Description
The Secotans were one of several groups of Native Americans dominant in the Carolina sound region, between 1584 and 1590, with which English colonists had varying degrees of contact. Secotan villages included the Secotan, Aquascogoc, Dasamongueponke, Pomeiock (Pamlico) and Roanoac. In the Carolinas, colonization did not exist as a straight-line transition, from Native American to European rule. A rivalry marked the relationship between the two European powers, the English and the Spanish. Rivalries also existed between the Native American groups. Additionally, the Europeans often found themselves caught in the middle of conflicts, which existed between Native American groups.
Language
Algonquian
Culture
An agricultural people, they relied on the crops they raised. Their proximity to the waters of the Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds connected them to a diverse local trade network. Their villages consisted of long houses that were covered in bark and woven mats, a charnel house, a place for prayer/religious ceremonies, a dance ground, tobacco and corn fields, and other fields with assorted crops. he Secotan Indians had a system of ranking within the people of the tribe. Chiefs and Priests of these people were better dressed than the people who wore less clothing such as breech cloth or deerskin aprons or skirts with an added cape in the winter. They believed in decorating their bodies with paint, tattoos and jewelry.