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Those Who Remain

A Photographer's Memoir of South Carolina Indians

The University of Alabama Press

The Catawbas

It is September of 1984 in the Piedmont of South Carolina near the Catawba River just after the river has crossed the North Carolina border. Primed with the names of a few Catawba potters—but no phone numbers—I find myself in a tiny town with the name of Catawba.

I am possessed with the idea that in order to begin to understand the Catawba identity I should start with the people who make the pottery for which the Catawbas are well known. The Catawbas have for centuries been working with their hands to fashion a wide variety of pottery forms much in the same manner as did their precontact relatives. Having lost their language, their native religion—at least in considerable measure—and their original means of subsistence, pottery making remains. Surely this would be a sturdy link from the present to the past, I am convinced.

But the town of Catawba is not where the reservation is located, I discover. This town, perhaps ten miles from the Catawba River, lies along the Norfolk South Railroad amongst pine trees and a spreading suburbanization from Rock Hill—a city of some forty-five thousand people, ten miles to the north. Here in this town I find a convenience store with a pay phone and a telephone book. Connecting the names on my list with phone numbers, I make some unsuccessful calls to three potters: busy line, no answer, negative response. Then I try the number of a potter named Nola Campbell.

"Why sure, honey!" Nola says, "You just come right over and we can have a talk. What was your name again? Cradford ... Creedyford ... Crediford? Never heard of that name before ... just come over."

She gives me directions to the reservation located six or seven miles east from the town of Catawba. And sure enough I find Reservation Road and then her home, a white wood-frame house, which I find out later is just off the reservation proper. There is a large yard and in the back I see what looks like a semicovered barbeque pit.

I introduce myself to Nola and she in turn introduces me to her husband—a white man—who shortly disappears. Nola tells me that her first husband was a Catawba. She is a cheerful, outgoing person with obvious self-confidence. It is also obvious that she is used to meeting and engaging with people.

Q: Thank you for inviting me into your home. Could we talk awhile and then I would like to take your picture ... perhaps while [you are] working on your pottery?

Nola: Oh shoot, who would want a picture of me! It would break the camera [laughs].

Q: Well, I guess I'll take that chance [both laugh]. For the record, could you tell me when you were born?

Nola: Oh ... I sure hate to talk about things like that but I guess, for you [with a grin] I will; it was in 1918. Now don't try to figure out how many years that makes me, okay!

Q: Could you tell me your first husband's last name?

Nola: Harris ... so my name is Nola Harris Campbell ... actually it is Nola Harris Harris Campbell because my maiden name is Harris.

Q: How did you get started in pottery?

Nola: Well, I grew up with pottery making. My mother made pottery and I used to watch her.

Q: What was your mother's name?

Nola: Maggie Harris. And I watched others make pottery ... and then I began to work with Georgia Harris ... do you know Georgia? Wonderful potter ... wonderful person!

Q: I know the name, vaguely. Does she live nearby?

Nola: Oh no, dearie, she lives over near Dave Lyle.

Q: Dave Lyle?

Nola: Dave Lyle Boulevard ... over near Rock Hill ... about eight miles away from here ... you don't know much ... about things around here, do you! Well, Georgia sure taught me a lot ... she isn't that much older than me ... but she learned early. She was a way head of me ... at first she taught me to make little things ... then later I made bigger ... pots. I learned the way ... the right way to do things from her. Now when I teach I go by the way she taught me.

Q: So she had a big influence on you?

Nola: Well sure ... and she did other things for me. When I was still making little things she would take them along when she went out to sell her pots. And she was able to sell some of mine ... and we would take some of that money and buy cloth and she would make dresses for me and show me how ... Georgia is the best.

Q: Someone told me that you've gone different places to demonstrate pottery making ... at museums and places like that?

Nola: Oh sure, I've done lots of that ... you see it is good for us potters ... and the tribe ... to go off and show how pots are made ... why did you ask?

Q: Well, I wonder if I could get you to make a pot for the camera?

Nola: You mean to take pictures of me making a pot from start to finish? You've got to understand that you can't make a pot in one day, don't you [seemingly amazed at my ignorance]!

Q: Well, I guess I understand that. Just go as far as you can. Okay?

With this plea, Nola Campbell—an award-winning master potter who has produced the full range of traditional Catawba pottery for most of her long life and is known for her large vessels and grand demonstration style—agrees to my request. She gets up and goes to her kitchen and then points to a table in a dining area. I begin to set up my equipment. The light is coming in the windows and it is good light. She has two lumps of damp-looking clay in her hands. The lumps are separately wrapped in damp cloth, which she removes. The two pieces of clay look somewhat different from each other.

Nola explains, "See ... we use two different kinds of clay ... this one is called pipe clay 'cause it is only good for small things like pipes. But when you mix it with other clay ... this is pan clay ... then the two together are really good for pots ... even big pots."

