Shinnecock Tribe.

The Shinnecock tribe are located on the east end of Long Island. They believe that they were born in America and are the 'human children of the goddess who descended from the sky.' This instantly tells us their spiritual beliefs as their time has also been measured in the moon and seasons.

They call themselves the people of the stony shore due to their location but they are coastal dwellers as well. They depend on the shellfish and scaly fish for their diet and have been fishing and whaling in this area long before the industry grew in the 19th century.

Today their is 1400 of their people, and still live on a small part of the ancestral land - the rest has been taken from them in previous wars. They have created a health and dental care buildings in their community to help the local people thrive in their ever-expanding community. Also they have built museums about their history and educational centres and playgrounds for the children. This tells us that they want to keep their history whether good or bad alive for people in the community and others to remember, due to most of their history just being word of mouth past down each century. By building health centres also tells us that they are moving in some ways to the 21st century for beneficial reason, but not the whole way.

They are a self- governing tribe and have federal recognition, which helps them to protect themselves and the land.
They have proposed a casino, which they say will benefit the local community by offering plenty of jobs and improving many peoples way of life;
create 3,450 construction jobs
5,500 full time jobs
12,000 jobs for the local communities
generate $200 million revenue that will help improve the school district
attract super markets, cinemas and other businesses
and create lots of green spaces

All of these are positive for the community and for Long Island in general for tourism attraction and revenue reasons, however does it go against their historical traditions.