Cultural Hegemony, Identity, and the Story of the Catawba Nation

Abstract

The Catawba Indians, in order to maintain their own identity as an "other" culture, utilized a course of acceptance and collaboration with the Euro-American majority that came to surround them, while ultimately developing a dynamic use of "storytelling"--to establish their own "Living Culture," and to successfully cope with the challenges they faced versus the status quo of the dominant culture. After, necessarily, having to adapt to the realities of the new society, and setting a course for survival as a sub-culture within that society, the Catawbas have utilized these storytelling techniques to engage in such diverse venues as the Federal Court system--during their recent struggle to regain federal recognition as an American Indian Tribe--as well as the culture at large, in cases of performance in and reaction to the White, Eurocentric interpretation of their role in the overall culture.