Leland
Thompson is a cultural consultant for the Tribe’s social services department. Thompson
recalls being taught disciplinary sayings about proper ways to behave,
including how to treat others and the natural world. He never learned the
specific reasons for their importance, but adhered to many during his wife’s
first pregnancy. Watching movies with violent content and walking across wires,
for instance, was prohibited. “Our elders told us what we can’t do, but they
wouldn’t tell us why. And then I started going back and asking, and they said,
‘Well it’s just discipline.’ Questioning an elder would be questioning an
authority figure, so it would be disrespectful. But I explained to them why we
need to know, because so many of the reasons are being lost.”
Whether or
not the reasons are clear, Thompson, like most of the Tribal members, still
honors the Tribe’s traditions. When his daughter, Gwyneth, was four months old,
the family held a predawn hair shaving ceremony. “It’s the last rite of
cleansing from the mother’s womb,” he explains. The baby’s hair is “the last part
of the mother on the child,” and the ceremony is “the time you decide what you
want your baby to be interested in. Whatever you think will help your baby in
the future is placed under the child, and it’s also a gift to the child.” Thompson
placed under Gwyneth a Bible, a dictionary and a river-cane basket he had just
learned to make. Other gifts included
eagle feathers for dancing. Though tradition holds that the child’s uncle
should perform the shaving, Gweneth has no uncles. His grandmother shaved Gwyneth
just as she had shaved Leland when he was four months old but had no uncles. “The
hair is taken up and kept,” he says. “It came from the baby. You put it somewhere in your house. You can’t throw it away because the baby
still needs it. In its own way, it gets lost. It makes its way out.”
Just as
their language and their culture are important aspect of Coushatta are
important to them, so is their heritage of agriculture. The Koasati were
traditionally agriculturists growing a variety of maize, beans, squash and
other vegetables. The tribe carries on the tradition with extensive farming and
ranching including the farming of rice, soybeans and crawfish plus horse and
cattle ranching and a Christmas tree farm.
Their
heritage is shown too through their community structure. Their community of
today reflects the older forms of building of culture by maintaining their traditional
disbursed forms as the Koasati-Creek have done. Their church ball field complex
became the center of their disbursed population, which later gave way in part
to a tribal center-ball field complex. This center clearly corresponds to the
traditional hothouses of the Creeks and their neighbors. The Coushatta have
maintained their traditional values while modifying the architectural forms. The
symbolic value of socio-religious center with a public building and a ball
field to the west has persisted.
Their value
of entrepreneurship has been a core strength of their existence. Their
modern-day enterprise beginning with the 1965 tribal arts and crafts business
followed by their successful efforts to achieve state then federal recognition
in 1973, their drive toward independence through farming and ranching all laid
groundwork for the 1995 establishment of their casino gaming and resort. Today
they own and operate The Grand Casino Coushatta Resort, one of the largest
gaming and resort complexes in east of the Mississippi River. This successful
enterprise has enabled the Tribe to expand its farming and cultural programs
and assist in providing significant housing, health care and cultural projects
for their citizens.
No comments:
Post a Comment