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Mashpee tribe reaches out to its own, greater community

September 11, 2008 2:35 PM

By JANE LOPES
Editor

MASHPEE — Keisha Peters is about to report on "News from Indian Country,"
but Gayle Andrews is not convinced that the young woman's glossy tresses
are quite ready for the camera and she grabs a comb and hair spray.
Meanwhile, Paul Mills is making sure the teleprompter is properly keyed up
for the segment, while executive producer Damien Pocknett adjusts a banner
emblazoned with the Mashpee Wampanoag logo.

The September edition of "Native Voices" is officially in production.

A news show with items of interest to members and non-members alike,
"Native Voices" is the cable television show that is produced monthly by
the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe. The half-hour show premiered in February in
Mashpee and is now seen all over the Cape as well as in New Bedford and the
Middleboro-Lakeville area on public access channels.

The entire cast is made up of Mashpee tribe members, including a group of
young people who produce their own segment each month and also do the
camera work for remote location shots. The August episode, showing now on
local cable, features an archaeological excavation in the Middleboro area
that has uncovered remnants of native occupation dating back thousands of
years. There's information on the Indian Health Service and on job
opportunities available to tribe members, a segment with Tribal Council
Chairman Shawn Hendricks discussing tribal government, and one on the new
Pow Wow Princess, Talia Landry.

"This is a newsletter for our people," said Paul Mills, co-host of the show
with Gayle Andrews, the professional journalist of the group who is also an
official spokesperson for the tribe. Mr. Mills said "Native Voices" is a
news and information program that reaches out to the wider community as
well as to tribe members, but it also serves as a visual version of the
Nashauonk Mittark, the tribal council newsletter, as well as augmenting the
tribe's official website.

Ms. Andrews agreed the show provides the most effective means of reaching
the roughly 1,500 members of the tribe. Many live in the viewership area of
the show, but those who reside elsewhere around the country can subscribe
and receive copies of the program.

"A website is good, but everybody doesn't have a computer," she said.
"Everybody has TV."

The show benefits from Ms. Andrews' extensive background in television
journalism that included work for a CBS affiliate in Florida. While she
lived in Florida for many years, also working for the Democratic party and
as press secretary to the Florida Senate president, Ms. Andrews grew up in
Mashpee and knows the community well. She and Mr. Mills also see "Native
Voices" as a way for those in the wider community to learn about the
Mashpee Wampanoag people.

The tribe has been in the news for more than a year as a result of the $1
billion casino resort proposed for 540 acres of land off Precinct Street in
Middleboro. A segment of the August show is about a ceremony held by tribe
members and Middleboro residents on the Precinct Street land last month.

But many people, even those whose own families have deep roots in New
England, know little about the people who had lived in what is now
Southeastern Massachusetts for thousands of years when the Pilgrims arrived
here and were greeted by members of the Wampanoag nation.

"Most people don't even know we were the people who greeted the Pilgrims,"
Ms. Andrews said, "or that we sustain ourselves with some of the same
activities our ancestors did a hundred years ago."

The cable TV show is also an example of the tribe's efforts to build
leadership skills and self-sufficiency, and to explore non-traditional
activities. While much of the equipment that is used to produce the show
belongs to Comcast and the show is filmed in Comcast's Mashpee studio, all
of the planning and production work as well as sets and graphic components
are done by the cast and crew.

The Media Project, the youth component of the crew, helps those who will be
the future of the tribe to develop important skills.

"They do the whole segment, review scripts, set up interviews and shoot the
video," Ms. Andrews said.

Finally, "Native Voices" is a way for the Mashpee Wampanoag to celebrate
their connections to each other and to this part of the world. The tribe is
closely knit with kinship lines that run back for hundreds of years, and
it's entirely possible to participate in some fairly unique exercises in
degrees of separation with tribal members. When her interviewer mentioned
meeting a member of the Mashpee tribe while visiting a small town in
Virginia several years ago, Ms. Andrews looked surprised and then smiled
mischievously.

"That was my mother, Ann Peters Brown," she said. "She told me about
meeting someone from Middleboro. See how we're all connected?"