Coastal Carolina Indian Center

Blair A. Rudes Indigenous Language Collection

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The First Description of an Iroquoian People: Spaniards Among the Tuscaroras before 1522

by Dr. Blair A. Rudes. ABSTRACT: It is widely accepted that the first documented encounter between Europeans and the Iroquois occurred in 1534 when the French explorer Jacques Cartier encountered the Laurentians. The Iroqouis, however, say that they had met Spaniards before the French arrived. A re-examination of a document pertaining to early Spanish explorations of North America in the context of the history of the League of the Iroquois shows that both the Western and Native views of history are correct. [Read more…] about The First Description of an Iroquoian People: Spaniards Among the Tuscaroras before 1522

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Giving Voice to Powhatan – Dr. Blair Rudes

2005, The New World film stillThis paper was shared with us by Dr. Rudes in 2006 as part of an ongoing dialogue we had with him about his work with the Algonquian language on the film The New World. In the paper, he explains the process he underwent to reconstruct the language of the Powhatan’s people (which is also virtually identical to the Algonquian language spoken by the Indians of coastal North Carolina) for the film. [Read more…] about Giving Voice to Powhatan – Dr. Blair Rudes

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Chief Elton Greene’s Tuscarora Dictionary

Although not produced by Dr. Rudes, this word list was the first publicly available Tuscarora language dictionary available until Dr. Rudes completed his thorough and accurate Tuscarora-English/English-Tuscarora dictionary. This particular dictionary was published by the late F. Roy Johnson. The Tuscarora translations of English words are not exactly correct in their phonetic pronunciations, but considering F. Roy Johnson was a historian and author, and not an indigenous languages expert, his commitment to documenting what he could about the Tuscarora is to be greatly admired. Coastal Carolina Indian Center was given permission by Mr. Johnson’s widow, Margaret Johnson, to reprint this dictionary on our website. [Read more…] about Chief Elton Greene’s Tuscarora Dictionary