Schaghticoke tribe continues struggle for federal recognition

FALLS VILLAGE — Darlene Kascak of the Institute of American Indian Studies in Washington, Conn., and a member of the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation told an audience about the history of Native Americans in Northwest Connecticut and gave an update on the tribal nation’s current status at the David M. Hunt Library Saturday, Nov. 16.

Kascak noted that she is not an archaeologist or a historian, but a storyteller.

“I’m just a native person who wants to share our story.”

She said Native American history is poorly taught in American schools.

She recalled how she and her young son visited a museum and saw an exhibit labeled “Primitive Technology,” including a stone axe.

Holding a similar implement, she said her son was embarrassed that his ancestors were “primitive.”

So, she set out to show her son how Native Americans took down trees.

What the two didn’t do was hack at the tree with a stone axe.

What they did do was use fire and river mud — and the axe — to take down a tree.

After completing the demonstration, her son said “Mom! They were geniuses!”

Kascak noted that Native Americans have inhabited what is now Connecticut for 12,000 years. The first European settlers arrived roughly 500 years ago.

She said native practices were better for the environment, such as rotating crops, or harvesting fish only after they have spawned.

On a deer hunt with her uncles, the teenage Kascak, who was an excellent shot, learned the protocols involved.

“Don’t shoot the first one you see. It could be the only one.”

Rather, the hunter should wait to be sure there is a healthy population before killing a deer.

The same principle applies to harvesting wild berries. “Take one third for yourself, one third for the animals to eat, and one third for seed.”

Kascak said as the United States formed and Connecticut was developed, Native Americans were squeezed out of their lands on the Atlantic coast.

She said the Schaghticokes are an amalgamation of different tribes.

With a small reservation in Kent, the Schaghticokes entered the 20th century needing to adapt to the new reality.

One way they did this was by providing urban elites with a rough and tumble, frontier experience.

The Schaghticokes held rattlesnake hunts, and invited politicians and journalists to come to Kent.

After a fair bit of drinking, the city men would go out with snake-catching implements and burlap bags and capture the timber rattlesnakes that live on the reservation.

The resulting publicity was good for the tribe.

Kascak said what the city men didn’t know was the day before the hunt, the Schaghticokes went to snake dens, captured a number of the creatures and transported them to the trails where the hunters could find them easily.

Kascak provided a timeline of the tribal nation’s attempts to gain federal recognition, a process that began in 1981.

She said the tribe gained recognition in 2004, had it rescinded in 2005, and in 2015 were informed that any tribe that had been previously denied could not re-petition.

She held out some hope, in light of recent developments with the Golden Hill tribe in Trumbull, but added that if the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation is given any land beyond the small reservation that now exists, it won’t be where the Kent School is today.

“That’s the reality.”