The People of the Dark Water 🗣️🍷

The lost and found languages of the Lumbee Tribe, as recounted by MdB Magazine’s first guest contributor. Season 3 announcement for the Modo di Bere Podcast. Happy Native American Heritage Day!

This is Modo di Bere Magazine Issue #3

It’s a huge honor to introduce our first commissioned guest contributor, Dominique Burleson, and share her essay (below!). You can directly support Modo di Bere in giving a platform to talented writers like Dominique.

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🚨Season 3 of the Modo di Bere Podcast is here!

Calabrian rhyming toasts. A drinking song from Padua. Kinetic toasts from France and Spain. Taiwanese dialect for “Bottoms up!” Never stop learning how to say “cheers” wherever you go, whatever you like to drink.

After months of behind-the-scenes work by Rose Thomas and her collaborators, the weekly podcast about local drinks & local sayings is back! Hit play, listen here or search for Modo di Bere in your preferred podcast player.

Meet Dominique Burleson

Dominique Burleson is the owner of the North Carolina bookshop Paperbacks and Frybread. A member of the Lumbee Tribe, Dominique participates in the re-Indigenization movement of her generation by helping people “decolonize their bookshelves” through entrepreneurship, activism, writing, speaking and curriculum design. 

DOWNLOAD Dominique’s guide on how to Decolonize your Bookshelf for book recs, resources and indigenous creators to follow.

PAY WHAT YOU WISH for her list of Banned & Challenged Books for Collective Liberation.

ORDER a book, audiobook, gift or gift card from the Paperbacks and Frybread shop!

The People of the Dark Water

The Lumbee Tribe has been recognized by the state of North Carolina since 1885. In 1956, the United States Congress recognized the tribe while denying the Lumbee people federal benefits as such, a situation the Lumbees are still fighting to correct. 

The Lumbee Tribe, known as “the People of the Dark Water” identify themselves on their website as “survivors of tribal nations from the Algonquian, Iroquoian, and Siouan language families, including the Hatteras, the Tuscarora, and the Cheraw.”

Heritage languages of this amalgamated tribe were lost to linguicide. 

The Lumbee tribe’s site details a series of Federal Commissioned Reports, including by D’Arcy McNickle of the Office of Indian Affairs, who came to the tribe in 1936

Lumbees today have a unique way of speaking English that has been studied as a distinct dialect by linguists at North Carolina State University. 

You can hear the dialect Dominique mentions in her essay in this 1999 documentary by The Language and Life Project. 

Roots by the River: the Legacy of the Lumbee 

By Dominique Burleson

In southeastern North Carolina, a river winds through the Sandhills, dark as a moonless night, dark as the water moccasin that glides through her currents. Its banks are lined with pine, juniper, and poplar trees. In the stillness, you might hear wild turkeys conversing or the snort of a whitetail deer. As Turtle Island was colonized, this blackwater river was a sanctuary for both my Indigenous ancestors and people on the run from enslavers. The Lumbee River is still a retreat from the modern world. 

The remnants of tribal nations from Algonquian, Iroquoian, and Siouan language families along the East Coast sought refuge in these forested wetlands. Even as much of their culture and language was lost, the survivors made this land home and became known as “The People of the Dark Water,” the Lumbee. This land is still our home.

Our Existence Proclaims: We Are Still Here

As the largest tribe east of the Mississippi, the Lumbee are a testament to resilience in the face of centuries of colonialism and racism in the South. While much has been taken from us—just as it has from all Indigenous peoples on Turtle Island—the Lumbee endure. By our very existence, we reclaim our story and begin to heal generations of trauma.

For many, traditional Indigenous values were preserved only in the stories of our elders. But today, a mass reconnection is happening. Many among us hear the call of our ancestors—not to keep old wounds open, but to heal them. To grow rather than remain stagnant. A re-Indigenization is spreading across tribal communities, and we Lums are no exception.

Beadwork, ribbon skirts, drum circles, reconnecting as caretakers of the land, ceremonial burnings, and sacred medicines—all these traditions are being woven back together, helping us stand strong once again.

Lumbee historian Malinda Maynor Lowery captures this spirit in her book The Lumbee Indians: An American Struggle.

We have awakened to the sacredness of our stories and the power they hold in guiding us forward.

Walking the Red Road is not easy. Many still fail to see our value, claiming there is little—if any—culture left. And while federal recognition continues to elude us, I ask, “Do we blame the victim for what the oppressor has stolen? Do we finish the colonizer’s work by letting our ancestors’ lines vanish? Should we abandon those who lost so much?”

No. As a tribal community, we have decided that the oppressor has already lost. They will not see the day we disappear—that decision belongs to Creator.

Until then, we keep moving forward. Our journey has no end. Our ancestors prayed for survival; now, we strive to thrive in their honor.

Growing up Lumbee

Going “down home” has been a tradition since childhood. As a little girl, I’d ride with my grandma on Sunday afternoons, making the 45-minute drive to where our roots lay. The summer sun and humidity left my skin warm and sticky. I’d draw my name in the sand with a stick as gnats buzzed into every crease of my face. Sipping on an ice cold Pepsi and snacking on a pack of Lay’s peanut butter crackers. Or as my elders would call it, “a drink and a nab.”

Grandma never let me help her pick cucumbers, squash, or corn in the fields, and she certainly wouldn’t let me near the “baccer.” She was too afraid I’d get bitten by a snake. Even though she was scared herself, she’d spend hours in the sun, gathering what the earth provided.

Under the shade of a tree, she and her sisters washed and sorted the harvest in five-gallon buckets, filling Ziploc bags for the freezer. Their conversations floated by in a unique dialect I now translate for my own kids: stories of how the Lumbee and Tuscarora ran off the KKK, how Aunt Shirley killed a king snake with a shovel, or how many babies were lost because “them doctors didn’t wanna work on no Indians.” When the work was done, we’d head into town for hot dogs at Fran’s and ice cream from the gas station.

Little me didn’t understand the power of “down home.” I didn’t yet know the stories held by the land and trees or the protection they gave. But I do now. Every time my tiny, jelly-sandal-clad feet touched that sandy soil, I was connecting with a story that almost never was.

All photos courtesy of Dominique Burleson

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