As she talks she begins to knead the two together. I am taking photographs. The camera is on a tripod because I must use a slow shutter speed. Even though the window light quality is good—it has a soft, enveloping feel—it is low in strength. Nola is really working hard now and not always stopping for the camera to record what is happening. I know some frames will be blurred.

Her hands, her hands of 65 years, are large and strong and quite beautiful in their texture, in their dexterity. Suddenly an intense feeling comes over me: I feel honored to be able to witness what is taking place before me, through the prism of the camera and through the prism of time. She is forming the pot in a way Native American potters have always formed their pots. It is a great moment to be alive.

Nola continues to explain:

See ... after I've worked the two pieces of clay into one I take some and flatten it into a round base ... like this. Then I take most of the rest and roll it out on this board into a long rope ... you see ... now I take the rope and begin to coil it ... starting on this round part ... and just build up the coil, to make the pot ... so that everything is equal ... now ... you can still see the coils, right? So now I get my favorite corn cob and begin to rub the cob along the outside of the coils ... like this ... What this does is smooth out the clay and the coils disappear ... Now if I were to finish the pot I would let it dry some ... maybe put a damp cloth over it and let it sit for awhile.

Then I would want to begin the real smoothing ... I use stones, spoons, even my deer antler, knives. It takes days and days to get the pot right. Even before I would fire it I would make sure it is really dry ... I put it in my kitchen oven to begin to get it dry ... Someday I'll show you how I set up a fire outside in that pit out there ... would you like that?

Without waiting for an answer, Nola then asks me if I am finished with taking pictures. When I nod yes, she brings up her fist—there is a pause—and she suddenly brings down her fist, smashing the damp pot into a formless lump of sodden clay. There is a big smile on her face. I am so frozen by this unexpected event that I neglect to get a photograph of the new pile of shapeless matter. Then I realize the reason for her action—this pot was made for demonstration only.

So this was my first encounter with Nola. We kept in contact over the years and I was able to take more photographs: once with her using her various tools to scrape and smooth her pottery. On another occasion she showed me her firing technique and she also introduced me to Earl Robbins and his wife Viola, who is also Nola's sister, and to Nola's daughter Della Campbell Oxendine, who is an excellent potter and, of course, a student of Nola.

Besides teaching her family and relatives, Nola taught advanced courses in pottery making since the 1970s to other tribe members who have, of course, benefited from her reputation as an accomplished potter. Nola died in 2001. But before she did we exchanged letters and after her death I received a letter from one of her daughters, Rita Bogan: "I'm sorry to write and let you know that my mother has passed away last Dec. 17, 2001 ... She was 83. She was born here on the Res. She was a master potter. She was the best. In my eyes she still is. Coming soon will be one year. Oh, Mother had 10 children, seven are still living."

So ends my story of Nola Harris Campbell. She has a special place in my memories of the Catawbas. She was the first to open her door and her spirit to me. For me she was the Great Earth Mother personified. In her work as a potter, teacher, and public demonstrator of the southeastern Indian pottery tradition of which she was very proud, she contributed to the survival of the Catawba Indian identity.

However, Nola was not alone in the post–World War II era as a representative of the Catawba pottery tradition. There were Georgia Harris, Sara Harris Ayers, Mildred Blue, Catherine Canty, and Arzada Sanders—all now deceased. And also Helen Beck, Evelyn George, Florence Wade, and Earl Robbins—to name a few of this productive generation—have passed on the tradition through their pottery making and teaching. Some of their portraits are contained in this book.

Catawba pottery making, and pottery making in southeastern North America in general, can be traced back many centuries. Yet all sources appear to agree that the actual techniques of constructing various ceramic objects have been very similar from precontact times to the present, Nola Campbell's techniques being representative.

Precontact ceramics fulfilled numerous functions, including the spiritual and the practical. Although today pipes and bowls are still very much used by American Indians for ceremonial—that is, spiritual—functions, a very important function served by Catawba pottery is as a source of much-needed income.

Further, Catawba pottery is an important element in maintaining Indian traditions and identity. Equally important to this Indian identity has been the continuous tribal ownership of land and a recorded family genealogy that is most often connected to the land. Also of great importance to an enduring Catawba identity has been religion, especially in the past 125 years.

On Reservation Road near Nola Campbell's home there is a crossroads. A left turn at this junction would lead you to the reservation proper. However, in 1984, I continued straight and came to a construction site on the right. This was the foundation for a new Mormon church, completed a year later.

But how did the Catawba Indians, some two thousand miles from Utah, come to be members of the Mormon Church? Records indicate that in the 1880s the once-mighty Catawba Nation had been reduced by invasion, disease, war, and alcoholism to about fifty-five to sixty members living on a small reservation of five square miles.

