The Drama”: the Continuing Importance of Cultural Tourism in the Gaming Era
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Staging “the Drama”: The Continuing Importance of Cultural Tourism in the Gaming Era Matthew D. Thompson A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Anthropology Chapel Hill 2009 Approved by: Valerie Lambert Michael Lambert Patricia Sawin Christopher Nelson John Jackson © 2009 Matthew D. Thompson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT Matthew D. Thompson Staging “the Drama”: The continuing importance of cultural tourism in the gaming era (Under the direction of Valerie Lambert, Michael Lambert, Patricia Sawin, Christopher Nelson, and John Jackson) Issues of indigenous self-representation are of major concern for U.S. tribal nations. For the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) self-representation has meant refashioning the way they are portrayed in a major theatrical production on their reservation. My dissertation investigates the reinvention of the outdoor drama Unto These Hills, produced 1950-2004 in Cherokee, North Carolina, by the White dominated Cherokee Historical Association (CHA) and the role of the EBCI in exerting tribal sovereignty over the formerly non-Indian controlled institutions which produce representations of their history and culture for tourists. In 2006, under Cherokee management, the fifty-seven year old drama was transformed into Unto These Hills… a Retelling. My research explores the social conflicts, negotiations, creative processes and performances surrounding this change as the tribe steered its most public representation of the past from a narrative of accommodation to one of Cherokee nationalism. This study makes a significant contribution to the history of the EBCI, focusing on the relationships between tribal government and the business of tourism within the broader context of social change on the reservation since the advent of Indian gaming. From the rise iii of the railroads and highways that laid the foundations for a tourism boom in the 1950s, to the drama’s contemporary role within a reservation-wide program for tribal economic development, cultural tourism has been important in the construction of contemporary Cherokee subjectivities and part of a process of Cherokee nation building. As such, the drama is also a source of friction among its multiple audiences who contest each other’s authority to authenticate its narratives of the past. Through ethnography my research will elucidate the agency of display as social process. From the ruin of the old CHA to the political maneuvers that sculpted the re-writing of the script and the tribal and federal policies that set the transformation in motion, it is this process of staging the drama, as much as the performance itself, that best illustrates what it means to be Cherokee in the twenty-first century. iv For Jessica, Marisol, Graciela, and Charlotte v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I owe a great debt to the many people who helped me and my family as I completed my dissertation field research. The year and a half I spent in Cherokee, North Carolina, are some of the happiest in my memory. I owe a great debt to the good folks at the Cherokee Historical Association, especially James Bradley, Chelsea Taylor Saunooke, John Tissue, and Linda West. Thanks to Hanay Geiogamah, without his permission I would never have been able to experiment with being a stage performer. I am grateful to everyone who was in the 2006 drama, Unto These Hills… a Retelling, and I had a lot of fun being in the show too. Everyone backstage and onstage: thank you! I would like to give special thanks to Lloyd Arneach, Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle, Faren Sanders Crews, Johnice Daniels, Myrtle Driver, Reuben Fischer, Emmett Furrow, Leon Grotski, Lew Harding, Paula Nelson, Kevin Norris, Mabelle Sequoyah, Natalie Smith, Eddie Swimmer, Reuben Teesatuskie, Yona Wade, and Cindy Whitecotton. Finally thanks to Bill Rhodearmor at Haywood Community College in Clyde, North Carolina, who gave me a job when I desperately needed one. Reflecting now on my entry into the graduate program at the University of North Carolina I am struck by the chance occurrences that brought me to the anthropology department there. I am very grateful to have received such excellent training from the many professors I worked with. Patricia Sawin advocated my entry to the program and counseled my decision to choose a doctorate in anthropology over a Masters in education. Chris Nelson vi introduced me to history and memory studies and gave me advice when I became a father. Mike Lambert was the first to encourage me to study tourism and he urged me to hew closer to storytelling as I wrote my dissertation. John Jackson, formerly of Duke University, helped to guide me from