VCC Magazine Spring 2018

Dedicating Mantle

Artistic Perspective By Alan Michelson Four hundred years ago, when this land was called Tsenacommacah, ancestors of the present Virginia tribes hunted for whitetail deer, hunted them with bows they shaped from local trees, maybe hickory or mulberry, trees they more or less cultivated for their nuts and fruit, using tools they made from stone, with points they chipped from quartz. They dressed and skinned the deer, sewed together the hides with sinew using awls made from bone, and embroidered them with tens of thousands of small white snail shells. They embroidered them in patterns, 34 disks sewn in spiral configurations and three figures, a person flanked by two animals. It was a large object, nearly eight feet by five and a half, and may have been one of Powhatan’s gifts to King James in 1608, which, we are told, also included a pair of his old moccasins. Some historians believe the 34 disks represent the nations of the Powhatan Confederacy, so in that sense the object was a map or a landscape. Virginia’s indigenous people survived the loss of their land and their rights. Of the more than 30 tribes in Chief Powhatan’s confederacy, only eight still exist. They survived the devastating Virginia Racial Integrity Act of the 1920s, which virtually erased their identities from official records for four decades by requiring birth and marriage certificates to be recorded as white or nonwhite in an attempt to prevent interracial relationships. Those actions made it difficult for many of the tribes to gain federal recognition, which formally recognizes their place in American history and makes federal funding available for housing, education and medical care, among other benefits. Virginia granted legislative recognition to the 11 tribes here today. It took nearly 20 years of fighting for six of those tribes to gain federal recognition, which happened earlier this year, bringing to seven the number of federally recognized Virginia tribes. Continued from previous page

See Artistic Perspective , continued on page 6 This object, like many powerful objects made by Indian people, ended up in a museum, the first university museum in the world, the Ashmolean at Oxford, catalogued as follows in 1656: Powhatan, King of Virginia’s habit all embroidered with shells, or Roanoke. Indigenous people’s knowledge is place-based. The tribal ancestors who crafted Powhatan’s Mantle had a very different knowledge set and worldview from the people who sailed here from England, who called it Virginia in memory of their childless queen, heir to an imperious king and a mother who was beheaded. Those Indian ancestors couldn’t have imagined the implications of those first ships, the guns and epidemics, the land hunger and dispossession, the burned villages and cornfields, the reduction and suffering of their peoples over many generations. They couldn’t have imagined such catastrophic losses nor their ongoing legacies. We celebrate that long overdue acknowledgment. My hope is that progress and the completion of this monument will begin our journey toward healing the wounds caused to those whose hospitality kept those English settlers alive in 1607. It’s important to note that we’re not simply recognizing the legacy of the native Virginians of our past. This monument signifies the contributions Virginia’s Indian tribes make every day through agriculture, teaching, military and civic service, the arts and other areas. We also celebrate the accomplishments of future generations who trace their ancestors to Virginia’s native tribes. Similarly, this monument will educate and inspire current and future generations of visitors to Capitol Square. As Mrs. Frances Broaddus-Crutchfield said in her beautiful poem: “Much work is left to be done. Mantle is a start.” Portion of Governor's remarks.

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V irginia C apitol C onnections , S pring 2018

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