Bellicose Bumpkin

Interesting Globe article about a Wampanoag tribal member who sent a letter in support of Cape Wind and called the Mashpee/Aquinna opposition a “fabricated cosmology”. Remember that the Mashpee and Aquinnah Wampanoag, who have no issue with mega-casinos, are opposing Cape Wind on the grounds that their sacred ceremonies require an unobstructed view of the sunrise – a premise that has been questioned before. An excerpt of the letter appears in the article:

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Jeffrey Madison, a Martha’s Vineyard lawyer, wrote in a Feb. 9 letter to US Interior Secretary Ken Salazar that his father and grandfather were both medicine men of the tribe and “I am stating to you with complete honesty and knowledge that I never participated in, witnessed, or even heard of a sacred spot on the horizon that is relevant to any Aquinnah Wampanoag culture, history or ceremony. Nor did I see, or hear, either my father or grandfather conduct such ceremony.”
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Madison also submitted a petition to Salazar with eight signatures of other Wampanoag tribal members, saying they did not believe the wind turbines would “materially interfere with any significant cultural activity.”
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Critics of the project immediately challenged Madison’s claim because the firm he works for, Wynn & Wynn, was hired about two months ago to help strike a compromise with the tribes.

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My religion – the worship of nature requires that my town of Middleboro not be marred by a towering hotel/casino. Can I get the same consideration that the Mashpee want for the their view of the Nantucket Sound?

I’m a strong support of alternative energy in general and Cape Wind in particular. I was skeptical when the Aquinnah and Mashpee Wampanoag partnered with the Cape Wind opposition group Save Our Sound. The objection was that the turbines would disrupt a sacred sun greeting ceremony. I did a podcast with the Communications Director of Cape Wind and started reading up on it. One thing that I’ve never been able to understand is how the sun greeting ceremony fit into the Wampanaog belief system. The Mashpee Wampanoag are Christian and have been for hundreds of years. While following the Middleboro casino issue, I often see tribe members refer to the “Creator” in talking about tribal rituals, pow-wows etc.
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Shortly after the Cape Wind opposition became big news, I spoke to Gil Solomon Sachem of the Massachusett Tribe at Ponkapoag. While he supports the Mashpee opposition to Cape Wind, he said it was “inconsistent” for them to support a Middleboro casino and oppose Cape Wind. I also asked him how the sun ceremony fit in with their religion since I thought they were Christian. He basically said “don’t go there”. I’m sure the forcing of Christianity on the Wampanaog is a real sore point, but I think opposition to Cape Wind would seem less incongrous if the tribe’s culture was understood.
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The reason I’m writing this now is because of this blog post in Cape Cod Today that raised some of these issues and floated the idea that Mashpee opposition to Cape Wind could work against their casino ambitions:

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Anyone who has lived on this sandspit a few decades knows that our Native American Mashpee Wampanoags are impossible to differentiate from the rest of the Cape’s population.
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They shop at the same stores, drive the same cars and trucks, send their kids to the same schools and… go to the same churches.
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They don’t run down to South Cape Beach to watch the sun come up any more than they still live in wigwams or hunt buffalo.
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The Mashpee Wampanoags are Christians like most of the rest of us. They have been since the mid-1700s when they were converted and given land for the switch in what we call Mashpee today
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If the tribe kills Cape Wind and stops the state from prospering, the state will stop the tribe from propering.
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Hopefully some of my Wampanaog readers can fill in the blanks about how their Indian traditions fit in with their Christian ones.

Just in from the Gimme A Break department:

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Massachusetts’ top historic preservation officer has dealt a setback to the proposed Nantucket Sound wind farm, ruling yesterday that the body of water is eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places because of its cultural significance for two Native American tribes.

In a letter released late in the afternoon, Brona Simon, state historic preservation officer, said she believes that Nantucket Sound is so culturally important to two Wampanoag tribes that it should be eligible to be listed on the National Register as a traditional cultural property. Her decision conflicts with an earlier conclusion by the Minerals Management Service, the federal agency that led the environmental review of the Cape Wind project.