the study of “race” in the United States to performance studies, which took an unexpected turn when I became a stage performer myself. My committee chair and advisor, Valerie Lambert, has been a dynamic and engaged mentor from the start. She is a model intellectual, fiercely persuasive, and seemingly unflappable – I have learned a lot from her. Beyond my dissertation committee I was also deeply influenced by professors Charles Price, a tireless educator and activist, and Lee Baker, a consummate professional and advocate for the discipline of anthropology. My undergraduate mentor, Maria Vesperi, has helped me considerably through every stage of graduate school. Despite all the professors I apprenticed under my fellow graduate students in anthropology, especially my cohort at UNC, have had the greatest impact upon me. My friends Daniel Adkins in sociology, Carol Lewald, and Erik Reavely have all logged countless hours listening to me tell the same stories over and over again. Thanks and kudos to Suphronia Cheek, a talented secretary and kind soul with whom all things are possible (as far as the department is concerned anyways). During my graduate career I have been especially fortunate to receive funding from the UNC Graduate School through the Smith grant, off-campus dissertation fellowship, and the Sequoyah fellowship for American Indian Studies. The Atlantic Coast Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences Alliance was pivotal to my family’s well being while in Cherokee through the Research Education Support Program. I would like to thank the Whatcom Museum Society of Bellingham, Washington, for the grant from the Jacobs Research Fund. I vii was touched to be recognized by the Society for the Preservation of American Indian Culture with the Lynn Reyer Award for Tribal Community Development. I have saved the biggest thanks for last. Without my wife Jessica and our twin daughters, Graciela and Marisol, it would have been impossible for me to achieve what I have. I will always treasure the time we spent together in that single-wide trailer between the landfill and cow pasture. Now that Charlotte has come along and we’re in Virginia everything has been just right for me to write this dissertation. Well, not really but who cares! Kisses and hugs for you all. My parents, Chuck and Janis, have supported me with boundless love and encouragement. They also contributed a few grants and fellowships of their own. Thanks for that. My in-laws, Rob and Sandy, I have known for more than half my life now and have been behind me every step of the way. Thanks to my big extended family back in Texas, you don’t know it but I think about you every day. My far-flung college friends some of whom, oddly enough, became anthropologists too, changed my life and brought me into adulthood. You will always be close to my heart. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES AND ILLUSTRATIONS……………………………………………xiii Chapter I. A NATION AND ITS DRAMA…………………………………………….1 The emergence of the tourist economy in Cherokee, North Carolina………………………………………………………...2 Laboring in a tourist economy……………………………………..….6 Theorizing tourism and the politics of display………………………..7 The continuing importance of cultural tourism in the gaming era…………………………………………………..………..14 Overview of the dissertation…………………………………………22 II. THE HISTORY OF DISPLAYING HISTORY IN CHEROKEE, NORTH CAROLINA…………………………………………………………………32 “An organization of organizations”: The WNCAC………………….33 The WNCAC meets the Eastern Band and the University of North Carolina…………………..…………………….38 The WNCAC creates the Cherokee Historical Association..………..45 The inaugural performance…………………………………..………48 The Trail of Tears as publicity stunt…………………………...…….49 Chief Osley Saunooke challenges the CHA……………………..…..51 ix The 1970s – Challenges to the CHA’s influence and power………...55 The CHA negotiates with the EBCI government………...……56 Dissenting voices: Jane Oppy, Larry French, and “The Cherokee Wildfire”…………………………….….62 Trouble with Cherokee employees……..……………………..73 Remembering the present: Writing a history of the 1950s in the 1980s………………………………………………………….76 III. “TRAGEDY AND TRIUMPH”: THE RISE AND FALL, AND REBIRTH OF THE CHEROKEE HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION…………………....79 Renaissance…………………………………………………………..81 Events leading to the Cherokee takeover of the CHA…………….....85 “It was just a train wreck, start to finish”…………………………….94 The concretization of bureaucratic ideology………………………..101 Bureaucracy, bad behavior, and bad blood…………………………102 Mechanized theater…………………………………………………111 IV. “THE SPIRIT OF HISTORY” REREADING UNTO THESE HILLS……114 Outdoor drama and difference……………………………………...117 Rereading Unto These Hills………………………………………...120 Preshow…………………………………………………………….121 Scene 1….…………………………………………………………..122 Scene 2…….………………………………………………………..124