Post by Okwes on Dec 14, 2005 15:43:11 GMT -5
Historian's book about native Americans
December 11,2005
BY The Free Press View stories by reporter
GREENVILLE - Until last month, little had been published about the
history of the Native American tribes in eastern North Carolina. In his
new book, "Keeping the Circle: American Indian Identity in Eastern North
Carolina, 1885-2004" (University of Nebraska Press), East Carolina
University history professor Christopher Arris Oakley examines this
segment of the region's population and the efforts they have made to
maintain their distinctive identity.
"I became intrigued how the Indian communities in eastern North Carolina
have maintained their identities, especially since the Jim Crow era," he
said.
"I found that they employed several strategies during the past 100 years
and those strategies have changed over time."
Drawing from a range of research material, including interviews, news
clippings, state and federal archives and personal papers, Oakley found
that segregated churches and schools in the 1900s initially provided a
means for Native Americans to maintain their cultural identity. Economic
and social conditions have inspired modern day Native Americans to
protect and celebrate their identity primarily through the powwow.
"In the last 30 years, the powwow celebrations have been a combination
of different tribal cultures," he said. "The traditions are not
necessarily indigenous to the region, and some of the traditions are
from the west or the Plains culture. But the powwow is designed to
promote internal unity and it serves as an assertion of culture to
outsiders, even though it might play off of what people tend to think
what a 'traditional' Indian is."
The isolated farming communities at the turn of the century had enabled
Native Americans to maintain their identity from the black and white
populations in eastern North Carolina.
Segregated school systems and churches helped to maintain that identity,
Oakley said. As farming waned and industrialization grew after World War
II, the communities became less isolated and their "Indianness" was
challenged continually.
After the Brown v. Board of Education ruling began to take effect, in
the 1960s, Oakley saw that powwows and the naming of local tribes
surfaced as another strategy for maintaining and keeping alive Native
American culture and customs.
For example, Oakley noted that the tribal name, Lumbee, did not exist in
the 1880s, but continual challenges from outsiders to the heritage in
these eastern communities helped to form structures of kinship and
acceptance in the 1940s and 1950s under that name.
"Some have ancestral ties and some are new to tribal organizations," he
said. "Many of them are not descendents of a single origin, but rather
from many origins."
The tribes of eastern North Carolina, which include Lumbees, the
Tuscaroras, the Waccamaw Sioux, the Occaneechis, the Meherrins, the
Haliwa-Saponis, and the Coharies, are not federally recognized, although
some have state recognition and have sought to be recognized federally.
The Cherokee of western North Carolina, said Oakley, is the only
federally recognized tribe in the state.
"Keeping the Circle" was welcomed Nov. 16 by several of ECU's Native
American student organizations, as well as the Ledonia Wright Cultural
Center and the Office of Institutional Diversity.
December 11,2005
BY The Free Press View stories by reporter
GREENVILLE - Until last month, little had been published about the
history of the Native American tribes in eastern North Carolina. In his
new book, "Keeping the Circle: American Indian Identity in Eastern North
Carolina, 1885-2004" (University of Nebraska Press), East Carolina
University history professor Christopher Arris Oakley examines this
segment of the region's population and the efforts they have made to
maintain their distinctive identity.
"I became intrigued how the Indian communities in eastern North Carolina
have maintained their identities, especially since the Jim Crow era," he
said.
"I found that they employed several strategies during the past 100 years
and those strategies have changed over time."
Drawing from a range of research material, including interviews, news
clippings, state and federal archives and personal papers, Oakley found
that segregated churches and schools in the 1900s initially provided a
means for Native Americans to maintain their cultural identity. Economic
and social conditions have inspired modern day Native Americans to
protect and celebrate their identity primarily through the powwow.
"In the last 30 years, the powwow celebrations have been a combination
of different tribal cultures," he said. "The traditions are not
necessarily indigenous to the region, and some of the traditions are
from the west or the Plains culture. But the powwow is designed to
promote internal unity and it serves as an assertion of culture to
outsiders, even though it might play off of what people tend to think
what a 'traditional' Indian is."
The isolated farming communities at the turn of the century had enabled
Native Americans to maintain their identity from the black and white
populations in eastern North Carolina.
Segregated school systems and churches helped to maintain that identity,
Oakley said. As farming waned and industrialization grew after World War
II, the communities became less isolated and their "Indianness" was
challenged continually.
After the Brown v. Board of Education ruling began to take effect, in
the 1960s, Oakley saw that powwows and the naming of local tribes
surfaced as another strategy for maintaining and keeping alive Native
American culture and customs.
For example, Oakley noted that the tribal name, Lumbee, did not exist in
the 1880s, but continual challenges from outsiders to the heritage in
these eastern communities helped to form structures of kinship and
acceptance in the 1940s and 1950s under that name.
"Some have ancestral ties and some are new to tribal organizations," he
said. "Many of them are not descendents of a single origin, but rather
from many origins."
The tribes of eastern North Carolina, which include Lumbees, the
Tuscaroras, the Waccamaw Sioux, the Occaneechis, the Meherrins, the
Haliwa-Saponis, and the Coharies, are not federally recognized, although
some have state recognition and have sought to be recognized federally.
The Cherokee of western North Carolina, said Oakley, is the only
federally recognized tribe in the state.
"Keeping the Circle" was welcomed Nov. 16 by several of ECU's Native
American student organizations, as well as the Ledonia Wright Cultural
Center and the Office of Institutional Diversity.