Primitive Pottery #1

Low Tech Person In A High Tech World!!!

I'm pushing myself too, TOO much. And I know it. Trying to learn all this technology is making my BRAIN hurt and my body ache. I'm taking an online social media marketing class that has been helpful but truthfully? I don't want to spend hours on social media marketing. Some of their methods can't see the trees for the forest.  Some of it I find useful, most I find a pain in the butt. If someone wants to do this marketing as a full time job, that's great. I don't...just pick up a few tricks and tools here and there to use and let this grow organically.  If I'd just post more and share those posts in links here and there, just what I've been doing, I think I'd accomplish the same thing. Alas I never post regularly and I forget to share what I do post!!  My bad.

Tonight I'm frustrated, I can't get their program to work...plus every time I learn a program, they change it!!! So I will do what I'm good at and that's put a blog update on here. People who are suppose to find me will. Still have to get this blog changed over to a website. Already have the name purchased. That will be another week in the future. These days it is just too much going on to shake a stick at. Friday night sat about 6 hours at the ER with my son. He's having vision and pain problems. ER's on Friday nights are really INTERESTING places. Bless those people manning those ER's. I'd of pulled my hair out I had to work that every weekend!!! Not sure what is going on with my son, he has a referral to an eye specialist. Blessings and prayers would be appreciated.

Wolf Creek Indian Village and Museum is having their 20th Anniversary celebration, Saturday September 17th and I've been trying to help on the history timeline and identifying pictures. Blasts from the past and realizing so much history because of this one little site.  Yep I've already caused an uproar with my Jenny Wiley posts. BUT dag gone it.... so many of the history books are WRONG and of all the stories that need to be told, the history of the early Europeans and Native Americans need MUCH more scrutiny in Appalachia than what has been written and taken as fact.  Especially when in fact, a lot of what has been passed as history of our area is absolute BS. WCIV is a place for those conversations and beginnings. So life goes on.

Next....When Appalachian Service Project crews were here, repairing my home, I felt so grateful, I made some corn husks dolls and such as gifts. They were not great and accomplished in a hurry and I used every dyed corn husk I had.  I had to get some more and dye them quickly!! I promised to try to demonstrate at the Mercer County Heritage Festival coming up here in a couple of weeks.  Here is one of the little ladies I made for a member of one of the crews.

This one went to a Pittsburgh Steeler's fan who saw what shucks were dyed in my box, wanted black and gold.  Did it, though the flash on the camera makes it look much lighter. Need to work on my photography too. 

So last week, I began the process of dying corn husks to replenish the supply. I'm trying to write a how to book on how I do this, and give directions on how to make all kinds of corn husk crafts. It's in progress!! Thus why I was interested in Social media marketing. I'm just not interested in going that in depth to spend days on it to do what I could figure out with a Google search! But it did get me to work on my twitter account, open a bitly account, get on Linked in and Klout and Hootsuite and explain the concepts which is a good background to know. I just don't like using the programs they want us to use. Big Data is a bit intrusive and scary...I just want to sell a corn husk craft book later! I'm one of those people that believe things will come to you when you want or need them. Don't need to push it, so much as let it be found. 

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Anyway, I use all kinds of things to dye shucks: Kool-aid, food coloring, cold water dyes, rit dye, natural dyes. The brownish black above was accomplished using black walnut husks.  What ever I have on hand. It's been so damp and humid, I was having a time after they were dyed, getting them to dry for storage on the dining room table.  Outside we kept having the "monsoons" every day so the ground was damp and the wind would pick up and then die down. Laying them out on the ground on black plastic usually works on a hot day....IF the wind is not blowing. I finally resorted and used the old pickup truck bed as a drying rack. THAT worked beautifully.  Hillbilly ingenuity.

I always use salt as a mordant. Think of dying Easter eggs, it is the same concept. So here are some pictures of that process and a flyer for the Mercer County Heritage festival. I'm going and will be demonstrating as long as I can hold out. I start getting veritgoey or washed out I will have to quit...but I think I'm in better shape this year than last. Last year I was VERY sick and I hope I hold up much better this year. 

BUT, I NEVER KNOW! Like I've said before, I can tell myself, "I'm going to do such and such today!" And my body replies, "HA! YOU WISH!"  Such is the life of chronic illness.  But it's always a good day.....I WOKE UP!!! Just have to roll with it. 

Took 3 days to dry these on the table.

Purple UNSWEETENED Kool-aid with salt as a mordant

Taking over the sink for a couple of days!

I use mason jars filled with water for weights.

Setting overnight.

BEST IDEA all year. Black Truck bed liner with sides, didn't blow away and dried in one afternoon.

End of POST. Blessing all and back to this CRAZY class. I'm so far behind.

A Place Called Wolf Creek Indian Village Part 4!

It's been a whirlwind few weeks. Sadness in the local community of losing neighbors and friends, my birthday, (in my mind I'm 20, and my body says, "YOU WISH!),  doctors appointments and just trying to live and function the best I can with these "illnesses". 

This is the Fourth post for the Wolf Creek Village series of my blog. I have learned so much from that place that I'm sure it won't be the last mention of it.

Inset from John Smith's 1612 Map of Virginia

When I first became involved with Wolf Creek Indian Village, I began as a guide. The first thing they did was give you a leather costume and sort of tried to dress us up like what an Indian might have dressed in 500 years ago?  Yeah, my thought was how accurate could we be with that?  Especially when all the documentation in the early reports shows Europeans had a perception of the first Natives they encountered to be "savages" mostly because of their custom of dress or lack there of. Such can be seen in this depiction of Powhatan people from John Smith's map of 1612.

