Description
The Roanoke, also spelled Roanoac, were a people whose territory comprised present-day Dare County, Roanoke Island, and part of the mainland at the time of English exploration and colonization. They were one of the numerous Carolina Algonquian tribes, which may have numbered 5,000 to 10,000 people in total in eastern North Carolina at the time of English encounter. The last tribal chief of the Roanoke was believed to be Wanchese, who traveled to England with colonists in 1584. However, he may have just been an influential individual.
Language
Algonkian
Culture
The Northeast culture area comprises a mosaic of temperate forests, meadows, wetlands, and waterways. The traditional diet consisted of a wide variety of cultivated, hunted, and gathered foods, including corn (maize), beans, squash, deer, fish, waterbirds, leaves, seeds, tubers, berries, roots, nuts, and maple syrup. Rivers in the northern and eastern parts of the culture area had annual runs of anadromous fish such as salmon; in the north people tended to rely more upon fish than on crops as the latter were frequently destroyed by frost.