Ten years after the casino cash started flowing, the Rumsey Band of Wintun Indians' good fortune is on display across the peaceful Capay Valley.
Thanks to their Cache Creek Casino Resort – which makes about $300 million a year and is scheduled to expand – each of the 26 adults in the 60-member nation gets about $1 million a year after taxes, more if they're on the tribal council or committees. They get a travel allowance to expand their horizons to Tahiti, Europe or anyplace they desire.
They own luxury cars, custom homes on the rancheria and second homes elsewhere. They send their children to a first-class private school that offers their Patwin language and native flute taught occasionally by Grammy winner Mary Youngblood.
But CEO and Chief Marshall McKay sees trouble behind the opulence. The demons of the past that have plagued his tribe since they lived in trailers and scrounged for work haunt them still: diabetes, substance abuse, fierce family feuds and chronic apathy.
"I call it wealth shock … the poverty of the soul," said McKay, who's fighting to save his nation by pushing cultural rebirth and education. "I stress to members we can do a lot of damage by providing too much."
Only three tribal members have finished high school since the casino money started rolling in. They know they'll never have to work as long as they stay out of jail.
Wealth shock in Indian country is a largely untold story – members fiercely guard their privacy, and their finances.
But it's a challenge facing several thousand California Indians whose Vegas-style casinos – which grossed nearly $8 billion in 2007 – have given them per-capita incomes far greater than Qatar, the world's leading country at $81,000 a year.
"The whole group of gaming nations are struggling with this in a very serious way – some successfully, some unsuccessfully," said McKay, 56. "I don't want to give a talented young person a disincentive to go to college."
Overnight millionaires
A bear of a man with shoulder-length hair, McKay embodies the new breed of gambling chiefs.
While entranced slot players fatten up the tribe's 2,700 slot machines two miles down Highway 16, McKay strides through his 21st-century Indian village in a black tailored suit.
Where trailers once stood next to a tomato field, there are 18 courtyard homes on Wintun Circle with native accents and symbols.
To promote a sense of community, no fences divide the yards. The houses seemingly flow together, with soaring roofs that evoke the wingspan of an owl or eagle.
The village includes a swimming pool where tribal members get free swimming lessons, as well as a basketball court, sports field and cultural center.
McKay pauses at the tribe's man-made waterfall.
"I love the sound," he said. "I miss it from Cache Creek, where we used to play. I come up here in the evening. It's so relaxing."
This private enclave of overnight millionaires seems light years away from the days when their ancestors suffered slavery, slaughter and brutal resettlement.
To make up for stolen lands, the federal government created dozens of rancherias or mini-reservations for destitute Indians.
It established the Rumsey Rancheria in 1907 on a hard slice of Capay Valley miles from the tribe's original villages. For decades the tribe lived in shacks and had to haul water two miles from a pump in Rumsey.
When the Rumsey School said it didn't want Indians in 1912, the Bureau of Indian Affairs opened a school in Guinda to teach Indian children how to become domestic help.
The tribe's reversal of fortune began in 1985 when it opened one of the first Indian bingo halls in California. Congress legalized Indian casinos in 1988, and in 1989 tribal members got their first monthly dividends from bingo revenue.
Under Paula Lorenzo, who became chief in 1993, the tribe became an economic and political powerhouse.
A one-time welfare mom, Lorenzo raised three children with the earnings she made picking fruit and washing dishes. As chief, she led the tribe in the creation of the casino resort, custom homes and private K-12 school.
Call The Bee's Stephen Magagnini, (916) 321-1072. Bee researchers Sheila Kern and Pete Basofin and reporter Rachel Bogert contributed to this report.
