Dawnland Voices: An Anthology of Indigenous Writing from New England

Introduction

429 Introduction Joan Tavares Avant (Granny Squannit) As an Elder I’m empowered and proud to have the opportunity to bring together the voices of two indigenous tribes who were here ten thousand to twelve thousand years before the Pilgrims landed on our shores. We are the Mashpee Wampanoag (“People of the First Light”) and the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (“Aquinnah”). Our boundary locations are different, and we each design and follow our own Native nation-building in tribal governance, policy, leadership, and language preservation. Mashpee, the original “Land of the Wampanoag,” is located on Cape Cod, in southeastern Massachusetts within Barnstable County. Cape Cod is a peninsula extending from the eastern coast of Massachusetts into the Atlantic Ocean. The Aquinnah Tribe of Gay Head is located at the tip of Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. We live by the rhythms of Mother Earth and the oral stories and traditions that our ancestors and leaders left us with. I remember my grandmother Mabel L. Avant, Nokomis, telling stories before we went to bed or when we were sitting under the apple tree. When those stories were told at the library, most children were scared to walk home. Oral history, traditional beliefs, respect for Mother Earth, and respect for the animals—all of these simply form how we live in our communities . As Vine Deloria Jr. (Standing Rock Sioux) explains, “People believed that each tribe had its own special relationship to the superior spiritual forces which governed the universe and that the job of each set of tribal beliefs was to fulfill its own tasks without worrying about what others were doing. Tribal knowledge therefore was not fragmented and was valid within the historical and geographical scope of the people’s experience” (qtd. in Wilson 9). In New England, oral traditions helped us survive. As medicine man Slow Turtle (John Peters) told me when I wrote an essay last year for Cultural Survival Quarterly, “Each Indian understood what his or her responsibility was, to care for the land for 430 wampanoag seven generations to come. We all know that the earth sustains us by watching nature. The muskrat possesses the knowledge that he had in the beginning. . . . Today people would call such a story a legend. It may be. Legends are pictures that contain the truth that the spirit itself works through nature and that by reading her script we can conform our lives in harmony with the Creator.” Why are we still here? For some tribal members, this remains a mystery because of the European colonization imposed on our society. I say we are the first people—that’s why we are here. colonization The Indian was a free person; they were trying to turn him into an English person. —Vernon Lopez (Silent Drum), Mashpee Wampanoag chief The reason we are still here is because of the courage and perseverance of our leaders who took the brunt of colonization. When the Pilgrims landed in 1620, they came with a contract to settle the area known as Massachusetts Bay and New Plymouth Colonies. They noticed that the Wampanoag had not subdued the land the way they were accustomed to. English colonists saw their new home as a wilderness and set out to redeem it. They decided that they had a natural right to the land. The Mayflower Compact established the first basis in the New World for written laws, which were created to rule over the indigenous traditional societies as well. In 1647 towns were required to provide schools and “keep watch and ward” over the Indians. The pedagogical framework instituted by the colonists was structured to indoctrinate young boys and adults to be teachers and ministers. According to the English theory, this process would bring Native people to civility. In 1658 the Massachusetts General Court provided what was referred to as home rule. Indian villages and plantations could choose their own magistrates to determine both criminal and civil cases, but not without the watchful eye of an appointed English magistrate, who was given the responsibility of setting the time and place of trial and who ultimately approved the decisions of Introduction 431 Native judges. In 1665 the court ordered that no Indian should at any time worship their “false gods” or “the devil.” If any Natives should transgress this law, the powwow (religious leader) would have to pay twenty shillings. In 1677 the General Court passed an...