Social priorities for tribe’s new chief

Now she can add one more — chief — after her appointment this month as the first female leader of the Mohegan tribe in nearly 300 years. In this role, Malerba will be asked to straddle two starkly different worlds: one that involves the Mohegan Sun megacasino and one that tends to the needs of a Native American community in the 21st century.

“It’s nice that we have this casino, but being chief is not about the casino,’’ Malerba, 56, said in a converted warehouse that serves as the tribe’s executive offices.

To Malerba, a 13th-generation descendant of the great sachem Uncas, being chief is about securing a future in which Mohegans receive quality medical care, assist the elderly, and encourage their youths to pursue higher education.

But most of those benefits flow from Mohegan Sun, a gambling and entertainment destination that opened in 1996 on the Thames River in southeastern Connecticut. And the resort, once a dependable wellspring of income, is feeling pinched.

Gambling revenues are down, an ambitious expansion project is on hold, and the financial future of the 1,800-member tribe has been clouded by an economy that shows casinos are not recession-proof. According to tribal data, gaming revenues from the last quarter of calen dar 2009 declined 5.2 percent from a year earlier.

“Each chief has defined a role by the times they find themselves in,’’ said Malerba, the great-granddaughter of a chief. “It will probably take a little time to decide what my personal goals should be.’’

Those goals will probably include what Malerba calls an “endowment’’ of the tribe’s social endeavors, which encompass a assisted-living facility for the elderly, health-insurance subsidies for all members, and full scholarships for all tribespeople who attend college.

“These things are more important to us than cash distribution,’’ said Malerba, who declined to specify how much each family receives from casino revenues. “It’s a myth that every casino-owning tribe is wealthy.’’

Malerba, whose husband is a plumber at the casino, will continue to serve as tribal chairwoman until her induction on Aug. 15. The post had not been filled since Ralph Sturges died in October 2007.

Malerba’s lifetime appointment is garnering praise from the tribe, most of whose members live within 20 miles of the casino.

“She’s an excellent role model,’’ said Bethany Siedel, 42, the great-niece of a former chief who owns Mohegan Flowers, a florist shop in the town. “You’d want your daughter to grow up like her.’’

Jayne Fawcett, 74, a former vice chairman of the tribal council, said Malerba’s management experience will be a big advantage. “I feel we’re at the point where we can’t afford to have someone in a leadership position who has not prepared herself for that position,’’ said Fawcett, the niece of a former chief.

One of seven children in a family raised on Mohegan Hill, Malerba attended nursing school in Hartford and later became director of cardiology and pulmonary services at Lawrence & Memorial Hospital in New London to cap a 21-year career in health care.

Malerba now works full time in tribal affairs. She continues to serve on the hospital’s board of directors and has a master’s degree in public administration from the University of Connecticut. That mix of interests — corporate, medical, and governmental — seem relevant for the leader of a tribe that long existed in isolated obscurity.

Once part of the Delaware tribe, the Mohegans migrated north to present-day New York state and eventually settled in their current home around the 15th century, Malerba said. Their survival can perhaps be credited to a decision by Uncas to ally himself with the Puritans during King Philip’s War, in which the tribes who opposed the English during the 1670s suffered a devastating defeat from which they never fully recovered.

Still, European expansion and diseases ravaged the Mohegans, Malerba said. From 20,000 members in the 1600s, the tribe dwindled to 2,000 a century later, and to only a few dozen people and a half-acre of land in the mid-19th century.

To qualify as a Mohegan today, a member’s family must have maintained unbroken political and social contact with the tribe and be a direct descendant from the Mohegan roster of 1861. The rolls have been closed to new applicants, Malerba said, and the tribe now adds only those children who are born to a member.

Despite the modernistic, asymmetrical towers of the Mohegan Sun hotel that rise beside the river, the tribe’s home retains a rural, small-town feel in the hills and valley near the casino. Their church, which has served as the center of social and cultural life since the mid-1800s, sits atop a crest hidden from the highway.

Understated street signs bear Mohegan names and historical markers. And members of the tribe mingle in seamless assimilation with their later-arriving neighbors.

Fawcett, the former tribal councilor, said the tribe had been a family unto itself for many years.

“It was an isolated community, and we grew up with a very strong social side during the Depression — for survival, actually,’’ said Fawcett, who lives on land that has been inhabited by Mohegans since pre-Colonial times. “It creates a bond when there are so few others like yourself.’’

Now, different challenges have emerged, and Malerba has become the 17th chief — the first woman since Ann Uncas in the 1720s. A spokeswoman for the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs said she did not have comprehensive statistics about female chiefs among Native American tribes, but Malerba said she believes several women hold similar positions.

For Malerba, the road ahead holds challenges that do not have a blueprint. “How do we diversify our business other than hospitality? I haven’t gotten that answer yet,’’ Malerba said.

One way to make such a decision less urgent would be to expand gambling into Massachusetts, where the tribe is leasing 150 acres in Palmer and state legislators are expected to consider approval for resort-style casinos. Mohegan Sun already operates gaming at Pocono Downs in Pennsylvania.

Through it all, Malerba said, she will try to mix the compassion of a healer with the pragmatism of a business executive.

“I intend to live a long time,’’ Malerba said, “and give people a lot of heartburn.’’

Correction: A report on the new chief of the Mohegans incorrectly referred to population, instead of tribal land, when describing the effect of the arrival of European settlers. The Mohegan territory shrank from 20,000 acres in the 1600s to one-eighth of an acre in 1861.