About a week ago the Shoshone tribe bought the Hard Rock franchise, and I've been disappointed ever since. It used to be you couldn't turn your head without seeing someone wearing one of the T-shirts, but the hippies are letting me down. I expected them to be all over this and doing everything they could to make the purchase a successful venture.
I've ridden by the Hard Rock in Las Vegas, but that's as close as I've ever been. I did, once, eat at a Planet Hollywood in Orlando, but that's hardly the same thing.
While the Shoshone are channeling what I suspect to be gambling profits into a more mainstream venture, one of our local Indian tribes, the Pechanga, are dealing with their windfall a bit differently. In an effort that I'm sure has nothing to do with the twenty grand a month each of their tribe members are reaping from a successful southern California location, they've decided to trim their ranks. I have no idea what's considered acceptable, but they've been sending out notices to many people purging them from tribehood.
The recipients, naturally, say they're not upset about the money, only about losing their roots and heritage. I'm not sure who's doing the genealogy, but I don't think I'd be too upset about being told I wasn't one-sixteenth Pechanga or whatever the cutoff is, not as much as I would be about losing a damn good income for an accident of birth. Then, again, I've never been all that concerned about what my grandparents did for a living, or anything about them.
In Africa, however, the Bush people have received a very generous agreement with the people of Botswana, who've determined the Bushmen belong in the Kalahari. Now, I had to study the Bushmen in an undergraduate Sociology course, so anything I know about them is pretty much restricted to their name. Still, I think allowing them to return to their native lands is both good and bad.
Good because, well, it's what they're accustomed to. Bad because I don't think you can lift yourself out of a stone age existence if you're stuck in the Kalahari desert. Yes, you can survive the way your ancestors did, but look where that got 'em.
Whenever anyone who hasn't discovered metalworking runs up against Europeans, who have, they lose. This doesn't surprise me. There's something romantic about the pre-Industrial people, but I don't know anyone who'd like to live the way they did.
Still, it's been a great month for indigenous people.
1 little, 2 little, 3 little Indians
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2 comments:
Heritage is important to a lot of people. What's right is also important. The money and security are very important, including the health care that members who can trace their ancestry back to before Lincoln was President.
The Tribal Council has a man with NO Pechanga blood sitting in judgement of those who do. His family benefits by "trimming"the rolls. And, since the last family they 'trimmed' has the most documentation in the tribe, might there be another reason?
Check out the website.
The Council member you mention, whom I know less about than I do everything else combined, is exactly the problem. I applaud the efforts of the Pechanga to better themselves, and I get a bit ill when I think of people taking advantage.
Thanks for your input.
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