To see the entire map click Virtual Jamestown John Smith's Map
I'm trying to find the documentation of Pocahontas. She was recorded as a nine year old doing somersaults in Jamestown not entirely clothed. So dressing guides authentically as they did 500 years ago...sketchy at best, and probably would have had guides arrested for indecent exposure especially in the summer.

The purpose to dress guides and have them "play Indian," was for tourism purposes only. Because when people think of Indians or Native first people, they think of leather clad and feathered Indians of the movies. So much so that in reality, the differences in tribal clothing are so numerous, it is hard today even for REAL native people to wear their own real clothing and be accepted by the general public. Most judge Indians by the perceptions that were given from the movies. 

I know of one chief of an Eastern tribe who sent his children to college on money he made wearing a Plains head dress and charging to have his picture taken. He told me it is because the general public would not recognize the real head dress of his tribe but expected all Indians to wear the plains head dress. He wore the Plains head dress all the way to the bank.

My first Wolf Creek costume was leather pieced together in a hap hazard fashion. What I called "cave man" clothes. It was a requirement of the job to, "play Indian".  I fought this requirement so long it was unreal.  At one time I was threatened with firing if I did not wear the costume. It was that bad. I had to relent if I wanted to stay at Wolf Creek. There were many more reasons to stay and wear the costume.


So I tried to at least make my costume one that would be believable for a later time period of Eastern Woodland tribes with a more modest skirt, a cape and fringe. Fringe had a purpose and was adopted by the Long hunters for use. It was also recorded on women's dresses in the 1600 and 1700's. At least I wanted my costume to look more finished than cave clothes.  I had to prove that they could have fringe at the time of the village with no metal tools and I did by making it with a sharp rock.

The costume was not "regalia". Regalia is much more sacred than that. Regalia has a personal purpose, most times a ceremonial tribal meaning and affiliation. Some folks told me it would be regalia because how the dress was made out of leather. I have leather shoes and a leather pocketbook and we don't call those regalia.

After many years there, I successfully petitioned the powers that be to get rid of the costumes for the guides. Instead to invite real Native Americans to WCIV and let them teach about their culture, their tribe and their regalia.  After we put on uniforms, you still would not believe how many times I would hear when a visitor came through the gates of the village to ask, "Where are the Indians?" and I would ask them, "What does a real Indian look like?" And I would get the answer, "You know feathers and leather."   Though it was daunting, I took it as an opportunity to educate about the first people here and why we should not dress that way.

I had many experiences while in costume. Some visitors would actually talk down to you as if wearing that costume made you less than human. That was something I didn't experience in regular modern clothes. The prejudices against Indians really showed. Others would treat you with this mystical reverence that was bordering on, if not completely, CRAZY!

I once gave a tour to a man and after he finished, he said he planned on returning with his family. That he was very impressed with the tour. The next week he shows up with his "family".  A group of about 9 people, none really related when they introduced themselves, in which some were dressed with Egyptian type make up and carried staffs. It was all very strange.

What unnerved me after I gave them a tour was they said their purpose was to take "me" back, right then, that day, to their "shaman".  That their shaman prayed about it and said I was the person to lead their people on the journey to the "center of the universe".  Wherever we are, we are the center of the universe, so I had no idea where that journey was going to go!!!

That I was to live with their people and to teach them how to live without all the modern conveniences. This included teaching them about natural medicines. In their group was a lady that had Parkinson's disease and she was quitting her medications that week. It was so alarming! This occurred about the time of the Heaven's Gate cult out in California, so I always called them the Heaven's Gate visitors.

I was stunned!! Bless their hearts. I'm not even the guide who taught about natural local medicines at the village. I just looked at the group and asked them, "It's the outfit, isn't it?" and told them, " I'm sorry, but I'm not going anywhere with you. I go home to a microwave and electric heat."  The group was actually waiting for me at the gate at closing time. The director had to threaten to call the police to get them to leave. I was terrified driving home and for about a couple of weeks afterwards I was so much more cautious, making sure I wasn't going to be kidnapped.

This was just one incident. But there were many more positive visitor experiences. Many Native American Indians, not only graciously shared their how-to craft knowledge and history, but also brought back their families for a history lesson that the village itself taught. That was an HONOR!!!

The first group of guides Wolf Creek Indian Village hired were artisans.  We were teaching, "living archeology." We actually recreated the artifacts found using the methods the first people would have had available to them to furnish the displays in the village. We had a basket maker, a flint knapper/fire maker, a potter, hide tanner, tool makers and gardeners.

I began as the basket maker, then the potter, learned to tan hides, make bone tools, garden, (we talked about agriculture) and discussed different gardening methods as shown used by different archeology sites. We used the 3 sisters method for gardens around the village. We would take in "road kill" that would normally be taken to the dump. We used it to show how adept the skills of the first people were at processing animals using just rocks, no metal. We were teaching about the original village, the environment and the skills one would need to live there.

Oddly enough, if you go back in time far enough all over the world, people developed the same skills. The argument comes from why did the first people here not have iron?  Why were they not, as what is thought of as, "developed" as those from Europe.

I once saw a gold bead from a long string of beads, under a magnifying glass the Mayans or Aztec had created. It was the size of a pencil lead and had intricate designs carved into it and was absolutely amazing in detail. People who could create something so tiny and so perfect shows the technological abilities of the people on these continents were not primitive.  Their stonework rivals anything in Europe.


