
Native American gpalt now trace their historical and
genealogical records back into early Colonian time*.
I Again, than ia no gap in the record.
A third important thing revealed in the are haeo logical
record of Rebeaoa County concerns the number of sites,
aad what that part of the record indicates about the siaeof
the pre-contact Native American population. In 1987 and
1968, the Native American Resource Center, Pembroke
State University, conducted an archaeological reconnais
sance survey of the county IK nick, 1968). Despite the fact
that less than one percent of the county was examined
(3,500 of 007,104 acres). 814 previously unrecorded
archaeological sites were documented. This means that
sites wan encountered at a i density rate of one site per
every eleven acres, a very dense distribution. All of this
tells us that Robeson County was heavOy utilised by
Native Americans, and that the pre-contact population
must have been quite sizeable. Not only have Indians
always been hen, enjoying cultural influences from
elsewhere in an apparently uninterrupted occupation, but
there were a gnat many of them, too.
One argument against Lumbee recognition is baaed on
the assertion that the word "Lumbee" itself is an
invented word. Some people take this assumption from
the fact that the U.S. government first formally accepted
the word hi 1966. But tikis is far from the whole story. I
Several writers around the turn of the present century
recorded that the original name of the Lumber River was
Lumbee River (La., McMillan, 1888; McFbenon, 1915).
These writers were repotting what they were told by
elders of the day, thus extending the real name of the
Lumbee River back beyond recorded memory or history.
McFbersou, an Indian agent for the U.S. government
sarigned to asssas the tribal rights of the Indians of
Robeson County, explained tire connection between the
name of the bdiau and the name of the riven "While the
word Lumbee is not found in the Handbook (the Lumber
River was anciently called the Lumbee) it to probably of
the same origin. The Lumbee River is a branch of the
Pedes and the similarity at the names would suggest tiie
same origin. All these oafoU Stouan tribes were originally
parte of. or confederated with, the Chertw. <1916:28)."
If Lumbee to the original name of the river along which
the people lived who left their archaeological sites, thea it
to wsnnshla to aonoMb that Lumbse was also the
original name of the paopM as well. This to especially true
in light of the fact that several other Eastern Stouan tribes
or oattoos living nearby atoo shared thsir names with the
riven along which they tired (i.e., Santos. Wateree.
Congarae, Sugar**, ate.). The people were always hare;
their occupation was uninterrupted; there were a great
many of them; and the word for the river was Lumbsa.
As the effect* of Beropeea colonisation swept acmes
the CaroMaaa, almost everything in Robeson County
changed. The pnpnhgol changed. Language changed.
Culture changed. But MM things did not changw ooe
wealths ay the pe^ to lwld anto thetojmtian
The population changed. Mar to the coming of
MMMnamn lhaaa arena a gpaaj manu UeMya A IWlAwa II
?wpif'?? uw www ? |fvBi ni*n v 11IUV6 /vrncrH iin
paapto Hring to jtob^CountyThis is todteatodby the
!ba j^^ftinyare 'itii m'jirec? Mw^r<iutoldr
Jollfl UwiOB 1*0 tnVfOttf BBfcMNtVBty MMNtf lllB
hdiaa of tha Cawdnaa. irilnil I to 1761 that thaNative
p.pulatiaa bad bare reduaad to apldamlaa by fofoh (99% >
everywhere within 200 miles of white settle mentT
(Lawson, 1709). It is Would mean all Indians between
Charleston. South Carolina, and Jamestown, Virginia,
including those in the Robeson County area. By 1738,
similar population decimation by epidemics bad reached
all the way to the Cherokee in the mountains (Adair,
1378). _ ,, k
Am colonial conquest continued, the usual last resort of
many declining tribes was to coalesce with the remnants
of other tribes in isolated areas. One such area waa . '
the land of the Lumbee. in what came to be known to the
Indians of the early 1800"s as "The Settlement (Evans,
1971)."
Language changed. Stuated as it was near the
geographical interface of three language families
(Algonkian, Iroquoian, and Stouan; Phelps, 1968), "the
Settlement'' was s place where people speaking different
languages came together. As small remnant groups,
sometimes as few as a single extended family, came to
"the Settlement." old language barriers began to melt
away. With only afewmembers of the group left after the
massive epidemics, languages themselves disappeared.
Encouraged by the desire mot to have to learn the
language of a former enemy (such as a Siouan speaker
learning an Iroquoian language); encouraged by
missionaries who promised the Indians a God who would
protect the people from epidemic diseases; encouraged by
the need to trade with Europeans for goods only available
in the European's language, the people of "the
Settlement" quickly adopted English. It became, es they
say in West Africa, the ienyue franca, the common
language of trade.
h the process, all that would remain at the Lumbee
language was the word itself: Lumbee. By the mid l70Cs
when non-Indians came to Robeson County to stay, the
Indians wars already speaking a kind of broken English
(at least they epohe it to their new European neighbors)
(Dial and Etiadea, 1978).
