THE PISCATAWAY INDIAN NATION

A Tenacious People with A Fragile Culture

Christine Buckingham

WHY?

THE PAST

History

PISCATAWAY

• Artifacts place Native American Piscataway ancestors in the Southern Maryland region since 9,000 BC. Oral history places them generations prior to first contact with Europeans in 1600.

• Related to Delaware Lenape, Iroquois

• Algonquin speakers

• Native tongue still spoken: Rico Newman gave invocation at the Pow wow in native tongue. Roughly, “Creator, come be among us. Thank you for your gifts: the earth, the winds, the clouds, the water. Thank you for our Grandfather, the sun. For all this accept our thanks. On behalf of the Piscataway, ask for peace, happiness, long life. “

PISCATAWAY – PLACE WHERE THE WATERS MEET

The People are identified by the land where they live. When the Piscataway were forced out of Maryland, they renamed their new locations in Virginia and New York, Piscataway .

THE PISCATAWAY INDIAN NATION

THE PAST

Loss

Pluralism: a social organization in which diversity of racial or religious or ethnic cultural groups are tolerated (Princeton, 2009).

This world is not a place of equality. In the pluralist society of the United States, there are now and there always have been marginalized people groups. None have suffered the same degree of discrimination, persecution, or oppression as the Native American. The goal of the new American government was not toleration or acculturation or assimilation, but annihilation.

LOSS OF PISCATAWAY HOMELAND

“Most minorities have a homeland, somewhere a place that’s theirs. The Indian has a homeland that is possessed by another dominant culture. This has psychologically, very strange ramifications.”

Fritz Scholder, Native American Artist.

LOSS OF TRIBAL IDENTITY

No Indian identity. White, black, colored, mulatto. Census takers would not use term, Indian. Most were identified as “mulatto” even if they lived on an Indian reservation. Self-identity as “Wesort”

Primarily oral not written history.

Common themes in previous generations: “Don’t tell.”

Fears of being forced into reservations and losing what land, rights they had. Much intermarriage with black slaves and black freed slaves. Some Indians held property and some held black slaves.

Common names in S MD: Proctor, Butler, Newman

THE BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS

Forbade the speaking of Indian Languages

Prohibited the conduct of traditional religious activities

Outlawed traditional government

Created Indian boarding schools for Indian children

LOSS OF PROMISES

INDIAN BOARDING SCHOOL

“When I go home, I’m going to talk Indian.”

THE CARLISLE INDIAN BOARDING SCHOOL

SOCIAL STRUCTURE

CollectivistClans, Tribes, Families

CLAN (Piscataway are of the Beaver Clan)• Matriarchal; women honored as equals, did and can serve as

a chief (tayac)• Inter-ethnic marriage is permitted but within the Indian

People groups, are to marry within same clan• Adoptees and those who are assimilated relinquish clan and

adopt the new clan identityTRIBE – like extended family groups (e.g., Piscataway Indians,

Cedarville Tribe. ) Tribes autonomous. Tayac is hereditary title of chief of chiefs. Annual council to decide all tribal governance matters

FAMILY• Not nuclear in structure• Father’s or Mother’s brothers have more influence and

authority than father• Honor veterans as akeechetah, “warriors”, defenders of the

people, our land, our way of life.

SPIRITUALITY

Syncritic Naturalist and Catholic

The First Christian Conversion to Catholicism of Piscataway Indians by Jesuit priest, Father Andrew White in 1640

Most of the Piscataway Indian Nation are Catholic but practice a syncretic form of religion that incorporates tribal traditions. In 1980s, Catholic church gave them dispensation to incorporate tribal traditions into Catholic ceremony (e.g., Peace Pipe; burning curative herbs; burial in ossuary)

Important traditional dates follow the liturgical Catholic calendar (e.g., Awakening of Mother Earth Easter), Feast of the Dead.

Spiritual components common to all Native American cultures•God concept as Creator/Spirit/ Brother•Winds – for the four directions of the earth

“We don’t need a chapel or a church. When we dance, when our feet caress mother earth, we are worshipping.”

