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Contemporary Powhatan Art and Culture: Its Link with Tradition and Implications for the Future

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Contemporary Powhatan Art and Culture: Its Link with Tradition and Implications for the Future Contemporary Powhatan Art and Culture: Its Link with Tradition and Implications for the Future PHOEBE DUFRENE Purdue University Historical Background Powhatan Indians are the indigenous Algonquian-speaking peoples of what is now called the Chesapeake Bay, an inlet of the Middle Atlantic coast in present day Virginia and Maryland. Powhatans have an unbroken history of thousands of years of settlement along the coastal areas of the mid- Atlantic. About 3,000 years ago Algonquians lived in the region north of the Great Lakes. From there they spread west, east, and south. Various groups migrated southward along the Atlantic coast. By the end of the 15th century, the Algonquians had spread from the Rocky Mountains of present- day Alberta in the northwest, to Labrador in the northeast, and south to Cape Lookout in present-day North Carolina (Feest 1990). The approximately 30 Indian groups now known as the Powhatan tribes were originally joined by their languages and their common location in present-day Maryland, Virginia, and the North Carolina border. At the end of the 1500s these people were united into a political confederacy by Powhatan, a paramount chief of several of the tribes. In 1646 the Powhatan Indians signed the oldest treaty written in Turtle Island (= North America) between the English and the indigenous people. Out of the approximately 30 tribes affiliated militarily or politically with the Powhatan confederacy in the 1600s, seven survived and are flourishing today. Surviving tribes include the Chickahominy, Eastern Chickahominy, Mattaponi, Nansemond, Pamunkey, Rappahannock, and Upper Mattaponi. Against many odds the Renape (human beings) survived. Renape refers to an ethnic group speaking a common language. Powhatan refers to a po­ litical identity as manifested in alliances and confederations (Horse 1987). The name "Powhatan" is derived from a paramount chief's political or­ ganization that covered most of the Virginia coastal plain and which was 125 126 PHOEBE DUFRENE organized by the man, Powhatan, who took his name from his natal town, Powhatan, near the falls of the James River. This name also applies to the closely related Algonquian dialects spoken in the region (Rountree 1989). Powhatan-Renape Nation is a term presently used by many contemporary descendants to refer to the union of political and ethnic/linguistic identity. Virginia Powhatans The state of Virginia has seven Powhatan tribal organizations. Each tribe has a chief, assistant chief, tribal council and assorted members. Together they number approximately 3,000 individuals throughout the state. Two tribes, the Pamunkey and Mattaponi have state reservations on their an­ cestral lands which date back to the treaties signed in the 1600s. Although the other tribes are also recognized by the state, they have lost their reser­ vations through the usual land manipulations. To compensate, some tribes, among them the Chickahominy, have purchased back some of their ancestral land. The Mattaponi have a 125-acre reservation at the Mattaponi River in King William County dating back to 1658. Today it has a small museum, trading post, and craft shop where women make pottery, bead work, and turkey feather headdresses in traditional fashion. The Pamunkey claim de­ scent from Chief Powhatan and his daughter Pocahontas. They still practice pottery techniques dating from aboriginal times and have a museum and trading post. The Upper Mattaponi are a group of urban non-reservation Indians who trace their origins to the Pamunkey and Mattaponi tribes. They also are known as the Adamstown band because of the large number of Adams families descended from an early Adams ancestor who married an Indian woman. The Upper Mattaponi headquarters is in King William County. The chief, Dr. Linwood Custalow, is one of the founders of the national organization, the Association of American Indian Physicians (Green 1987). Located in Charles City County, between Richmond and Williamsburg, is the tribal headquarters of the Chickahominy tribe. The tribe owns 2,500 acres of land. It is one of the more politically active Virginia tribes, hold­ ing offices on the county school board, planning commission, and in local government. The Eastern Chickahominy are located in New Kent County, 25 miles east of Richmond. The United Rappahannock originated in what is now Richmond County and migrated to King, Queen, Caroline, and Essex Counties. The Nanse­ mond originally lived in what is now Suffolk City, but have since relocated to Norfolk, Chesapeake, and Virginia Beach (Green 1987). CONTEMPORARY POWHATEN ART AND CULTURE 127 New Jersey Powhatans During the 1940s large