Culture changed. A part of the acculturation process for
Native Americana all over the "New World" was the
gradual, and in boms cases rapid, disappearance of the
outward elements of culture. Many of these things are
what Americans think of as being all there is to Indian
culture: clothing, dance, language, architecture, aad so
oa. In Hshaaon County during the Colonial period, a great
many of them external cultural elements vanished from
sight became it was eafer to yet along with the dominant
white culture without them.
Especially following the TUscarora and Chamw Ware,
and the othar fedian wan preceding the Revolution,
simply befog an hdien was dangerous. Indiana were
killed or driven off their lands Just for being non-white; for
being in the way of "progress." Thus finding a place
where other Indian people were gatbered-s geographic
ally leoiated piece where there was a sense of community.
And there la math more to culture than Ua asternal
When the Ssota eaaa to Rohason County for the
duration, the Indians already had many European Wade
goods* including motsl tools sod woio going iImhiI tfe#
business of maWnf a living for their families aa formers.
They had been farmers before the while area came, aad
0m of the tnditioeal eiemeata ef culture which did aet
ch^Ja dmtMMa of personal aadmm^^i^tlty
theauLdewoshl earee t^vtaTwT'it^.'uwM always
_ .
with the knowledge that these people were Minns in
their hearts and in their outlook. The elders knew. They
taught the children.
Another element of traditional culture which survives
today is the great importance of kinship, ft is very
common en find several generations of Lumbee people
living in dose proximity, en the same land or "horns
place." Within this extended family, there is a netwait of
sharing; a support base. Extremely few tunhee people
go hungry or homeless for long, botauee there in always
someone to whom they can tun; some part of the kinship
network on which they can depend.
Another surviving element of traditional euftaae Is the
central role of spirituality. One of the first things nstissd
by European travellers in the "New World" was the peat
important of religion. This traditional kind of ^jrituaHly
can not easily be separated from the other, aaova
commonplace, elements of culture. Church is not only
pervasive amongst the Lorn bee as a spiritual matter, ft
defines social and economic matters, and inflnanraa
political matters. Despite the fact that Christianity
replaced traditional religion during the conquest,
spirituality itself continues to be an integral part of the
Lumbee universe.
Yet another element of traditional cufturs which
survives today is found in the realm at health. These are
still a great many Lumbee people, especially elders, who
have knowledge of herbal remedies passed down for
generations. John Lawson noted (1T09) that ?afrua was
an extremely common treatment amongst the ImMaaa of
the Carohnas; as recently as 1988 a study of health ansong
a large sample of Lumbee people revealed that sassafras
is *tiU the most commonly used herbal raasedy (Kniek.
1988). There are also specialists in traditional healing,
including one 84-yearold man very widely known far We
ability to treat effectively an extensive Bat at aflments.
rtrc p??rr If*) it the
their homes, sometimes enslaved, frequently abused
(Brana. 1971). The tendency of Indten people to coalesce
thsrasslvis into communities, to adopt Tndtsn people to
other raaanant tribes, to hold onto their Identity as todtono
and not to surrender it even though uiey had to spunk
English and dross fat the Burapeaa style to surriua, this
todtyTfhrhapsthe moot remarkable thing about Lnmbae
culture is that it is atill here at alL Given all that they have
been subjected to by the dmninant society, ft is a Meals
that than an any Lumbee bring ban now.
Why should the Lumbee be racngulned by the federal
government? Then an many reasons They should ha
i a ungates il tisrauss this ft their aiunatinl land thaj hnia
always bean ban. They should be meognteod because
shown fry the irnhsinlojlral. historical, and gonsslagiral
record* They should be recognised beeeaee theft name Is
aa aa old as the river's same. They should he raoogttoed
because despite apldaiaira and wen, itiisefrisrhtesmsnt
and spprinlsn. they an rifll hen. They ahenld he
recognised because they have held eute theft- Indies
identity, their asaea of who they are, whse ft would hen
beee eerier to leave all that behind. They ahenld he
leeogaiued because even though they as longer speak
their Meoatori language they stftl reateather Ite same.
They ritould he resagnlaad heaauee feoy hake pinlatid to
feoealftwvW Mjsaarl to haldteg sate tea teaaafttg af
Bat hi the laal aaStehTthay ritetdd W naapdMd
keaaun h Is right