Where History, Folklore, and Tradition Meet with Dr. Stephen Criswell

Archaeology Month And A Timely Visit

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to Voices of Inspiration. October is Archaeology Month in South Carolina. So this felt like the perfect time to share this episode. A couple of weeks ago, I visited the Native American Studies Center in Lancaster, where I sat down with Dr. Stephen Criswell. He is the director of Native American Studies at USA Lancaster and a professor of English and folklore. He helped build the Native American Studies program from the ground up beginning in 2005. And over the past 20 years, he spent a lot of time getting to know catawa potters and elders and recording their stories and memories. One thing I enjoyed hearing about was how the center has opened its galleries to tribal communities so they could share their history in their own way. As he puts it, they tried to get out of the way of the story. And that's something that I truly believe because no one can tell your story better than you can. Dr. Criswell's work has also been recognized with the Gene Laney Harris Vote Heritage Award, which the South Carolina legislature presents each year. A lot of our conversation centers around the Catabination and a pottery tradition that goes back thousands of years. We talk about what archaeologists can learn from pottery found here in South Carolina. But Dr. Criswell also brings up something I hadn't really thought about before. These pots weren't only made to serve a purpose. People cared about how they looked. They wanted to create something beautiful. And I think that there's something very human about realizing that people thousands of years ago cared about that too. His research also includes some parts of Carolina culture that are probably familiar to a lot of us, even if we don't know much about where they came from. Carolina fish camps are one of them. They began along the Cotawba River and became a gathering place for mill families across the Piedmont, where you could get a lot of food without spending a lot of money. We talk about how they grew, the role they played in their communities, and why so many have disappeared. We also talk about Piedmont Blues and something he said that I thought was really interesting. The idea of taking adversity and turning it into beauty. He connects that to Southern food traditions where people could take what they had available to them, like creating a hash and turning it into something entirely their own. We packed a lot into this conversation. And honestly, I could have kept talking to Dr. Criswell for a while. Before we jump in, though, if you're not already following Voices of Inspiration, hit follow so you don't miss an episode. Now here's my conversation with Dr. Stephen Criswell at the Native American Studies Center.

From Irish Stories To Carolina Folklore

SPEAKER_01 3:24

Yeah, I as far as the Native American interest goes, um I grew up in Gaston County, uh right across the state line. My dad actually worked at the mill in Clover, South Carolina for much of his life. So I've always had that South Carolina. And my friends in high school would go to York to uh get married before they were 18. Happened a couple of times. But uh the Shield Museum is great, it's a great museum of natural history. And uh when I was growing up, very, very, very young, uh, was taken there and and there it had uh, I think they still have it, a hall of the American Indian. And they had a nice diorama of a kataba village, and you know, it's all laid out with little people in it. And at that point, I thought the kataba were little tiny ancient people. And it turned out once I became a folklorist, I learned there is a tradition among the katawba of little people. Uh they just like leprechauns, that sort of thing. Um, so that's always sort of been there. But as far as folklore goes, uh, it really started with my late wife, because uh we were in college together and I was uh infatuated with her. And she was interested in all things Irish, uh, Irish music, Irish dance, Irish jewelry, Irish mythology and Irish stories. And so I became interested in Irish stories. Um I was an English major. I became real interested in William Butler Yates. Um so I had this interest in sort of Celtic traditions. Um as I went on to graduate school, I started recognizing the Scots-Irish traditions here uh and recognizing, you know, the transfer of culture in that way. Uh I learned later in graduate school that in some ways that culture is better preserved in, say, the mountains of the Carolinas than back in Ireland because they they changed and evolved in a different direction, whereas here we we kept these things preserved. But I was interested in Irish traditions, Irish literature. It's hard not to read Irish literature without getting into the folk traditions, obviously. Um that led to a general interest in post-colonial literature. I got interested in Caribbean uh poet poetry. Uh, but the interest was always how are these artists using the traditions that they come from? And particularly in post-colonial contexts, because these are traditions that the colonizers try to try to crush, snuff out. But culture is tenacious. And that that's probably been the theme throughout my career that I that I keep coming back to is how how tenacious culture is, both both good and bad. I mean, it's not always a good thing, but it you you just it's very, very hard to destroy culture. Um, and God knows it's been tried many, many times. But that's true.

