Will the Mesquaki Culture Survive? Essay

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There is a sense of common tribal identity but every succeeding generation has seen this identity grown more fragmented. Even the purists and the traditionalists who try to define an essential core of the Mesquaki identity are themselves a kind of a splinter faction, rather than representatives of the core of the tribe.

The unity of the tribe now comes through the common economic support provided by the gambling on the reservation rather than from a common sense of culture and identity that links generations. The Mesquaki will likely survive in the future in the sense that the tribe will profit off of the casino and many tribal members will still remain on the reservation to live. But the culture will inevitably fragment and change, pulled in different directions from a number of competing forces. The first force is that of the outside white society which for many young Indians offers the attractions of escape from the reservation and in some instances greater opportunities for prosperity. The second force is divisions within the Indian community between traditionalists and assimilationists and different economic interests related to the casino. And the third force comes paradoxically from academia itself, which, despite Foley's best intentions, has tended to view Indian culture as something as static, unchanging, and of the past -- attitudes that affect how the Indians perceive themselves as well as outsiders.

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Whites frequently do not regard the Mesquaki as 'real' Indians because they are less obviously rooted in their culture's original traditions and this itself can affect tribe members' sense of identity (Foley 11).

However, that does not mean as one white person said in relation to Foley's project "their culture is pretty much gone" (Foley 10). Culture is not a static but a living thing, and the Indians' culture has grown and changed, even though some aspects of continuity may have the appearance of being 'staged' for white tourists rather than exist primarily as the personal spiritual expressions of the tribe. Moreover, many members of the tribe themselves have written notable works of literature on their culture, attempted to research the history of the tribe, or acted as community advocates (Foley 16). This points to a sense of tribal identity which, although may it not conform to the pure, sentimentalized image of a noble savage, still shows a sense of a unified cultural worldview, sense of history, and sense of common needs.

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