MONTAGUE — The Battlefield Grant Study Advisory Board affirmed its planned to stay neutral about the Turners Falls mascot debate at its monthly meeting on Wednesday.
The ad hoc committee of the Town of Montague, said that despite calls from some group members and the public, it would not take a side in the debate, but would work to provide educational resources for the School Committee as the review process continues.
The group has been working for the past three years with the town and local Native American tribes to map the “Falls Fight” as well as create cultural and educational resources that could one day be housed in a museum or center in Montague.
The group is currently conducting a battleground mapping study, with a $60,000 grant from the National Park Service and an eventual goal of creating a cultural resource center in the town about the battle known as Falls Fight or Peskeompskut Massacre. The group has been working with local Native American tribes on the project.
The current phase of the project, the second so far, is focusing on the actual battle mapping, which would include an archeological dig at the site of the battle.
Phase one included gathering written and oral narratives from the local tribes and generating a full history of the battle. All of the documentation for the project can be seen on the town’s website.
David Brule, who is the coordinator for the Battlefield Study Group and also the co-president of the Nolumbeka Project, said that many of the members of the group wear different hats in different organizations. He said it’s fine for those on the committee to take a stand one way or the other, but that since the group is affiliated with town government, it should remain nonpartisan.
The Nolumbeka project released a statement in September calling for the school to change the mascot, because the tribes associated with Nolumbeka did not feel the mascot was honoring Native Americans.
“Our position is that the tribes are the sole judges of what ‘honors’ them or what does not,” says a statement released by Brule, who is a Turners Falls High School graduate. “We understand the non-tribal traditions and misplaced pride of sports teams using Indian symbols and mascots, but the time has come to let it go.”
On Wednesday, Brule and others called for educational focus to any group contribution to the town wide discussion on the issue.
Jeff Singleton, who called for a town referendum at the Tuesday Gill-Montague Regional School Committee meeting, also came to the Wednesday meeting and praised the committee for the way it has tackled a thorny cultural issue, and said he hoped the way the Battleground group has operated could be emulated by those on both sides of the mascot debate.
“I just wanted to bring this up so we don’t pretend it isn’t going on,” he said during the public comment part of the meeting.
Brule said he has been in contact with the school committee about an educational presentation.
“I was seeing our role down the line, if we can contribute to the understanding of what happened here and that has always been… the point,” he said.
Brule said he has spoken to people on both sides of the debate, and most have approached him with an open mind.
“I think the time is right for some education to start taking place, but I think it has to be through to the schools,” Brule said.