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 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