On October,6 2016 I met with members of the Waccamaw tribe just days before hurricane Matthew. This meeting was to serve as a face to face and to show that I was serious about this project. I drove up to the tribal grounds and was immediately greeted by a friendly man who is part of the tribe. I was then invited to sit at the table that seemed to serve as the main hub for business within the tribe. About 15 minutes later the other members of the tribal council entered the room. These men were clearly of Indian descent and very friendly. These men had even had copies for me of their land deeds and genealogy reports to aid in this project. I guess I should inform you guys about the project, huh? This project is a GPS mapping project, meaning I will go to historic sites within the historic land of the Waccamaw tribe and place a marker on it. Later, I will use these coordinates to place a digital marker and information about the site on the map I placed on the home page. Ok, now that you guys know that I will continue to inform you about these first steps taken. After meeting and greeting and explaining the project we headed off to start the process of mapping the sites. The gentleman offered for me to ride with them (which was good because I had no Idea where I was). First, we went to a location named “Cook Cemetery” which is a very important place to the people of the Waccamaw. The actual process of getting GPS coordinates only takes about a few seconds, but the emotions of these men reminiscing about their people was a very powerful event. At our next stop we went to another Cemetery, this cemetery was located in the forest and hidden. After about a tenth of a mile walk we arrived at the unnamed cemetery, there were two head stones (one broken) both Dimery’s (David and his wife Eliza) who also are descendants of the Waccamaw people. These graves according to the men guiding me, lay on the boundary of the historic Dimery Settlement. (http://hchsonline.org/places/dimery.html) and date to the early 19th century. At this site I felt like there was definitely unfinished business there, like there was an uneasy feeling and we did not stay long at this site, maybe 15 minutes. Next we traveled to the Hatcher cemetery which was also in the woods and according to the men adjacent to the Dimery Settlement. Here I saw something fascinating, In the ground at the entrance to the cemetery we saw a Fire Hearth still intact in the ground. The fire pit is believed to be at least 1000 years old. Our next stop was Bethel Cemetery which lay the souls of the Waccamaw people, here the Turners, Hatchers, Cooks and Dimery’s are laid to rest. This location also only took a few second to get the GPS coordinates, but again, the emotion and the stories the men were sharing were extremely powerful. Just on the other side of the cemetery was a gravel lot, the men told me that this was the spot of Bethel Baptist Church once was. The church was a place for the people of the Waccamaw to worship and was built in the late 19th century. Upon leaving the bethel area, we went to a man’s house with the last name Turner who had artifacts several thousand years old. The man showed me two large pieces of fire hearths that were over a thousand years old (there location and picture are on the map). Then the man showed me many different arrow points, grinding stones and even a banner stone (atlatl counter weight) these artifacts were also dated by the chair of archaeology at my University to be at least 1000 years old. Sorry this is more like a novel than a blog, but I feel these things are important to know. My next steps are to go back to the historic land and map where some of the artifacts were found and to locate the “Pine Level School” so stay tuned!
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Jeffrey BeanThis blog will serve as a diary of sorts for the progress of this project. ArchivesCategories |