LANCASTER, S.C. – College professors are willing to teach American Indian history, culture and language, but there are no collections of writings from which to develop courses for colleges, a group of Southeastern educators concluded in a panel discussion.
The two-hour discussion was part of Native American Studies Week at the University of South Carolina at Lancaster during the mid-April break.
Fifteen professors, directors, archaeologists and anthropologists from South Carolina and North Carolina participated.
Robert Walls, who teaches American Indian literature at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, explained that he cannot find local Native literature, particularly literature written by the Indians of South Carolina. As a result, he said he must teach from materials produced out of state.
“The material is there,” he said, but it must be researched and written. “One of the first things we could do is to push the presses to publish things that pertain to specific issues.” Schools and colleges in South Carolina need books on southeastern Indians for teaching, he said.
As it is now, he said, “There is nothing there that I can show them from this area. All I can do is teach Native materials from elsewhere in the United States.”
Steve Watts, director of aboriginal studies at Schiele Museum in Gastonia, N.C., explained that the academic world needs to approach Native history, literature, culture and courses in human terms.
He said, “The justification for a Native American studies program to me is the study of the human being, study of culture, study of the earth. To say that a Native American studies program is not worthy is to say that the culture is not worthy.
“The justification is in the culture itself. Unfortunately, there are not unlimited resources. You have to cultivate interest. Non-Native Americans need to understand the Native American programs. It’s not just about Native American people; it’s about United States citizens, part of the bigger story.”
A student at USCL said he studied history in New York schools and found “no history before history.” When the Europeans arrived some 500 years ago, that’s when American history started, he noted: “The country was just here, and there was nothing before that.”
Chris Judge, an anthropologist with the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources and a teacher of archaeology at USCL, said that people interested in Native studies in South Carolina need to band together, come up with documentation and go to the state to establish ways for teaching courses about American Indians in the schools.
“We are challenged,” he said, “with identifying markets for Native American studies. We have to sell it to the bureaucrats down in Columbia and the department of education.”
Freeman Owle, Cherokee storyteller and historian, said he remembers his grandparents sitting on the porch at home and talking about the Trail of Tears, referring to the Cherokees who in 1830 were forced to leave home and travel by foot, horse and wagon to Oklahoma.
His great-great-grandfather went on the trail but later returned to Cherokee, N.C.
Owle said, “He sued the federal government after he came back. It was thrown out of court.” Owle explained that historians must look at Native history “from the perspective of the Native Americans.”
He said, “Research needs to be done – research the archives; go through the history books; purify history itself, history the way it really was. It’s time to go back and look at the treaties and see what the Native Americans were asking for. Look at what they were given.
“There is great wealth in the Native American communities: 10,000 years of wealth. We need to look at the Native American people as human beings. On applications [jobs , driver’s licenses, etc.], you have Caucasians, you have Hispanics, you have African-Americans; and then there is ‘other.’ We were here first, and we are not ‘other.’
“I think that’s the type of research needed so teachers can show the truth, show who we are. We are ready for the truth.”
Native American Studies Week at USCL concluded with a presentation by Tom Blumer, who documented Catawba pottery for several years and donated his field research materials to the university for study. He said anyone can examine his tribal “elbow-to-elbow” research for academic work and future books.