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If there’s one pandemic-era trend that everyone should want to see continue indefinitely, it is Yo-Yo Ma giving pop-up concerts. The world-renowned cellist brought his musical magic to one of Maine’s already magical places last week, treating visitors at Acadia National Park.
Ma’s surprise performances followed other pop-up performances in Massachusetts over the past year. He had played at a vaccination clinic in March during the 15-minute waiting period after receiving his second COVID-19 shot, and gave multiple surprise performances last September in recognition of teachers, health care workers, first responders and others.
While unexpected for many of us, Ma’s Acadia exhibition of acoustic brilliance was no accident of timing. He was there paying tribute to the Wabanaki tribes in Maine, and the performances coincided with U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland visiting the park last week. Ma was joined by Chris Newell — executive director of the Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor and senior partner to the Wabanaki Nations — and Roger Paul, a Wabanaki educator and visiting adjunct lecturer at the University of Maine.
Haaland’s Friday visit to the park, which included Gov. Janet Mills and Maine’s congressional delegation, featured discussion about the importance of investing in outdoor recreation. But Haaland’s multi-day trip to Maine also featured a more delicate, complicated issue: tribal sovereignty.
On Thursday, Maine tribal leaders asked Haaland, the first Native American to lead the Department of Interior, to support their quest for sovereignty. As we’ve written before, the need to rebalance the state-tribal relationship is both urgent and complex.
That complexity cannot continue to stand in the way of needed action. We hope that the decision to push tribal sovereignty legislation into next year’s legislative session will provide more time to work through points of contention. We also hope a bill to expand tribal gaming rights will make it over the finish line soon, while emphasizing the importance of focusing on the possible rather than the perfect.
Haaland’s visit to Acadia Friday morning began with a sunrise performance by Wabanaki musicians and Ma. Just as they greeted a new dawn, the state must welcome a new era of relations with its tribal neighbors.
The Wabanaki, the “People of the Dawnland,” have been watching the sun rise here for thousands of years. In comparison, the four decades since the 1980 land settlement agreement between Maine tribes and the state seems like a blip in time. Those years, however, have provided enough evidence to know that, while that settlement addressed uncertainty about tribal claims to two-thirds of the land in Maine, it has not orchestrated a harmonious relationship between the state and our tribal neighbors. A better rhythm can be achieved by revisiting and rebalancing that relationship.
Newell told the Bangor Daily News editorial board on Monday that the performances with Ma were initially intended as a small, experimental arts and music project rather than the “kind of G20 summit” that it turned into. Newell is happy and hopeful that it became “a moment of transformation” for Wabanaki and non-Wabanaki people alike.
As part of last week’s performances, Newell read words from poet Emily Dickinson while Ma played his cello.
“‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers / That perches in the soul / And sings the tune without the words / And never stops — at all,” Newell read.
Listening to these words and to Ma’s music, we couldn’t help but feel hopeful, too.