Seventeen of the nearly thirty different tribal groups living
within the present boundaries of North Carolina at the time of
European colonization were involved in early clashes and three Indian
wars. Most of the other thirteen tribes had been reduced to a fraction
of their former numbers or had left the area by the time of the
Tuscarora War. The expansion of white settlement had inflicted
unfamiliar diseases on them and had pushed them back from their
ancestral fields and hunting grounds. By 1730 the colonial records
contain very few references to Indians, and by the time of the French
and Indian War, only three Indian groups of any size remained in North
Carolina. The history behind our lodge centers on two of these
tribes--the Catawba and the Cherokee.
The meaning of the word "Catawba" is not known for certain. It may
come from the Choctaw word katapa, meaning "cut off" or
"separated" (presumably from other Siouans). The first Spanish
explorers knew the tribe as the Issa, from the Catawba iswa,
meaning river. It is thought that the Issa were an independent, but
related, band who united with the Catawba proper at some early date.
The Catawba claimed the area drained by the Catawba River from its
headwaters deep into South Carolina and from the Broad River--the
boundary between Catawba and Cherokee territory--to the Yadkin River.
The tribal name "Cherokee" has been spelled at least fifty ways,
and more than one origin has been suggested for the name. It may come
from the Choctaw word choluk, meaning cave or hollow, and
referring to the mountainous country the Cherokee occupied. Another
reasonable derivation is from the Muskegean word tciloki,
meaning "people of a different speech." In early historic times, this
Iroquoian group occupied the present-day Allegheny County area of
southwestern Virginia, western North Carolina, northwestern South
Carolina, eastern Tennessee, and northern Georgia and Alabama.
This area of land that lay in between the Catawba and the Cherokee
was contested between the two tribes and many battles were fought.
This portion of land lay between the Catawba River and the Eswau
Huppeday, or Broad River, and encompasses most of our present-day
Piedmont Council. It was referred to by the tribes as the Eswau
Huppeday--the land between the rivers.
The Catawbas acquired firearms first since they were further east.
The Cherokees, at this time, had to fight with more conventional
weapons, such as a tomahawk. Their weapons are crossed as a pledge of
peace between them, and the crossed tomahawk and rifle were chosen as
the Totem of the Lodge. These two tribes fought many times with
neither side achieving any clear victory, until they agreed to a
permanent peace and to leaving this land open for both tribes to hunt
and travel. They met in council and erected a stone pile monument to
commemorate their peace treaty at what is now Nations Ford, North
Carolina. This stone pile is shown on our patch.
Peace, which is symbolized by the setting sun on our patch,
signified the end of old hatreds and a coming of a new day.
The mountains on our patch represent the Cherokee lands to the
west, as well as the familiar skyline view in our area. The flatter
foreground areas represents the Piedmont region to the east where the
Catawbas lived. The three W’s on the patch represent the watchwords of
our Order, and the letters "BSA" our affiliation with the Boy Scouts
of America. The number 560 is our lodge registration number. The red
arrow, of course, represents the Order of the Arrow and all the ideals
for which it stands.
Lastly, the words Eswau Huppeday at the top of our flap patch
brightly reflect and stand proudly for the heritage of our area, as
well as our lodge name.
