MYTHOLOGIES OF THE HALIWA-SAPONI TRIBE

Mecoure’me:chen Kihoe: “You Are Welcome Here”

“The American Indian is of the soil, whether it be the region of forests, plains, pueblos, or mesas. He fits into the landscape, for the hand that fashioned the continent also fashioned the man for his surroundings. He once grew as naturally as the wild sunflowers; he belongs just as the buffalo belonged.”

The Haliwa-Saponi Indian Tribe, also the Haliwa-Saponi Tribe, is a state-recognized tribe and nonprofit organization in North Carolina. They are not a federally recognized as a Native American tribe. They are headquartered in Hollister, North Carolina. Formerly named the Haliwarnash Indian Club, they adopted their current form of government in 1953 and were recognized in 1965 by the state of North Carolina. The tribe has created schools and other institutions to preserve its culture and identity. The name Haliwa is a portmanteau from the two counties: Halifax and Warren. In 1979 the tribe added Saponi to their name to reflect their descent from the historical Saponi peoples, part of the large Siouan languages family, who were formerly located in the Piedmont of present-day Virginia and the Carolinas.

Haliwa-Saponi Indian Tribe
P.O. Box 99
Hollister, NC 27844

Phone: +1-252-586-4017
Fax: +1-252-586-3918

Email: crrichardson@haliwa-saponi.com

The Haliwa-Saponi are Native American Peoples of the North East Piedmont region of the State of North Carolina. The name Haliwa is derived from the two counties of Halifax and Warren, which are the ancestral homelands of the Saponi People dating back to the early 18th Century. The Tribe consists of just over 4,060 Citizens that live all over the United States and across the globe. Most of the members live in the very tight-knit communities on the border of Halifax & Warren Counties with Hollister, NC serving as the Tribal Center. Hollister, NC is located 25 miles from the area cities of Louisburg, Roanoke Rapids and Rocky Mount, NC and about 55 miles NE of Raleigh, NC. Since the late nineteenth century, the tribe has created schools and other institutions to preserve its culture and identity.

The Haliwa Indians were recognized as a tribe by the North Carolina legislature in 1965. The tribal name is a combination of Halifax and Warren Counties, where the majority of the Haliwa live. One tradition relates that the present Indian communities in this area were founded by wounded survivors of the Tuscarora War and other colonial conflicts who were unable to rejoin their original tribal groups. In addition to North Carolina coastal tribes, Accomac, Cherokee, Nansemond, Occaneechi, Saponi, Tuscarora, and Tutelo Indians are claimed as Haliwa ancestors. Since 1975, the Haliwa have referred to themselves as the Haliwa-Saponi. In the late 1940s a group of Indians in northeastern North Carolina formed the Haliwarnash Croatan Indian Club, a name simplified shortly thereafter to the Haliwa Indian Club. The change also reflected the deletion of Nash County as most of the enrollees lived in Halifax and Warren Counties. Subsequently, to bolster their claim for recognition, the tribe appended to their name the suffix Saponi, to reflect tribal ancestral ties to the Sappony tribe. The name Saponi means “red earth people,” and that phrase had been used in several contexts by the Haliwa-Saponi. Although Indians were living in this area before the American Revolution and some served as soldiers in that war, the emergence of the Haliwa with a collective Indian identity has been relatively recent. The Haliwa Indian Club was organized in the 1950s, and its membership roll became the arbiter of Indian identity. As they were for other state-recognized tribes in North Carolina, schools and churches were important in strengthening Haliwa group identity, although a separate Haliwa school was not established until 1957.

The Haliwa-Saponi is a Native American people recognized as a Tribe by the state of North Carolina. They are located in the Northeastern Piedmont area. The Haliwa-Saponi hold membership on the North Carolina Commission of Indian Affairs. The name Haliwa is derived from the two counties: Halifax and Warren, which are the ancestral homelands of the Saponi people dating from the 1730s. They re-organized and adopted their current form of government in 1953 and were recognized in 1965 by the state of North Carolina. In 1979 the Tribe added Saponi to their name to reflect their descent from the historical Saponi peoples, part of the large Siouan languages family, who were formerly located in the Piedmont of present-day Virginia and the Carolinas. Since the late nineteenth century, the Tribe has created schools and other institutions to preserve its culture and identity. Their common worship in Protestant churches, mostly Baptist and Methodist, has long acted to support community traditions. For years the people were also united through their subsistence activities and oral traditions.

