LibGuides: W. Brent Burgin Archives: Audio Video Collections

The Native American Studies Center has collections of interviews, oral histories, PowWow recordings and more from tribes in and around South Carolina. While the bulk of these tapes have yet to be digitized, those that have are listed within these pages.

Below are audio and video resources that cover American Indians on a broader scale, along with NASC videos explaining the different time periods from pre-history forward.

Time Periods in American Indian History

Human Prehistory
This film covers human migration to the Americans during the last ice age and tells of the first South Carolinians who lived during the Pre-Clovis and Paleoindian Periods 19,000-10,000 years ago. Learn about migration paths, cooler climates, different vegetation and now extinct animals as well as the earliest American tools.
Early and Middle Archaic
Early and Middle Archaic Periods 10,000-5,000 years ago. Learn about a prehistoric settlement and subsistence strategy that took groups from the mountains to the coast on a seasonal round of movement. Hear about the Atlatl spear-thrower (precursor to bow and arrow) and the art of flintknapping –techniques to fashion replica stone tools.
Late Archaic
During the Late Archaic Period 5,000-3,000 years ago humans concentrated their occupations along rivers and throughout the Coastal Zone. Find out what exactly are “shell middens” –piles of accumulated kitchen refuse and “shell rings”—geometeric constructs made up of shell midden, the use of soapstone for containers and the first Native American made pottery in the United States.
Woodland Period
Woodland Period 3,000- 1,000 years ago. Burial mounds, gardening, and village life appear for the first time during this period. It is also the time when the bow and arrow first appears in the Southeastern United States. Pottery technology, invented in the previous Late Archaic, expands in terms of clay recipes, vessel form, and surface decoration.
Mississippian Period
In this final film, learn about the Mississippian Period from 1,000 to 400 years ago. Large villages surrounded by wooden walls and large flat topped mounds are indicative of this final stage in the prehistory of South Carolina. Maize agriculture became important during this time and a class structure emerged within these societies. Learn about the Lady of Cofitachequi who encountered Spaniard Hernando DeSoto and his expedition in May of A.D. 1540.

Smithsonian Collection

American Indian Music Performance Videos
Many of these performances feature traditional music and dancing while others feature contemporary music by Native American artists.

Videos to Borrow from the Medford Library

Pocahontas Revealed (video)
Call Number: E 99 .P85 P64 2007e
On the 400th anniversary of Jamestown, science is revealing the truth behind the myth, a saga of adventure, greed, and savagery. Archaeologists have discovered the site of Chief Powhatan's capital, the spot where John Smith met him and his daughter. Take a first-hand look inside the recently discovered sacred village of Werowocomoco (“Place of Chiefs”) in present-day Virginia, where the longhouse in which they first met in 1607 is being unearthed.
We Shall Remain: America Through Native Eyes (video)
Call Number: E 77 .W4327 2009e
When Europeans arrived in North America, they encountered the Native people. Contrary to stereotype, American Indians were not simply ferocious warriors or peaceable lovers of the land. They were, like all people, an amalgam: charismatic and forward thinking, imaginative and courageous, compassionate and resolute, and, at times, arrogant, vengeful, and reckless. Native peoples valiantly resisted expulsion from their lands and fought the extinction of their culture using all avenues available, including military, legal, and political action, diplomacy, and supplication of the spiritual realm. From the Wampanoags of New England in the 1600s who used their alliance with the English to weaken rival tribes, to the bold new leaders of the 1970s who harnessed the momentum of the civil rights movement to forge a pan-Indian identity. Spanning almost four hundred years, these documentaries tell the story of pivotal moments in U.S. history from the Native American perspective, presenting Native history as an integral part of the American story.
Secrets of Lost Empires: Inca (video)
Call Number: CC 77 .H5 S435 2006e
When the Inca disappeared, they took a lot of their technological secrets with them. Today's scientists try to recreate some of the architecture just as locals weave a magnificent bridge spanning a gorge in the old, Inca tradition. NOVA takes viewers to Machu Picchu and unravels some of the mysteries of Incan artifacts. Explore the magnificent mountainside citadels and marvel as villagers create a 150 foot suspension bridge using nothing but grass.
Navajo Nation ARRA (video)
Navajo Nation EPA has a program to bring underground storage tanks into compliance and address the threat of leaking tanks under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
U.S. EPA's Video Collection, 2011.
Native American Tech (video)
Discover the secrets of healers and medicine men. Examine the weapons and tactics of battles like Little Big Horn. Native American Tech examines the tools and tricks of the trade on the frontier. To the settlers, they were savages standing in the path of manifest destiny. Today, a new generation of Americans looks back on the people displaced by their ancestors with a mixture of shame and awe. Native American Tech explores the might and power of the Native American tribes of the wild west. Ride into battle with braves wielding tomahawks, lances, slingshots, bows and arrows and clubs. Examine the lives of leaders including Geronimo, Crazy Horse, Red Cloud and Sitting Bull. Experience the decimation of Custer's 7th Cavalry at Little Big Horn and the Cheyenne sacking of Julesburg. Finally, find out how medicine men and surgeons tended to the tribes and their warriors.
Say Brother. Federal Laws and the Native American: Patterns of Paper Politics (video)
The August 1976 lawsuit filed by the the Wampanoag Indians of Massachusetts against the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, in an effort to reclaim lands sold from 1763 to 1870 without Congressional approval. Host Barbara Barrow speaks with guest Russell Peters, President of the Mashpee Tribal Council, about the problems the council is having regaining tribal lands, when was the lands were taken, when the council decided to file suit, how Peters feels about the claim that Wampanoag marriages with Black and white Americans has diluted their culture and claim to lands, if Mashpee becoming a town gave Native Americans the power to sell their own land (as they did willingly, according to Barrow), and what will happen to the people who are living in Mashpee who feel they own their land and houses