SPEAKER_02 5:56

That's true.

SPEAKER_01 5:57

And and I think that that sort of was the appeal to me, the underlying appeal to me. And I tried to look at local culture wherever I was, uh, with graduate school in uh South Louisiana, Cajun, Louisiana. So I became very interested in caging and creole culture. Um I worked for a while at Benedict College, the HBCU in Columbia. And so I did a lot of work in African American culture, you know, which connected back to Africa and in post-colonial Africa. And so there was all you know, all these connections. Um and I helped start a folklore organization because by that point I was a newly minted folklorist, um, still mainly an English teacher, but was able to do a folklore class here or there. And my research was always folk-based. Um, I got started with a folklore organization, and one of our members, uh, Fran Gardner, who's now retired from USCL, uh, she mentioned to me that the dean in Lancaster um wanted to talk with me because Lancaster had just acquired a collection of research materials on the Catawba Nation. And by then I had met a few uh Catawba potters, uh, Becky Garris and Keith Brown, a few folks like that, and got to know more about their tradition. And that fascinated me because it's as if uh one of my graduate classes had come to life uh in terms of what is a folk tradition. You know, it's passed down in the family, it uses natural resources, it's as a community aesthetic, you know, everything that I had learned was right there. And ironically, you know, it occurred to me that it was right there in my backyard, you know, where I'd been for 18, 20 years. Um so I came up to talk with the dean about this new collection, didn't realize what this was. We were chatting in his office and I was just talking about um research I had done, talking about the katab, talking about the pottery. And he said, Well, let me ask you, how much are they paying you at the where you're working now? And I paused and this is a job interview.

unknown 7:45

I had no idea.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

And uh it all went well. They took me to lunch at the uh wagon wheel here in Lancaster, uh, outside of Lancaster. I had fried squash and I was I was sold. Uh and so we started Native American Studies uh really in two 2005 on campus. So we didn't get this center until 2012. But it's uh so it's been over 20 years that we've been been doing this work.

SPEAKER_00 8:07

That's so incredible. I feel like I could talk to you for a long time off camera about some of these topics. Um most of them I'm also interested in, but just from you know, a hobby level, uh obviously I don't have quite the experience that you do, but And that's the nice thing about being a folklorist is more often than not, what we study is is fun.

SPEAKER_01 8:28

It's enjoyable. It's you know, and and uh I once uh was working with an anthropologist who was telling me about the field work he was doing and he had to hike through a swamp up to his chest to get to this little village in East Africa where he was working. And I said, Yeah, I I was studying family reunions. Uh I went to the Hyatt in Augusta and three kinds of macaroni and cheese. A little bit different. I made a better choice.

Contemporary Native Communities In South Carolina

SPEAKER_00 8:56

What would you want someone to know? Like if they've never visited the Native American Studies Center, what would you want them to know about the work that's being done here?

SPEAKER_01 9:05

Well, I think the first thing is making sure people know that there are contemporary Native American communities in the state. Um, we get a lot of, oh, I didn't know there were Indians in South Carolina. Uh or if they know anything, they didn't, they might know the cataaba from news about you know the casino and that sort of thing. Um but first there's just getting past that, not even bias, just I don't say ignorance, it's just they just were never taught that. And of course, we're taught by the people, you know, the people who teach us, we're taught by the people that taught them and taught them. And so if it's not important to someone in the past, it often doesn't get to the present. And so the first thing is that we had not only do we have Native American communities in South Carolina, but we have vibrant Native communities and and they've um preserved their culture, in some cases reclaimed their culture. Uh they have amazing um artists that work in these communities, they have stories, they have histories. Um and and I I would think I would like people to know that you know that first that these these communities exist. And secondly, their history has been um it's been a tough one. You know, they they were they were pushed off their land, they were removed, they were uh um given worse land to live on, uh, not given the right to vote, not given the right to marry outside of their race or ethnicity, um, limited economic opportunities, uh, and yet they persevered, they survived, they carried on their culture, some of them hid out for a while. Um, but that culture is still alive today because these ancestors um, I guess, had the foresight to hold on to things. Not always, of course. We we've lost languages um in some traditions. Um, and I think in some ways it you know you had parents who wanted their children to assimilate into white culture as much as they could. And so they didn't want to, I would think they would think of it as way being weighed down by um these other traditions. And and there's regret, I think, among many in the community that that some of these traditions were lost, but a lot of work reclaiming them and reviving them.