Reading about Cahokia Mounds I realized that it was a civilization that existed for over 100 years, much in the same way civilization ebbed and flowed in the old world.  I realized the first people did not lack anything that Europe had. They had technology, trade, government and agriculture.  I believe after working at WCIV for so long, what I had learned is the reason the iron age wasn't developed is....... because it wasn't needed.  That is, until those who had that technology, showed up.

My next post will be about my partner Eddie Atwell. I met Eddie when he was the head guide at the village. There were other artisans that began with WCIV but this mountain man stayed and it's his knowledge of these skills, which he gladly shared, (and others would take to developing to an art, like Sam Wright) that helped put WCIV on the map.

This picture to the left is the new uniform we wore and at the end of that rope was a small bear that had been hit on the interstate by a car. Brought to us by DOT personnel. We had permits and we processed and tanned the hide for an educational display. Most children never get to touch bear fur or touch to see how long even a bear cubs claws can be. At Wolf Creek they did.

Since it's fall, I have an apple cake recipe to share, that will be next and then a blog post on Eddie.

A Place Called Wolf Creek Indian Village Part 1

A Place Called Wolf Creek Indian Village Part 3

So Part 1 of Wolf Creek Indian Village was about the Archeology dig. Part 2 was my first encounter with the village personally. Now Part 3 brings it up to today and some of lessons learned. There will be more blog posts to expound on what I have learned.  I have to apologize that I am not a prolific blogger. It takes me some time to get these blog posts up. Those that follow my blog, know my illness really stops me in my tracks even on the best of days. If I have other duties then I am truly spread thin.

I use the spoon method with this CFS. Imagine each activity you have to use a spoon and each day you are given only 1 to 4 or 5 spoons (depending what symptoms you have) to use during the day and when they are gone, you are done. I try to gauge what I can do because if I go over, I'm crashed for a day or two and have no spoons at all!! But let's forget about that and talk about Wolf Creek Indian Village.

In the late 1980s, the Bland County Historical Society under close direction of a man by the name of George Schaefer, the first director, purchased what was left of the property after Wolf Creek was re-routed over the archeology dig.  They decided to create a museum dedicated to the village and actually reconstruct the village 200 feet from the original site. It was a monumental task but they did get a reconstruction of the village built in 1996.



First Reconstruction

I remember the first time I saw the village in 1998.  I was on my lunch break from working for a pharmaceutical company selling legalized drugs and the museum had an open house. They did not have the main building open or completed yet. The museum was in a trailer. Walking down the path to the village was like walking back into the woods in time and then at the end of the path was an entirely different world.

It was the size of it all, the palisade, the creek, the smoke in the air from the fires. I was taken back for sure.  Just being on that creek was like coming home. Made my heart beat hard. I didn't remember a thing the guide told me. I was trying to remember the original dig and where things were placed.

 It was a year later when I was running my own historical genealogy business that I volunteered for the village and then was hired as a guide.  I would not leave for 12 years. Being at the village taught me so many lessons about Native Americans and their history. About my own family history and my place today. 

But the FIRST lesson of Wolf Creek I learned is how much we have changed the environment to the point we can't build a proper village. Anyone who says that man has not had an effect on the environment should try to just build one simple, proper, structure like the first people had in this area using natural resources around us. JUST ONE, much less 10 and a palisade.

The first people here were masters at using the resources surrounding them no matter where they were in the US.  In building one structure it will surprise you how much of our natural resources are now gone or changed in Appalachia. Those resources changing and disappearing mean we can not, without a great amount of cost of transporting from outside the area, recreate what they had.

Appalachia has lots of forested land but it has been timbered to the point that what is growing today the trees are actually toothpicks compared to what was once here. Flora and fauna have changed. There used to be a plant called river cane (which is North American bamboo) and reeds, growing along many creeks and rivers.  In some instances we would have to plant and wait for the growth of plants to use what the first people would have found plentiful in Bland County.

The second most important lesson that Wolf Creek taught me, was how Native Americans are perceived to live from the past to the present. People argue over the correct way to build structures from an age when no one was there to record it and how to represent that history.

On the reconstruction, with the archeology dig, what we had that most do not, a map. The archeology map had the post holes of the original structures laid out by what was found. It was used as the basis for the reconstruction, twice. We knew what was found in the ground. What we didn't know was how that information transfers to recreate what was found.

This effected how to build the reconstructed Indian village. The first structures of the reconstruction were made like wigwams, because those consulted said these structures at this time period would have been wigwams. They were built to the diameter and setting in the places of some of the main structures Howard MacCord had mapped out on the original archeology dig.

These first recreated structures were shaped sort of like a wigwam, and covered with a fiber glass material coated with polyurethane resin. It was decided to construct the village this way because to have this many structures covered with large pieces of bark would have been difficult to maintain, killing many trees for the bark, as well as it being too dark inside, for displays. For a view of this first reconstruction here is a You Tube video.

The wigwam design worked in two ways. The structures did represent a structure on the map and they did fit the need for the "perceived" idea of what a wigwam was.  But these were much taller than normal wigwams and actually resembled more tall tee pee type structures. In an odd way they were accepted easily because people thought natives lived in a tee pee from TV. Wigwams, long houses and tee pees are the only structures most folks recognized, though Native Americans across the continent used many different forms of architecture.  The palisade was constructed of locust posts. The palisade, combined with these structures, though not accurately made but accurately placed, was awesome. It was the aura of the village size that made it impressive.

The layout of the village itself is what makes the reconstruction, regardless of how they are built. The original was said to have 60 to 100 people living there. There were times during the upkeep of the village I wished we had that many hands to maintain it!

