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 The Eastern Siouans “We Was Always Indians” We was always Indians. Like Mary [a girl friend] was asked one time. Man come through and ask her something or “nother” about what she was. Said she was Indian. What tribe? [he asked.] She says, “I don’t know what tribe, but I know one thing, I’m Indian.” One of my girl friends. [She laughs.] So we always called the Indians, even so we didn’t know what tribe . . . I guess the old folks did. —August 1983 We, the Council of Wide Awake Indians,Waccamaw Tribe of the Siouan Nation, submit the attached information as evidences to support our plea for recognition and acceptance as Wards of the Government of the United States. —Freeman et al. 1949 Forty years ago the old woman quoted in the epigraph above was in her thirties and her father, mother, and cousins and kin backed an effort to become a federally recognized tribe of the United States. On February 6, 1950, a Californian named Norris Poulson described the Waccamaw as “a lost tribe of Indians” with a tragic story. The congressmen listening to him asked, Who were the Siouan Indians? Where did they come from? Who were/are the “Waccamaw tribe”? In this chapter, I trace the meaning of “Waccamaw” and “Siouan,” relating these words to the language, culture, and history of peoples of the Southeast. Anthropologists, historians, archaeologists , and linguists play important roles in de¤ning and giving meaning to these terms. In 1950 as the Waccamaw Bill was before Congress, the standard ethnological and linguistic references identi¤ed Siouan as an important language spoken by American Indians. An early authoritative work on the subject entitled The Siouan Tribes of the East by anthropologist James Mooney established Siouan as one of several major language stocks in the East (Mooney 1894:6–8).Later,anthropologist John R.Swanton expanded Mooney’s work into a comprehensive study, which he published in 1946 as The Indians of the Southeastern United States. In addition to the Siouan stock, Algonquian, Iroquoian, Muskhogean, Tunican, and Caddoan were also present in the Southeast (Swanton 1946:10). Linguists use word lists to determine to which group a tribe belongs. Sadly, for most of the so-called Siouan tribes, such vocabularies were never collected (Mooney 1894:6). Yet Mooney (1894:9) was convinced that the western Dakota or Siouan language stock originated in the East. This explained the presence of Siouan speakers like the Catawba, Woccon, and Tutelo in the Carolinas (Gatschet 1900, cited in Swanton 1923:33; Gallatin cited in Hudson 1970:6). Mooney classi¤ed all the other Siouan tribes on the basis of their association with the Catawba. Later, Frank G. Speck (1935:203), an expert on the Catawba, agreed that Siouan speakers once inhabited more of eastern Virginia and Carolina before being driven out into the piedmont. Speck (1935:201), who studied the last remaining speakers of Catawba,lamented,“the hope entertained since 1893 among students of native history and institutions, that the confusion of tribal names mentioned in the early narratives of the Carolinas would sooner or later be cleared up has not as yet been realized.” Meticulous research with the last two people speaking Catawba did not promise to improve the picture either. While Speck agreed with Mooney’s early classi¤cation of the Tutelo, Woccon, and Catawba as Siouan, he hesitated about the inclusion of twenty-two “other” tribes, determined to be Siouan only through the inference of their political relations with the Catawba. Before their decline, there may have been 24,000 speakers of Siouan in the southeastern United States,making Siouan the third-largest language grouping in the region (Swanton 1946:12). Yet, there was much to learn about the elusive Siouan. A hiatus in knowledge remained (Hudson 1970:6, 1976). The 24,000 Siouan speakers represented a wide array of tribes. Some of these were known only from their tribal names mentioned brie®y by Europeans . Nevertheless, Mooney’s Siouan classi¤cation extended to many tribes in the central Carolinas. He included the Catawba, Tutelo, Woccon, Monacan , Saponi, Occaneechi, Sara, Keyauwee, Eno, Waxhaw, Sugaree, Peedee, Sewee,Santee,Wateree,Congaree,Mahoc,Nuntaneuck,Mohetan,Meipontsky , Shoccoree, Adshusheer, Sissipahaw, Cape Fear, Warrennuncock, Waccamaw , Winyaw, Hooks, and Backhooks.1 Linguistic classi¤cation remained uncertain yet scholars continue to regard most of these tribes as Siouan. The Siouan tribes lived within the Southeastern Culture Area, where they shared certain basic features that distinguished them from their neigh2 / Chapter...

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