Interview with Mrs. Peggy Hunt, Mr. Peter Hunt (April 26, 1974)

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

This Oral History is copyrighted by the Interviewee
and the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program on
behalf of the Board of Trustees of the University of
Florida.

Copyright, 2005, University of Florida.
All rights, reserved.

This oral history may be used for research,
instruction, and private study under the provisions
of Fair Use. Fair Use is a provision of United States
Copyright Law (United States Code, Title 17, section
107) which allows limited use of copyrighted
materials under certain conditions.
Fair use limts the amount of material that may be
used.

For all other permissions and requests, contact the
SAMUEL PROCTOR ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM at
the University of Florida

1 LUM 1717 AB

B: This is April 26, 1974, I'm Lou Barton interviewing fDr the University

of Florida's History Department, American Indian Oral History Program.

This afternoon I'm in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Bobby Hunt in the

Prospect area, and with me is Mrs. Hunt, who has kindly consented to

give me an irntt interview. Would mind telling us what your name is?

H: Peggy Hunt. IxkrexygHxasExIt n axxka3x i ngxakdxkgxixxtkK

E: I knew you as Mrs. Hunt. You have lived here in the Prospect area All

your life?

H: Nineteen years.

B: And who is your mother and father?

H: Deborah Locklear is my mother.

B: Deborah?

H: Deborah.

B: And who is your husband?

H: Bobby Hunt, Peter Hunt's baby boy.

B: I see. And so you are the daughter-in-law of Mr. and Mrs. Peter Hunt?

H? Yeah.

B: How many children do you have?

H/ I have two girls.

B: May I c&ll you Peggy?

H: Um hm, yeah.

B: What are their names and ages?

H: The oldest one is Bobby Lynn Hunt who's two years old, and the baby is

Jonathan jDavid Hunt, kmx one-year old today.

B: Were you born and brought up here in the Prospect area?

H: Yes.

B: Are you a good, de Prospecter too?

pt

2 LUM kit
I17 AB

H: Oh yeah.

B: There's some kind of special magic about our community, isn't there?

H. Yes

B: May I ask you your age, you're very young?

H? Nineteen.

B: How long have you been married*

H: Two years. Three years, this August.

B: Do youthink Indian girls usually get married pretty young?

H: Some. The kind that like to enjoy theirselves stay young.

B: You're not sorry you're not having afterthoughts, are you?

H: No, I'm not sorry I got married.

B: You're one of the lucky couples. I've seen some couples that were

sorry they got married. Now which one of the children is this baby

you're holding in your arms ow?

H: It's the baby boy, Jonathal& I\r / )\ 'I

B: And you said hW's how old?

H: He's one year old today.

B: He's a fine boy. Did you go to Prospect to school, Peggy?

H: Yes.

B: How far did you go through school.

H: I finished the eleventh grade.

B: Did you like to go to school?

H: Yeah, I loved to go to schoolbut I got messed up last year.

B: What happened? Or shouldn't I ask? Well, I won't ask, that's a

EtBA personal question.I' Let me see, you got out of school two years

ago?

H: Um hm.

B: Did you see any particular problems going to school

H: No, I enjoyed it *

3 LUM 1ff AB

I: Did you have a counselor out there?

H; RK Yeah, at the time, it was Bobby Dean Locklear.

B: And he is now the Rebetts-n County Commissioner?

H: Um hm.

B: From this area?

H: Yeah.

B: I know him personally.

H: Then yoy know Dr. Bowers? our principal, and now the principal is

JaS o Jnones.

B: Is Prospect growing and getting bigger all the time?

H: Yes it is 4 We, .. since he's been the principal. There are a lot of

things that's changed.

B: Were people unhappy when Mr. left?

H: No, they were a lot loved. And the teachers, some of the teahcers cried

whenever he left.

B: He seemed to be a very devoted man. He lovednt* children, loved to help

teach you, helped all he can, I'm sure.

H: Yes.

B: What do you think about changes taking place in Robe*son County?

Can you see anything changing since you were younger?

H: Rx Oh, yeah. There a lot, there a lot changing.

B: Peggy, you're still young. Let's talk about young people. OK?

H: OK.

B: I love young people;-I've worked with young people a lot and I get

along with them fine. But this is not true of everybody. Of course,

I've made special effort to bridge this, so called, generation gap.

You know what I'm talking about when I say the generation gap?

H: Um hm.

B: The gap between older people and younger people when they don't seem to

4 LUM 111 AB

understand each other and they can't communicate and talk with each

other as they ought. Now, have you experience d anything like this?

In your life, was it anyghfct anything of a problem for you? Did you

find it hard to talk to older people?

H: No, I always loved to talk to older people, you know, to see what

happened in their life, JQe. what's changed.

B: How about family training among our people in this area, in the

Prospect area, particularly. Are the parents usually pretty strict on

the r Sand so on?

1: Yes. My mother was very strict.

B: Xx Sx Do you think you can be too strict?

H: Yes, you can be too strict, but not strict enough.

B: / extreme.,.,..

H: Yeah.

B: Do people still practice, you know, methods of punishment, you 4now

discipline as they did years ago? I mean, when children do something

do they get punished?

H: Yeah, but they don't spank them now like they did in the other days.

B: You probably wouldn't remember this, but there was a time, for example

when I was going to school, and you know, in high school, if you did

something atschool and got punished when you came home you got it

again.

H: Yes, I hear my mother talk a lot about that.

B: But that's changing, isn't it?

H: Um hm. Now they'll give you things to do, like you have to write

Rxx a thousand word theme. My sister come home yesterday from XMS school

and she had to, the teacher caught her chewing chewirgi gum and she

had to write a thousand-word theme. Words, for chewing chewing gum.

That was her punishment.

5 LUM 11f AB

B: Well, that's not too strict a punishment though, is it?

H:; No.

B: It's not like the old Hickory limb. I've heard people talk about

that, in fact, I remember in my own time, not a Hickory limb kt

xxfKtkEhliterally, but a switch.off of the tree.

H: Yeah, Mom would whip me with anything she could get her hands on.

She'd whip me with it.

B: She meant for you to hear her, didn't she?

H: Yeah, she'd say it don't hurt you as much as it hurts me.

B: But you couldn't believe that, hardly, could you?

H: No. ,pRi *

B: Well, I'm sure that some of the people feix feel that the old-

fashioned spanking and that sort of thing. Do you think, do you

think lots of things are changing?

H: Yes.

B: Have you lived kk in the Prospect area all your life too?

H: Yes. I go to Prospect church.

B: Is this PROSPECT Methodist?

H: Um hm.

B: Who is the pastor w ?

H: I don't know his name, Harvey ? Yeah, Mr. Harvey. Our pastor

used tobe *> Cummings4K,,

B: What is his, you know yx his last names S?

H: What"s Harvey's last name?

J 4: Harvey /O. *

H: Harvey /r. I didn't know him too much like I did our other

pastor.

/17
6 LUMf AB

B: What do you think about, I'm going to ask you now, you're not long

out of school, so you know about problems of young people, you know

what they have to go through, you know what it's like. What is it

like to be a teenager these days? Could you tell me something about

that?

H: No, 'cause I married young. I was seventeen when I got married and

I didn't get to go around places like a lot of the teenagers does

today.

B: I'll bet you only dated one guy in your life.

H: That's all--and I married him.

B: Well, that's nice. This often happens, though, doesn't it?

H: It sure does.

B: I"m sure that whatever young people do today, they have reasons for

doing it, there's reasons for everything. How about, of course, you

never had to go talk to a counselor or anything like that, did you?

H: No. No, only when I'd get to come home.

B: Did you have a counselor?in school?

H: Bobby Dean lI- is.

B: Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm 44La i or something, I'm a little bit

tired. How about, there's another thing they have in school sometimes,

they call it the hygiene class, and some schools have it might sound

outlandish to some people, but some schools teach sex education in school,

did you have anything like that?

H: Yes, in Home Ec they called it at the time.

B: This was part of your Home Ec class?

H: Yeah, it was only, special for girls, but somehow they got a few boys

out there since I've quit out there at school. But at the time I was

going it was just for giris to learn how to sew and cook and then they

started you know, teaching about life.

7 LUM Yl7 AB

B: Well, that's a part of, that's a part of homemaking too, I guess.

H: Yeah, um hm.

B: That's part of it for married people.

H: They would show us films about it. All about the diseases, you know.

B: Yeah. Well, how did people feel about that when they first started it,

did they .........................?

H: MY mother didn't like too much about it 'cause she never did tell me

anything, nothing about sex. I couldn't ask her anything about babies,

nor nothing. She'd just say, "you go ask somebody else. Don't ask me

about that." Where I was learning from was my teachers at school.

B: Well, that's nice because they are well-informed. Of course, your

friends tell you a lot of things, too. My baby sister was taught, for

example, by her sister older than her, and when she told her some

things, my sister said, "Don't tell me any more. I'll let you tell
Sj.,, Ithink w e re
me some more if you want to ". But, do you think we're

getting out of that sort of thing?

H: Yeah, I think now mostly the younger people can tell the older a lot

more than they've ever heard. Cause there's so much happening any more.

B: Do you think when our older people hear about things like sex education

being taught in the schools they might shake their heads and say "I

don't know what the world's coming to."

H: Yes, that's just what they say. A lot of them don't even know what

you're talking about. You have to sit down and start explaining it to

them and then they tell you to km sxxxTkEyxRi xkkKB= "Hush! You

don't know what you're talking about."

B: Well, of course, they didn't have the chance that young people have

] today, do they? Did they?

H: No.

B: And it's good that people can be informed on something as vital as being

8 LUM I17 AB

married and raising a family and so forth...always goes along with

that. What would you change about Robetson County if you could?

H: Well, if it wasn't so much dope and drugs and / well, I

think it would be nice.

B: Do you think any dope's got into the Prospect area?

H: I heard my mother-in-law speak of a little bit was last year, but I

haven't heard her talked any this year about it.

B: Did she mention any specific kinM of drugs that had come in?

H: She had mentioned something about the marijuana you smoke.

B: I haven't heard much about anything but that.

H: Yeah, that's all.

