Chicora and The Little People: The Legend of The Indian Corn
Chicora and The Little People: The Legend of The Indian Corn
Chicora and the Little People: The Legend of the Indian Corn, a Lumbee Tale
by Arvis Boughman & Delora Cummings
Chicora and the Little People "Listen!" Chicora pleaded. "Last night, I opened my eyes and saw tiny hands reaching through the lodge flap. I screamed, 'Leave me alone!' and the little hands disappeared." The legend of Chicora and the Little People: The Legend of the Indian Corn, begins long ago in the time known as the Moon of the Turning Leaves. Chicora, a young Lumbee girl, is awakened from her sleep by gruff giggling and little hands reaching through the flap of her home lodge. She attempts to tell the villagers of the appearance of the little people and the new corn. How can Chicora convince her tribe of the truth? Watercolor paintings wonderfully complete the telling of this Lumbee legend of trust and courage.
Arvis Boughman is a member of the Lumbee tribe and was born in Robeson County in 1964. He received a B. S. in Elementary Education and a M. A. in Communication Disorders from Appala-chian State University. In 2003, Arvis co-authored Herbal Remedies of the Lumbee Indians with Loretta Oxendine. Currently, Arvis works as a speech/language pathologist. His interests include reading the Bible, fishing, woodcarving, hiking, Appalachian lore, and Native American cultures. He lives in a log cabin in the South Mountains of North Carolina with four cats, four dogs, five horses, his wife, Kim, son, Micah, and daughter, Clara-Ann.
DeLora Cummings is a Native American from Pembroke, NC. As an artist, she enjoys working in all media, but her favorite is oil on canvas. She says, "As an artist, what I paint, why I paint, and how I paint are the result of everything I am, everything I've experienced, every person I've known, and everything I have seen, felt, smelled, heard, and touched." DeLora has always been involved in the arts, teaching visual art and as a professional artist. She's been married for forty years to her childhood sweetheart McDuffie Cummings. They have five children and two grandchildren.