anthropologists call animism," Knick 

 says. 



Although we have some written and 

 visual descriptions of the Algonkians, 

 we really know very little of their daily 

 existence, their rituals and their beliefs. 

 We know even less of the Iroquoian- 

 speaking Tuscaroras and still less of the 

 Siouans. 



Why is our knowledge of these 

 Coastal Plain natives so limited? 



Quite simply, most died before any 

 written history could be recorded. 



By the time the English arrived at 

 Roanoke Island, vast numbers of 

 Native Americans in North and South 

 America had already died from diseases 

 introduced by the Spanish. 



Diseases such as smallpox, measles, 

 typhus and influenza, that were en- 

 demic in Europe, became epidemic in 

 America, Knick says. Native Americans 

 had lived relatively isolated from other 

 continents for hundreds of centuries, 

 and they had no natural immunities to 

 these diseases or any preventive cures. 



English contact with North 

 Carolina's natives exposed them to the 

 same pestilence. 



"There were population reductions 

 of 50 to 90 percent very rapidly," Knick 

 says. "With smallpox, five days is a 

 typical course resulting in death." 



Harriot, writing of his travels in 

 North Carolina, says every time he went 

 to a new government to trade he noticed 

 that people died when he left. Some- 

 times they would die in the tens and 

 sometimes in the hundreds. And he 

 wasn't sure why they would die. It 

 seems Harriot didn't understand that he 

 was the carrier. 



John Lawson, an explorer, wrote 

 that by 1705, 83 percent of the Indians 

 within 200 miles of European settle- 

 ments had died from epidemics. 



"That's why the unknown is greater 

 than the known," Knick says. "They 



died before anyone got here to write 

 anything about them down." 



As a result of the diseases, there are 

 few, if any, modem descendants of the 

 Carolina Algonkians. The Iroquoians 

 and Siouans fared better. A small 

 contingent of Tuscaroras live in 

 Robeson County, and several present- 









s — 













day tribes — the Waccamaws, the 

 Lumbees, the Haliwa-Saponis and the 

 Coharies — are thought to be Siouan 

 descendants. 



But what do these descendants 

 know of their long-ago ancestors who 

 farmed the Coastal Plain, who fished 

 the brackish waters, who lived in 



AND THE SAD TRUTH 

 MAY BE THAT 

 NO AMOUNT 

 OF ARTIFACTS 

 AND BONES 

 WILL EVERTELLTHE 

 WHOLE STORY. 



harmony with nature? Sadly, many 

 know very little. 



"One of the things that changed 

 Indian groups the most in early 

 historical times was that it was bad to 



be an Indian," Phelps says. "Everyone 

 looked down on you. The Indians, in 

 order to survive, began to acculturate to 

 European culture at a relatively rapid 

 rate. In the process, the native culture 

 went by the wayside." 



Archaeologists such as Phelps are 

 literally digging into these Native 

 Americans' past at sites all over the 

 Coastal Plain. These sites hold perhaps 

 the only key to these Indians' ancestors, 

 traditions and ways of life. 



Now the Waccamaws, the Lumbees 

 and some remaining Tuscaroras are 

 striving to learn more about their past 

 and recapture some of the customs and 

 culture of their early ancestors. Unfortu- 

 nately, they have little information to 

 draw upon. 



"We stripped them of their culture 

 and their heritage," Phelps says. "In their 

 attempts at trying to become Indian, they 

 grasp at the image of the Plains Indians 

 and other groups that survived. But these 

 people were not farmers like eastern 

 Indians. They were roving hunters with 

 very simple societies. But that's the 

 public image of Native American 

 culture. That's where we get the dances 

 and the powwows. 



"It's called the Pan-Indian move- 

 ment," Phelps says, "In fact, eastern 

 Indians were twice as complex and had a 

 very diverse, rich culture." 



But until researchers uncover more 

 information about these Native Ameri- 

 cans, the Lumbees and the Waccamaws 

 may have to continue borrowing 

 customs and rituals from their western 

 kinsmen. 



And the sad truth may be that no 

 amount of artifacts and bones will ever 

 tell the whole story. 



Knick puts it like this: "After 500 

 years of what they have been subjected 

 to, the miracle is — and I have said it a 

 thousand times — the miracle is that 

 there are any Indians here at all." 



6 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1992 