numbers of Powhatans migrated north in search of better job opportunities and to escape from southern racial discrimina­ tion laws. Today many descendants of that earlier exodus live in southern New Jersey (Scheyichbi). In April 1982, the New Jersey Powhatan Renape Nation regained a land base through negotiations with the state of New Jersey and their chief Nemattanew. The Rankokus ('living stars') Indian Reservation is a cultural and educational center that has a re-constructed Powhatan ancestral village, herbal medicine walk, library, museum, and gift shop. Chief Nemattanew, also a Pipe Carrier for the nation, has been in­ strumental in reviving the Powhatan Algonquian language (Horse 1987). A prominent Powhatan affiliated with Rankokus Reservations activities is Dr. Jack Forbes, Director of Native American Studies at the University of California, Davis. Contemporary Powhatan Social Concerns: Maintaining the Traditions The 1960s civil rights movement has been a mixed blessing for Powhatan Indians and other southeastern Indian groups. The positive and negative impacts of the movement are still felt today. According to Helen C. Roun­ tree, an anthropologist specializing in Virginia Indians, civil rights gains such as equal job opportunities, equal housing, and an end to racist Jim Crow laws were a welcome relief to all southern Indians. However, the loss of segregated Indian schools that stressed Indian cul­ ture and traditions decreased opportunities for Indians to maintain their cultural identity. Schools and land that Indians brought and built with their own money and manpower were illegally confiscated by the state, all in the name of "integration" and "equal opportunity". Through successful legal action, the Upper Mattaponi regained their old school building from the county school board supervisors in 1985. Fortunately, the Powhatan Indians do not have the extensive poverty, alcohol and drug abuse problems that are prevalent among many Western tribes. A sense of community, extended family relationships, and church activities help maintain discipline and self-sufficiency. Contemporary Powhatan Art: The Female Influence Continues Unfortunately, when Native American art is studied as part of art history or explored in the studio, the past is usually emphasized. Romantic miscon­ ceptions of Indians are non-technological stone-age artisans dominate the literature, thereby reinforcing the tendency to dismiss the evolving contem­ porary Native American culture. 128 PHOEBE DUFRENE In the hundreds of Native American languages there is no word that comes close to the Western definition of art. Indian art is seldom "art for arts sake". Both traditional and contemporary thinking does not separate art and life, what is beautiful and what is functional. Art, beauty, and spirituality are intertwined in the routine of living. The Native American view of the spiritual and physical world uses sym­ bols freely to enrich daily life and ceremonies. Symbols are protectors and reminders of the living universe, bridging the gap between the spiritual and physical realm. Symbols are used in ritual performances to portray the power in the cosmos (Rubinstein 1982). Centuries before European settlers arrived in Turtle Island, Indian women were producing fine art in basketry, pottery, quillwork, weaving and leather painting. Indian women dug clay for their pots, gathered reeds and rushes for basketry, and worked with skins for painting. Indian women developed a sensitivity to colors and textures found in nature and related designs to the space and form on which they were placed. Working communally, Indian women learned their crafts from grandmothers, mothers, and aunts. Powhatan women were and still are part of this great women-centered art. Scattered throughout the U.S. are women artists of Powhatan descent, some tribally affiliated and others not for various political reasons. Both reservation based and urban women of Powhatan descent are contributing to the continuation of artistic traditions. Some of the urban based women artists of Powhatan descent are California photographer and printmaker, Monique Faison, painter and lecturer in pre-Columbian art at the University of Pittsburgh, Andrea Poole, and art therapist, photographer, and assistant professor of art and design at Purdue University, Phoebe Durfrene. The November 1988 Vienna Virginia Metro installation, "Totems of Powhatan" by Rose Powhatan and Michael Auld was both a historic and an aesthetic event. The series of six totems reflects the artists commit­ ment to preserving American Indian culture. Three chiefs from the Virginia Powhatan tribes attended the dedication ceremony. Rose Powhatan, in collaboration with her husband, Michael Auld, de­ signed the six pressure-treated pine totems to depict facets of the Algon­ quian people of Virginia. The following is a brief description of the six themes.
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