Learning more than history at Plimoth
It may be 2008, but staff members at Plimoth Plantation's Wampanoag Homesite regularly have to ask little boys to stop war-whooping and little girls to remove costume feathered headdresses and beaded dresses brought from home.
Parents must be admonished for making jokey greetings like "How" or calling the performers "Chief," "Squaw," or "Indian." Just last week, an adult chaperone of a school group had to be corrected for asking Tim Turner, a staff interpreter who is a member of the Cherokee Nation, where he bought his alcohol.
"I told him straight out that wasn't appropriate, especially not in front of children," said Turner, who wore traditional native dress of breechcloth, moccasins, and skunk pelt while talking to tour groups last week. "I don't have a problem making people feel stupid if that's what's necessary."
Visitors' gaffes - deliberate or accidental - are not laughed off or ignored here, especially during Thanksgiving season, when 70,000 visitors are expected during the month of November. Confrontation and reeducation is a near-daily chore at one of the state's top tourist attrac tions for many of the homesite's approximately 15 staff members all of whom are Native American, or as they prefer to be called, Native people.
Plimoth Plantation now makes these requests for "cultural sensitivity" explicit in five languages on its website, and a main thrust of the revamped orientation film watched by the nearly 400,000 guests who tour the site, and the nearby Mayflower II, each year.
Read entire article at Boston Globe
Parents must be admonished for making jokey greetings like "How" or calling the performers "Chief," "Squaw," or "Indian." Just last week, an adult chaperone of a school group had to be corrected for asking Tim Turner, a staff interpreter who is a member of the Cherokee Nation, where he bought his alcohol.
"I told him straight out that wasn't appropriate, especially not in front of children," said Turner, who wore traditional native dress of breechcloth, moccasins, and skunk pelt while talking to tour groups last week. "I don't have a problem making people feel stupid if that's what's necessary."
Visitors' gaffes - deliberate or accidental - are not laughed off or ignored here, especially during Thanksgiving season, when 70,000 visitors are expected during the month of November. Confrontation and reeducation is a near-daily chore at one of the state's top tourist attrac tions for many of the homesite's approximately 15 staff members all of whom are Native American, or as they prefer to be called, Native people.
Plimoth Plantation now makes these requests for "cultural sensitivity" explicit in five languages on its website, and a main thrust of the revamped orientation film watched by the nearly 400,000 guests who tour the site, and the nearby Mayflower II, each year.