DATE: Thursday, November 27, 1997           TAG: 9711270697

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY HOLLY A. HEYSER, STAFF WRITER  

DATELINE: RICHMOND                          LENGTH:   82 lines

TRIBES PAY TAXES IN PELTS, WEAPONS INDIANS SAY TREATY WITH ENGLISH PROHIBITS RESERVOIR NEAR RESERVATION

The Mattaponi and Pamunkey American Indian tribes paid their taxes directly to Gov. George F. Allen Wednesday in currency no other Virginian can use: beaver pelts, dead deer and arrowheads.

It was a colorful, warm-hearted ceremony. After all, how else would one deposit a dead deer at the steps of the Governor's Mansion without seeming rude?

Behind it, though, was a serious message: By paying the taxes, the Mattaponi and Pamunkey were holding up their end of a 351-year-old treaty.

Behind that was a message no one dared utter into a microphone, though indigenous Americans in the audience were more than happy to say it to reporters: Now it's time for Virginia to hold up its end of the bargain.

``One of the provisions (of the 1646 treaty) is that we give the crown of England 20 beaver pelts and three arrows for protection of the tribe,'' explained Carl Custalow, assistant chief of the Mattaponi.

Of course, that agreement was with England, not Virginia. So the tribes pay their tribute to Richmond, now. The tribes have paid the tax since 1646, even though England didn't ratify the treaty until 1677.

Another provision of the treaty was that the English couldn't build within a three-mile buffer zone around the Mattaponi reservation in King William County.

The Mattaponi want to use that provision to block King William County and Newport News from building a 1,500-acre reservoir on the Mattaponi River two miles from the 150-acre reservation.

Custalow said the tribe fears that diverting water from the Mattaponi to supply Newport News would allow salt water to come farther up the river and ruin shad spawning grounds.

Shad are a staple of the Mattaponi diet and a central figure in their culture. The tribe operates a small hatchery where it harvests eggs and sperm from fish during spawning season, hatches the eggs, then returns millions of young shad to the river.

The Mattaponi also fear that the reservoir would inundate 112 American Indian archaeological sites dating back as far as 8,000 years, said Marie Keshick, an Ottawa from Michigan who works with the Mattaponi.

``The reservoir would cover the history of the Mattaponi tribe,'' she said.

The Mattaponi went to the attorney general's office for help earlier this year, but the office issued an opinion that the treaty doesn't protect the tribe from the proposed reservoir.

``When the buffer was created, its plain purpose was to separate the English colonists from the Indians - to serve as a kind of no-man's-land or demilitarized zone,'' Assistant Attorney General Frank Ferguson wrote in June.

However, more than 100 buildings or other ``improvements'' already have been built in the buffer zone.

Now the question is in the hands of the State Water Control Board, which could decide next month whether to grant a permit for the reservoir.

But such matters didn't come up during Wednesday's ceremony, which followed strict protocols of chatty decorum.

Surrounded by deerskin-clad Indians, plus Boy Scouts, curious onlookers and the media, Allen praised the ``culture and education the Indians have contributed to the commonwealth.'' He read a resolution that touted their ``enduring legacy of respect'' for land and resources. And looking over a dead deer, he quipped to the audience, ``They're the only ones who are allowed to do this, by the way.''

Chief Webster ``Little Eagle'' Custalow - Carl Custalow's father - thanked Allen for the friendship he had given the tribe, and professed the same for the governor. The 85-year-old chief handed over three arrow points, symbolizing friendship, love and peace. And he showered the first family of Virginia with gifts: pottery, a bead necklace and a baseball cap.

``Do I have to put this on?'' Allen said of the cap. ``A modernized headdress . . .''

Pamunkey Chief William P. ``Swift Water'' Miles also bore gifts.

Among other things, Chief Miles offered the governor and his wife a dreamcatcher - a wooden ring with a web woven inside it - ``for the new baby Allen, whenever he or she arrives.''

Observer Lenora Adkins, whose father is chief of the Chickahominy tribe, said Wednesday's event was an important ceremony. ``We can set an example of responsibility, even though our ancestors and our people have suffered a lot from that first contact with Europeans,'' she said. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Nikki Custalow, 9, adjusts the deerskin outfit of her grandfather,

former Mattaponi Chief Curtis ``War Horse'' Custalow, in Richmond.

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