Content area
Full text
Editor s Introduction
The Croatoan community of Harteras Island, North Carolina, was immortalized in the mystery surrounding the "Lost Colony" on Roanoke Island. Like the colony, the Croatoan community has also now vanished. With the work of the Croatoan Archaeological Society, some evidence of the community has been recovered. In some cases, all that remains of a community are archaeological traces, but sometimes we can find glimpses into the daily life of a long-disappeared group from fragments of linguistic information. By culling sixteenth- and eighteenth-century sources as well as place names and local usage, Scott Dawson has compiled this Croatoan word list. By examining the list, we can weigh the significance of the most widely distributed Algonquian word (opossum), as well as the names for many other local creatures. From Croatoan words describing the land around them (peninsula, land jutting out, place that is swept away) and the water that covered expanses of their territory (people of the shallow water, river), we can begin to imagine the community's perspective on the physical environment, including the coastal tidal lands filled with birds, trees, and fish still commonly found there. We can also piece together bits of their social interactions from their words for family members, religious figures, festive clothing, and their crafts and skills (blanket, knife, needle/awl, and paint). We even have several phrases of interpersonal interactions ("Stop talking," "listen to me," "how is this called?" and "I love you"). Interestingly, the word Croatoan signified "council town or permanent," commenting on the sociopolitical structure of the linguistic group. This sliver of the remains of the Croatoan language preserves a glimpse of the Carolina coast at the time of contact with Europe.
Jeanne L. Gillespie
Algonquian is a language family comprised of at least twenty-nine distinct dialects spoken by American Indians from the Outer Banks of North Carolina to Canada and the Great Lakes region. The most famous Algonquian group is probably the Powhatan due to their involvement in Jamestown's history and their entry into popular culture through Disney productions. Another somewhat familiar Algonquian tribe is the Croatoan who lived on what is now Harteras Island off the North Carolina coast. They were the first Amerindians to meet the English and...