Posted on 11/27/2008 4:16:10 AM PST by Bulldawg Fan
Wampanoag Indians in a History Channel scene, filmed at Plimoth Plantation (AP Photo) (CNSNews.com) – A nine-year-old girl was recently asked to remove her “Indian” costume before entering the Wampanoag Homesite of the Plimoth Plantation, a historical site that allows visitors to experience Plymouth, Mass., as it was in the 17th century.
The outdoor museum features a 1627 English village beside a Wampanoag home site. The purpose of the museum is to educate visitors (school-children and adults) about what happened between the Native Americans and the colonists, especially during the first Thanksgiving.
The nine-year-old was one of thousands who flock to the colonial museum during the Thanksgiving season. She dressed as an Indian and her friend dressed as a pilgrim to celebrate the occasion.
Linda Coombs, associate director of the Wampanoag Indigenous Program, asked the girl to remove her homemade beaded costume before visiting the site, reducing the child to tears and upsetting her mother, the Boston Globe reported on Nov. 24.
“Native people find it offensive when they see a non-native person dressed up and playing Indian. It’s perceived as us being made fun of,” Coombs told CNSNews.com.
Coombs said she understands it was not the girl’s intention to be offensive – that she was only trying to “honor the Indians.”
“I could see that she’d put a lot of effort into making this dress and that it meant something to her … I could see by taking this dress off, I was dashing this whole thing that was going on in her mind,” Coombs said.
So she gave her a necklace from the gift shop in exchange.
“I wanted to acknowledge that she was giving up something that meant something to her and that I could appreciate everything she was feeling,” said Coombs. “Typically, in our culture, you give something away to show you appreciate what someone else has given up. And I wanted to mark that moment with her.”
Coombs said good intentions do not matter because she and the other Native staff members perceive the costumes as mockery before the wearer has a chance to explain his or her intent.
“Costumes are offensive because of what has happened in history – the Hollywood pseudo Indians, the Italian actors playing Indians, the crappy dress they put them in, the Halloween costumes. When other people dress up as Native people it’s offensive, period,” Coombs said.
She compared people wearing Native American costumes to white entertainers who put on blackface in old minstrel shows.
Visitors to the Wampanoag home site are asked not only to refrain from dressing up like “Indians” – they are asked not to use words like “how” or “chief” or “squaw.”
Cultural sensitivity requests are posted on signs in front of the museum and on their Web site, plimoth.org.
The Web site also advises visitors not to refer to the Wampanoag people as either Indians or Native Americans. “The term Native American suggests that Native People were always American but this country was populated by Native People long before it was called America,” the site states.
Instead, they prefer to be called Native People or Indigenous People.
Guests are asked not to engage in stereotypical “Indian” behavior, such as war-whooping and dancing around the fire.
The museum also requests that people not ask questions like, “Are you a real Indian?” Not just because of the word “Indian,” but because of the world “real.”
“The tour guides here are real people, Native people. Our nationalities are not fodder for joke material, because then you get into the aspect of racism and historical erasure,” Coombs said.
Most people have no idea that what they say or wear might be hurtful, insulting or offensive, she said.
“That’s why we’re trying to educate people about our culture and to correct stereotypes and wrong information,” she said. “We’re here to make a bridge between people, not to just send them packing.”
Viewer Comments
“Coombs said she understands it was not the girl’s intention to be offensive – that she was only trying to “honor the Indians.”
How about that, the commissar of Indian Culture sees offense where there is none and shows no “sensitivity” to a young girl. She could have made this a pleasant and memorable experience for the girl, she chose to make it an unpleasant experience .... the girl, and her family, will now associate the plantation with “that donkey”. What a bitter, sad woman this Coombs must be.
The offended should also remove their flush toilets and stop using tampons.
She probably would have never been hatched.
I'm part injun myself and find this pig sickening.
Yeah no kidding. My eyes! My eyes!
She should be fired; then close down the whole operation, and use it to teach the “Mayflower Compact”
Alan's mother.
He hasn't a wife, but does have a partner.
Her real name is probably Hoof In Steaming Pile.
The MOST leftwing of all liberals are those that majored in “Native American Studies”. The school textbook industry is stuffed with them, and they spend a lot of time censoring and editing textbooks.
I forget who the author was (Thought it was Linda Chavez, but can’t find that book in her bibliography) but she talked about how the name of a mountain was edited out of a book, because it was sacred to some tribe and looking at it or saying its name was somehow disrespectful.
Reminds me of the scene in “The Holy Grail” where the Knights Who Say Ni cannot bear to hear the word “it”.
More White guilt and doing away with another cultural icon - Thanksgiving.
She was almost named “Droops to Bellybutton”
Remember. Not JUST to send them packing. If you listen to liberals long enough and carefully enough, they will eventually tell you exactly what they are thinking.
For sure. Almost enough to put me off the upcoming turkey dinner ... but I shall recover. ;)
LOL ... “Hoof In Steaming Pile” bumps.
Gee. This from a liberal moonbat? She isn't consistent. To liberals, "good intentions" are a get out of jail free card, for everything from little girls wearing homemade Indian costumes to trillion dollar subprime mortgage meltdowns caused by irreponsible lending.
If word of her comments gets out to here fellow liberals, she is going to realize she is "off the reservation".
Oh, belay that. I forgot that it is okay to deceive, lie and dissemble in order to advance the liberal agenda. "Rules for Radicals" and all that.
Did this article press a button in me today? You bet it did. I live in Massachusetts, and the state government would go right along with this. Now, we have these SAME people who are going to be not just in the State House, but in the White House as well.
Boy, does that bring back memories! Popeye! Greatest cartoon character ever created!
...her, and the horse she rode in on!
Unless they are Wade Churchill. I suggest Coombs search the Web for various Powwows and explain the presence of Blue-Eyed Blonde people at them.
Then she can explain the big flap from the '70's when the Mafia tribes became interested in casinos. Local tribes were studied by anthropologists in order to determine tribal status and identities. Nowadays, DNA helps, but in a part of the country where people have been immigrating and interbreeding for centuries, it is not that easy a call because so many characteristics like epicanthal folds have been lost.
It is not impossible that the student may have been more "Indian" than Coombs. Some of the older generations "Looked it" more.
Guilty!
Insanity is what that is. Makes the others look bad.
It's like the least-funnest Indian Casino EVER.
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