- Call them time travelers to Audrey and Iver Noel Hume, time passed is always an opportunity.

Once upon a time, Hampton University was a school for American Indians who left behind a fascinating record of a vanished time.

These stories and music by Elisa Dicken and Deborah Cross on this edition of our place our Time.

Now here's your host, Vianne Webb.

- Hello.

Welcome back to our place Our Time.

We think of Colonial Williamsburg as the quintessential American colonial town in Williamsburg, Washington and Jefferson and Patrick Henry met in the taverns and capital building and fermented the revolution that freed the colonies from England.

Well, time is full of ironies for in our time, two English born people have more than anyone else inspired our appreciation and illuminated our understanding of our own colonial heritage.

I'm speaking of Audrey and Iver Noel Hume, who came to Colonial Williamsburg 32 years ago to date wine bottles and stayed to write scores of books and articles and films that have told effervescent stories of their ingenious and original research.

Mr. Mrs. Noel Hume retired recently as director and curator, respectively of archeological interpretation at Colonial Williamsburg.

But as we'll learn in a minute, CW A isn't letting them go easily.

Tempe Fisk interviewed Audrey and Iver know of Hume in their office at Colonial Williamsburg.

- Ivo and Audrey Noel Hume have spent the better part of their lives digging in dirt as archeologists.

They uncover artifacts that give us clues to our history, history that in Virginia is abundant with lessons.

For the Noel Hues who retired in December 87 as director and curator of Colonial Williamsburg's office of archeological interpretations, archeology is the method of putting history back together again in their 32 years of collaboration with Colonial Williamsburg.

Certain achievements serve as standards for future archeologists to emulate Walston hometown.

The earliest British town yet unearthed in North America occupies the lower banks of land sloping to the James River from historic Carter's Grove.

- It was of course one of the great and dramatic moments in the whole of Virginia history.

And yet up to this point, no archeologist has ever found a trace of that 1622 attack on a colonial home site, - As in other days before they came unarmed into our houses with deer, turkeys, fish, furs, and other provisions to sell.

Gay in some places sat down at breakfast with our people at their tables, whom immediately with their own tools and weapons, they basically and baly murdered, not sparing either age or sex, man, woman, or child.

So sudden in their cruel execution that few or none discerned the weapon nor blow that brought them to destruction.

- It was Mrs. Noel Hume's fondness for ferreting out things that led to the discovery.

She calls one of her favorites.

- I think Granny's headband was probably the most interesting.

This was one of the skeletons that was found at martin's hundred.

And she, she was round the head, was a, a metal band.

- She lies on her side, not in the grave, but in a partly filled rubbish pit.

And in a posture of repose her right hand up to her head and her left arm across her chest, the fingers folded under as they after.

Now, when we sleep, it's a posture consistent with death by exposure.

We called her granny because she'd lost her lower molars, though in reality, she was only 35 or 40 years old around her head, we found a thin iron band apparently bent back around the nape of her neck.

You can see it best in this x-ray view of the skull.

We think the band is the remains of a metal and fabric frame over, which well-to-do women in later Elizabethan times, rolled their hair.

- Uncovering artifacts can also reveal the personalities of people, as in the evidence that was found with the wine bottles from John Cusas.

Well, in Williamsburg, - We couldn't figure out why anybody would deliberately grind off this name.

Obviously somebody who didn't like John ti.

So we then started to put this, the story together.

We found that the well was filled in, in the late 1750s, although many of the bottles were much earlier.

These are 1730s, but it'd all been dumped down there when the property changed hands.

The property was acquired by Martha Washington who had been married to Daniel Park es Daniel Park Castus course a son of, of this man, John Castus.

And John Castus hated a man called John Dandridge.

He was a a, a neighbor.

And when John Cu hated anybody, he really did.

- Mm.

- And so this was a feud that went on and it hung over from generation to generation.

And Martha was a daughter of John Dandridge.

And in fact, Cassie said he'd be damned if, if his son should marry a daughter of John Dandridge.

So she loathed him.

She disposed, therefore, of much of the property in 1757.

And if you follow the inventories as we have of, of John Cass's property, she put up all the stuff, the families, paintings and things.

She put 'em up for sale and disposed of things.

And the question therefore was, is it possible that Martha sat on the top of that well and said, you know, I'll fix you.

And just went round and round and took his name off because it's been deliberately defaced.

- This research team will tell you that testing the authenticity of an artifact is very necessary, particularly to determine its relevance.