B: And there, of course, when I was a boy I never knew the name, what the

name marijuana meant. I did know what bootleg whiskey was. In the

days of Prohibition I knew it was being .PrA It was being

homemade and stuff like that.

H: Now mostly you think you can take it in there and make more out of it

to smoke.

B: What do you think about marijuana, do you think it's bad S U T:F ?

H: Yeah, I think it's bad but myself, I've never seen it. But to hear my

bretheren talk about it __ he says it's real bad.

B: You've never seen any ?

H: No, I've never saw the dope. No, I don't know nothing.

B: Do you know anybody that's, I wouldn't ask you their names if you..........

H: I knew one girl that was on it, but they caught her for it and she's
picked ( ) /7
pulling her time. They &kak her up 0Er '4,_

B: They're pretty rough on people they catch.

H: Yeah, whe got from two to three years just for hauling it.

B: She just had some on the car?

9 LUM m f AB

H: Um hm.

B: Do you know how much she had?

H: No, I don't know how much she had.

B: But what if they just catch somebody smoking it, and they don't even

9 ***

H: I believe they give them time for it.
high
B: They get time for it. So it comes pretty haxd then doesn't it?

H: Yes.
t1 It It
B: It's too hot and too high.

H: If they'd do it like they done it overseas, give you life for it, I

don't think they'd have much trouble with it over here.

B: Oh, my.

H: Overseas, they say if you get in it you're in it for hassle of your

life.

B: What parts overseas? Are you thinking of one particular place overseas?

H: No, just some parts.

B: What do you see for your future? What are you going to do? What does

your husband do fora living?

H: He finishes sheetrock. I'm planning on doing nothing but be an old

housewife, that's all.

B: Well, that's a good occupation.

H: I've go two children now, and he wants eight.

B: Oh, my! What do you think of that?

H: Well, I've got some hustling to do.

B: Oh, me. What do you think about that?

H: I told him....

B: Do you like a big family?

H: Yeah, I like children. You know that it's the right time to have a

family--you don't need to have them so close together.

10 LUM f11 AB

B: And it is kinH of expensive, too, isn't it?

H: Yeah, it sure is. It's hard to have a family now. You've got to work.

B: You know, there's a feeling and an attitude in the country today to

try to bring the families down to beep them down to smaller size. And

they say this would be better for everybody if we would do it. What

do you think of that?

H: Well, I think if you can afford to have them, you should have as many

as you want.

B: Right. In the old days, of course, our older people didn't believe in

any of preventative methods or, you know, they said well, whatever the

good lord meant for you to have that's what you ought to have.

H: Yeah, you'd have them. Yeah, my mother had six in her family.

B: What's the largest family you ev4r heard of?

H: Well, my first cousin, my mother's niece, -she had nineteen head.

B: Nineteen?

H: Yeah, and everyone of them survived. And that's the highest.

B: That's higher than I ever heard of. And this was one family?

H: Yes, that's one family. Everytime she'd go to the doctor each year he'd

tell her ,"Come back again." And she'd be right there-- they'd call her

jV tL C' she's a Locklear. And the last one she had, they let her

have it free. They didn't charge her a hospital bill nor nothing cause

she had had everyone of them at that one hospital.

B: Is that right?

H: And they let her have that one free of charge.

B: I'll declare. (Inaudible)

H: I think he's getting sleepy.

B: Can he say "DAda" yet? Do you want to say something in the mike, young

man? He doesn't know what were doing. I know you love children,......

11 LUM 41 AB

H: Oh, yeah, I love children.

B: Do you think that a woman's place is in the home instead of going to the

factory trying to work?

H: Yeah, but if they've got too much, you know, responsibilities I think

she should get out and help him some. But if they're making it

pretty good, she ought to stay home with her children.

B: Well, I take it from what you've said so far that you're certainly not

what they call a woman's libber, right?

H: NO.

B: Have you heard about woman's lib?

H: Yeah, I heard about that, you know, they like to do a lot that the men

can do. / CA4 41a advertisement in the newspaper was showing to

where the woman on the road, you know, helping men work,

W_/J _fek _en does. o k" there are

certain jobs that a man does that a woman can't do.

B: Right. What do you think about equal pay for equal work?

H: Yeah, if they deserve it.

B: Well, that's part of what they believe in.

H: Um hm. They can do just as much. If they want to work, I'd let them

work ( .

B: Did you hear about all these girls trying to burn their bras and stuff

like that? I think anything like that mostly just to attract attention

and just to attract the press, because they want their movement to go.

They are serious about this thing and they have done a -lot of good.

H: Yeah, they've brought the women up a long ways.

B: How would you like to have a woman president?

H: I don't think she should go that far.

B: Do you think that's going a little bit too far?

H: Yeah, I think that's going a little too far. They should let the men rule

12 LUM 1il AB

over the world.

B: How do you feel about the family, you know, in our Indian community? Who

is it that wears the pants, usually?

H: The man.

B: Right. Do you believe in this?

H: Yeah, um hm.

B: Somebody has to wear the pants.

H: Yeah, and I think the man should be over his household.

B: But what if its a case where the man just doesn't do it? Sort of

H: Well, then he don't be much of a man.

B: garbled

H: No. He's not much of a man or he'd be the ruler of his house. My mother

was the ruler of her house because she was the man and the mother. She

raised up her children right by herself.

B: Well, you have to be both parts ...............

H: Yeah, she was the both parts. She was my mother and father.

B: Now how many children were there?in youf family?

H: Six.

B: garbled

What are you, how are you going to feel about your children when come4up?

Do you think you'll be like the older people weee about their children?

garbled

H: Yeah, I think I will. Because, my mother never did teach me about it

but I'm going to teach my kids about it. I'd rather to tell them about

kt it than to let them hear it from somewhere else and misunderstand it,

you know. I'd rather be the one to tell them.

B: And what they hear is usually all mixed up, its wrong advice and evry thing.

H: Yeah, they'd be confused and eventually Lya they're going to come and ask

you about it and you can't hide it always. You got to let them know about

13 LUM 117AB

life.

B: Right. It's a very real part of living. I say if somebody makes a

mistake knowing, that's not as bad as to make a mistake and not know.

garbled................

What do you do with your spare time, or do you have any spart time?

Homemakers don't have too much spare time.

H: Well, I guess my work's right around the clock. Two will keep you

busy.

B: Somebody says man works from sun to sun, but woman's work is never done.

H; That's about the way it is.

B: Do you think men should help their women washing dishes and that sort of

stuff?

H: In one condition: If she works and helps him, you know, provide the

household, then he should help her. But if hexx brings the payroll

money, he has to work, then you should keep the house clean, he

shouldn't be messing. But if both of them has to work, you know,

then they should help one another.

B: garbled. ............... ...... ... ... ................ ..... ............

Now, another the woman's libber talk about is the old double standard,

and you know what that is don't you, they, if one, it's alright for

the man to do certain things, but if the woman does it, then that's

worse. And they saythat's all wrong, that there shouldn't be any difference.

14 LUM 117 AB

H: Well, I don't, I don't know about that. I mean, you know, my husband

once in a while he'll help wm me with the children. You know, if I'm

busy doing something else and I can't get to it at the time he will

do it. If I'm not doing anything I needn't ask him to do it, because

he won't do it.

B: You don't think it would be shameful or anything like that for the guy

to do woman's work, what is called woman's work, it's really both?

H: If she's sick and can't handle the household then he should help her.

B: Right. Well, you've known a lot of young people, what kind of

activities did you take part in in high school?

H: Ia played basketball for a couple of years.

B: Were you good at k it?

H: I wouldn't say, I was pretty good at those free things, those free shots.

I was a guard. I'd guard the person with the ball,_ _'

B: Do you think we talk a little bit different from around Prospect unless

we put on our second language?

H: Yes, because when I was going to school at Prospect, I could go into

Lumberton and they could tell me, they'd say nt "Now that's a

Prospecter." They could always pick out the Prospecters.

B: Even though then were fax from the AS.g^C qC.70 S but

another part of it.

H: They could always tell--they can tell a difference.

B: And yet, they were only a few miles away, right?

H: Yes, that was like I could go sKixg visit my sister. She lives in

lumberton at__ district and she could always tell my voiue.

She say "Why don't you quit talking with those Prospecters and talk

right?" I'd say, "I'm talking right."

H: You thought she wasn't talking right?

H: Yeah, she would always cill me a Prospecter.

15 LUM 117 AB
as
B: Well, the language certainly has been affected at much out here as in

the heart of the Indian community as it would be maybe of the fringes

or farther toward the edges. Do you suppose we ever had people who

lived in Indian communities all their lives that never got out of

them?
mother's
H: Yeah, um hm. Yeah, my kbtHwkf still old fashioned to me. She's got

her a bathroom and still won't use her bathtub. She'll still go get

her old bucket and go somewhere and wash. Wd She won't use her bathtub

she says that's running too much water.

B: She must have an electric pump or has to buy water.

H: She still has a little hand washing machine. She hadn't got a new

electric one. She says that's throwing away money when it--well, she'd

rather wash with a hand-washing machine than a automatic. She says the

hand-washing machines will clean clothes better. She makes her lye

soap and melts it and puts it in the water and still washes her clothes

with it.

B: Do you think people still hang on to some of the old ways and they

always will?

H: Yes, I think they will. Short dresses--they don't come in here, not

around my mother.

B: They don't believe in mini-skirts?

H: No. She never would let us wear them.

B: Not even when they were the thing?

H: Nooo. She don't want, she don't allow her girls at home to wear these

halters, you know, they call them gust a little piece? She don't want

them to wear that.

B: How long e you have to wear your dresses when everybody wise was

wearing minis? And micro-minis7

V, 16 LUM 117 AB

H: because I never did wear a mini. I've never had a mini

on.

B: Is that right? How, I mean, how long, what would be the length of

your dresses?

H: Knee length.

B: They had Iam to come down to your knees.

H: Knee length.

B: Of course, in their days, they didn't even show their knees, did they?

H: That's right. You could wear, now you %an wear the long dresses you

wanted but youdidn't wear no short ones. The long ones, the long

dresses 1, .' L" s oe In style. You could xear all of them you

want.

B: Yeah, they used to wear them down to their ankles. They didn't show

you their ankles even. Well, things certainly are changing, aren't

they?

