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February 10, 2007

Jamestown's 400th stirs a new view of the Pocahontas legacy

By STEVE SZKOTAK
Associated Press Writer

RICHMOND, Va. - She has more personas than Madonna, the saintly glow of
Joan of Arc and the enigmatic spell of the Mona Lisa.

In her 22 years, Pocahontas left a legacy that endures in history texts, in
stone relief at the U.S. Capitol Rotunda and in a beguiling parable of
Jamestown's settlement by commerce-minded explorers.

But 400 years after America's first lasting English settlement was
established in a marshy peninsula on the James River, history's version of
the favored daughter of a powerful Indian leader is being looked at anew,
and quite critically.

Scholars say the lithe teenager often portrayed with a sexuality beyond her
years was a creation of white, English males, who embellished on a daring
but innocent child. Some Virginia Indians, too, are speaking out on what
they say is the true story of Pocahontas, drawing from the tradition of
oral histories. They say they are reclaiming a narrative that for years was
written by people who had little knowledge of their culture and low regard
for their generational recollections.

It is more than righting history books, they say.

"This is more personal," said Angela L. Daniel "Silver Star," an
anthropologist who co-authored a new book, "The True Story of Pocahontas:
The Other Side of History," with Dr. Linwood "Little Bear" Custalow. He is
a member of the Mattaponi tribe, one of eight recognized tribes in
Virginia. "She was part of their family."

The traditional view of Pocahontas is on display at the Virginia Historical
Society. The exhibit, which opens this weekend, comes amid an 18-month
state commemoration of the four centuries since Jamestown's settlement in
1607.

In paintings, prints, sculpture and gaudy popular representations, the
short life of Pocahontas is presented in an almost biblical tableau:
Pocahontas rescuing Capt. John Smith in 1607 from an execution ordered by
her father, Powhatan; Pocahontas warning Smith that her father was planning
again to kill him; her kidnapping by settlers; Pocahontas converting to
Christianity and marrying Englishman John Rolfe; and Pocahontas dying in
England in 1617.

Pocahontas is shown in various forms of nudity, which was the custom for
young Indian girls until puberty. But instead of deerskin aprons, also the
fashion for older girls and women, she is depicted in flowing, often
diaphanous covers. Her appearance ranges from teenage sprite to the
European ideal of feminine beauty.

"This is what we know, and this is all we know," William M.S. Rasmussen, a
curator of the exhibit, said in an interview. "And it's all the English
perspective, all by men."

As for Pocahontas, he said in an e-mail, "She left us no statements as to
why she did what she did."

Rasmussen said the exhibit does not purport to be the only accounting of
the subject's life and is intended to engage the visitor. "What I want the
viewer to do is form an opinion about Pocahontas," he said.

Camilla Townsend, author of "Pocahontas and Powhatan Dilemma," used a
variety of sources and arrived at a sharply different view of Pocahontas
and the men whose portrayal has been sustained through the centuries.

"Indeed, the whole narrative that is so cherished in America is
pornographic - in that the girl in the story has no needs, ambitions, rages
or opinions of her own," Townsend wrote in an e-mail response to a series
of questions. "She exists merely to adore John Smith, white men, English
culture."

Townsend raises many of the questions cited by other historians and Indian
critics of the Pocahontas story.

Smith, the settlement's raconteur, wrote in 1624 of his dramatic rescue -
after the deaths of Pocahontas and many of the principals who could have
corroborated his story. At best, critics argue, Smith's capture could have
been a misinterpreted Indian ritual, such as an adoption ceremony.

Daniel said Pocahontas would not have been at the ceremony as depicted by
Smith and represented in sandstone on the Capitol Rotunda.

"No children would have been allowed in that ceremony," she said.

Smith, while a widely acknowledged braggart, was generally agreed to be
fearless and was much more inclined to engage the Indians than his fellow
settlers. That did not extend to his purported romance with Pocahontas, a
coupling promoted in director Terrence Malick's dreamy film "The New World"
and the Disney animated film that bears her name.

Daniel, Townsend and other critics contend that Pocahontas played a key
role in Jamestown, though perhaps not as dramatic as Smith and his fellow
settlers would have us believe. The child, Daniel writes, was the
embodiment of peace the Indians sought with the newcomers.

As her father's favored daughter, she often would accompany Powhatan to
Jamestown fort.

"Virtually, Pocahontas became the Powhatan symbol of peace, both as a child
and as an adult," Daniel wrote.

Townsend argues much of the familiar Pocahontas story is simply feel-good
history.

"The fictional version has been resistant to change because white Americans
love it so much," she wrote.

Rasmussen is an unabashed fan of the unvarnished Pocahontas story. "Why
would you want to renounce the legacy?" he asks.

Still, he acknowledges the Jamestown story and its principal players are
part of history subject to who is recording it or interpreting it.

"The story of Pocahontas has had enormous appeal ... and the theme that
runs through it is her story has been adapted to whatever agenda was on the
table at the moment," Rasmussen said.

Daniel's and Custalow's book underscores the different points of view.
Daniel stresses the book, for instance, reflects the version of Pocahontas
from the Mattaponi point of view. The Mattaponi is one of the original core
tribes of the Powhatan Chiefdom.

Because of discrimination against Indians and fears their version of events
would be ridiculed, "we would not have considered telling the true story of
Pocahontas," Mattaponi Chief Carl "Lone Eagle" Custalow writes.

"The True Story of Pocahontas" is the collected historical knowledge of
tribal priests, or "quiakros," he said, and represents the first written
history of Pocahontas by her own people.

"It is vastly different from the history you have been taught in school, in
novels, or in movies," he states.

The book and exhibit likely will not be the last word on Pocahontas.

___

On the Net:

Virginia Historical Society: http://www.vahistorical.org

"The True Story of Pocahontas: The Other Side of History:
http://www.fulcrumbooks.com