(observe, justice)

Every time i ponder the original peoples of the land i live on, i find myself encountering contested names, contested history. The writers of the records of the times were the English colonists at the coast; their insight into how native peoples shifted and moved inland in reaction seems quite limited. The Tuscorora war and relationships with colonizing whites is problematic with some peoples migrating away and treating with the colonist, while other remained. The people remaining were denied existence/identity. Current reading of native people's writings reveals tensions in the indignities of bending to Federal and state declarations of recognition, tensions in how culture is promulgated, (an essay on pan-Indian identity vs traditionalist, for example).

Was this Tuscorora land? Shakori? How do you honor people whose names were erased, folded in with other peoples? How do you recognize the empty spaces in the history, on the map: A village for this people was *here*, is that just because the path didn't take them by other villages elsewhere?

Then there's diaspora -- migrations away, being absorbed by other communities -- and remaining, adapting to the colonialist, being segregated, denied. So descendants debate looking for federal recognition, with long Federally or State recognized communities rejecting claims, advocating against recognition.

I recognize this area was, prior to the land grants of the Lords Proprietor and the claim of the crown of England, home to many peoples. As riverside towns and villages seem to be the way the native people organized, i will identify that it was the Peoples of the Haw river (who may or may not have been Sissipahaw/Saxahapaw) who stewarded this land.