H: They sure are. I've had to wear overalls to school.

B: Would your mother insist that you wear overalls? Or would you rather

wear them because you were afraid you'd look different from the other

girls?

H: I never did love them. I've always hated them and those high-topped,

brown shoes, we'd have to wear them, and I've always hated them, but

she'd make me wear them, and I had no other anzt choice but to wear

them.

B: How many brothers and how many sisters do you have?

H: I got four sisters and two brothers.

B: Four sisters and two brothers. What are their names?

H: My older sister's named Mayble Beth Locklear.

B: Mayble what?

H: Mayble Beth (???)

B: Mayble Beth (???) Locklear. That's your oldest sister?

17 LUM 117 AB

H: Yeah.

B: Which one were you?

H: I was the knee baby.
dt i
B: the knee baby. Now that's another Lumbeeism. If we say that to somebody

here at the South side of the community... I didn't realize what

__ (garbled)

H: They don't know what a knee baby is.

B: Would tell them what a knee baby is?

H: It's the one next to the baby.

B: It's the one that's one step higher than the baby.

H: The baby just comes first.

B: How do you think that term ever got started? Have you ever thought

about it?

H: No, I've always heard it. I don't know how it got started. I've always

called a knee baby. Some rW /,;t and she's say, "Now

that's a knee baby, and that's a baby."

B: The baby and the knee baby. And of course, the baby is the one you

hold in your arms, and the knee baby is the one that stands up to

your knees, right?

H: Yeah, they call the little baby the arm baby.

B: Of course, when you came along, my English is getting terrible. You know,

guys, of course, I'm going to ask Mr. Hunt about this because I know

he remembers it better than you do, about the boys, you know, when they'd

go to see their girls at night and come back home at night, and we'd do

what we called hollering (???). Do you know what I'm talking about?

H: No.

B: You missed out on some good things, didn't she Mr. ____"_ ?

': Yeah.

18 LUM 11/ AB

B: You know what I'm talking about, don't you?

H: No, because, you know, my husband, my mother, we always lived just

across the canal. We never had far to go. He could walk to see me.

B: But the guys, in those days, they didn't have telephones or anything

(garbled)

B: And when you were passing along your girlfriend knew, ,'Well, there

goes my boy."

H: They couldn't holler then.

B: C ____ didn't they Mr. V*.-. ?

H: They couldn't holler then, theycouldn't dawM two girls, could they?
40 wt-+h
They had to dete just one girl.

B: Well, maybe they just t-''.. i 'hat night It, .'

remember, do you know what I'm talking about............?

0*': Yeah, Vl J^- b 11before .myself.
/
B:. Could you give us a demonstration?

f2:' : We'd pass a girl's house and we'd holler, "Who-o-o-o-o!" Something

like that. ;.( d sing. I used to sing ......

B: And some of it was real pretty. They had a tune to it and you could

hear it for a mile at least (inabdible)..........................

People did that out in the country, of course, but you don't do it

much in town, but 4/(a- our town was varu never very large town,

and it isn't very large, even today.

pf; I: (inaudible)..........

B: But it was sort of similar to a yodel. I'm going to find somebody

who can really demonstrate tiat thing to mebecause that's good

folklore. That's definitely in the field of folklore and I want to

19 LUM I17 AB

find somebody who can do it because............

H: Oh well, anytime.

B: She can yodel, but this hollering is different from yodeling, isn't it?

It's just something that people used to do &-- CI fJQ tI / 711 ri

H: My aunt's got a boy that used to holler all the time and I wonder if

that's what it would be. Late at night you could hear him hollering

just as far, and he could, he just loved to holler. He'd go to feed

"the hogs or chickens and he'd just holler.

B: Even now you're beginning to understand what we're talking about. But

I guess we're getting away from that. Now, how about our superstitions?

Do people still believe in......

H: Superstitious?

B: Are they, yeah, do they believe in ghosts, for instance?

H: Oh, I thought you meant by superstitious things like if a dog barks, like

my Mama could say, if a dog, a strange dog would bark in front of her

face, she'd always say somebody was going to die. Stuff like that.

Or she could hear a hooting owl and say "Turn your pockets out." And

then she'd say you'd be choking him. I never did believe in

nothing that I'd be, ya

B: Be choking what?

H: Be choking the hooting owl. Everyone hollering.

She could turn it out and you didn't hear him holler no more.

B: And the hooting owl would quit hollering if you turned your pockets out?

H: Yeah, it would quit hollering.

B: And of course they have a very unpleasant sound.

H: Or if your ac)r would crow before dark or before daybreak she would

say something was going to happen then.

20 LUM 117 AB

B: This would be sort of a premonition of something bad to happen?

H: Um hm. But I don't believe in ghosts.

B: Do you believe in ?Tf]

H: No. I've never heard of _)

B: You never heard of one?

H: No

B: You've never seen one?

H: No.

B: But have you heard people talk about them and say they have?

H: Oh yeah. My mother 4 that her mother come back to see her,

and she said it was her l i I told her that she was talking

nothing and she'd get mad and say,"Yes it was, too."

B: Well now, we better explain what a TO- I means because outside

this ) LeA. of ours nobody knows what a _t\ is. We say

l-_ I believe that really means ,(/ A And we, the

way we say it for short is }, ?lr: Will you explain it cause

people know that I've been through this before and you haven't.

H: A ?J5

B: What is a 7 f" ?

H: To me, I think it's somebody who has died and has come back. Is that

what the7"a 1' is? Or is that ... f.

?hI : ] You've got it wrong.

B: (inaudible)

,it : +.iq l+ I e)(T ...-. :_{ _. c' 4}-" C '
s S f

2 "

21 LUM I1f AB

pH Somebody would come through the house walking. You could hear somebody

knocking on the door. Just like somebody was coming in--you open

the door--there was nothing there. There's nobody ever seen a _J

The only thing they hear is the noise :t'- e,.., .,;; _' C 4

l I -\, t Somebody would call you, even wake you up. I remember once

a boy had got poisoned off of whiskey and he, before he wasn't dead

at the time. But in a little while he did die. And before he died

he just come and jumped on me like, just like ,

natural. He had me down in the ____' and I couldn't even get up.

B: Holding you down?

P" : lit 4AAlk1 ----holding me down.

B: Was this before the boy died or after?

F/'it 6 It was before he died. t ,' I-"

B: This is one thing I want to clear up. A _____ is something you see

not after someone dies, it's their spirit which visits you before

P/' N: Before they die.

B: Right. And warns, this is a warning that this man is going to go.

P/Y: ': 'i !s11 C -- (,4'. .* Now, I had another experience

one time with a baby. It was a little X, CC T!. l IU ... -_i

S_ O It might have been a month or two old. And I was

sitting on a an old t- ',4r^' 1I _

And the baby was over there in the house _____

tS____ down in back of the barn. And I looked over

there t oot just like that and there laid that baby
V.____ J just like somebody had come and
;^

22 LUM 117 AB

laid him there. The baby was living at that minute. And it i-j i

t .C u^ r 'That's what you call a "_Fa -_ 7

B: It's a forewarning of a death that is to come.

p/// : That's right.

B: And it's that person's spirit according to our superstition.

"P" "W: A YCf L nL You can

hear them, you can see them, and their,...I have seen a man floating

in the pond with a duck--a white duck. _-_" even tried to catch it,

but there was nothing there., j. "' -.1t Richard

Lowry(??), _i _'' < come to the house one morning and I

f _I ':', maybe it was fifteen or twenty minutes before he died. Well

we've got the ducks in the pond, theytold us about it. We was W5 i'1 P "

catch a duck t.j-(4 I:. /(' A white duck.

B: What happened? Did you

PH.: : It just disappeared.

B: You never did catch him?

'.H .: No, we never could catch t .fm f l '".i /. .

B: Did you know Mr. 6ocri ocklear?

/i: V: Yeah.

B: Did you ever hear him tell about one day he'd been out, one, late one

afternoon he'd been out hunting and came home and was sitting on the

porch and somebody came up with a brush behind he their back and they

skea struck him in the face with it and he had set his gun up beside of

the porch and he just picked up that gun and shot, right point blank at

this fleeing figure, right directly and it disappeared. And he got up

and looked, he thought,"Well good Lord, I've killed somebody." It struck

him so hard that it made him very angry all at once, and this brings me

to another point of Lumbee folklore and t1at is this: I want to ask you

23 LUM 177 AB

if you've heard this superstition. Now call it whatever you:will ,

that if a spirit, if a ghost ever hits you, then you're going to die.

V'f *: That's right.
H: I've heard that. )"

B: You've always heard that? Well, this happened to M Locklear,

and he told me about it and so shortly after that he was, he was

/'44i( 4Fir. !i. So these are interesting things. It doesn't
U
matter whether they're true or not. Some people believe and some

people don't believe it. But my father has, you know, always believed
it. And I want to ask Mr. Hunt one more thing, and that's this:

They say that anybody born with a "* OVER their =

now that's part of the afterbirth. But you have some kind of veil

o'er your face, but if you're born that way, than that means that that

person is gifted to see spirits. Have you ever heard that?

P4' 5: ,,, f-j T.- \ 'A and see things that

people can't.

B: That other people can't see.

P : That's right, that's right.

B: But this person cansee spirits that other persons can't see.

ft 'a L e)- ' -.'k I t- C ,. vC
.- : (inaudible) / r ^ w (v ^ Fp e

C,,.,tc e f i so nat ral i L

C -( 9- A-fa A ,j( &rfI
"oo C. s -G.L,-tt
^ A ,. ... 7 \?- e., .A f^ ... ' ". .

-I -C

hA t
h~r,, po-? ^.- *j~-t 14/b ** I..-1 ** .*. ^ (
^~~~, i^"( ''p^*^.*:J <
Ss~~~~~ ^:.^^.Y^c^ ^ /^ ^
s-~~.~ -lt lir" :f!^=-R\)

24 LUM 177 AB

lt";". daughter-in-law had to go out, and I'll talk to him while she's

gone. ........This is interesting what you're telling me, this

is folklore and we'd like to get this.

