Word: pequots
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...eschew idle chitchat. I'd like to start a conversation, get inside some of those heads and find out what's going on. But all points of entry are denied. After a few minutes, I conclude that I'm wasting my time here. The remarkable renaissance of the Mashantucket Pequot tribe may have its roots in bingo, but the tribe has a story that reaches far beyond that, or so I presume...
...search of that story, I leave the casino and visit the nearby Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center, a structure that might be best described as architectural non-sequitor. It has been clear, thus far, that Foxwoods is at best a poor reflection of and upon Mashantucket Pequot culture. Calling the main casino "Rainmaker" or the frequent player's program "the Wampum Club" seems in exceptionally poor taste. However, I've been assuming that this can somehow be attributed to the general milieu of tackiness of the early `90s, when the casino was first opened, not to any failure...
...first exhibition hall is one dedicated to the current way of life on the reservation. According to the museum's very first display, the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation is a "newly-revitalized community--one that has been realized by years of planning, hoping and hard work." Certainly, the will of the Mashantucket Pequots to revitalize the rez is undeniable. But what gets short shrift here is the largely contingent nature of this revitalization, what with it being based upon the gaming industry...
...Elsewhere in the museum, I find white people taking a collective dump all over various other facets of Mashantucket Pequot culture. I hear a number of snide remarks and much repressed laughter during my tour through the museum. While I might ordinarily find such behavior highly reprehensible, here nothing manages to rouse my ire. This is because, in some very important ways, the Mashantucket Pequot's claim of a distinct cultural identity seems somewhat tenuous. The Mashantucket Pequots lack a distinct native language. The representations of modern indigenous language and culture within the museum are largely facsimiles or bastardizations...
...last exhibit space of the museum, there is a gallery of portraits of current members of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, with quotes from many of them. All of these photographs depict people whom I would visually identify as either white or black, not Indian. Below the photograph of Regina Kirchner, whom I would identify as white, reads the following: "My mother never talked about being Pequot, so it's hard for me to have this feeling about being Indian. I really feel I'm living between two worlds, you might say. I'm trying to get back some...