Sometimes such testing begins with the simple retrieving of lost coins.

- Let's take a look at a cross section through that.

It'll go something like this.

It, here's the hole and this is the post.

Now we fill up the space around it and accidentally dropped a 1967 quarter into it right here.

That will tell a future archeologist that the post wasn't installed before 1967.

- Helping people understand their origins is a skill.

The Noel hues are particularly noted for such an example of their extensive work in the field is still in the planning stages, but it's what they've been waiting for for a long time.

- Well, the museum is, is the payoff.

Everybody who ha has an, has an archeological site wants or should want the public to share that discovery with, with you and to learn from it.

After all, there's no point in digging it up if you don't share it with the public, it belongs to the public.

And you've gotta tell it to them in a way that they will enjoy not stuff it down their throats.

Like, you know, like, like cotton wool lessons.

- You were explaining to me earlier about people like their space.

Oh yeah.

And how they, they don't wish to stand more than three feet.

- My theory is that the average person occupies a piece of space three feet in diameter, and you don't like to get much closer than that.

If you do, you're crowded.

And so when I'm laying out an exhibit, I make little circles and plunk them down and you'll see how many three foot circles I can move through the exhibit.

Then I figure out how much time it takes to read the, the copy and how average amount of time people will stand in front of any particular exhibit.

I mean, if you have things with buttons to punch, they're gonna stay quite a while.

And that then you have to see, well, how, what happens to your three foot circles when you're doing that?

It's a sort of juggling act, but you can figure out, by using that formula, you can find out how fast people will move through.

On the, - This is a a little of a philosophical question, I suppose, but is it true that the interest in museums has increased and that there is more, there're more of a turnover of people that are going through museums now?

- Oh yes.

Yes.

I think that's, that's true right across the country.

- What are they looking for?

- They're looking for education in an entertaining way.

- Is is it true that you find is relevant - In, in, in a way, I suppose, relevant to something or other?

I think the word is awfully overused these days.

Obviously, relevance to us will not be relevant to the next person.

I think it was was Tosto or somebody who said that, that historians are, are like deaf people.

They spend most of their time answering questions that nobody's asked.

You know?

So really what is, what is is relevant, right?

Every artifact that we find in the ground has something to say, and to me that's relevant to you, probably not, - But you study an awful lot of history.

You learn an awful lot about what to expect in the future, perhaps by some of the things that you study in archeology.

- I, I think that an, i I don't think that actually digging things up tells you very much about the future.

It may tell you about how to dispose of your garbage or how not to dispose of it.

I think what comes out of, of the study of, of the archeological past as indeed historical part is that you become aware of the big things that matter in, in, in time and you become, i, I think rather lugubrious about it and, and fearful of what the future holds in store as you, as you see, well, as you see the, not only what you find in the ground, but what you see being destroyed.

The speed at which we are destroying the past, particularly in this area is to me absolutely terrifying.

- Do you collaborate closely in the work that you do now?

Are there always occasions for you to collaborate on projects - Endlessly, - And how do you keep the collaboration from being boring or feisty?

- Oh, I think you have to argue, - We don't keep it from being boring.

- No.

- We, we, we rather we, it is boring, but it gets us feisty as hell.

- Yes, you argue by the art together, but that's the only way you put the picture together is by arguing it out.

Really.

Yeah.

I try and put devil's advocate most of the time - And she's very good at it.

- Is she, - I mean, take this Grammy thing that completely turned around.

I had the whole of the art interpretation of Carter's grove, which is really one of the most important excavations that been happening in this country.

I had it upside down and it was Audrey constantly picking at it and proving, you say, well, can you really prove this?

Is this really?

So that made us realize that the Wilton hometown was not the original settlement, but the original settlement was what I thought was a later settlement.

Now we're dealing in very small pieces of time within 18 months, but nevertheless, everything failed to fit.

There are all sorts of things which we can see on the site that just didn't fit together.

The guns are in the wrong place that they, they, they were pointing in the wrong direction, all sorts of odd things.

And it was then already say, well wait a minute.

Well, if you really check the documents against who these people were, you're finding lying in the ground here killed in the Indian massacre, you'll find that these are the people who were first, not second.

And we, we got it wrong because we found the big site first and then we found the little site was beyond it, and we figured that the big site has a satellite little site and we found it second.

So we always thought of it as big second, but I never had the whip to turn around and say that the reason this is all wrong is because we've got it completely backwards.