SPEAKER_00 11:01

That's incredible.

Getting Out Of The Way

SPEAKER_00 11:02

How does the center's relationships with the Cataba community um or other native communities influence the stories that you tell and the way those stories are presented?

SPEAKER_01 11:18

We try to get out of the way of the story. Um when we first started going back again to 2005, might have been 2006, we invited um tribal leaders, both the Kataba and from the state-recognized groups. I think at that time there were maybe eight of them. And uh Gene Norris, uh Chief Gene Norris from a group called the Piedmont American Indian Association. Uh, we were having a um um sort of round table discussion, and Chief Norris stood up and said, We're left out of the history books. You know, the history books maybe talk about the Kataaba, the Embassy War, Cherokee, and it's as if we disappear after the Embassy War, and we're not talked about anymore, and particularly these other communities. Nobody teaches their history and their culture, and we need that to be taught. We need people to know about us. And I said to him, Chief Norris, you are the best person to tell your story. We're here to help you tell that story. Um, once the center opened, we had for a while, we haven't done it in a while, and we need to get back to it. But we would invite different tribes, different tribal communities to use one of our galleries to exhibit whatever, whatever they wanted to exhibit, to tell their stories. And we helped them, our our um curator, uh Professor Brady Taylor Driggers, um, amazing artist, amazing curator, um, could take their materials and arrange it in a in a you know museum eye-pleasing way. And um, but but the material was there, the stories were there. Sometimes we would um we would interview them and then put the the interview online or on in the exhibit. Um but as much as possible, let them tell their story and be the conduit between the larger culture, the larger community, and these native communities.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

I agree with that. I always say that no one can tell your story better than you can.

SPEAKER_01 13:08

Yeah. Yeah.

Pottery Sherds And Ancient Aesthetics

SPEAKER_00 13:09

So traditional art is one of your primary areas of research. What can pottery and baskets, carvings, and other handmade objects tell us that we might not find in written records?

SPEAKER_01 13:22

Well, if you think about it, a lot of traditional art starts out as utilitarian. So the pottery, we would assume, originally was served the function in a pot, functions, a cooking pot, a storage vessel, that sort of thing. But even going back to the the archaeological record, and you find the the sherds, uh, the pottery sherds um that that archaeologists around here find, you know, very often they're decorated. They're stamped uh with with a wooden paddle or with cloth or etched with some there's a design to them. And to me, that suggests that even then these ancient people cared about how it looked. There was a a concern with aesthetic. And you think, you know, that's that's human beings. Human beings love to make something nice and be told that to be admired for what they've done. I mean, it's this reason people decorate their yards, right? So people come drive by and say, you have a lovely yard. And and I think part of what that tells us is that people are people, and people have the same desires and the same creativity regardless of where they are in the ro in the world. Um and the fact that this 6,000-year-old tradition in terms of, or maybe 6,000 in terms of the pottery, the top of pottery, or at least pottery in South Carolina, or the the thousands of years, probably traditions of the sweetgrass baskets if you take them back to West Africa. The fact that these things continue to be made and continue to be uh made with such an eye toward toward beauty and toward aesthetics, um, that they no longer are utilitarian vessels. I mean, you don't you don't cook and you go buy a $500 kota pot, you're not gonna cook beans in it. Uh but they're still being made. The the their function has changed uh in a way, but the the desire to make it and the desire to create um not only shows us something about humans, but it shows us something again about those those communities and their tenacity and their their um ability to preserve their culture, as I said, often in the face of hardship and difficulty and or downright oppression. Um I think that's that's part of the story that we can we can get from from the handmade object.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