Death, Burial, Afterlife

Ancestors are central to life. They are the intercessors with the spirit world. The Piscataway are tied to their land and their burial place is sacred. When it is disturbed, the link to the spirit world is broken.

As a collective society, dead did not want to be buried alone. Dead were left on biers until only skeletons were left. Once a year, the skeletons would be collected and bones placed in an ossuary.

RECOVERING IDENTITY

RECOVERING INDIAN IDENTITY

• The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the rise of the American Indian Movement in the late 1960’s sparked an enduring organizational revival among tribes.

“These cultures, like those of the Piscataway, are fragile. How do they recover cultural identity? Their cultural identity is volitional. It is what their individual families have retained. Primarily is identified through repetition of ceremony”

DEFINING TRIBAL IDENTITY

1974 the Piscataway chartered their tribe. The whole Proctor family adopted the name, Tayac, With Chief Turkey Tayac resuming title. In the 1980’s the state of Virginia passed legislation that officially recognized related Virginia tribes.

But neither the Bureau of Indian Affairs or Maryland has yet to act on the over hundred thousand of pages of formal petition of the Piscataway. No BIA approval granted since 1985.

Gabrielle Tayac, Ph.D. (Piscataway)

PORT TOBACCO ARCHEOLOGICAL DIG

RECOVERING IDENTITY

CRAFTS ARE AN IDENTIFYING FEATURE OF NATIVE AMERICANSUnrecognized tribes are not permitted to use the

term, “Native American Craft” ($5000 fine)

DEVELOPMENT OF CULTURAL IDENTITY

NEED FOR OFFICIAL MINORITY STATUS

PISCATAWAY INDIANS, CEDARVILLE BAND

PISCATAWAY INDIAN NATION TRIBAL EVENTS

Awakening of Mother Earth Ceremony April 16 - 19, 2009 at Moyaone Burial Grounds

Vigil: Thursday: tobacco burning; Friday and Saturday: sweat ceremony;

Sunday April 191:00 – 4:30 pm, Moyaone Burial Grounds Social: Sunday, April 19, 5 – 8 pm @ HFES (please bring a dish to

pass)

Pow-Wow June 6-7 2009 at Cultural Center

Green Corn FestivalSeptember 10 - 13, 2009

AWAKENING MOTHER EARTH

POW WOW GRAND ENTRY OF THE FLAGS

THE FUTURE

IDENTIFICATION… EDUCATION …ACTIVISM

SMITHSONIAN MUSEUM OF THE NATIVE AMERICANS, WASHINGTON DC

IMMERSION

• “We need immersion experiences (sustained exposure to) environments quite different from our own. Without some regular dissonance or disequilibrium, we tend to become too comfortable with the status quo and are little inclined to engage in altruistic activity…It is not that we should stretch ourselves because it is ‘good for us’, but cultural stretching helps us to see beyond the limitations of our biases and stereotypes. And without such regular exposure, we are not likely to develop a sufficiently complex Christian worldview to withstand the challenges of pluralism (Garber, 1996; Mouw, 2002)” (Yarhouse, Butman, &McRay, 2005, p. 175).

THANK YOU

Natalie Proctor of the Cedarville Piscataway Indian Nation who pointed me toward Rico Newman

Dr. Gabrielle Tayac, Curator at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Native Americans, who escorted me around the newly opened archeological dig in Port Tobacco, MD and allowed me to interview her and take pictures of her, of the dig, and her presentation.

Patricia Jolie, member of the Confederated Salish & Kootenai Tribes and Cultural Information Assistant at the SI-NMAI’s Community & Constituent Services/Resource Center;

and most of all, to Rico Newman of the Cedarville Band of PIN who gave generously of his time in email correspondence, phone calls, and finally, who escorted me to the Annual Pow Wow and allowed me to video interview him at length.

REFERENCES

• Yarhouse, M, Butman, R., McRay, B. (2005). Modern Psychopathologies: A comprehensive Christian appraisal. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

©2010. Christine E. Buckingham. All Rights reserved. www.CEBuckingham.com

wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn retrieved 5-25-09