To assure that the identity of the Vineyard’s Indians, their history, culture and tribal lands will be preserved, a Wampanoag Tribal Council of Gay Head was organized on Saturday, and Mrs.
Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head
2001
November 15, 2001
After spending much of the last two years in political hot water over gun-toting rangers, sheds with no building permits and the stewardship of a beloved general store, the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) now finds itself in a state of inner turmoil, its members at odds with each other.
October 4, 2001
The dispute over the right of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head
(Aquinnah) to arm its rangers with handguns and establish its own police
force is now being hashed out in the offices of the state attorney
general in Boston, where state officials are acting as facilitators.
May 3, 2001
The Aquinnah building inspector filed a lawsuit this week against
the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) to test the question of
whether the tribe must follow local zoning rules.
"A genuine controversy exists on this issue requiring judicial
guidance," wrote Aquinnah town counsel Ronald H. Rappaport in the
complaint.
February 22, 2001
In the view of Aquinnah police chief Doug Fortes, the turning point came in the fall of 1999, when rangers from the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay
Head (Aquinnah) came back from a trip to the Oneida Indian Nation in upstate New York, packing a half dozen Glock nine-millimeter semi-automatic pistols.
1999
July 30, 1999
As Gay Head entered the 1900s, it was one of the newest towns in the commonwealth. The English settlers at first considered it part of Chilmark, then decreed it an Indian district from 1855 to 1870, and finally granted it legal independence as the town of Gay Head in 1870. In creating the town, the legislature permitted tribal members of the place they called Aquinnah to divide their land severally and establish a town meeting form of government. To start its life as an incorporated town in the commonwealth of Massachusetts, the state gave Gay Head a treasury of $2.68.
July 30, 1999
We are members of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah). Wampanoag means “People of the First Light.” Aquinnah means “Land under the Hill.” We have survived on Noepe, “land amid the waters,” members of the Algonquin Nation and Eastern Woodland Indians.