I think that's really interesting that you mention the carvings on pottery, for example. I never, I mean, I spend a lot of my free time uh reading and researching and um about these things, and I'd I really never thought about the aesthetic of it and relating that to that's people or people they want to.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

I was I was talking with with a um with a scholar um with a more of an archaeological uh bent. Um and he was talking about a um Potter in the a Taba Potter in the late 19th century. Um didn't sign her work, they didn't sign their work back then, but but the family you know kept the pottery, they knew who this was. Um and one of the vessels she had made was this oversized piece, like just huge. Completely, you couldn't use it for anything. It was purely for decoration. And I said to him, I said, What why did she why would she make such a big piece? And he paused and I don't know. I said, Well, you think maybe she just wanted to make it big and have people go, Wow, that's a big pot. Yeah. Maybe. You know, and I've heard different explanations for, you know, uh it could be the etchings and so forth to hold the pot so it doesn't slip or it identifies uh a certain family of potters. And that and I can see that, but I still come back to this desire to make something beautiful. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:54

Yeah.

How Traditional Artists Make Something New

SPEAKER_00 16:55

How do artists preserve the traditions that they've inherited while stay still making sure the work reflects who they are today?

SPEAKER_01 17:04

Well, and I that's I've I've uh done a couple of talks about this, and I've I've borrowed from Matthias Elliott essay Tradition and the Individual Talent. And and Elliot talks about being a writer, you know, you don't write in a vacuum. When you write, you are writing in a in a in a uh continuum of all of the writers that came before you and all that will come after you, but somewhere in there you've got to make your mark. And I've I've talked about uh some of my with some of my fine art colleagues about this that traditional artists have have a greater struggle and a harder time, I think, to express that individuality because if you're a fine artist, you can stick a urinal on a wall and say, but uh, that's art, or you can put you can put a banana on a canvas. But uh traditional art is very, very small c conservative. Um, so there are parameters and those are set by the community. And a good traditional artist can work within those parameters to do something new and something unique and something something creative. Um and sometimes they'll get they'll cross the line. They'll they'll be told, you know, the community will say, that's not what we did. Um a great example of this is an image that I use uh in a slide in the piece that we have in our collection. Um by Georgia Harris, who was a um National Heritage Award winner, and it's an award given by the National Democrat for the Arts. Um handful of people in South Carolina have gotten it, the blues uh musician Drink Small, uh, Mary Jackson, the Gullah Basket Maker, and and um Um MacArthur Genius Award winner, um, Philip Simmons, the blacksmith, uh, and and Georgia Harris, Kotappa Potter. Um Georgia made this piece, it's a Rebecca Snake picture. Um, but my understanding is she was the first to make it or make it like this. She made a Rebecca picture, the long, tall picture. Um, more than likely something Kotabbas had seen growing up in in uh illustrated Bibles, you know, Rebecca at the well with her with her picture. Uh, but she put a snake on it. And the snake for the catawa um is not an evil creature, right? Particularly the black snake. I mean, the black snake is a beneficial creature. It eats other snakes, it eats vermin, uh, and it's very much a symbol of power. And you think power is neither good nor bad, power is power. Um, but the snake is an important symbol for the catava applied to this image or to this to this pitcher whose image comes out of the Old Testament. Um, so you have this wonderful combination of indigenous and and Western in this in this one piece. And on the one hand, it's a simple thing. Oh, she stuck a snake on a picture. But it's profound if you start thinking about it. And I think the best traditional artists are the ones who can make the simple, make the profound simple. And and that's it, it's and it's almost one of those things where I would have to show you the work. But um the the recent recently there was a uh gulla basket maker who made the world's largest gola basket. Um it got a lot of press for it. And I think the community accepted it and approved of it uh because he had he had earned his stripes, you know, sure making smaller pieces, getting better and better and better. And so you know that was accepted. Um but there's there's a lot of working in your community, and you know we often think of the artist as the you know the isolated loner, you know, the all that whole romantic notion of going off somewhere and and writing or painting or whatever. But a traditional artist has to live in a community and satisfy uh the the um criteria of the community.

Lizard Men Bigfoot And Southern Tales

unknown 20:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:35

Is there a local legend or story that you've encountered that kind of changed the way that you looked at this community or this particular space?