These remnants had, however, adapted to post–Civil War white society. Most spoke English, conformed to conventional Western religion, and accepted the white/black division of society. Yet they were regarded by white society as "people of color" and as such were treated as second-class people, as people who were not even citizens in their own land.

In addition to alcoholism, prostitution was common. Crimes of all kinds against or between Indians were largely ignored by the white justice system. The Catawba tribe was on the cusp of complete disintegration.

Then in 1883 two missionaries of the Mormon Church successfully baptized five Catawba converts. However, local non-Indians reacted to the Mormon success and a vigilante committee horsewhipped the Mormon elders, who managed to escape. Yet other elders returned, some of whom were tarred and feathered, and finally their church became established.

What, then, was the strength of the Mormon teachings for some American Indians? First of all, Catawbas spoke English, making conversation much easier. By comparison, during that era, Mormon missionaries were not successful in converting Cherokees who still spoke their native language. Also, the Mormon belief that Native Americans were one of the lost tribes of Israel had great potency. After all, Native Americans had witnessed firsthand their own diaspora.

Mormonism offered new hope to the disintegrating Catawba tribe if its principles of behavior were adopted. Some of these principles of behavior were to work hard, abstain from stimulants such as coffee and tea, abstain from smoking and swearing, and abstain from alcohol and prostitution. Over the years there was conflict between Catawba converts to Mormonism and Catawba nonconverts, some of whom were involved in the alcohol and prostitution trades.

There is a further reason that Mormon teachings took hold. These teachings were centered upon a male-dominated hierarchy that gave to Catawba men a role most had lost. Even as early as the 1780s women were more productive than men. Women made pottery, baskets, and mats for sale and raised gardens and crops in addition to filling the roles of bearing and rearing children.

Further, Mormon teachings did not discourage intermarriage between Indians and whites. Given that era, when all traditional rules of tribal endogamy were useless (a situation that continues even up to the present), this openness to intermarriage helped prevent excessive inbreeding.

So, returning to 1984, across the road from the Mormon church construction site and on a slight rise is a red brick house surrounded by large oak trees. This is the home of Samuel and Helen Beck. A month has passed since my initial interview with Nola Campbell. I have returned to the reservation area to talk this day with the Becks. Samuel has agreed, in a phone call, to an interview and to take me onto the reservation to meet people. In exchange I am to photograph the new church in its various stages of construction.

Q: Could you tell me of your interest in the church and its construction?

Samuel: Well, it's because I am a Mormon and an elder in the church ... and I've taken on the job of being a kind of overseer of the construction ... I don't mean that I actually help with the work ... but I know something about things like that. I'm an electrician.

Q: Could you tell me more of your background?

Samuel: I was born on the reservation ... the house is still there ... I'll take you there, but not today. Oh, yes, I'm also the secretary/treasurer of the tribe.

Q: Did you go to an Indian school?

Samuel: Oh sure ... of course ... that's the white building across the road ... it was the Catawba grade school. Only six grades ... then I went to school at Leslie ... It's a small town about three miles away.

Q: How did you get there?

Samuel: Well, the buses wouldn't come onto the reservation so we had to get there the best way we could ... sometimes we would ride with parents who worked that way ... or walk.

Q: I guess this was in the segregation era ... at Leslie was it a school for whites or blacks?

Samuel: Oh, it was for white kids. [pause] We wouldn't go to school with blacks. You know some of us Catawbas had "white" marked on our birth certificates.

Q: But did you face discrimination at the Leslie school?

Samuel: Oh, it wasn't much bad ... then I went into the Army and after that I took up a trade ... like I told you.

Q: I guess I am confused. You told me that the buses wouldn't come on the reservation, but then [I hear] that the school is to be moved onto the reservation. Could you clear this up for me?

Samuel: When the school was a school and when I went there it was on the reservation ... but you see some time ago the tribe voted to go along with a settlement we made with the government that was, let's see ... in 1959 ... but the final date wasn't 'til three years later. You see, the land this house is on was once part of the reservation ... just like the school and the land it is on ... like a lot of people's land near here ... The tribe went along with the government so that some families could have land of their own ... Each family member could get five acres or $250. Some people built their own house like we did ... Others, well, they just wasted their money or sold their land [with disgust in his voice for those who had squandered their birthright]. So that is what made the reservation smaller.

Q: Thanks for clearing that up. About how many people now live on the reservation itself?

Samuel: Well ... I don't exactly know ... people come and go. I think there are about forty trailers and houses ... Look, let's go over to where the church is going up.

Which is what we do that day and three more times over a period of a year. Two months after our initial conversation, related above, I return to Samuel and Helen's house. The church has grown quickly to have exterior walls that are now supporting the wooden ribs of the high roof.

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Excerpted from Those Who Remain by Gene J. Crediford. Copyright © 2009 The University of Alabama Press. Excerpted by permission of The University of Alabama Press.
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