PH: You had, ... he said he was.....I knew we was into a some kind

of a something, i l because I was, could feel it, you

know. Feel this heat, but I couldn't see anything, but he

could. And he just finally stopped. I never did see the man

myself, but he could see him, and he said the man just walked

right around with us... about four or five hundred yards. And

that night, and that same night, after, that was about eight, and

at eleven o'clock that nightwas still.

B: Um-hmm. So let's follow through. It was either a coincidence or

a something.

PH: Yeah. It's something to........Well, now in the last in the last

thirty or forty, last forty years, looked like, seemed like in the

last forty years, say, you don't see things like youdid fifty or

sixty, fifty or sixty years ago. You don't see nothing like that.

Look like it's all over with. I mean, from what it was when I was

a child, when I was a child up until now, I things would happen

back then don't happen any more.

B: (inaudible)

PH: That's why that people, you try to, you tell, you tell young people

this stuff, and it's the truth what we're telling, but you tell

young theyy call you a liar. They say it ain't so, but it's

so. It happened. I wouldn't be telling nobody something, just

sitting and telling a lie, because I don't do nothing like that.

25 LUM 177 AB

I'm telling you something that I \S

B: Well, that's very interesting. I, every community has its own

superstition...

PH: That's right.

B: ....and its own beliefs, and its own way of interpreting things.

PH: Well, old prople from all, all races of old people, forty or

fifty years ago, all of the old people that, uh, white, colored

everybody had the same, the same, they thug+ t about it just like

I do. They el nt about, they'd see these things, just like a, _
/- LL4,
be working and maybe you'd meet somebody and I walked 9 __'_4 fi/

:r-- into a man's face one night and even reached for him,

you know, and there wasn't nothing there. And uh, that what's,
.. l h j /
that's what I'm talking about, a +?J _, them -_7f P s ,

you know what we call 7 _, you know.

B: Right. And we pronounce it _'1jC ,-don't we?

PH: Yeah, they say they _e7 L 5. And so that night, this old

man what used to travel that road through there, had a, I met him

a many and a many times, about that same place. And this one

special night I had been seen, had been over to see a girl and was

on my way home at dark. No moonlight whatever, just as dark as

pitch, you know, and I just walked as natural into his face and

I thought there was nothing there, but I walked into him. And I

got scared, turned around and took off back to where I'd come

from. I couldn't want to come home that night.

: ALet me ask you something else, and I'll get back to your daughter-

in-law.....

H: That's altight. le/ k Af.4(k.

26 LUM 177 AB

B: I wanted to devote a tape to you and one to him. -Do people still

look for buried things--buried money, treasure?

END SIDE 1 TAPE A

LUM 177 AB

TAPE A-SIDE 2

Russ Hyden

27

B: Mr. Peter Hunt, I've been interviewing Mr. Peter Hunt and his

daughter-in-law, and he and I were just talking about buried

treasure when the w-hen the tape ran out, and people are going

to say that this was staged, but there was nothing staged about

this interview. It was, it was something that just we just got

interested in it... it turned out this way. I was going to ask

you, though, Mr. Hunt. about buried treasure. Is it true that

people still search for buried treasure, buried money and things

like that?

PH: Oh yeah, they hunt it. They still hunting, they still hunt it,

you know 0 '

B: When you say hunt it, you mean they search for it.

PH: They keep searching for it--they dig for it.

B: They dig inthe ground for it?

PH: Yeah, they dig, they still dig in the ground for it.

B: Do they run long rods in the ground?

PH: They find it with a machine. Then they got a long JO f

steel rod they go down and try to locate it. After they locate it,

then they dig for it. Ever what it is, sometimes it don't be

nothing, but just metal. _-_7w them things will pull any

kind of metal __cgL V-_t ain't never had

nothing perfect, but they have found money with it. They have

people found money with it. But it ain't perfect, but they take

28 LUM 177 AB

take that rod 0) and they go down and whatever it hits

when it goes straight down, they find it. They'll _A t

t0 and go down and whatever they hit, they'll dig there

until they find out what it is. Sometimes it's money and agAin

it aint.

B: Do you think that maybe the people who buried that money there

years ago were maybe some of the old Spanish pirates who landed

on the North Carolina Coast? And who buried their treasure around

or what?

PH: Well e- l I'll tell you what. I know where there's

some money buried. I know where there is some money been buried.

And y-ou go there to get, went there to dig it. me

and some other fellow went there one time, and we were going to

dig that money, see. And we went there on four..... ....._ .,

It come up a storm, just like the worst wind storm you

ever saw in your life, and naturally wasn't nothing about but it

just seemed like we was going to be destroyed. The wind was blowing,

the trees was falling down. We got scared and run. There's two

or three places here in this country that people's tried to dig

money, and when they go there to that place something will run

them away from it.

B: Some kind of spirit.

PH: Some kind of a spitit. It would be in a form of a cat, a man,it

could be anything. And sometimes it was one ofthe, just like a

storm, you know. When you get near it, then you can't stayythere--

you just got to go. Look like you're going to be destroyed if you

don't get running. It'll cause something to cause you to run.

29 LUM 177 AB

B: Well now, here's something I heard when I was a boy, you

know, I was brought up in this community and I want to ask

you if you heard the same thing. They say that when people

used to bury money like this, the old pirates would bury

money, and the pirates were real mean guys, Spanish pirates,

and things like this, when they would bury money, they would

cut off a man's head and bury his head with the money and if

he, if they did that, that would bring a supernatural spell on

that treasure and everytime you go there to try to get it, that'

spirit will guard it.

PH: That's right.

B: And if you, if you speak when you're digging for that money,

that maney will go deeper in the ground.

PH: Right. Disappear.

B: Yeah. Did you ever hear this story. Now, I've heard it and

I heard it in this community, where I was born and brought up,

that this man went out, this is the story, he went out digging

for buried treasure like this. And when he got near it, the

nearer he got to it, something came and lifted him up boldly,

he didn't speak. He was determined he wasn't going to speak

because he didn't want the treasure to disappear or go deeper

into the ground. So he went ahead a dug for it. This spirit

came and caught him up and took him to the river--to the old

Lumbee River, I presume--and threw him in the water up to his

knees, but he was still determined, so he went back and started

digging again. That time it came and got him and carried him,

tossed him into the water, and this time he was up to his waist.

He still didn't speak and it still didn't break the spell.

30 LUM 177 AB

So he came back and started digging again. Then it picked him

up and took him back again and this time it threw him into the

water over his head. And this time he swam out, and went back

and started digging again and this time he won. It did he

did find the treasure. Did you ever hear that?

PH: No, I've never heard, but I did know a boy, an old man....

B: Did this ring true like they tell it? I.

PH: Well, _____ always I've heard it/. it's happened to people.

But I know one old man teiJF f it;' know him, I helped him

dig it. And my brother and my cousin, and they helped him dig

that money. And they ___ they ain't none of them didn't

speak that night, but they dug to the pot of money and they

found it. When they got right to it, looked at it, then they

took and called theM O4' This old man, he's older than

they was, they was young at that time. It's been about sixty,

seventy, say fifty years ago--fifty-five years ago. And I was

a little small boy, I didn't help them dig it, but I went with

them and I expect the hole,is, the hole probably is there right

on. It's been there, they dug about a six, eight hole,, and it

was, looked like it was about six feet deep. And right in the

corner of that hole is where they found a little pot. A little

pot, .i{" _____ and liking a lid on it. And

that's what the money was in. And VJt old man, that old man

got it that went back there after they left, or they thought

that's what he'd done... and pulled up that little pot and

they went back the next day and looked there and they saw where

it come from, but they never did see none of the money,

31 LUM 177 AB

B: What do they think that maybe it was to^tas far....

PH: No, nothing, you see, nothing didn't bother them digging that.

I mean they just when they found it they just dug to it and

then they never did speal. They say when you do that the e was

nothing put there to like that. They have been some ai

people just dug a hole in the ground and put it in the ground.

And if you find it like that you don't have this. But they

said if you put anything there/ ,P kill a chicken. I've

heard old people that buried it and put a chicken or
Sa tiJI AM 1.4a3A AT6
masKta g some kind of an snx. i L they get the blood

you know, they say, LCOPiQ A .It can be a dog, a cow, or

anything.

B: Just so there's a spirit there started.

PH: __ ___ _'"_ Say that spirit will stay there with it.

B: So you don't a;xnkays have to actually cut off a man's head

and put it there like the buccaneers are supposed to have done.

PH: No. No, you don't have to use a man all the time.

B: Do you think they might, people who search for money like that,

they hope to find some of the money that Henry ei C j 'fl

and his gang hid out?

PH; I imagine there has some of it's been found.

B: Do you think they hid a lot of money a?

PH: Oh, yeah. They hid a lot of money. They didn't have no banks.

They'd rob, they'd go somewhere and if they robbed a bank or

something they buried that money. They didn't try to keep it.

( garbled) His wife, my aunt said, his wife offered her, one

time an a whole bag of money. And told her she wanted her

to have it.. It was their money, and she said she was scared.

32 LUM 177 AB

She said she didn't know how much of it there was. Cb J'J$

J4 d rike a four or five-pound bag full of it. Said shu k e10 T

wouldn't take it. She said she begged her to take it, said she

wanted her to have it. Said if she'd took that money, she could

have bought a thousands of acres of land with it.

B: Could you, you couldn't show us how that old holler goes, could

you?

PH; No, I got a cold now. I couldn't holler. But they'd go around

it's just a S1|i' holler. Some of them would just holler

kind of like a song, you know, they'd go hollering and you could

hear them for three and four miles. Of course, you know, all of

that's all over with. That's been, -ksr like all of *ciaes gone

.... yk3xxd the .eeols gone.

B: If you did that now people would think you were t___
I,
some happy farm, wouldn't they.

PH: Yeah. But you couldn't even hear you now. Bedhuse we tried it.

And you can hear.... Ive hollered, I've hollered for water

from here to where I was raised at, about half a mile, P'3d

from down yonder in the field to where I was raised *

I've hollered many times and told them to bring me some water.

And they'd take and bring me some water down in the field, in the

woods, just anywhere. You could hear them, just like if they would

have been out there in that yard. Whole lot easier then, if I

could hear you come up to that yard out there now.