SPEAKER_01 20:52

They're the lizard men and they often are. We've had we've had several Bigfoot sightings in South Carolina. Right. So yeah, I'm not sure that that there's one particular one, but there there is, you know, this is we're in the south, and southerners particularly are storytellers. And so uh yeah, there are countless uh stories that that and and I'm I'm I like to swap stories, you know, and so and I really like to hear good stories, and so I've I've heard a lot. It's hard to pin down just I'm sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:24

So

Fish Camps Mill Paydays And Community

SPEAKER_00 21:25

you also research Carolina fish camps.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:28

So for listeners or viewers who may not be familiar with what a fish camp is, can and why these places became such an important part of life in the Carolinas, can you give a little bit of back?

SPEAKER_01 21:40

Yeah, there are seafood restaurants uh generally were found in the Piedmont. Um, and because I think partly of that location, they were able to serve um saltwater seafood because the coast isn't that far away, and freshwater because of the lakes and and ponds and so forth in the area. Um, a lot along the Catawba River. The first one was. Started by a fellow named Luther Lineberger in Geston County, North County, Gastonia. Luther worked at one of the textile mills there, and he was known to be a pretty good cook. And at the time, there were landowners who would uh charge a small fee or whatever uh you pay a little money and you could go to own their property and fish on their bank on the Cotabba River. And people would fish, they'd catch their fish and they'd bring it up and they'd they'd cook it and eat it while they were there. But eventually, Luther, because he was such a good cook, was asked to come and just be there and help prepare the fish that they caught, the freshwater fish that they caught. Um and that got very popular. And he would make, he would make the um, he would for he would clean and fry their fish for the fishermen uh or the families who were fishing. Uh he had the cornmeal there, so he would make hush puppies, um cut up some potatoes to make french fries, sometimes have some cabbage and make slaw. And I guess the vinegar and the slaw kept it from going going bad outside. But this was so popular, he he built a little sort of um uh almost sort of a tent, you know, just sort of a space with some tables for people to sit under and a little area where he could cook. And that eventually turned into a full-size restaurant. There was Limeburger's Fish Camp. Um and it's called referred to as a fish camp because originally it was camping on the on the river and fishing there. Um so the fish camp, uh Limeburgers, actually I think it was Limeburgers Fish Fry was the name of the place, but um, it became very popular, spawned some other uh duplicate restaurants. Uh some of the cooks from Lineburgers went off and started their own restaurants. And they just they just spread and they the appeal was for mill workers primarily.

SPEAKER_03 23:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:37

Because you know, the textile mails were on the river, the fish camps were on the river. Um, the fish camps generally were open Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, because well, you can't be open on Sunday because that's the Lord's Day. Uh they would open on Thursday because that was payday at the fish camps. I myself growing up, my my dad worked in the mill all my life, and um Thursday or every other Thursday when he got paid, we either Thursday or Friday, we would go. Ours was Stowe's Fish Camp. Um we'd like to go to Lineburger's son because Lineburgers was known for their candy counter. They had just an immense amount of any kind of, you know, back when you could get candy cigarettes. Right.

unknown 24:10

Bubblegum cigars.

SPEAKER_01 24:11

But Stowe's was the Stowe family was a uh family friend, uh friend of my grandfather's. Um so we would go there, which was an interesting place. The um the son of the owner, who eventually became the next owner, um, played for the New York Yankees. But he played one game, I think, and blew out his knees and couldn't play anymore. But you wouldn't know that in the restaurant because it was covered with sports. It was like an original sports bar. But but they, you know, so they catered to this blue blue uh collar worker uh group because you could you could get a lot of food for a little money, uh, often sort of family style, and so it reinforces the whole family.

SPEAKER_00 24:50

You can't beat a good fish game.

SPEAKER_01 24:51

No, you can't.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

I mean, I even included one in my books, um, which you guys are in in the book. Which one? Uh blacks.

SPEAKER_01 24:58

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And it's that's a pretty classic one. Um yeah, and it in most of them, with a few exceptions, uh, didn't allow alcohol. Um, there was one right across the line from Gaston County and Mecklenburg County. Um, our family was not allowed to go to it because they served beer. All you can eat catfish, all you can drink beer.

