The most important path for me this week is learning more about the stories of North Carolina, as part of my acknowledgment that I live as a settler on the stolen lands of the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Confederation, the Catawba Indian Nation, and other peoples of the Carolinas who lived here long before the arrival of the Europeans and the African peoples whom the Europeans enslaved.
One of the most important sources for the history of the stories and language of the Catawba people is a book of Catawba stories, written out in Catawba (using Roman letters) with translations provided by Frank Speck, an anthropologist whose work with the Catawba and other native peoples was inspired by the efforts of Franz Boas. You can find these Catawba stories online here: Catawba Texts. The book contains stories, along with accounts of folk beliefs and also songs. Speck began his work with the Catawba people in 1913 thanks to Susan Harris, a Catawba woman who married Samson Owl, a Cherokee man, and had moved with him to western North Carolina; Mrs. Owl was born around 1850 at Sugaree River on the Catawba River in South Carolina. Speck later came into contact with Mrs. Margaret Brown, who was his most important informant; she was born sometime around 1835 and died in 1922; she learned many stories from her father who, she said, was an old man when he died around 1845. Mrs. Brown's daughter, Mrs. Sally Gordon (born around 1865), was also an important source. Speck's interests were purely linguistic and he took a dismissive attitude towards the actual contents of the traditions that these Catawba women passed on, an opinion that tells us more about Mr. Speck that it does about these Catawba traditions.
I'll start this week with two stories that feature the red-capped woodpecker as a character:
Eagle and Woodpecker
A woman once went to dig potatoes; while she was gone, an eagle stole her child. "My child! My child!" the woman sobbed, but her child was gone.
The eagle raised the boy.
Later, a woodpecker saw the boy washing in the creek and flew to where the woman was.
"What are you looking at?" the woman said.
"I like your earrings!" said the woodpecker. "Give me your earrings, and I will show you where your son is."
"I do so gladly!" she said, giving her earrings to the woodpecker.
Then, thanks to the woodpecker, mother and son were reunited.
This is story 1b: The Eagle Kidnapper. You can see the Catawba text and the literal English translation online at Hathi Trust. There is also a much longer version of the story in which a poor woman steals the boy; the woodpecker reunites them and the mother and child rise up in the air to escape, where the boy became a cloud. "My boy, my good son, is a cloud!" the mother says at the end of that story.
Here is another story with the woodpecker:
Red Crest, Red Breast
Long ago, the woodpecker had black and white feathers on his body, and he had a black and white head. He did not have a crest.
But then there was a girl who wore a red ribbon on her head. She gave that red ribbon to the woodpecker; the little girl helped him to tie the red ribbon on his head.
That is why woodpeckers today have red crests.
The robin lived a tree that burned in a fire. The robin got burned too, and the fire gave him a red breast.
That is why robins today have red breasts.
Here is the Catawba text for that story: 3. Woodpecker and Robin.
I really like how both of these stories focus on women as the human characters, perhaps a result of the fact that the storytellers who shared their stories with Speck were all women.
Here is a picture of the woodpecker with his red crest:
And here is a picture of robin red-breast:
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