B: There's so many other noises going on.

PH: Yeah. I don't know what causes ........ thee's a difference in it.

This old man, old man old colored fellow that used

to fox hunt, and place over there just this side of Maxton before

33 LUM 177 AB

before you get about two miles out of Maxton. And you could

hear him hollering to his dogs and they was seven miles below

Maxton. In other words, it was about eight and he hollered

like he was right down there in the river swamp. About a mile--

-ory-' "Q4~. T- but you could hear him just as plain

and he was seven miles from, you could hear him seven miles

hollering at his dogst Taylor, Taylor tAOyf d down here,

it's one mile, exactly one mile from here to his house, and I

could hear him calling his dogs getting ready to go fx fox

hunting. J I J r E could hear

them all over yonder. Three miles from here you could hear him

just as plain hollering at his dogs % uf'

/tf been a hundred yards this day and time, if it had

been a hundred yards from you you would have heard him three miles

Forty years ago you could hear him three and four miles over

yonder on the creek.

B: Did you ever hear this superstition about a guitar? What is it

people call a guitar around here? What have you heard it called

besides a guitar?

PH: **M. *__ I can't think of what they used to

call a guitar.

B: You ever heard it called a box?

PH: Yeah, yes I have.

B: Just a plain old, b-o-x.

PH; Yeah.

B: And there's a superstition I learned when I was a boy, and I wonder

34 LUM 177 AB

if you've ever heard this one. That is, that with so many of our

old people have died and gone on, it was lost someplace. But this

superstition said that if you want to really be good at playing a

box, that is a guitar, that all you had to do is go to the crossroads,

I believe it's, I've forgotten whether it's three mornings, or I

believe it's seven mornings, I mean seven nights at midnight, and on

the seventh night when you go there, then the devil will come and

teach you how to play and you can play better than anybody .

You ever heard that?

PH: Seems like I heard about that. People tried so many things.

B: Did people used to think that playing a guitar and stuff like that was

something evil? Or sinful?

PH: Well, the older people did, some of the older people did--said it was

the devil J ff belonged to the devil. My old grand daddy said

_____ i belonged to the devil

B: In other words, there were churches, there might be churches even today

that won't let you play a guitar or something like that.

PH: Well, they're using t CY" )In the last years, the last twenty

years, they're coming around where they'll have music in the church,

Oh, back when I was a boy there was no such a thing, they didn't, they

wouldn't have let you played no guitar nDf---nothing in the church. They

didn't believe in that. My parents, _-_r_ L__C, my mother and

father when they was young, they didn't believe in that stuff. My

grandfather, they didn't believe in that going to church or having music3

they said that they called that, people doing that, they said they was

having a big time.

B: But they figured that was sinful?

35 LUM 177 AB

PH: Yeah

B: Because people are changing in that way, aren't they?

PH: Oh it's all changed now till even the church, the churches is changed

from what they was fifty years ago when you went to church in the day ,

there's as much difference as there is in night and day. I never went

to church for about, oh, ten or fifteen years, I got sick. I had a

lung operation, and in the fifteen years I stayed away from church.

And I went back, and it was just like I had moved to another country.

They was having programs and back when I went to church a long time ago,

you went in, and you had Sunday School and when the teacher got done

teaching, if you had a penny to give you'd give it to him and if you

didn't have none, he didn't ask for none. There was none, if you didn't

have nothing to give and they had a collection you didn't. That's where

the children paid then they'd give their penny. That's all they had to

give. And when, and now when you go to the church, they don't wait to

have the Sunday School before they have a prayer, most of the churches

before they even have prayer, they got the little old pot and they come

around with it wanting a dollar and if you don't put a dollar in it, his

eyes gets about twice as big. Look like O _____

B: He figures you're letting him down?

PH: Yeah.

B: Well, things are certainly changing. The Indians had a lot of things

which we believed which were quite different. How about, have you ever
Ii II
heard of conjure women*?
PH: Yeah, they, Aa e;67Co MAB lot of the old people believed in

that stuff.

B: Do you think we still got some conjure women around?

PH: They's some around, yeah, they's some around.

36 LUM 177 AB
II i'
B: How about conjure men?

PH: Yeah, there's men and women.

B: Um hm. It could be a man or a woman, couldn't it?

PH: Yeah.

B: What are some of the things these conjure men and conjure women are

supposed to be able tdo for you?

PH: Oh, they claim 4tXA I **'

B: I mean what they claim, I'm not saying whether it's true or not.

PH: They claim, they claim they can keep them from going to the penitentiary

and get them out of they get into something, get them out. And I have

heard people say that they got ehem out. I knew a woman, she

B: If they get in trouble, they go to these people. They give some kinK of

magic potion and they

PH: Yeah, they get out. Some of them have C-i_ lucky. I know a woman

and she's went to them all of her life, she's still living, but she's

old now. But she's went to them all of her life and she's sold liquor

9 and beer for oh, I reckon, sixty, fifty, sixty years.

B: Bootlegged stuff?

PH: Bootlegged stuff for fifty sixty years.

B: Has she ever been caught?

PH: Yeah, she's been caught one, I believe she pulled sOi (R'. (/C f)

she got to be an old woman. She got old, and one time they give her

twelve months. And she had been raided thousands of times in her life.

But she never did pull no time.

B: Well she should. Well she, but once

PH: Just one time, she pulled a little time.

B: Well, she sure was lucky. She must have been careless about going to see

her conjure woman that day.

37 LUM 177 AB

A I

PH: She really believed. She really believedAand she...

B: And W__ _j__ also claims to be able to call back spirits from

the dead?

PH: I don't know know about that, calling them back from the dai dead.

B: Or talk with spirits of the dead.

PH: Yeah, theyclaim, people claim that they've been..... I've heard old

people say that they've had them to come back and talk to them. But

I don't know, I don't Know what happened. My aunt died and the night

she died buried her, that wasn't the night she died, we buried her on

a Sunday And that Sunday, Monday, that Monday night I had worried

about her all day long, and that Monday night she come, it looked, I

don't know, I don't know, I didn't dream, if I was dreaming I don't

what I was doing. But she come back and called me just as plain as if

I'd a been and told me, said, "Shug C??) get up and go to that pot and

g. get some of them Irish potatoes. It's the best you've ever had I .lL

Irish potatoes in twenty years." And when she told me that, I go up out

of my bed, of course I'm7 L,_j() during the night, my wife had cooked

a little pot of Irish potatoes, like she always cooked for her.

B: You're talking about white potatoes. fe really Indian potatoes.

PR: Yeah, stewed potatoes. And I got up and I hadn't eat Irish potatoes

like that in twenty years. I got up and eat that kx whole pot full of

Irish potatoes. And they were the best that I"ve ever eaten in my life.

And I never did, I went back, and boy, that burning of that old soul's

death just left me like a, just like a shhhhhht, just like ,
hNr a -m-mafe- .
blow away. I never worried about ever since. Now I said,

I've said I believe ht was a spirit talking to me. I don't believe' l(\<4\

as / _, but the only thing, and when I dreamed about her, once

38 LUM 177 AB

since after then I-r(tt 'lr l then I dreamed

about her. But the dream, that Monday nightEs my dream o was a lot

different. I always said ; act natural I'd believe it.

Her voice or something that had talked to me. I don't know what

"If t/w but it seemed like I was just as awake, I thought I was

awake. I 4fft (:QA A) % : t -ia I just could hear--

and I done what she told me to do. It was so natural that I done

whatever she told me to do.

B: Right. Well, some strange things happen for sure. Of course, I try

not to be superstitious. Can you think of any, but I'm afraid I am.

Can you think of any more of them? Superstitions? If you, you've
It l[jc Il
seen the 6 cl'.- dance, haven't you?

PH: Yeah.

B: I can't do it very well. If I did a little bit of it, would you know

whether it was the real thing or not?

PH: Well, I don't remember exactly-- this old man Lt.d 1p, r >

_/__Vh, Well most, some of the people can do a little of it now. I

I noticed, I seen a fellow on television but he had it tap dancing.
] rlIi
Because fkC C dancing was a little different. But he done it with

both feet, and on his heels, you know, mostly of it was done with his

heels. And, Mx he, it could keep time on right along, 5 e

you know, *)#

B: What we call rapping.

PH: Yeah.

B: Now, hold this mike(???) a minute and tell me if his rapping went some-

thing wMac m like this. a d j'.i 4fl^ 1)

PH Yeah, that's right. That's it. That's the way, exactly what they do.

That's the way the old man cold just make music out of it and they'd

39 LUM 177 AB

dance by that, see.

B: And then they'd chant a little, a little story. Say, like I was, I

was over in T9amrtl te other day and I met some people on the

street, and such and such a thing happened and it was Very entertaining

I tfAST 'I ? ,!. __ ,_ the days when we just didn't have

radios or

PH: Well, you didn't have no kind of nothing like that. You had no television

no radio, nor no, what, phonographs nor nothing like that

B: How old were you the first car you ever saw?

PH: The first car I ever saw was a chain type car. It didn't awt have a

steering wheel on it. It had just a bar, you know,

B: The kind of a bar a4W #

PH: Yeah, to guide it with it had chains on each wheel like a bicycle. A

little motor of some, a little thing running it. it would run oh, I

reckon about, I imagine it would go just a little bit faster that a

fast man could walk. That's about as fast as it would go. It had a

little old tires on it....

B: About how old were you then?

PH: I must have been about five or seven. It was after my mother had died.

About seven years old.

B: How old are you now, Mr. Hunt?

PH: I'm sixty-six.

B: Sixty-six. How about the first airplane you ever say?

PR: Well, the first airplane I ever saw was during WWI. Just the beginning

of WWI. I must have been about fourteen or fifteen. About 1914 or 15.

They didn't even know the name. They didn't call them airplanes. I

remember we was eating dinner, we as eating dinner to wheee I was raised

and my aunt, me and an uncle went out and said yonder goes one. Two of
1I II
them flying machines. They didn't even call them airplanes. Called

40 LUM 177 AB
II 1'
them flying machines. You know, hadn't never heard tell of an air-
C
plane. They called them, "Yonder go two of them flying machines."