She said that - For such detailed and serious work that they do, the no hues have a refreshing sense of humor.

One particular incident points out that this pair immersed themselves in their work.

Literally.

Tell me about the story about when you, the two of you were off the coast and you apparently were experiencing some difficulty and nearly drowned, I guess.

- Oh yeah, yeah.

Yes.

It wasn't terribly funny at the time, actually.

No, I, - I'm sure it wasn't.

- What happened was there's a, there's a very famous shipwreck, which is in the process of being excavated and which incidentally, the, the series is on PBS now, I think, isn't it?

And this ship was called the Sea Venture.

Yes, it's in Bermuda.

And I was going down there to look up the wreck and with the man who, who ran it, who was charged with it.

And he gave me a tank which had no gauge on it, so we couldn't tell how much.

And I said to him, I'm, I'm a, I'm a floater and so full of, and so I said, well, I take about 16 pounds of weight.

And he said, oh, you couldn't possibly give you 10.

So I went down there and for about 45 minutes I was sort of floating away, you know, rising to the surface and walking like mad had stayed out, streams of bubbles coming off.

And he was just sitting there working away.

And I finally got him to believe that I had to go up there and get some more, more weight.

So up we went, gave me the more weight and I said, how much more time have we got in this tank?

So he looked at his, he had a gauge on his, and so he said, oh, you've got another 15, 20 minutes, so down we go again.

And by the time I get down there, I found that I'm seen to be sucking on nothing.

And I thought, well, I'm, maybe I'm just out of breath having worked way down here.

And then I realized there wasn't any air in the tank and it was a very sloppy day.

The day it was, the sun was coming in and out and it was sometimes it pitched out down there, sometimes it wasn't.

He was outta sight.

It was all of mad and stuff.

And I realized that there was no air.

And so I started to come up and one of the things you're not supposed to do is to ever take the mouthpiece out, even if there's really no air in the tank, you're still to say, hang on that and breathe on that.

Nothing.

And so I suddenly, the sun came out and I was, and I thought, I'm at the surface.

And what happened was that I, I wasn't at the surface, I was about 12, 14 feet down still.

And I took the mouthpiece out 'cause I thought I was about to hit the surface and my head almost exploded.

And I came up about 40 yards away from the boat and extremely sloppy sea and order was the only person on the boat.

The two other people had gone over on what they call a hooker, which meant that they have a compressor, which is, she couldn't hear me.

And I came to the surface with 16 pounds of weight in this heavy seat and tried to wave, you know, and, and an Audrey way back, I'm browning.

No.

And finally I was able to dog paddle back into this and I, I was so, I, I couldn't see straight and I just hung on the side of the boat.

My friend, who's the director, came up and seed me disappear and pushed me into the, over the boat.

I collapsed in the bottom of the boat.

He threw his shoulder out and, and his mouthpiece had come out.

He sank, nearly drowned himself.

And it wasn't one of our great moments in diving, archeology - And what have all these years of research taught them that nothing changes.

Man has changed his hat and his armor, but not his nature.

- Archeology is not about objects, it's about people.

- A writer once described Audrey and Iver Noel Hume as time travelers.

It's nice to know that in their retirement, they will continue to give to our time they insights and appreciation of pastime.

Thank you Tempe.

We're going to look now at our choices of significant events occurring in Hampton Roads the next few days.

Then we'll recall a time when Hampton University was a school for Native American Indians.

It's not well remembered today, but for 45 years, between 1878 and 1923, Hampton University served as a school for American Indians from the Great Plains and other western states.

More than 1400 Indians from 65 different tribes attended classes at what was then called Hampton Institute.

The federal government paid for their room, board and transportation.

Hampton Institute provided scholarships for tuitions.

The Indians left behind a legacy of drawings that document a fascinating experiment in American acculturation.

Producer John Haskins and reporter Liz Macintosh visited the Hampton University Museum and buildings on campus surviving from the era of Indian education.

- In May of 1879, a solicitation was run in the school newspaper of the Hampton Institute - To each new subscriber to the southern workman will be set a picture drawn by one of the Indian boys at Hampton on plain paper in watercolors or with colored pencil.

These are simple crude sketches inspired by imagination or experience, and illustrate the peculiar type of art among the Aborigines of America.

The boys cheerfully draw their pictures for a small sum and thus keep in a little pocket money.

- Who were these Indian boys?

Why were they at Hampton Institute and the pictures they left behind?

What can they tell us today?

The answers to these questions tell a story of conflict between two worlds.

