458 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Oct. ii, 1913. 
Croatan Indians of North Carolina 
F OR many years it had been my desire to 
make a visit to the part of North Caro¬ 
lina inhabited by the Croatan Indians, this 
being in Robeson county, about one hundred 
miles south of Raleigh, and near the South 
Carolina line, to make a study of their mode 
of life, their characteristics, etc., and to get in¬ 
formation in regard to their hunting and fishing, 
and I devoted three days in May to this. When 
the train reached the little village of Pembroke, 
through which a great many people traveling 
on the main line of the Atlantic Coast Line be¬ 
tween New York and Florida pass and repass, 
it was found that the place was about in the 
heart of the colony, and that on one side of the 
street were stores of the white people, and on 
the other those of the strange people whom 
North Carolina has officially declared to be the 
survivors of the “Lost Colony” of Sir Walter 
Raleigh and of the Indians who lived in the 
Roanoke Island section. 
There are about 3,500 Croatans and there 
are about as many Cherokees in North Carolina. 
They do not know each other, except in very 
few cases, and yet one of the oldest men among 
the Croatans told me his people and the Chero¬ 
kees are closely related. Very handsome eyes 
and intensely black hair, high cheek bones, erect 
forms, great reticence and revenge are racial 
marks of the Croatans. 
The Croatan houses are almost always of 
logs, very carefully built, and very clean. Al¬ 
most everything within them is homemade, and 
around some of them are patches of indigo, used 
for making dyes. Looms, spinning wheels, etc., 
are common. These people are devoted to fish¬ 
ing, and at every house there are fishing poles, 
long native reeds, cut in the canebrakes. These 
have lines fitted with a very heavy sinker, no 
corks being used. The Croatans are particularly 
partial to fishing at night. The streams are not 
only deep, but remarkably swift. The water in 
the streams seems black, but when put in a glass 
it is very clear, and is declared to be excellent 
for drinking purposes. 
Much of the bottom of the Lumber River, 
their chief stream, of which the proper name is 
“Lumbee,” is covered with a species of vegeta¬ 
tion which the people there term “bonnets,” and 
the edges are fringed with this growth, which 
has long stalks and a narrow and wavy leaf, 
extremely thin, and a little white flower on a 
very slender stalk, growing straight out of the 
water. The Croatans use mostly worms for 
bait and put several of these on a big hook. 
They also use what they call “bobs,” and go 
out in boats which they make of the cypress 
trunks, quite well dug out, very slender and thin, 
and which they manage remarkably well, these 
boats by the way being greatly like the long and 
narrow canoes made out of one log which the 
Cherokees use in the mountain streams in this 
State. I went by a house to go with some 
Croatans to this Lumber River to fish. Children 
swarmed at the house here, there and every¬ 
where, for there were well over a dozen of 
them, big families being the rule in the Croatan 
country. We went to the stream, perhaps a 
By FRED A. OLDS 
mile away, and struck it at a place known as 
Harper’s Ferry, which by the way has a sort 
of a history. A man named Vick made a settle¬ 
ment there, having come from Harper's Ferry 
in Virginia, established a ferry, and gave it the 
same name as his old home. He made a good 
deal of money there, having a road house inn, 
or ordinary, on the stream, and then went to 
Mississippi and founded Vicksburg, which was 
given his name. At the point where the old 
ferry used to be there is now a double bridge, 
which rests upon an island. The river flows 
under this like a mill race, and was found to be, 
though not over forty feet wide, some twenty 
feet deep. Some of the Croatans fished from 
the bridge, some from the banks, which were 
beautifully green, while others went in their 
canoes under the delicate shade of the junipers 
and cypresses. One or two of them had minnows, 
which they called “roaches,” as bait. Some of 
them, for it was late in the afternoon, had 
material for a fire and laid this out on a place 
on the bank, saying they intended to stay all 
night. Two of these men had bars of iron about 
three feet long, with which they go about in the 
shallow water which occasionally shows itself 
beyond the generally steep banks of the stream, 
and with these irons kill fish by quick blows. 
Some Croatans came down the stream with 
strings of fish. Some were what they call the 
CROATAN INDIANS IN ROBESON COUNTY, N. C. 
Photographed especially for Forest and Stream. 
