You're asking great questions. In answer to the first, MANY tribes were annihilated. We now have a rough guess that there were around 18 million indigenous peoples living in what is now the United States. By around 1800, only 600,00 remained. By the 1890s the populated had dipped down to 250,000! Staggering numbers, aren't they? Also, some tribes were forced together and other banded together, bringing together a scant few survivors. Try Googling a few more things about tribes, their numbers today, and the estimated number of original tribes. And, of course, after you do that, I hope you blog.
......And my hunch was confirmed. While I didn't immediate research it, or blog about it for that matter, it was on my mind for a few days. I kept coming back to the realization that whole groups of people, were gone. Cultures, rituals, languages..... gone. All gone. And while there may be some historical recordings and drawings of the indians that are lost, that is entirely something different than experiencing a culture that's alive... that breathes and sings and explores the world through a cultural lens that is very distinct. This brought be back to me the wonderful class, History of the English Class (a class that I recommend to any non-literature majors). My beautiful teacher, Dr. Downes, is now retired, but she had such a passion for languages and cultures.... anyway, she was always talking about whenever the world loses a language, then we also lose another perspective of the world. Meaning, when we lost those tribes of American Indians, we also lost cultural insights into the world.... something we could have benefitted from as well as learned from....
As I was doing a little research, I came upon something very ironic. There was a festival that my grandfather use to take me to almost every summer: The Eno River Festival.
It's a favorite of my grandfather because it's right next door to where he grew up (Durham, NC). Every summer we would go, hike the trails, eat funnel cake, go bird-watching, enjoy the live bluegrass, and just enjoy the forrest. I have nothing but great memories of these trips to the Eno river. Little did I know, there used to be a tribe of Indians living there. Named after their chief of the time of discovery, Eno Will, in 1714. Long story short, Virginia came in and decided to settle down, thereby kicking the Eno out of their indigenous land. Little is known about the aftermath of this tribe, but historicists have guessed that they joined with neighboring southern tribes like the Catawba or even moved up north to Ohio. All in all, the Eno as a nation does not exist any longer. They have either disappeared or completely assimilated into another tribe.
It saddens me to think about the loss of an entire culture. They probably had customs, songs, tales, beliefs, or languages all distinctly their own. But now, it's just a river. As hard as I look back, I cannot recollect a single monument or exhibit at the Eno River marking the original inhabitants. Even at the festival, which celebrates the river, didn't have anything to do with American Indians. Nothing. Zilch. Nada. (I can't say for the current festival- haven't been in years) It's sadly ironic, but yet this is the reality. I wish I could change it, but I have to try and rid myself of this White Guilt.... the past is the past... those are our country's skeletons, and now our country has to figure out how to live in the now. Between skeletons.
For more information about the Eno, go here!
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