The pictures drawn by the young Indian students at Hampton Institute over a hundred years ago are now images of a vanished life.

It was perhaps natural that the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute would assume a role in educating the disenfranchised American Indians having been founded after the Civil War to educate blacks.

So in 1878, general Samuel Armstrong, founder and principal of the institute began to recruit Indian boys and girls from reservations on the Great Plains.

Many students arrived in Hampton, unable to speak English or read and write their native tongues.

They became the subject of nationwide publicity.

The reservation policy had the attention of a America could Indian children be civilized if separated from their own people?

The experiment would begin in Hampton, Virginia.

- One of the biggest changes, of course would've been separation from their families.

Most of these would have not been separated from family or from kinship groups before.

And that would've been in and of itself a great shock.

And to them, this would've been a world unlike anything they would've seen first coming by coach, then by train, and then to a very different environment and to very different forms of buildings, to shoes, to beds, to very regimented lifestyle to classrooms.

Although they may have been to school, it would've been only for a few years.

- The regimen would include the three Rs, agricultural or industrial work and summers with white families.

Just as with Hampton's, black students artwork would be merely supplemental as an artist.

The Plains Indian was not concerned with anatomy, perspective or scale.

He was an artist historian, preserving the story of his people in a visual narrative.

So at Hampton, the Indians often painted events in which they had taken part.

They had all known life on the Great plains before confinement of their people to reservations.

They were the last of a generation who knew two worlds firsthand.

- Their parents let them come, they came willingly.

They probably came with some great fear and and trepidation both on their parts and the parts of their parents.

The drawings that you see here reflect their heritage.

They reflect a part of their life that was very nostalgic that they wanted to remember.

The several of the drawings have in fact sitting bull, who at the time was not on the reservation, had fled after the battle of politic acorn to Canada, but was a real hero to these young men.

- Some of the drawings center on the Indian brave, dressed in his finest, others on war, the hunt or ceremonial dance.

These are in the artistic tradition of the Plains Indian of visual record of male prowess and achievement, a celebration of masculine action and glory.

Some drew the game animals, which supplied food, clothing, and shelter, distinguishing carefully between species, showing attention to detail, not possible with the traditional materials of the Indian artist, but through their art.

These boys also tell of a flood of change which had forced itself on their people.

They remembered peacemaking between enemy tribes and between Indians and soldiers.

But the vanishing buffalo, the tribe's constant companion on the plains, played only a small role in the artistic imagination of these young Indians.

The students began to paint Hampton and their reservations revealing the new artistic influence of their white teachers or older Indian artists.

Some looking to the future showed their homes back on the reservations as log cabins.

Though most of their families still lived in teepees and subsisted on government rations.

- These drawings are documents, their historical documents about a period, an interesting and fascinating period in American history as well as an interesting and fascinating artistic tradition.

They tell about the dreams and the memories, the lifestyle and the aspirations of some of America's most fascinating people.

- Even the style of their artwork told of young hearts torn between the traditional and the inevitable.

They began to leave behind the picture writing of their fathers learning from the realism of the white man's art.

These pictures are time capsules, which reveal young men caught in the turbulence of two cultures locked in conflict.

- The program at Hampton was really an experiment.

It was a part of an a movement in the late 19th century to assimilate American Indians.

The program was considered to be successful in terms of the fact that many of the students that went to Hampton did go back and were able to cope with or to acquire a new way of life.

Some of the students had came very ill and died while they were here on campus.

We have a cemetery here on campus with faculty, staff, and students who were buried there.

And you will find their graves of Indian students who remained at Hampton and never went home.

- In 1879.

General Armstrong wrote, our Indian paintings are much sought after and doing good in many places as reminders of the needs of a noble and wronged people.

Today they are precious images of a vanished life.

They were drawn Here in Hampton, Virginia, - We are fortunate to have with us two of the finest and also hardest working musicians in our place.

Flutist Debra Cross and Harper Elisa Dicken.

Both are members of the Virginia Symphony and perform with numerous other groups in Hampton Roads, Debra Cross and Elisa Dicken.

Next week on our place, our time, we are going to visit a magnificent home in Virginia Beach where many of the finest interior designers will be displaying their latest ideas and design art.

And I'll talk with two of the area's leading interior designers.

We'll also profile a promising young sculptor, Matthew Fine, who works in Virginia Stone.

And we'll have music from the Detroit Jewels.

Till next time, I'm Vianne Webb.

For our place, our time.