"The movie has a logic and a poignancy beyond its rhetoric. The thoughtful faces and voices of these people have depth and dignity." Reviews of In the Shadow of the Crow: The Legacies of the Narragansetts :    • Bill Rodriguez / The Providence Phoenix      • Mike Fink / Motif

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.

In the Shadow of the Crow will be shown at the following times and places:

On Sunday, March 13 at 1 p.m. at Brown University’s Smith-Buonanno Hall, Brown and Cushing streets, Providence

On Friday, April 8 at 6 p.m at Rhode Island Indian Council, 807 Broad Street, Providence.

On Monday, April 18 at 7 p.m. at the URI CCE campus, 80 Washington Street, Providence.
FILM REVIEW: In the Shadow of the Crow: Legacies of the Narragansetts

"Acknowledgeable and passionately felt account of the history and the current crises of the Narragansett Indian Nation in Rhode Island is going around the