CATAWBA

North American Indian tribe of Siouan language stock who inhabited the territory around the Catawba River in the Carolinas. Their principal village was on the west side of the river in what is now York county, S.C. They were known among white traders as flatheads because, like a number of other tribes of the Southeast, they practiced ritual deformation of the head on male infants. Catawba villages consisted of bark-covered cabins and a temple for public gatherings and religious ceremonies. Each village was governed by a council presided over by a chief. They subsisted principally by farming, harvesting two or more crops of corn (maize) in the same year and growing several varieties of beans, squash, and gourds in one field. In some Southeast tribes the farming was done by the women, but among the Catawba it was the men who farmed. A plentiful supply of passenger pigeons served as winter food. The Catawba made bowls, baskets, and mats, which they traded to other tribes and to white colonists for meat and skins. Fish was also a staple of their diet; they caught sturgeon and herring using weirs, snares, and long poles. In the 17th century the Catawba numbered about 5,000. After contact with European settlers they became virtual satellites of the various colonial factions. Their numbers fell off rapidly (in 1738 half the tribe was wiped out in a smallpox epidemic) so that by 1780 there were only about 500 Catawba left. They were allies of the English in the Tuscarora War (171113) and in the French and Indian War (175463), and they aided the colonists in the American Revolution. In the late 20th century about 1,200 descendants of the Catawba were living around Rock Hill in South Carolina. The last known speaker of the Catawba language, Red Thunder Cloud, a singer and storyteller, died in January 1996.