The Saponi or Sappony are an eastern Siouan tribe, who have long lived in North Carolina and Virginia. Their language appears to have been the same as the Tutelo to the extent that the people of the two tribes could readily understand each other. They were engaged in war with the Virginia settlers as early as 1654-56, the time of the attack by the Cherokee, probably in alliance with them. They were first mentioned by explorer, John Lederer in 1670 who placed them on a tributary of the upper Roanoke River. At that time, they were living with the Tutelo, but later when they were harassed by the Iroquois Indians, they moved to the junction of Staunton and Dan Rivers, where they settled in what is now Mecklenburg County, Virginia.

Tutelo-Saponi is a branch of Siouan once spoken by American Indians in central and eastern North Carolina and southeastern Virginia. As a trade language, Tutelo-Saponi was spoken by many tribes in the region including the Occaneechi around what is now Hillsborough, and the Haliwa-Saponi tribe in Halifax and Warren counties. Richardson said documents show that the Haliwa-Saponi tribe has been in the area since at least the 1720s. It now has about 4,000 enrolled members, mostly living around Hollister. They’re descended from the Nansemond, Saponi and Tuscarora tribes, which came together for safety from disease and warfare after the beginning of colonization. “Of course, we know that we’ve been here for thousands of years,” he said. “A lot of our people live here, and we still own a lot of our land.”

5 Facts About The Saponi Tribe

Three groups, each recognized by the state of North Carolina, claim descent from the historical Saponi people. North Carolina recognized the Indians of Person County in 1911 as an American Indian tribe. In 2003 they formally changed their name to Sappony. They are based in Roxboro, North Carolina. The Haliwa-Saponi Indian Tribe, a group based in Halifax and Warren counties, was recognized by North Carolina in 1965. They organized in the 1940s under the name Haliwarnash Indian Club, later shortened to Haliwa Indian Club. They changed their name in 1979 to include a reference to the historic Saponi. They are headquartered in Hollister, North Carolina.

The Saponi is a Native American tribe historically based in the Piedmont of North Carolina and Virginia. They spoke a Siouan language, related to the languages of the Tutelo, Biloxi, and Ofo. They were part of the Monacan confederacies. Saponi, Tutelo, and Yesang were collectively called the Nahyssan. The Cayuga adopted the Saponi into the League of the Haudenosaunee in 1753, and some Saponi descendants are part of the Cayuga Nation. The origin and meaning of Saponi, sometimes spelled Sappony, is debated. American anthropologist John Reed Swanton wrote that Saponi was “a corruption of Monasiccapano or Monasukapanough.” He wrote the name came from moni-seep meaning “shallow water.” University of Kansas linguist Robert L. Rankin also suggested that their name derived from sa:p moni meaning “shallow water” or sa:p oni: meaning “shallow tree.”

The Sappony Indians are a small tribe of 850 people based in the High Plains of Person County, North Carolina and Halifax County, Virginia. The Sappony tribal center is near the ancestral trading path that they have used since the 1670s. See this website for a timeline of the tribe’s history or visit the Native American exhibit at the Person County Museum of History. For several decades the Sappony were key middlemen in the fur trade between the colony of Virginia and their cousin tribe the Catawba in South Carolina. The ancestors of the Sappony currently living in High Plains remained behind in their homelands while others went north to join the Iroquois in New York or south to join the Catawba. The Sappony were legislatively recognized by the state of North Carolina in 1911 and by the state of Virginia in 1913. The Sappony tribal center is in Christie, Virginia, just a stone’s throw from the North Carolina line. Many tribal events are also hosted in Person County, NC at Calvary Baptist Church. Nearby is Lake Mayo, where there is also now a park and heritage summer camp for Sappony youth.