There are many things to learn in the simple, unpretentious documentary,
In the Shadow of the Crow: The Legacies of the Narragansetts.Designed mainly for classroom use, the film delves into the history of
the tribe more thoroughly than schoolbooks do. It tries to convey a sense
of what it’s like to be a Narragansett today, in the aftermath of the
smoke shop incident two years ago and many Rhode Islanders’ resentment
over the possibility of a casino.Made on a shoestring budget of a few
thousand dollars pleaded and granted here and there, this isn’t the polished
sort of u will see in a film festival, but it is informative.The past
is prelude to the present, so the right historical detail can inform current
events. For example, the animosity between the state of Rhode Island and
the tribe gains dimension when you hear an 1880 state report bragging
that "their extinction as a tribe has been accomplished," that no tribal
members are left. We learn that despite such government efforts, the Narragansetts
re-tribalized in 1934. In 1978 the federal government granted them sovereignty
as a tribe, along with the 1800-acre Charlestown reservation.
School students are taught that Roger Williams was fair to the tribes
he
met here, but few know very much about King Philip’s War and the Great
Swamp Massacre of 1675, which has been relegated to the "unfortunate incident"
dustbin of history. But the film succinctly gives the event context and
detail.
The background of the massacre involves Metacom (King Philip) forging
a tribal confederacy a few years earlier. His son, the sachem Canonchet,
didn’t join the alliance until the British put him in an ethical dilemma.
They demanded that he hand over all Wampanoags in his territory, whether
participants in the war or not, which would mean their being shipped to
the West Indies as slaves. Canonchet’s message to them: "No, not a Wampanoag
or a paring of a Wampanoag’s nail." So all women and children were sent
into the Great Swamp for their protection, and about 1000, including women
and children, were killed in the sanctuary. Genocide continued — though
the documentary never uses the word — and in a few years only about 200
Narragansetts from a pre-war population of 5000 to 7000 survived.
The 2003 smoke shop incident is central to the documentary, as it is to
the tribe today (see sidebar). Chief Sachem Matthew Thomas was among those
arrested. On camera he compares his people being arrested on land "sacred
to us" to synagogues being invaded by state police. He says he had to
talk two members of the tribe, depressed over the incident, out of suicide.
Pam Ellis, a lawyer specializing in Indian rights, says in the film that
the smoke shop raid has widespread interest to tribes elsewhere, because
the controversy addresses "understanding the nature and scope of tribal
sovereignty." The legal question is whether the state needed federal authorization
to go onto reservation land, and both sides were arguing the issue in
federal court at the time. Ellis says she understands that the tribe would
have yielded to federal authority but not to state authority.
In the aftermath of the 1988 Federal Indian Gaming Act, which gave theoretical
rights for the tribe to have a casino in Charlestown, the prospect could
have been the subject of a full-length documentary in itself. But the
film keeps that mostly in the background, focusing instead on what it
means to be a Narragansett in such contentious times. Darrell Waldron,
executive director of the Rhode Island Indian Council, speaks not only
about racism from outside the tribe but also a "pecking order" within.
"Everybody needs somebody else to pick on," he says. "This one’s too black
to be native, this one’s too white to be native . . . ." A Narragansett
and Wampanoag couple, Michael and Gunise Bliss, tell how their 10-year-old
daughter stopped dancing and "went out of the circle" at a powwow ceremonial
dance when she was accused of being "a wannabe." They go on to talk about
the values of being traditional. As Guinise declares, "We know who we
are."In the Shadow of the Crow: The Legacies of the Narragansetts
can help the rest of us come closer to that understanding.