We come out and looked at them. They was following the Coast Line

railroad going south. That was in 1914, I believe.

B: Well, that's certainly interesting, how things change down through the

years, I know I can remember the first the first radio I ever heard

anything about, Mr. 1II_ Harris had that. And nobody in the

community knew how to do it and my father went over and together, they

figured how to turn that gadget on. You couldn't get any music in the

daytime, but you could get it at night. Well there weren't very many

stations broadcasting at that time Who do you think had the first

i car in the community'here?

PH: The first car I ever saw, the first Indian ever owned a car, it was old

man Nelson Smith.

B: Nelson Smith.

PH: Yeah. And I think old man aw Henry Lowry, who's a preacher,

he had one. Maybe his brother v44 ^ _0 tHad one. And the first

automobile was ever in and owned in this country.

B: Do you remember the days of the Great Depression, don't you? You know
II II
what we speak of now as the Hoover Days?

PH: Yeah.

B: Or the Indians, just they don't say Great Depression, they say the
ii ii II
HooVer Days. Do you know what a Hoover buggy is?

PH: Yeah, that's what they made old car, they took an old car that two

wheels on it, they put tires, got a whole lot of automobile tires and

put onexxx it and *.

B: Would they take the backed out of an old car?

PH: Take the backed out of the car or something and make him one and call
it a H e "b
it a Hoover buggy.

41 LUM 177 AB

B: Of course, people were so poor then that they had to park their cars

and instead of driving a car they had to make a buggy that the horse

could pull.

PH: Yeah

B: There was a time when Robeeson County was thought of as the county

having the highest mule population--more mules here than any other

county in the state.

PH: Well, you see, there was no such a thing as a tractor. When I was

small.there wasn't no such a thing as a tractor. They cleared the

land with mule, by hand, mule, shovel, grubbing hoe. That's what

you cleared land with back then, when I was a boy. This whole place

here was cleared by hand. The stumps was dug by hand. The trees and

the logs cleared by hand. We took the mules and pulled them roots up--

broke it up and pulled the roots out of it, piled the roots and burned

them. Hauled the logs. Most of these places was cleared--they burnt

the timber, hey didn't have nowhere to get rid of the timber.

B: In other words y I've heard my mother speak of log

rolling.

PH: Yeah, that's right.
( 3
B: She said, "I almost killed myself at log rolling, clearing Pap's land."

She always referred to my grandfather as Pap. And she said,"We kids

almost killed ourselves clearing Pap's land doing log rolling." That's

when there was, when timber was so plentiful that, when people wanted

to clear their land so that they could farm on it, then they just cut

the trees and burned them.

PH: Burned it up. Burned it up instead of trying to cut it up.

B: Of course, they didn't have anything much to cut it up with /

c, v.4A A no power saws.

PH: No, they didn't have no power saws--all hand saws. All the saws you

had were hand saws.

42 LUM 177 AB

B: And they were backbreakers, weren't they?

PH: That's right. When you pulled one of them for about ten or twelve hours,

you was ready, you could go to sleep anywhere, nobody didn't have to

fan you.

B: You didn't need a Sominex then, did you?

PH: NO, there was no such a thing as that. In fact there was nothing, no

such a thing as the ** _Old Dr. Locklear, when he first

come to nV\iy there was nothing in a drug store for a man

to take. There was no such a thing as aspirin and headache powder.

There wasn't nothing like that.

B: You're talking about the first Lumbee Indian doctor?

PH: Yeah. He didn't have a thing. He carried all his medicine with him

when he went out to see a patient, he had his medicine with him.

B: He was born and brought up in this area.

PH Yeah, he was born here.

B: Can you remember any of his other folks?

PH: Yeah, he had several brothers. In fact, the last one of his brothers

died here about three months ago. He was ninety. Ninety-five, ninety-

six years old. E the bgg5 e boy. The doctor's baby

brother died, that was the last one of them--died there about three

months ago. He was ninety something years old.

B: We had to interrupt the interview briefly at this period for Mr. Hunt

to go and answer the telephone; and I'm trying something new on this

tape. We're trying to interview two at once, which, I believe, has

it's advantages.

Do you remember, well, we were t king abo t Dr. C.W. Locklear.

PH: ___ f-y Locklear, um hmm. Locklear.

43 LUM 177 AB

B: I wanted to ask you did you remember what happened to him. How did he

die? He served in let me ask you something else firs Did he not

practice medicine in Robebson County in the latter part of the last

century?

PH: He practiced medicine back in the twenties. He died in the early

thirties, late twenties or early thirties, he died.

B: Is that right?

PH: He practiced mai sam in the teens, you know he started practicing

medicine in the teens/ Jd AC f He was practicing medicine

when I was born.

B: Do you know where he got his training or anything like that?

PH: I think Atlanta, Georgia. Somewhere around Atlanta, Georgia.

B: Do you remember how he died or anything about that?

PH: Well, I don't, well, I don't know. He had, I know he had a heart

attack. 2E r r' y .oHe'd get on a drunk once in a while and

then when he got on one of them drunks, he just passed out. He wasn't

bad, too bad, when he'd get on a drunk he'd stay sometimes a week or

two at the time. And he got a hold of them (1t'J. and he

never di over it.

B: Do youthink, I've heard it said that he committed suicide, have you

heard that?

PH: No, I don't believe he did. I never heard nobody say he committed

suicide. They don't think he did. They thought he had the-dk--

you couldn't, might have called it suicide, but they said he was

drunk. Alcohol, what do they call that? Paregoric, and they said

that's what killed him. He drunk too much paregoric.

B: Is that right?

PH: He'd drink paregoric. Put water in it and fix it up. I've saw him

44 LUM 177 AB

drink it a many a time.

B: Do you remember actually seeing him.

PH: Oh, yeah, yeah. I remember played checks OM with his wife.

B: Is that right? What's, do you remember his wife's name?

PH Let me see if I can't remember her name. She was white. His wife was

4 white. He married his wife when he was down in Georgia. His wife

Vj b M A.**

B: In Atlanta, Georgia?

PH: Yeah, Atlanta. I believe her name was...let me think if I can think

of her name. Been dead so long. I just can't think _(/ a nice

looking woman, for a woman.

B: Did she live here (_ _. -f."_

PH: Oh yes, she lived here with him.

B: But she was a beautiful woman?

PH:qOh yes, she was a beautiful woman. She weighed about'two hundred and

fifty pounds.

B: Wonder where she was buried at, or where he was?

PH: She was buried here.

B: At Prospect?

PH: No, she was buried at Preston.

B:q At the Preston graveyard?

PH: Yeah.

B: That's that Preston Gospel Chapel.

PH: Yeah, that's right.

B: But people used to call it Doogle Hill. Why do tkar they call it Doogle

Hill, do you think?

PH: Well, I just guess cause it's so sandy. It's nothing but a sand hill.

45 LUM 177 AB

B: A doogle bug, is there a bug named doogle bug?

PH: Yeah, there are doogle danders, you know, you....

B: Doogle danders.

PH: Yeah, they make a little place

B: And people said the land was so poor it wouldn't even grow doogle

danders?

PH: Yeah, they claim that was right. When they'd find them things on it

they'd say it wouldn't make nothing.
is
B: Now what daas a doogle dandy like? Is it some kind of an insect like

a boll weevil?

PH: They was a boll weevil.

B: It looks like a boll weevil.

PH: Yeah, only he stays in the dirt. Just a little, a little hole in the

dirt, about like an ant.

B: A doogle dandy. l ^e h

PH: Yeah.

B: I had forgotten that term until you used it. If I told you I was going

out on the -V r C? would you know what I meant?

PH: Oh yeah.

B: What?

PH: That's the front of the house.

B: The porch, isn't it?

PH: They call it the porch now, but they used to call it the f

B: If I told you I was going to the big house would you know what I mean?

PH: Oh,yeah.

B: What?

PH: That's where the boss man stays. You call his house the big house, you

know, people that didn't have the, tenants, you know, if they was going

46 LUM 177 AB

to the boss's office, they waaxgBaigx nExmxkhixgxk1mHx got to go up to

the big house for a little bit. They wouldn't call it the boss's house,

they called it the big house.
I1 II
B: If I used the term like house (4) would you know what I meant?

PH: Housen? *'j)

B: Housen. 3^^(

PH: Well, I wouldn't know, I mean that's a housing, something like a housing

project, or something like that.

B: Well, I don't mean, I don't mean h-o-u-s-i-n-g, but h-o-u-s-e-n, house.

Did you ever somebody say they was going into the house?

PH: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I know what you're talking about now.

B: If somebody says, "''m fairly dead," if he says, "I'm fairly dead",

what does he mean?

PH: Man was give out--tired. He's just about ddad.

B: There's another term, juvember(???), nobody else outside the Lumbee

River Valley would know what we were talking about, but you would know

right,away, wouldn't you?

PB: Yeah.

B: What is a juvemberGw )?

PH: You go in the woods and cut you a forked stick, take o f7t j 'l/

J (at i5 and loop you on two pieces of little old inner tube.

Cut you two little thin pieces of rubber and loop them on around that

forked stick. The go to the other, take the other end of it and put

you a backstrap on it, old people call them backstrap. Take you an

old piece of leather, cut you out a square piece on the other end, see.

Then you put you a rock or piece of iron in it and shoot it.

B: Like a slingshot? ,

PH: Yeah, they would go right on- that. You can kill birds, rabbits, with

it.

47 LUM 177 AB

B: If you heard somebody say,"I'm going on, I went on my wheel to the,

I went to the store on my wheel", would you know what he meant?

PH: Oh, yeah. Talking about a bicycle.

B: Right.

PH: They called them wheels, then, they didn't call them bicycles, they

called them wheels.

B: There are a lot of those old terms around. If somebody says,"I'want

you to go, I want to get some of that e ( ISS land, would

you know what he meant?

PH: Yeah, I know what you're talking about.

B: P-e-e-c-o-s-i-n-

PH: Yeah, he wants, that's a i a js t) strip of land, you

know, a big old, there's several spots of it in this country. People
Ii II
call it peecosin. And that's just a big flat land, you know, that's

not cleared, it's just

B: It's very black and rich.

