Tribal rebirth (fwd)

[Phil Cash Cash]

This story is taken from Nations within at sacbee.com.
http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/projects/nations_within/story/6408828p-7360908c.html

Tribal rebirth
Casino cash helps revive cultures, economies

By Stephen Magagnini -- Bee Staff Writer - (Published April 6, 2003)
SAN DIEGO COUNTY -- At the Pechanga reservation pre-school, Indian boys and
girls sing "Ten Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed" in a language that's 10,000
years old.

Native languages die off yearly in the Americas, but the Pechanga Band of
Luiseno Indians -- born again with casino profits -- is breathing life into
Luiseno, a language on the brink of extinction.

Preschoolers speak nothing but Luiseno in school.

"They go around screaming, 'Don't jump on the bed!' in Luiseno," said teacher
Eric Elliott, a non-Indian who has learned four native dialects.

"The kids really believe he only speaks Luiseno," whispered preschool teacher
Bridgett Maxwell. "I'm learning right along with them."

Maxwell, who's working on her doctorate, is another beneficiary of the Pechanga
casino, which rakes in around $300 million a year. She's one of more than
80 members the tribe has sent to universities across the country, all expenses
paid.

In 1883, muckraker Helen Hunt Jackson called the Pechanga Band "the most
thrifty and industrious Indians in all California." Now their offspring are
making good on that reputation, building a strong tribal government and reviving
ancient traditions.

Pechanga's progress reflects how sovereignty, backed by casino money, has
turned around dozens of once-poor tribes. Barona, Table Mountain, Rincon
and other high-rolling Indian nations now have museums or cultural programs.

Even tribes that earn far less from their casinos are nation-building. Near
Porterville, the Tule River Indians run a small-plane factory, hedging their
bets in case gaming revenues run dry.

The Tule River nation's Eagle Mountain Casino, which takes in about $10 million
a year, also has helped pay for a gymnasium, a day-care center and an alcohol
treatment center and employs about 125 tribal members, said Dave Nenna, the
tribal administrator. Nenna -- who joined the Army at 16 -- is among the
new breed of Indian leaders who have come back to reservations with the experience
needed to make changes.

Unemployment on the reservation has dropped from 85 percent to 18 percent,
Nenna said, and casino jobs have provided much-needed structure. "Now everybody
shows up to work on time, clean and sober," said tribal elder Nancy McDarment.
"The casino has strengthened families. People are meeting their responsibilities
to their children."

Casino dollars aren't an instant cure-all. Each tribe must decide how much
to give to members and how much to invest in tribal enterprises. Pechanga
can afford to be generous with both, but a generation ago the tribe was barely
hanging on after more than a century of poverty and oppression.

"We were created two to three miles downstream in Temeekunga, the place of
the sun," said chairman Mark Macarro. The Spanish, who used Indians to build
the nearby Mission San Luis Rey, mispronounced it Temecula.

In 1852, Macarro's ancestors gave up hundreds of square miles to the federal
government, which promised them teachers, horses, doctors and a yearly supply
of grain and seeds, he said. "We lost the land but never got the goods."
Thirty years later, a posse drove the tribe into a valley called Pechaang,
meaning "water is dripping."

"We ended up in the non-arable land that nobody wanted," he said.

By the 1960s, population on the 5,500-acre reservation was down to five families.
But with the advent of Indian gaming in the late 1990s, people returned.
Today, every house on the reservation has running water, and each of the
1,400 members -- a third of whom live on the reservation -- get $10,000 monthly
casino checks.

"I could be saying turnabout is fair play: This is cosmic justice," said
Macarro as he sipped tea at the cafe in Pechanga's 522-room casino-resort.
"I don't know if that's true. It's through an accident of geography that
we were able to build a casino at Pechanga. Oe But a government without an
economic engine is a government in name only."

The tribe now has its own 24-hour fire department and an often irreverent
Web site, www.pechanga.net, one of the most popular and comprehensive Indian
news sources in America. The tribe also is re-creating a traditional Pechanga
village, developing a museum and running a summer program to teach youths
traditional Indian values, said cultural resources director Gary DuBois.

The centerpiece of Pechanga's $1.3 million-a-year revival is the language
immersion program, which costs about $200,000 a year, DuBois said.

Elliott has taught his preschoolers 10 songs in Luiseno, including the legend
of the little wildcat that saved its much bigger brother from the water beast.
He's created computer programs in Luiseno, which the kids play on six classroom
computers. Even the boys' and girls' bathrooms are labeled "yaaaychum" and
"susngalum."

Elliott also is helping a dozen elders recall long-forgotten Luiseno words
and tales. Before the white man came, "You had your history inside you and
it's my history, too, as a Californian," said Elliott.

He learned Luiseno from Villiana Hyde, an elder who also taught Macarro the
old creation songs, including the saga of Wiyot, a Christlike figure who
advised the Indians to share deer and other game with the less fortunate.

Today, Pechanga and other wealthy casino tribes share in a different way,
kicking into a fund that pays $1.1 million apiece to California tribes with
little or no gaming.

In the preschool classroom, 4-year-old Annora Kincaid draws a picture for
Elliott, then describes it in Luiseno. Elliott thanks her in her native language,
followed by a high-five.

Then the kids put their hands on their heads and sing, "Hengchich chox'ivol
'oyk" (It's time to clean up and put away; let's do it all together.)

The cleanup goes quickly. There's pizza for lunch today.