Flooding over the years and the placement of the village near the re-routed creek caused significant damage to this first reconstructed village. I have seen the water from the creek up in the village over 3 feet high. Howard MacCord in his report talked about how the original site did not show evidence of much flooding. But with the removal of trees and the changing of the land over the years flooding now normally occurs on Wolf Creek on a regular basis. By 2008, flooding had weakened and taken out so many of the original reconstruction. There were only 3 of the original rebuilt structures left and only 1 could be used.

In 2008, the Bland County Historical Society sold the village and museum to the Economic Development of Bland County. First order of business was to reconstruct the village and yours truly is responsible for its design today.  The process was a long, exhausting research project that taught me many lessons. I talked to so many people; archeologists, historians, different tribes and tribal members. I went to other reconstructions such as Cherokee Oconaluftee village and looked at other sources. Too many to name right now as I left that list at the village.

Under the direction of Director Sam Wright, we begin the rebuild the second time. In the end, we went to the original archeology dig and the archeological notes of Wolf Creek village itself as the main source. The map of the village told us how it could be built today. What I saw was a village constructed pole for pole. Where the ancient ones put a pole, we put a pole, even if we didn't know what the pole was for.

There were still those that insisted it should be wigwams. We had friends who are Ojibwa and Cree from Canada who still build wigwams that I consulted with. When they visited they kept saying the structures were too large to be wigwams. Looking at the map they kept saying there were too many poles and the structures were too large for them to be wigwams. If not wigwams, what were they? They were not elongated like long houses. They were round! Great site about Objiwa Wigwams

In Cherokee they spoke of wattle and daub round houses. In Cherokee I learn they would use river cane splits or saplings and cover them with clay. These structures made much more sense to have been at Wolf Creek than a wigwam. In the early documents there were recorded reeds and river cane in our area. First European settlers and farmers complained about it. They fed their livestock river cane shoots and dug it out to get rid of it so they could get livestock to the creek.

We actually have planted a small patch at Wolf Creek. It is not along the creek but in the wetland, because one of the farmer's complained about it to us when he learned we planted it. He warned us that if it gets out of hand, his great, great, great grand daddy said it spreads like wildfire and he would never be able to get it out!

In the archeology notes, Howard MacCord complained that there was this heavy clay mud at the dig that every morning the volunteers would have to go to the creek and wet down the area where they were working to get to the feature's post molds.  Just up from the village there was a pottery operated in the mid 1800's with clay found on site. I am more than certain that with this info that these structures were not wigwams and probably were round houses. So I followed the map and measured out where the poles would have been, placing an orange flag for each pole and that's how we built what is there today.

I had a very dear friend who was a chief that was quite upset with the rebuild. He insisted on wigwams, he insisted we had too many poles, told me of other structures to include and to move fire pits to different places. I politely told him we were going with pole to pole construction and if he wanted, he could tell the ancient ones they put in too many poles and the poles and fire pits were in the wrong place in the village.

It was like a light bulb went on in his head. Then and only then did he understand what we saw the village as and approved. We still had to modify the doorways to allow for disabled access. We call that building an ancient village open to the public in modern times. The doorways were quite narrow and we left one as an example.

Mike Barber, the Virginia State archeologist, put out the possibility that the extra posts were replacement posts. If the village only existed 5 to 7 years, it didn't flood, what would they need to replace? What damaged the first reconstruction were flood waters, hitting the coated wigwams and ripping them basically out of the ground, not rotting in the ground.

Now could we build the village wattle and daub?....NOPE! The re-routed creek, unlike the original creek, floods on a regular basis and with that many structures a decision had to be made, since we didn't have the 60 adults of the original village to rebuild if it flooded, how to construct it with out much maintenance costs. Even the matting on the inside is placed up higher to avoid the flood waters when it floods.

But Wolf Creek Village teaches this comparison contrast between the past and the present. One of the basic tenets in most Native American teachings is the taking care of the earth. That the earth itself is not an inanimate object but a living being on which all life relies and when we destroy the earth or abuse it, we destroy ourselves. The story of the village and reconstruction is teaching the effects that man can have on the land today, in a big way. Man is learning a hard lesson in that we have to work with Nature not against it.

The village today is almost complete. I had wished to be a part of it for years to come but alas that was not to be. But the village lives on as the spring board of the comparison contrast between the past and the present story of Native Americans in our area. That is it's greatest strength as a museum.  Especially with so many Appalachians claiming native ancestry still, it was the place I begin to understand that belief, the myths and the work to uncover the real history.

My next blog post will be, "Where are the Indians?.....What does an Indian look like?" where I will discuss playing Indian, quantum blood, effects of treaties, removal and my own family history.

A Place Called Wolf Creek Indian Village Part 1

A Place Called Wolf Creek Indian Village Part 2

A Place Called Wolf Creek Indian Village Part 4

Wolf Creek Indian Village and Museum

A Place Called Wolf Creek Indian Village Part 2

Where to begin with my relationship with Wolf Creek Indian Village? Those that know me personally, know I along with MANY, MANY others, have a very long history with the land the village is on and sort of the beginnings around it. Long before it was ever built. I could and probably should write a book on it all but I think I will just stick to the museum village itself.

Many GOOD people put in a lot of hard work and brought the museum into being. To this day, each successive crew of staff and volunteers that have worked there, have in their own way, made it better. Each like a bead in a story belt they are each a part of the whole. I'm really grateful that the history of the village continues at the museum today.  But it could take volumes to tell of so many and really I can only speak about my own experiences with the village.