PH: Yeah, it's black and wet, you know, it needs ditching or something or

another and they call it... And you know they got the old Dickinson (???)

Bay up there, that my grandaddy bought for fifty dollars. Itwas about

one-hundren and fifty, or two hundred acres, and he got it for fifty

dollars. And back in his days when he bought it, it was, of course,

there was timber on it, but it was called

B: But it was practically worthless?

PH: It was worthless then, see, but there was a lot of timber, it growed

huckleberries, stuff like that would grow on it. But now there's ,

there's some, they cleared up the edges of it. And they've gone into

the heart of it now and built houses. Once the water, right where them

houses is built now, was once water, you'd catch fish, they would go

there fishing. Now there are houses built there. And he bought it,

48 LUM 177 AB

they fished there, and hunted. They'd go hunting there. They just,

he just wanted to hunt. He got it for little or nothing. They'd go

their coon hunting and fishi .,

B: Wonder why they called i I 42 Bay?

PH: I don't know. I never did learn. Some of the old people, I imagine,

just named it that. / ','L- ..

B: Would you know how to spell

PH: No, I don't believe I'm able.

B: Will, I wouldn't know either. Do yoiemember my grand father Marcus(???)

dying?

PH: Yeah, that's where he. Old man Marcus was found dead right at the

edge of that bay.

B: Um hmm. He got lost.

PH He got lost going to some of his, he left home to go to visit his grand-

daughter and he got lost and died at the edge of that bay, and they never

( 4 A ICL I believe it was four or five days he stayed

down there, and they found him, before they ever found him.

B: And he was about, he was close to a hundred at the time, almost.

PH; Yeah, he was almost a hundred years old, and he had walked, it's three

or four miles from home. Its about three miles from where he lived to

where they found him. And it was about half a mile from where he was

born. He hadn't gaotxx quite got to where he was going when he died, where

they, when he died.

B: This used to be a grown up place, very thick, you could walk for, I've

told people this, and I want you to tell me if I'm correct, beca I/,,

can be wrong, I like to verify things. I've told people that .L .'. <1

Bay once so thick you could walk, you could walk for a hundred yards or

more than that..

PH: And never touch the ground.

49 LUM 177 AB

B: And never touch the ground.

PH: I've seen __ve seen in there that would

be as big as the end of your finger, and you could get above this

limb and just keep going and never hit the ground. Pick you a foottub

full in a few minutes. 'Ce5 4

B: I've always been fascinated by the idea of [(-( jt' 'ay because

that was a big, deep, dark, mysterious, frightening place to me as a

child, because there were a number of square miles of that. It was

a huge thing and it was easy to get lost in it. There were all kinds

of snakes and wild animals and stuff in there we thought Then, I

guess my grandfather being lost in there and dying, that all added to

it--to my fearfulness of it and so on. But it's a different story today,

isn't it.

PH: Yeah. They're building on it.

END SIDE TWO

END TAPE A

50 LUM 177 AB

BEGIN TAPE B

B: This is tape 2, Side 1 of the interview with Mrs. Peggy Hunt, and

Mr. Peter Hunt. Mr. Hunt, would you come over here and talk to me

just a little bit longer, please? We got started talking about

Lumbee Indian folklore and all that sort of thing, and this has

always fascinated me. We were talking just now about 6$ 1-k

B~y and as I said, I don't know how to spell it's spelled ---

B-e-c-k-e-s-u-s- Beckesus's Bay. I never heard anybody else that

knew how to spell it, so I didn't have any reference, and I'm sort

of having to make up my own spelling. Have you ever seen the name

of that bay written down anywhere?

PH: No, I never have.

B: But it's very rich. I understand that Mr. Will Locklear, now, owns

a portion of that, and that he has cleared some of it up. Is this

true?

PH: Yeah, that's right. They got about thirty acres cleared right in the

heart of it, almost in the heart of it.

B: Boy, I'll bet you this is rich soil, isn't it?

PH: Oh, yeah. It grows some of the nicest corn 4 growed 4I

there you'd ever want to look at.

B: That's fantastic to think that it was in that shape just when I was

a boy.

PH: Yeah.

B: But there's been a lot of ditching in this county, draining.

PH: Nteah, they, in other words, they couldn't build no houses there IiY 7c

('.'---'i'} O and dug a ditch out of the old mill branch : .

^a'K ; 3 They had to drain it before they could build there

51 LUM 177 AB

They had to drain it--ditch it. And they ditched it into the old mill,

what they called the ld ill banch. t ) -- the water runs

into the Lumbee River.

B: It wasn't good for anything but a refuge for wildlife until they ditched

and drained it.

PH: Until they IA 4 CV '''' in there.

B: Wasn't there a terrible forest fire that got in there and burned

everything out one time? "

PH: Yeah, c LJC f i forty-five or fifty years ago,

they had a forest ,,,r They set it afire one, in the summer

time. They liked to never got that--that fire liked to burn up every-

thing in this country. I mean it burned all the way, about everybody

around there had to move out from around there. It was burned in the

summertime. It was green. And they said, and somebody went by and

s t ; i' -': ".' And it burned for, it burned for months. It

burned holes in the ground you eight by ten feet feet deep.

B: I see.

PH: And that's you know, and before that fiee got in there

nobody wouldn't even go in there. It had got so many snakes and stuff

in there that people awe scared to go in there.

B: Do you think there were alligators in there?

PH: I don't know. Might could have been anything in there then. It was

covered practically with water. It burned everything up but the water.

B: I heard it said sometime ago, that Robe&Vson County was the only area

that still had alligators in North Carolina. In North Carolina, or in

RobetBson County last year, or year before last, some boys found an

alligator at a tobacco barn, and they captured that alligator and threw

it back in the swamp. This was in the paper. I guess there might be some

52 LUM 177 AB

truth in that, but if there's anywhere where there would be alligators,

it would be in Beckesus's Bay, wouldn't it.

PH: Yeah.

B: How about cooters? You know what a cooter is?

PH: Oh, yeah. It's a big old thing, wide thing, we used to eat them.

The old people ate them.

B: Yeah, they were good to eat. And they said they had nine kinds of meat

in them.

PH I don't know what kind of meat it is, ibut there's been a many a one

of them eaten.

B: I guess some people call them terrapins.

PH: There's a difference between a terrapin and a cooter. A terrapin's a
ft It p P 1
speckled thing that crawls the same as a cooter, and a cooter's a big

old it's kind of yellow. X Its feet's kind of yellow with a big

hard shell, and a terrapin is white with speckled--his shell's speckled

and cooter's is brown. He's got a big old brown shell is a cooter.

B: Is what we call a cooter what other people call a mud turtle?

PH: Yeah, I guess it is.

B: They sure are good to eat, aren't they?

PH: Yeah.

B: About how broad is the biggest one you ever saw?

PH: Oh, about as big as a washpan.

B: Mr. Hunt, I guess I'm imposing on your hospitality and generosity and

all that, but this certainly has been an interesting interview with you

and your daughter-in-law. But I haven't asked you anything about

integration. I understand that we don't have very much of it at Prospect

School. How do people feel about segregation and integration and this

sort of thing?

53 LUM 177 AB

PH: Well, they

B: In this community?

PH: i/JQ9 Now they seem to like they, it's all about over with. 1

colored and white, they got in the school out there. It seems they've

won now, they seem to be..

B: We don't have very many there.

PH: No, there's not but about five. Just a few. It's what you call a

handful of them, that is white and colored in that school. And things

seem to be going gust as well now as if they was all as one. They get

along They never have no, they have no, so far

they haven't had any trouble whatever between the races.

B: Not since 1970?

PH: Not since '70, when they had the first segregated school was segregated

in '70. They had to show off a little. It didn't amount to nothing but

it's all over with now

B: Do you think people have accepted it?

PH: Yeah, I think so. Some of them may be a little .

B: You know there were some five hundred families keeping their children

out of school one time. Vo you think they're all back in school now?

PH: Yeah, I think there's one man in the county, in Robefson County, that

is still holding his children out. His children haven't been to school

in five years and he won't let them go to Maxton and he won't let them

go to nowhere. ->.i.- . R out of the Prospect district he's

in the Maxton district and he won't let his children go to school. I

think he's about the only dummy we got now, left.

B: Well, he'll probably come across sooner or later.

PH: Yeah, they've found out now there's nothing they can do about it, and so

I think they'll all finally get around and come to be civilized and find

out they're really just people. And they are going to find it out that

54 LUM 177 AB

everybody's just human beings and, you know, I've never been, I've

never thought myxti of itmyself as any other way but human is human. d; Ei'

The Lord said that, lOi' that we'd be as one. Said all

be one, all be alike. And so it looks to me like that's coming to

pass and it's already come to pass and there's nothing nobody can do

about it, only just forget about it.

B: Well, I know you're getting tired, and as I said I've imposed on you.

So I appreciate so much of this interview and I would like to thank

both you and your daughter-in-law for this interview. We did something

different on this tape. We tried to combine two interviews at one

time and I believe it worked out real well this way. Although it was

extemporaneous, all these tapes are, we haven't made up anything in

advance. I certainly appreciate it again and I want tosay thank you

very much from the bottom of my heart for you've been very hospitable

you and your wife and daughter-in-law. Thank you very much, sir.

Bye-bye, now.

END OF INTERVIEW WITH MR. PETER HUNT

& MRS. PEGGY HUNT

55

TAPE B--SIDE ONE CONTINUED LUM 177 AB

B: Life can have beauty, the beauty of heart.

Or be hell on earth, as you live.

So make your life beautiful--just give your heart,

'Till you have no more heart you can give.

Lou Barton, page 27, "Way Out In Carolina"

....and drama, we have what is called

Comic relief...

I like to sprinkle my material with few humouous songs, just for

comic relief. Of course, sometimes they have a deeper, underlying

meaning. But this is not always so. On page 27, of "Way Out In

Carolina", I have a poem called, "This Is Going To Bring Some Sadness

on This Home", and the persona of this poem, of course, is a brother.

And, of course, the attitude here is the attitude you might find in

any rural community. But perhaps, the watchful the attitude of the

brother over the sister is a little more pronounced the Lumbee

River Valley, I don't really know. But I thought this was very

amusing, as I observed on occasion.

