What constitutes a tribe?

The trial of the Mashpee Indians' attempt to gain land for their people was largely centered around the question of whether the Mashpee Indians were truly a "tribe" and  had ancestral claims to the land in question.  Throughout the trial, debate over how many traditional Indian customs had been preserved and practiced were rampant, as was the question of if the people who claimed to be Mashpee could actually trace their ancestry back to a census of known Mashpee over a century earlier. 

The different twists on the ethnography of the town of Mashpee and its varied inhabitants exemplify the way one's own culture dictates the way one sees the world.  Following Benedict's definition of culture, it is impossible to objectively observe another group's culture without using the frameworks derived from your own.  This phenomenon is obvious from the different histories derived from the trial notes.  As the expert anthropologist Jack Campisi expresses to the defense, "your gesture may be my rite" (321). 

What exactly constitutes a tribe is key in this trial and the ultimate decision rests on the definition provided by the court as "A body of Indians of the same or similar race united in community under one leadership or government and inhabiting a particular, though sometimes ill defined territory" (334).  Although it was found that the Mashpee did not fit this definition, the author notes, "the Mashpee 'tribe' had a way of going and coming; but something was persistently, if not continuously, there" (336).  

The jury in this trial was composed of white citizens, whose conceptions of Indians were largely that of "proud, beautiful, and 'vanishing'" (284). So how could the jury have delivered a different verdict when deciding if the 'vanishing' people had been consistently flourishing, yet changing, for the past two centuries?

How is a tribe a limiting framework for a culture/people?

Should a culture be limited by certain frameworks and requirements? If so, how can one decide where exactly to draw the boundary when making decisions in a political realm?

Should simple affiliation with certain beliefs and practices, that may have evolved and changed over time, make one part of a tribe? Or is something more required? 

To what extent does blood determine tribal/cultural identity? 

How is acculturation different from assimilation and when does one become the other? 

When does a culture cease to exist?