SPEAKER_03 25:16

Come on. Yeah. That's a name.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

But uh but yeah, and they and they got you know, they've spread pretty far and wide. I mean, it's as you get to the coast, they become calabash restaurants. If you go into the other direction, they become catfish houses. But there's this little pocket in the Piedmont of the Carolinas, um, a little bit into Georgia. Uh, and then apparently there is or was a fish camp in New York City because someone from the South moved to New York and started started a restaurant, sort of sort of like Sylvia did, but with with fish camps. Um But they've they've declined in part because well, partly people try to eat better, so there's less fried food. And a lot of the fish camps tried to say, well, we have baked flounder and we have baked potatoes, and that's not the same. And then the rise of casual dining, which is sort of and then the decline of the meals, of course. But uh but there's still a few operating and that we have the right on the roof.

SPEAKER_00 26:08

That's what blacks um they when people go there for holiday and they're able to take their RV there and camp nearby. And I think that's the appeal for a place like that too, because I I want to say that they can even get gas for like the boat, and you know, like it's a well stopping point.

SPEAKER_01 26:26

And for a long time they were they were sort of community centers um here in uh right outside of Lancaster over uh across the line in Chester County is the Kotappa Fish Camp. And um at one point, Governor Hodges uh when he was running for governor, you know, he he had a meeting there, a fundraiser there. Uh George W. Bush, when he was running the first time, came through and had a had a uh uh event there. And so they're they're and Boy Scout groups and and church groups and all that sort of thing. Um so they they've been sort of anchors of communities uh for a long time. And the ones that are still here still still serve that purpose.

SPEAKER_00 27:00

So

Piedmont Blues And Making Hash

SPEAKER_00 27:01

you've also in your free time studied traditional music, correct? Yeah. What connections do you see among music and food and of course art and storytelling altogether?

SPEAKER_01 27:15

Well, the the music traditions I have mainly looked into have been uh the Piedmont Blues tradition. As I mentioned, uh drink small earlier is is probably the last of the of the classic uh Piedmont Blues myth. Um but it's all again, it's it's part of uh it's human expression, human creativity, and thinking of of the blues particularly, um taking adversity and turning it into beauty. Um and I think you know that's that's what art often is. Um it's unfortunate that you have to have the adverse, and you don't have to. I mean, you can be a very happy person and make good art. But but something about transforming uh pain and loss and suffering uh into uh music in the same way taking the the cheapest cuts of meat and the and the castaway food items and then creating um um hash, right? Everything but the squeal goes into hash. Um and it's a it's a beautiful thing. Yeah, and but in on a different level. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:18

So

COVID Interviews And Earning Trust

SPEAKER_00 28:19

over the years here at the center, has there been a particular project or discovery or even a relationship that has reminded you why this work matters? Maybe one that really stands out.