Sis is going to bring some sadness on this home.
Sissy wiggles when she walks. Sissy giggles when she talks.

Sis is bound to bring some sadnes s on this home.

Sissy likes to wink at men.

Sissy makes them think of sin.

Sis is going to bring some sadness on this home.

Ma, if you would tan her hide.

She might make some man a bride.

56 LUM 177 AB

She can make a preacher lay his bible down.

But she wiggles when she walks.

And she giggles when she talks.

So she's bound to bring some sadness on this home.

That was written in 1945. The following poem is a kind of parody.

Written on the form that the sum of life was written. A parody is

usually a funny poem imitating another poem. But this one is not

supposed to be funny. It's supposed tobe quite serious and when I

wrote it, I have the Christian philosophy of one particular minister

in mind. That minister was the late Rev. I/ flUS Brooks, who's
Plymouth
group is simply called ,"The ITMrKM Bretheren", and originated in

Plymouth, England. They don't really have an official name. They

simply refer to each other as'"brother", and feel that this is all

the name you need. But, of course, the meeting places are usually

identified in such ways as the gospel hall, the gospel chapel, the

word gospel is usually identified, is usually the identifying word.

I believe this particular subject, was begun by the late J.M. Darby,

who wrote a special translation of the Bible. Anyway, here is the

Psalm of Death, which I think reflects the Christian philosophy and

outlook of the Rax late Rev. V1 5 Brooks, who was one of the

happiest Christians I have even known, despite the fact that he always

had a very seriously heart ailment, had undergone heart surgery and all

this. He worked very diligently, almost up to the moment he died. He

was always giving of himself and everybody in the community, Christian

community in Robertson county, knew him and loved him. And he had

preached in some eight states.

57 LUM 177 AB

Oh, sing me not, your slow, sad dirges

When I lay me down and die.

That's the time the soul emerges

For its flight into the sky.

Drape this frame in no drab curtain

Dress my corpse in something gay.

Shed no tears-my joy is certain

Just say, "He went home today"

Wear no black, I want no crying

Shout and sing and praise the Lord.

Where all they preach, I will be flying

Hearing Heaven's raptuous chord.

Where, oh grave, is thy rejoicing?

Tell me Death, where is thy sting?

Christ has died and victory voicing (???) risen,

Rap your hands and sing.

Turn out. Give me one grand sendoff.

Laugh until the rafters quake.

Though Death shut this mortal window

Though I sleep, I shall awake.

This poem was written in 1954. Heree is an original poem of mine which was

published for the first time, last year from Professor Ackley's magazine.

Professor Ackley was then at Pembrooke State University. This poem is

called, "The Great Spirit In Creation"

And then He spoke--His voice like thunder.

Rippling through the night.

58 LUM 177 AB

As out of space, was ripped asunder.
Now let there be light

Suns and moons and stars went spinning ixmaxM

From His mighty hand

Light was born and day beginning

Heeded His command,

Far flung worlds, and 1S5 i

He flung, in the sky.

There to whirl and shine from nothing

Save His word on high.

Now let there be--He spoke being

Into things to be

First the night, and then seeing

Gave He you and me.

Let there be, and Adams broken

Orderly became

For that "Let there be" was spoken

In His own great name.

Thus His word is packed with power

Nothing could resist

By that same Almighty power

Everything exists

Lou Barton, 1973

Of the following unpublished poem, shows I think, of the Indian

philosophy of relaxing and not getting into the ratrace the way

most people do. Indians are very relaxed people, who live closely

to nature.

59 LUM 177 AB

Slow down! Slow down! Now what's the rush?

Where is the fire, mister?

Go find that sofa, soft and plush.

Don't be an iron fister.

You think the world will pass you by

If you but pause a minute.

You twist your hand--you cringe and cry

Because you failed to win it.

Well have you ever stopped to think'

This statement over, neighbor.

The Good God took the time to sink

In rest from all His labor.

He labored, yes, six busy days

But stopped for number seven.

It seems we all might _i__P his ways

And bring ourselves some Heaven.

When ulcers come or efforts bend

Your gray head toward the graveyard.

Where will you find the joy to spend

Your fruits of labor--death scarred.

I have been in many discussions between white people and Indians and

I have heard Indians discuss the casual Indian philosophy. And I have

heard Indians discuss the casual, I mean the horrid, hurried pressure

Caucasion philosophy of living and working hard and doing things. One

Indian said to me, not too long ago: "That's one thing I can't under-

stand about white people. There always changing things. You can go

60 LUM 177 AB

into their homes and one day the furniture's arranged one way and

it seems to me that it's perfectly arranged. But when you go back

tomorrow, it's rearranged. They have to always be changing things."

I don't think that's a real criticism. It's simply an observation

between how two races.. And I happen to know that the people who

were making these remarks on both sides were certainly not prejudiced.

And of course, the IndianA casual attitude of life is sometimes

mistaken for laziness. But this is not the case at all

Another unpublished poem which I wrote some years ago, called

"Huckleberry Bushes". Huckleberries used to be very important in

this part of the state. They provided a means of livelihood during

a certain season of the year for the Indians; particularly the big

blue huckleberry which is always much in demand. They grow wild,

of course, and today, they've all but passed away. There are some

sections of the state where you can still go huckleberry picking.

Rxx HUCKLEBERRY BUSHES

MMkRkxg

Blue huckleberry bushes grow

Along the Lumbee shore.

In such profusion one might know

Here famine comes no more.

The trout stream murmurs sweet content

While sparrows fly at ease.

And butterflies just flutter sighs

Of peach among the trees.

Staccato buckets break the spell

As children pounce with quines (I'll mark that word for a footnote-
q-u-i-n-e-s)

61 LUM 177 AB

On fresh new treasures, hidden well

By brambles, briars, vines.

Someone hums, and there is laughter.

Strong white teeth turn blue.

As bucketsfull--those who come after

Fill containers new.

Huckleberry harvest chatter

Talk of fresh pies on the platter (That footnote)

Sticks sometimes carried by the Lumbee

To ward off dogs, and snakes and the like.

The word is quines, q-u-i-n-e-s. I don't know the origin of this word.

Another unpublished poem, which I think is Indian related.

I saw a rainbow in the sky

And S I1* long reflected.

On how those colors blessed the eye

Ih wavs quite unexpected.

Morecolors greet and bless the sight

Than just the color black and white.

The purple, gray. The yellow, green

Are made of colors in between.

I saw a rainbow symphony

All made of colors--seven.

And .Oh, that blessed symphony

Reminded me of Heaven.

62 LUM 177 AB

From the front pages of my book,"the Most Ironic Story in American

History", comes this poem. A second poem of mine called "The

American Indian".

THE AMERICAN INDIAN

I am an Americanll am no saint.

I am an American--copper and quaint.

I am an American--I wrote my name

In blood on American mountains of fame.

Yet I lost America, lost all I had.

And so some Americans labeled me"bad" (Bad is in quotations)

I fought for America, even as you

I embraced American principles, too.

I am as American, truly I am

As hot dogs with mustard or sugar cured ham.

The AmericanAis pure "Americano", and he knows this. He is not Indian.

He is not Indian--he is American.

Here is another unpublished poem called, "When Hoot Owls Hoot Way Up

the Hill."

A Hoot Owl hooted up the hill

Except for that, the world was still.

As by the long deserted mill

The troubled threesome stood.

"Alright" said John, "let's have it out."

Now O0q -)lowly turned about.

And S' 3k / voiced her fear and doubt.

"Dear God. You two be good."

63 LUM 177 AB

But suddenly, now I /J nelt

And pulled his pistol from his belt.

A frozen shudder slO__ felt

Go chasing up her spine.

"Will you be mine, or his?" he cried.

"Don't ask me that. I can't decide."

She hoped he could not tell she'd lied.

0 Holy God, Divine.

He twirled the cylinder around

Five cartridges fell to the ground.

"This way an answer will be found!"

He said. "Now who'll be first?"

The Hoot owl hooted up the hill

Except for that the world was still.

As ,n nVa wrestled with her will

And mutely, (f 'Jl used.

"We'll settle this for good", he said.

"The man who loses will be dead."

"The one who's left-him you will wed."

They heard the plan unfold.

"Come on now. Where's your guts?" he sneered.

He looked at __l_'__ then, and leered.

"I think your boyfriend's disappeared."

His mocking words were bold.

"Be done", she wept, "I'll be your bride."

As if by that, she could provide

Escape for him who bound by pride

Was parted to the plan.

64 LUM 177 AB

The loser watched them walk away

"Give me the gun." He heard her say.

He bowed his head, as if to pray.

And then the two were gone.

But down the trail he heard her shout,

He jerked erect--he turned about.

And then three shots he heard ring out.

Except for this, no more.

At nightfall, when the world is still

And Hoot owls hoot way up the hill,

In memory, he hears her still.

"Just set, set Johnny free."

Lou Barton 1970

Poor Johnny seems to hear her still

say,"Set, set Johnny free".

END SIDE 1

END TAPE B

END TRANSCRIPTION

MILLISECOND	CLASS.METHOD	MESSAGE
0	sobekcm_page_globals.constructor
0	sobekcm_page_globals.constructor	Application State validated or built
0	sobekcm_database.verify_item_lookup_object
0	sobekcm_page_globals.constructor	Navigation Object created from URI query string
0	sobekcm_database.verify_item_lookup_object
0	sobekcm_page_globals.display_item	Retrieving item or group information
0	sobekcm_page_globals.get_entire_collection_hierarchy	Retrieving hierarchy information
0	sobekcm_assistant.get_entire_collection_hierarchy
0	cached_data_manager.retrieve_item_aggregation
0	cached_data_manager.retrieve_item_aggregation	Found item aggregation on local cache
0	item_aggregation_builder.get_item_aggregation	Found 'all' item aggregation in cache
0	system.web.ui.page.page_load (ufdc.page_load)
0	sobekcm_page_globals.constructor.on_page_load
0	html_echo_mainwriter.add_style_references	Adding style references to HTML
0	html_echo_mainwriter.add_text_to_page	Reading the text from the file and echoing back to the output stream
44	html_echo_mainwriter.add_text_to_page	Finished reading and writing the file