The events and how it first began were a little rocky but that's for possibly a blog post that deals with economic development in the mountains, not necessarily the village or the museum. But this is about the village and what it has taught us and specifically me, about Native American history in the mountains. Instead of a 2 part blog post I believe this will be 3.

My first experience with the village was at the archeology dig itself. My dad had retired from the military in 1970. For an entire summer we went camping. We camped a lot when I was growing up. My dad, in the Army in World War II, had been forced to camp and he believed his children needed to know how to live that way too. After seeing many cities and towns in Europe just decimated and people having to live out in the open, he was very adamant about it. It's sort of funny how that also prepared me for my outdoor job at Wolf Creek.

When Howard MacCord was initiating the dig of the Wolf Creek site, we were camping in Grose's Bottom which is right next door to the museum. Ben Grose, whose family owned the adjoining farm for generations, would rent out this pasture on his farm located next to Wolf Creek for folks to spend the day camping, or for a picnic for 50 cents a day. It's the same place my grandfather Bane Boyles dies in 1975 fishing on the creek bank. There is a overhead view picture of the village dig from the Virginia Department of Historic Resources and on the adjoining farm, is a very small white car at Grose's bottom. This is my mother's white Studebaker station wagon parked next to the creek at our camp site.

In May of 1970, while camping at Grose's Bottom we knew about the dig. Everyone knew about the dig. Howard MacCord made sure of it. In order for him to pull off this size of a dig in such a short time, he relied on local volunteers. It was in all the local newspapers and after digging all day he would go in the evenings and speak to groups about the dig canvasing for more volunteers. As I said in the first post, though the methodology might not have been up to archeological standards of today, what he did was a miracle.

I was in my early teens. I had never seen an archeology dig in my life. We started camping at Grose's Bottom probably 3 or 4 days after the dig began. When we walked over to the dig, I wasn't sure what I was looking at. Just a lot of bare earth. There were dark patches and pits and opened graves. The bones in the ground were a bit upsetting. I had never seen that before either. Grave yards were sacred grounds to me even at that age.

But there was this man, taking time to talk to all the visitors while he was working about what we were seeing and what he was trying to do, what he was trying to save. The dark post hole molds where Natives charred the ends of the posts before burying them showed on the ground in a round pattern indicating a house. The fire pits with charred rocks, how they were arranged showed how they could have been a documented way Natives cooked meat.

As he spoke, I didn't see bare ground anymore I was imagining and seeing the village he was talking about! He spoke to us of the value of saving what we were seeing. That this was history written in the ground. Those were his words and later on I would use those words to teach thousands of school children about archeology.

Howard MacCord talked about the highway coming through was going to put the evidence of this entire village under the creek and destroy these bones if they didn't get them moved. He then showed us how they were documenting all they were finding. He motioned us over to the pit he was working in which was a woman's bones.  He handed me a soft brush and showed me how to gently brush away the dirt without disturbing the shells beads she had been wearing. Something happened that day to me. I have to say that was the "DAY" I became a student of history and started a life long pursuit.

Now today, I understand the controversy of archeological digs on ancient sites. I feel it in my heart too. Especially from those of the Native American communities. But the Ancient Natives themselves inhabited and re-inhabited sites in the mountains. With our population, and geography there is no way sometimes to just leave things as they are.

In Wolf Creek's case they could have just built another bridge and today if the highway was being built, they "might" have done just that. Of course cost overruns and debt speak doesn't guarantee that any site will be saved. So what can you do? Except to document and remove what is in danger of being totally destroyed and annihilated from memory in the ground. The laws today are better at protecting new sites and with each site discovered new history emerges. The story in the ground of the first people has much yet to teach us.

That night back at camp was the first time I heard my mom and dad speak about that side of our ancestry. Almost in hushed tones. First time I heard my dad say, "We don't speak about that because it's worse than being black."  It took me YEARS to discover the stories, as to what impressed upon him that belief and why he thought that way.

He with his parents, grandparents and great grandparents lived through times, unlike today, that it was thought not to be good to be Native or have ANY Native ancestry. They lived during a time popular history books about the settlement of our area began to focus on wars with Indians that produced "massacres".  Yet they forgot to mention the massacres on the other side. No one plays nice in a war! His great grandparents lived after the Civil War when fighting the Indians out west produced the motto, "The only good Indian is a dead one".

Besides no one with Native ancestry was suppose to be left in the mountains anyway, they were all "removed". They could say and make believe that until he with his parents and grandparents suffered through Walter Plecker and the Virginia eugenics movement. Yes, there will be more blog posts.

That night I dreamed about the village. I saw two men and a woman, not dressed like any Indians I ever knew from TV, coming from the village site, walking like floating over the waters of Wolf Creek by our camp site and vanishing into the hillside above Grose's bottom. I actually got up and went outside the tent and looked. It was really dark and all I could hear were the night critters and the creek water over the rocks.

I went back to sleep and I dreamed there was singing, drumming and laughing coming from the village site and I was moving towards it. I never got there in the dream. It was a long, long way off.  They were not scary dreams just odd ones. Dreams I'd forget about because that was 1970 and I didn't remember until I return to the reconstructed village in 1999.

Wolf Creek Indian Village and Museum

A Place Called Wolf Creek Indian Village Part 1

A Place Called Wolf Creek Indian Village Part 3

A Place Called Wolf Creek Indian Village Part 4

A Place Called Wolf Creek Indian Village Part 1

This post is long overdue. I was realizing that before I started delving into the actual history of what I had learned about Native Americans in our area, I need to tell the story of Wolf Creek Indian village. It is from this place that I dearly love, having a job there I dearly loved, (that heartbroken I had to quit because of my illnesses), that my "scant" knowledge learned about the first people in Bland County and in Appalachia springs from.

