Learn about some of the contributions and facets of Native American culture.
For more information about the various tribes, visit the Native American Heritage collection.
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Summerville vicinity, December 1938. This home of a Native American family, built with a mud chimney, was documented by the Farm Security Administration photographer Marion Post. Courtesy of the...
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By Dr. Will Goins. Goins is the president of the Eastern Cherokee, Southern Iroquois, and United Tribes of South Carolina, a non-profit organization dedicated to Native American cultural issues...
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The title page and first page of hymns, "Cherokee Hymnbook," printed in Philadelphia, for the American Baptists Publication Society around 1820. The Cherokee were a highly organized society, and early...
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Diseases brought by the Europeans killed great numbers of the Pee Dee Indians. Despite this problem, they traded deer skins and formed alliances with the new colonists. During the Revolutionary War...
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The Catawba still use the river their ancestors used for hunting, fishing, and clay. Riverbottom clay is used to make traditional Catawba pottery. Pottery is an important tradition that has been...
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The histories of Native Americans in South Carolina also have much in common. Beginning in the early 1500s, European colonization meant disease, enslavement and loss of land for most Indian people...
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Tradition: Anetsa The game of Anetsa, or stick ball, is played at many Cherokee festivals. Anetsa has been played for hundreds of years. It was traditionally played to settle disputes or for spiritual...
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In 1821, George Guess, a full-blooded Cherokee also known as Sequoyah, invented the Cherokee "syllabary." The syllabary allowed the Cherokee to read and write in their own language. Sequoyah's written...
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Tradition: The Cherokee Language Children in Snowbird schools learn the Cherokee language at a young age. They, in turn, may teach a future generation of students the language. In the early part of...
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Tradition: The Trail of Tears Singing Every year since 1968, the Snowbird Cherokee have held a ceremony called "The Trail of Tears Singing." The ceremony is held in memory of the Cherokee who were...