SPEAKER_01 28:32

I had the opportunity a few years ago, we were able to get a grant from the um Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelly Foundation. Uh and it funded field work uh that I did in the low country. And there are probably half a dozen tribes in the low country, state recognized tribes or connected to the low country. Um and I had I was I had the wonderful opportunity to sit down with many of the people in these communities and and just hear their stories and talk to them. Um as a strange coincidence, um I had encountered, talked with um some folks in public health at USC and USC Lancaster. And it was after COVID, and they said, Well, you know, we're curious about rural communities and and COVID. Would you mind asking a few questions about that? I said, No problem. In fact, you know, I mentioned one of the the uh chiefs of one tribe of the Edestonchez Cusso, he's a medical doctor, the chief of the uh Wasmasal tribe of Varner Town Indians, um, is in the nursing field. So, I mean the public health is part of their their DNA in some of these communities. Uh but I sat down and and interviewed, um, particularly the one that stood out to me was a group of older men, uh, I think three or four of them in their 60s, 70s, maybe. Uh, and these were you know, rugged, blue-collar, uh, you know, I don't say good old boys because that has a negative connotation now, but they were just, you know, men's men's kind of thing. And they started talking with me about COVID. And the next thing I know, several of them, they just had tears running down their cheeks, talking about the extreme loneliness they went through. And yeah, I remember thinking this, you know, I it was a profound moment because I don't know that they had had the opportunity to talk about this outside maybe of their families, because these weren't these weren't folks who would go to a therapist or a counselor or whatever. And here they were pouring out their heart, uh, and something that was very important to capture and to document. Um, but at the same time, I felt really, really special to to um have earned their trust that way. It's a similar story, it's a little less sad. Um so even a little further back, uh, we had the opportunity to interview Elsie, uh Elsie Blue George. Um, Elsie at the time was in her mid-90s, I think. Um she was the last surviving child of Chief Sam Blue, who, along with his wife and I think sister were the last native speakers of Catawba. You know, so when they died, the language died. Luckily, it's been revived. Uh folks like Becky Garris, Claudia Heinemann Priest, Cotabac Cultural Center, have worked to revive the language. They have a dictionary now, uh, or or at least a lexicon, and you know, they're reviving it. But uh, I was really curious about the the language and what Ms. Blue remembered from. So she invited us to her house and and several of us went. Uh, I brought my daughter with me, who was who was very small at the time because I'd figured out at that point, doing interviews with people, if you have a well-behaved small child around, they open up a little more. Right, right. But we sat down and I said, Well, well, Miss Blue, first, you know, thank you for having us in your house, so forth. Um, do you remember any kata, any kataba language and kataba words for growing up? She said, Oh no, honey, that was that was such a long time ago. I I can't remember any of that. So, well, that's fine. That's fine. So we went on with the interview and we talked about her husband's military service and about him losing toast to frostbite and about her uh being the uh the senior Miss Kataba, you know, all these things in her life. And we'd been there for a while. And I said, Well, you know, we won't keep you anymore. Let's we'll pack up and go, but we want to thank you. And she said, Well, before you go, let me tell you this little story of Kataaba that my daddy told me. She went on and told it. And I realized afterwards we proved that we were worthy of that story. Um, I guess just being interested in being polite, and that was enough for her. But but it things like that, you know, they make you feel special and like this is what I should be doing. I'm I'm in the right place.

SPEAKER_00 32:21

You gained her trust.

SPEAKER_01 32:22

Yes, yes, definitely.

Everything You Love You Will Lose

SPEAKER_00 32:24

Thank you so much for taking time with me today. I know that you're a super busy person. And so got a lot on your plate, but I do have one more question for you. I can relate. I can relate. I do have one more question for you. Um, do you have, and I ask every single guest this, do you have a favorite quote or any words of wisdom that you'd like to leave behind?

SPEAKER_01 32:46

I do have a favorite quote. Okay. And it's tattooed on my arm. It's right here. And it says, Everything you lose, uh, no, everything you love, you will eventually lose. But in the end, love will return in a different form. And it's based on an apocryphal story, uh, Franz Kafka. Um, he would go to the park every day, and there was a little girl there, and the little girl had a doll that she played with all the time. And then he went one day and she was frantic because she her doll was missing, and she looked and looked, and she he helped her looked apparently, and they couldn't find the doll anywhere, and she was terribly sad. So he went home and he came back the next day and he brought her a letter. And she had the letter, the letter was from the doll. And it says, I'm sorry you missed me. I've gone off to see the world. I want to experience things, but I will keep you informed. I'll write you letters, you know, because you know you're you're my mother or whatever, you know, doll on her. Um, and so every so often he would bring her another letter from the doll, another letter from the doll. And then eventually he went out and bought a doll and brought it back, and there was a letter with it. And he gave her the letter, and the letter said, I may look different. I've traveled the world, I've changed. I'm not who I used to be, but inside I'm still who I always was. And the little girl takes the doll. Yeah. I'm very happy about it. Years later, she's cleaning out her attic and she finds the doll, and the box of the doll came in, and she goes to throw it out, and a note falls out of it. And the note says, Everything you love, you will eventually lose, but in the end, love will return in a different form.

SPEAKER_00 34:14

That gave me goosebumps. I love that. Thank you so much. Thank you again. I'm welcome.

SPEAKER_01 34:21

You're welcome. Thank you.