This will be a multi-part post. I have much to say about Wolf Creek Indian Village. The story of this village is just a small part of the history of the Native Americans in Southwest Virginia itself. But I can tell you that through this little village, which now has a museum dedicated to it, so much has been learned even if it is just a tiny part of the vast THOUSANDS of years of history of the people who first inhabited this continent yet to be explored.

Photos from the Department of Historic Resources Collections
This is the field in 1970 before the excavation.

Wolf Creek Indian Village and Museum is based on an actual archeology site. The village was discovered and known about long before the interstate was built. Especially by a man named Brown Johnston owned the farm on which it was found. When he would plow the field where the village was located, artifacts would make their way to the surface and turn up. It is said he once found pieces of bone and skull and that's when he mostly stopped plowing and started using the field only as a hay field or permanent pasture.

In 1967, the state had already began the project of constructing Interstate 77 through the mountains of our area. They had plans to construct two tunnels through the mountains and a long four lane highway through Bland County, thus we are known as the land between the tunnels. We like to say we were so isolated it took two tunnels to reach us!

A local resident named Wayne Richardson had an avid interest in Native American history and was an artifact hunter. The Brown Johnston farm was one spot that he thought was a village site. He had found periwinkle beads, shell artifacts, deer bone tools, and pottery shards. This knowledge with the story of human bones found suggested to him it was more than just a hunting camp.

The plan for the interstate called for rerouting Wolf Creek right through the archaeology site field. Wayne Richardson contacted Howard MacCord, who was the acting quasi state archaeologist (Department of Historic Resources as we know now was not quite formed)  and informed him that the road would be destroying what he thought was a village site with human burials.

You have to realize this is before NAGPRA had some teeth. It is before any laws or considerations or sensitivity were taken for constructing through Native American burial sites.  It took an uprising of Native Americans to get those laws through. But in the late 1960's the best anyone could do was to try to divert the construction or at least have them research and document the site.  Archaeology is basically the telling of history by what is found in the ground and tries to reconstruct that history.

We in Appalachia have lost so much history. In Appalachia, many of the old European home places are where Natives once lived. In this mountainous region, Native Americans settled on the best, most fertile ground with nearby water sources. Europeans recognized these places also and so the best places were then settled on top of by Europeans.

Another site in Bland County called the Newberry-Tate site is a prime example of that. A home was built during early European immigration and placed in the middle of a site that archaeologist believe was inhabited and re-inhabited by Native Americans for about 3000 years.

Wolf Creek's Brown Johnston site was unique in many ways. First of all it was the first state sanctioned archeology site in Bland County. It's number is 44-BD-1, which stands for 44, the state number, BD is Bland County and 1....first site ever recorded officially in Bland County. Being the first site attests to the outcry by locals to try to save it.  Most of the time not much attention was being paid to these sites in the mountains by the state. More attention was paid to places around Jamestown or the coastal sites.

It took men like Wayne Richardson and E.E. Jones and a few others constantly pushing to save and document these Native American historical sites in Southwest Virginia before they were destroyed.  I think the number of sites documented by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources in Bland County today is over 50.

E.E. Jones and Howard MacCord performed a test dig and found a large fire pit. The main pit represented in the recreated village today. The state was not going to divert their plans to re-route the creek to put the interstate through. It was cheaper to re-route the creek than to build another bridge. They gave Howard MacCord just 30 days to perform an archaeological dig and remove any burials.

By today's standards what he had to do to save what he could was appalling in archeology methodology. He had to work at a feverish pace. He had to employ a road grader to remove the top layers of soil to save time. I have heard stories from those who participated who said by the end of the dig, they worked in the dark with their car head lights pointed toward the site to try to save as much as they could from the highway bulldozers.

But even with all the faults of the methodology what they saved was short of a miracle and what emerged about the village was remarkable. First of all they mapped an entire village site which is VERY rare in these mountains. No European house or barn or road had been built in the middle of it before this dig. Secondly, it was determined to be an agricultural farming village, that included trade items such as sea shell gorgets.

The artifacts found, with the size of the village, with carbon dating, suggests the village consisting of about 100 people existed for 5 to 10 years between 1490 AD and 1530 AD.  44BD1, with other sites in the area, kind of blows away the uninhabited wilderness concept of Appalachia was just a hunting ground for the Native Americans. Later research expounds and explains that further which also explains a bit clearer the later history of the area and how things unfolded as they did.

In part two I will talk about how I came to be at Wolf Creek Indian Village, the reconstruction and the valuable lessons I see the village teaches us today. 

Sources: Archaeological Society of Virginia June 1971 Quarterly Bulletin - Brown Johnston Site by H.A. MacCord, Sr.

Photos are from the Virginia Department of Historic Resources Collection on 44BD1 - Brown Johnston site.

Wolf Creek Indian Village and Museum

A Place Called Wolf Creek Indian Village Part 2

A Place Called Wolf Creek Indian Village Part 3

A Place Called Wolf Creek Indian Village Part 4

A New Way of Living

Me Summer 2011 at Wolf Creek Indian Village and  Museum.
 I had to rest a lot on the job. Not at all like me.
Photo courtesy of Shirlene Thompson

My New Life - Living with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

I have unfinished drafts of blogs pending and I hope to finish the Native research saga soon. It is funny how life changes so quickly. You have this plan you see in front of you. Things you are going to do, sort of a murky future but you know pretty much what you want to do. Well life is what happens while you are making other plans.

