W&M News: Chickahominy Tribe connects to roots in Virginia

Tuesday, August 21, 2012  

"The tribal name, Chickahominy, translates to “coarse-ground corn people,” and indeed their language contributed the word “hominy” to English.

Recent high-tech examination of Chickahominy artifacts extracted decades ago by the late William & Mary archaeologist Norm Barka not only shows that the name is perfectly apt, but also suggests that corn may have been a major reason for the tribe’s curious autonomy in a region that was otherwise under the absolute control of Wahunsunacock, better known today as Powhatan, the father of Pocahontas.

“What history doesn’t tell us—and in this case it doesn’t tell us much—we have to get out of the ground,” says Martin Gallivan, a professor in the Department of Anthropology.

Sharon Long, a biological anthropologist at the University of Wyoming, worked with two crania to craft these forensic facial reconstructionsA collaboration among researchers and the Chickahominy has made good use of the ancient relics Barka brought out of the ground from 1968 to 1972 . Modern science applied to the relics has revealed intriguing details of the lifestyle of the tribe before the Colonial era and also has given the Chickahominy an idea of what their ancestors looked like through the creation of a pair of CSI-style facial reconstructions."

Get the Story:
The Chickahominy look back (William & Mary News 8/2)