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I find the Mashpee Wampanoag to be completely without merit given their support of building a large casino in Middleboro. Won’t that block the sun for people living to the west of it?

In case you missed it, I recently did a podcast with the Communications Director of Cape Wind.

It’s been a while since I did any podcasts. Recently I had the pleasure of interviewing Mark Rodgers, the Communications Director of Cape Wind. Mark and I discuss the opposition to Cape Wind by by the Aquinnah and Mashpee Wampanoag.

After eight years of review, hearings, and study, the project is at risk of further delay by tribal opposition. While their objections have been noted for a number of years, Cape Wind feels that they have been engaged as valid stakeholders all along. The opposition has taken a new form in an attempt to get 500 square miles of ocean designated as a traditional cultural property on the National Register of Historic Places. Giving this status to open water is, so far, unprecendented and has far reaching ramifications for any coastal or offshore project – not just windmills.

The crux of the opposition is that the windmills will “disturb their spiritual sun greetings and submerged ancestral burying grounds” (from Globe article). The tribes have partnered with the main opposition group to Cape Wind. Proponents of Cape Wind find opposition puzzling considering the environmental benefits of Cape Wind. Others, like myself, find the Mashpee’s statements about being rushed ironic given the breakneck pace that Middleboro was expected to pass an Inter-Governmental Agreement(IGA) with the Mashpee Wampanoag for their proposed Middleboro Casino.

In any event, the perception of Native Americans as “stewards of the land” is resulting in raised eyebrows – whether you are talking about tribal opposition to Cape Wind, or tribal support for a casino.

For the sake of background information, here are a few relevant links.

Globe editorial
Globe article on tribal objections.
BB blog from July
AP coverage
NY Times editorial
A direct link to the podcast is here or you can listen here

Here’s a short audio clip of my call today in to Coffee Shop Talk – Adam Bond’s radio show. The guest today was Mark Rodgers – spokesman for Cape Wind.

I called in to ask Rodgers his thoughts on the T. Boone Pickens plan to turn the midsection of the United States into a major producer of electricity from wind farms. Part of the plan is to cut greenhouse emissions and foreign oil imports by diverting natural gas to fuel vehicles. In other words, the wind farm would replace some of the natural gas that is currently producing electricity. This gas would be then be used as vehicular fuel to help us reduce demand on foreign oil until technologies like hydrogen were more viable.

We were all pretty much in vehement agreement.

As far as Cape Wind goes. This is a no-brainer and should be done ASAP.

Click the moustache to play

Gimme a break
From the “You’ve got to be kidding me” department:

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The local Aquinnah and Mashpee Wampanoag tribes condemned an inadequate DEIS that failed to acknowledge religious and cultural tribal interests. The Aquinnah tribe reiterated its opposition to Cape Wind on Horseshoe Shoal and stated that the “clear, unobstructed view across Nantucket Sound is of paramount importance to the ‘People of the First Light,’ the Wampanoag people.” And according to the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, another peer agency to MMS, the DEIS “does not appear to give any weight to the cultural concerns of the [Wampanoag] Tribe.”

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And from the “You’ve REALLY got to be kidding me” department:

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Members of the tribal council have made their views clear: While emphasizing support for alternative and renewable energy projects, they oppose Cape Wind Associates’ plans to build 130 turbines on Nantucket Sound. They’ve asked that alternative sites be considered.

Members of the tribal council are concerned about aboriginal fishing rights and damage to potential underwater archaeological sites.

“Historically the Sound is of great importance to the tribe,” tribal spokesman Scott Fearson said. “The tribe considers the Sound to be ancestral waters. There are a number of concerns about this project.”

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The irony of this requires no further comment given the Mashpee Wampanoag’s plans to build a massive casino bingo hall in Middleboro that is being crammed down the throats of an unwilling populace with no public discussion or hearings(until the BIA one).

And as an aside – did you notice the misspelling of Scotty’s name in the second article?