I had a job I dearly loved to do. Fit right in with my love of history, then I got sick.  I had worked at Wolf Creek Indian Village and Museum for 12 years. I was their curator, guide and programs manager. I had just worked up to having salary and benefits and the village was being rebuilt, my work was rewarding. Life was good!

Then it hit. One hot summer day last year, I had  a really irregular heart beat. It was strange, I'd never experienced that before and this sensation stopped me in my tracks. It was like for a moment I couldn't breath, couldn't move, but then would go away.

Then other things started happening.  I walked quite a bit in my job since the museum village was 1130 feet down the hill. At least 3 times a day I would make that journey. But all of the sudden a walk I had taken probably thousands of times seem to be a very big chore. I had to rest on my way down the hill and definitely on my way back up. I wasn't moving like I usually did. At first, I blamed the heat. After all it was July some day's nearing 100 degrees.

But I was having problems focusing too. I lost what I was saying. Could not get the words out or forget what I had said and repeated myself. Visitors were asking me if I was alright?  I had to sit down much more than I ever did on the job. I was also so very very tired, with aches and pains and heart flip flopping every day. 

This picture was the year before my illness at the Bland County Festival of Leaves courtesy of Goldie Kiser. I was always described by my family as "Busier than a one legged woman in a butt kicking contest!" But I was changing and the change was dramatic.  I wasn't able to keep up my work, my family, my duties. Looking back on those first few weeks I didn't know what I know now that I would not get any better.  That what began as something I thought was just a fluke  or would pass would turn into an illness I'm desperately trying to deal with and recover from and it has since July 2011 changed my life. 

I ignored all these symptoms for a couple weeks and then I started having arm pains and neck pains along with an irregular heart beat. Well I wasn't thinking heart attack but I knew something was wrong so one morning before work I decided to pop into the clinic and have them check me out. Well that resulted in an ambulance ride!! Because they thought it might be a heart attack. But it wasn't a heart attack. All they found that trip was that I had two leaky heart valves but they thought that could be controlled with blood thinners. It wasn't that serious they said.
 

Ok, Let's Get Better

 Well I slowed way down. Had to. My body just wouldn't GO!! I slept A LOT! I kept going back to the doctor because I wasn't getting better. I kept complaining of being so tired and my heart still flip flopping as I call it. They ran more tests and the first ones in late August showed I had mono and I was in the late stages of an event of mono. It was great.... I had a diagnosis that explain being tired and one people get over. Okay I thought, with time I will get better!

Now I took some time off but not much. I understand many take weeks off with mono, I didn't know I had it at first, and the doctors said I was about over it so I didn't take that much off.  I had already worked in 90 degree heat outside with mono. We were rebuilding a village at Wolf Creek Indian Village & Museum where I worked and I loved that part of my job and wanted it finished.

Throughout the late Summer, Fall and Winter, I gave myself some slack. I tried to arrange things when I felt better, took breaks when I was feeling really sickly, thinking with time hoping it would go away. Instead I got WORSE and I have never recovered.

I am so tired all the time, still is one of my worse complaints. I can sleep 16 hours and wake up tired. There were times when I came home from work I fell asleep in my car or woke up on the couch fully clothed, sometimes coat and all, not even realizing I came home and crashed. Every evening and any day that I had off I usually did nothing but sleep.  Everything at work and at home fell behind.

I was having an extremely hard time focusing, lists upon lists and I'd lose the lists. I didn't think it could get worse but then I started having fog outs or what they call "brain fog" in my car and realized this is not normal and in a 3000 pound moving car, it's downright dangerous.

I really became concerned....actually the word is downright SCARED.  Why? Because I didn't know what was wrong and I had no control over it. I really thought I was losing my mind. Maybe had the beginnings of dementia or Alzheimer's disease.

OK, NOPE LIFE HAS OTHER PLANS FOR ME

And thus has began a journey of a different sort.  A journey I didn't think I'd be taking this year. Lot's of doctors appointments and so many tests. Six or seven doctors and counting. Each test coming back with negative results, just the Epstein Barr Virus that caused the mono in the first place. Weird symptoms like a low body temperature, headaches, aches all over my body all the time STILL.  

I ended up having to resign my beloved job and file for disability because I couldn't keep up. It has consumed my life for months now and turned it upside down. And it has become an illness that began as something you can define to something you can't really define but is recognized for lack of a better word, as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

I have always for the last 20 years or so had some chronic medical problems. Yes we all have medical problems from time to time, but my Protestant side of my families work ethic says you keep going. You work around your sicknesses and keep going.  I have a back injury that gives me a fit and if I am not careful my back goes out more than I do. But you deal with it. I went through rehab to learn to deal with it and worked for 12 years with that condition.

I had a doctor once diagnose me with Fibromyalgia in the 80's because I complained after getting over a flu that my body still felt achy all over and wouldn't stop. After he gave me that diagnosis I read up on it and they called it then the "Yuppie flu". In the 80's many Doctors didn't take that illness seriously so I didn't take that diagnosis seriously either. It was like a catch all for symptoms when tests could not find anything wrong with you. My tests at that time were normal.

I chalked it up to I was just tired and wore out as I was holding 2 part time jobs, going to school full time, trying to take care of 2 kids and a disabled husband. I now realize I have been having bouts of that illness from time to time but I just kept going and muddled through.

I had this wall plate that said, "Activity is Nature's Medicine".  That was my motto. Eat better, rest when you could and keep going. Maybe that was my mistake.
 

Share for the sake of Myself and others

The reason I am sharing is because people who know me didn't know what happened.  Plus during this it has been others sharing their stories that have helped me realize I'm not alone. I have read things that were inspirational and heart breaking. I have read about the controversy from critics and supporters from all over the world.

Sometimes takes me a while to read because when the "brain fog" really kicks in, you don't comprehend much.  I have in my favorites file on my computer lots of articles to go back to when I forget or find myself reading a paragraph over and over and still not be able to understand it, I go back when I'm in a better frame of mind. As a historical researcher that part of this illness is really BAD!!

This has become my new job. This illness has become my real new hobby. Trying to defeat this illness is my new goal in life.  My thought is if there is ever going to be a cure for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or Fibromyalgia or any of these misunderstood illnesses it's going to be from those who have it and their families. We have to be willing to talk about it, to fight the misconceptions and push for a cure.

Blow it right open that it's not in your head!!  After reading an article from a researcher that basically said this is mostly psychological, this guy disagreed with everyone Else's work.  I asked my doctor if this is in my head, please send me to a shrink so I can get it taken care of!!! It's an awful illness that robs you of everything. I miss so much because I can no longer participate in my life.

I don't drive, I am house bound and many, many days bed bound.  Being in pain all the time, your mind in a fog and tired is just no fun at all. Basically I feel like I have a flu, a constant never ending, nightmare of a flu.  I wouldn't wish this illness on my worst enemy.

Thank God I have a doctor who recognizes it. There are many doctors who do not still. Even though the Centers for Disease Control has information on their website and knows it exists. The American Red Cross now if you have it doesn't want you giving blood.  

It does exist!  They don't know what causes it, they don't know how to cure it and they really have a hard time diagnosing it. Basically you have to go through every medical test known to man and rule out everything else and if you have these certain symptoms, then they diagnose you with it.

My New Life's Journey

It's taken me weeks to write the above. One of the things that is the most depressing to me of all. I have to write on a good day or a good hour or two when my brain works and my hands work. Oh yes, the symptoms to deal with are multiple on top of being tired. Day to day it can be different. Wake up and your body feels like it has a toothache or someone is giving every muscle in your body a charlie horse. Those are the really BAD days.

There is no predicting or scheduling or controlling these symptoms either. I can plan all I want, set goals all I want. The illness decides if I get to do any of them. After cursing and crying for weeks about this part I learned to accept that is just the way it is.

I am a strong person and I will learn to live with it, somehow defeat it where I can. I don't know how but the alternative is to just crawl up in a corner and let this illness get the best of me. I may not be like I was or ever be like I was but I'm not dead yet.  If anything of this doesn't sound clear, sorry that goes with the territory.

My doctor is going on a theory. He's thinking I had an infection like from a tick where I worked outside. I used to pull ticks off of me all the time. I was negative for Lyme disease but ticks can carry about 5 different diseases. But he thinks some kind of infection has got me in a cycle that is effecting the EBV virus.

By the way 98% of the world has the Epstein Barr Virus so you probably have it too. It can trigger everything from mono to lupus to a whole hosts of diseases or not bother you at all. He has me on another antibiotic this week. I hope it works, I hope he's right. I don't feel any better yet, but I'm willing to try ANYTHING!!

My problem is I no longer have health insurance. Cobra is way too expensive with no income coming in. I'm living off of my family and God bless my caring friends. I hope I get my disability because if I'm going to defeat this I need access to medical care and a way to support basics while I figure this out.

I'm going to try to finish the Interpreting history about Native Americans in Appalachia. I had 4 drafts started on 4 different subjects.  I was finding some very exciting stuff when I just had to stop.

My fear is I know with this condition I will make mistakes in that, but I hope all will bear with me, point them out and help me correct them. I have hope I will get better. It's just a different journey now. A different way to live.  But I am still alive and I have hope!!

Taking A Different Path

OK, so it's been a while since I have posted a thing on this blog.  Not that I have many readers. It's my own personal thang!  I have been much to busy outside of my personal sphere, i.e. work, to keep up with this blog.  That is getting ready to change. Sometimes in life you can choose to change things or life happens and it changes for you.  I love my job, obviously but it has been getting more stressful as the years roll on. I've been there 12 years now and have had about 6 new bosses in the last 4 of those 12 years. The job is not stressful. It's hard outdoor/indoor physical labor, is mentally and socially challenging but so rewarding. Not monetarily mind you, as it barely pays the bills. I'd be making more at probably McDonald's. No, I think more stress  arrives in the usual business/office politics than the work ever did. 

Now I also have to face it...I'm not a spring chicken anymore but I like to pretend I am. The last 5 years I have pushed ever harder and worked really long hours for Wolf Creek Indian Village & Museum, in many many capacities, (I learned how to redesign a website, not great but it's there!) because to me it is personal. It is to tell the story of Native Americans in Appalachia. Of a time lost and a people forgotten and the Virginia Indians who are still here. My own people. This to me for 12 years has been worth my time, effort and energy even at the detriment of my pocketbook and health.   Well today a doctor informed me I have leaky heart valves and I need to change my ways. They can fix it but it will be a journey.

I don't know what this new life will look like, but I think I will use this blog to chart the journey.  I've been off work a few days and it's not been a vacation. I don't get those anymore and haven't in 3 years!  I return tomorrow and start anew. There are a few physical things I can't do any longer I know. They were hard before and now I know why!

I want to pick up the research again that is so desperately needed about American Indians in our area. Finish these projects I have. I just made the cutest pair of moccasins for a baby! I think I will post the how to's on line next blog. Share also about the people I know and people I've met through Wolf Creek. It's time .....Time to take a different path!! Stay tuned!!