Category: Delaware Tribe

Chris Flook  |  Special to The Star Press

The United States will celebrate the semiquincentennial anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 2026. As with the centennial and bicentennial anniversaries, the semiquincentennial offers a moment for shared patriotic celebration; an acknowledgement of where we began as Americans.

Such anniversaries also offer occasions in which to recognize and contemplate our civic identities, especially when they are local commemorations. For instance, we celebrated Muncie’s sesquicentennial in 2015, followed by Indiana’s bicentennial in 2016. We may not have all asked deep existential questions during those years, but hopefully some of us at least pondered what it means to be a Munsonian and a Hoosier. In 2027, Delaware County will commemorate its own bicentennial; yet another chance to consider how local history has shaped our identity.

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But 2021 is also a bicentennial anniversary in local history, although not one we choose to remember. Two centuries ago, our forebears forced the White River Lenape from Indiana and 1821 was their deadline to leave.

The land we now call Delaware County was inhabited by Native peoples for thousands of years before settlers arrived. As Caesar was invading Gaul, Indigenous peoples were building earthworks in the White River watershed. We don’t know what these groups called themselves, but some of their mounds remain. They left, along with their many successors, cultural materials that lie buried still beneath our feet.

When the French came down into what is now Indiana in the 1670s, the colonists found a sparsely populated land. Scholars debate the reasons for this, but it’s likely that disease and warfare had driven many Native peoples out. Spanish conquistadors led by Hernando de Soto had traveled through the American southeast in 1539-1543. The Spanish never made it up this far, but…

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40th annual Nanticoke Indian Powwow aims to spread togetherness and friendship

The 40th annual Nanticoke Indian Powwow went on this weekend in Millsboro.

Jerry Habraken / The News Journal

Last year’s Nanticoke Indian Powwow was canceled due to COVID-19, but the 42nd annual event is back this weekend. 

For the first time, the powwow will be held at Hudson Fields in Milton, relocating from a remote site near Oak Orchard.

Chief Natosha Norwood Carmine said moving the powwow to Hudson Fields will make it more accessible to the thousands of attendees it attracts every year.

The event features food, vendors, drumming and dance sessions. Participants don traditional regalia and Native American arts and crafts are available for purchase.

RELATED: Nanticoke Indian Powwow will move to Hudson Fields in Lewes

“It’s a time the Nanticoke Tribe, or any tribal community celebrates heritage, comes together as a renewing and refreshing of our spirits, remembers our ancestors,” said Carmine. “We’re also teaching our children our culture and our traditions and sharing them with the public at large.”

When is it?

This year’s event is set for 4-8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 10; 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 11; and 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 12. 

Tickets are $8 for adults, $5 for those ages 11-17 and free for kids 10 and under.

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Critical water resources and unique habitat preserved forever 

Westchester Land Trust protects 125 acres in Cortlandt

Westchester Land Trust (WLT) announced the acquisition and conservation of 125 acres across three land preservation projects in the Town of Cortlandt, NY. The newly protected open space is a critical addition to an existing 2,700-acre conservation corridor within the Croton-to-Highlands Biodiversity Area which includes the Town’s Hudson Highlands Gateway Park, the Hudson Highlands State Park, and the Appalachian Trail. The land will be protected in perpetuity as a nature preserve and open to the public as soon as practical for hiking and nature study.

“This is an extremely important landscape-scale conservation project because it preserves one of the largest remaining pieces of unprotected open space in Westchester County and is located near other large blocks of open space,” said Lori Ensinger, President of WLT. “We have been working on this project for six years, and we are deeply grateful to all who contributed to its success. It is truly an investment in clean air and clean water for the residents of Cortlandt, Peekskill, and the surrounding communities.”

The property has a rich history. Originally inhabited by the indigenous peoples of the Lenape, or Delaware tribe, the proximity of the property to the Hudson River and its tributaries made it a likely seasonal Lenape camp site or hunting ground. The land also played a role in the American Revolution and is documented as the site of a military parade ground and gallows. Most recently, much of the property was used as a private camp until the 1980s. The land has remnants of an unmaintained trail system, a diversity of forested wetland habitats and views toward the Hudson Highlands. Permanently conserving this property protects locally unique habitats and woodlands…

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What’s pushing 2,000-plus athletes from over 50 countries to San Francisco for the 40th annual Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon (EFAT) on Aug. 15—one of the most unique and grueling swim-bike-run races on the pro triathlon tour?

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Osage Nation Representatives review collections during a NAGPRA consultation. Photo courtesy of The Osage Nation

Nearly $2 million has been disbursed by the National Park Service in the form of grants to nine Indian Tribes, one Native Hawaiian organization, and 22 museums to assist in the consultation, documentation and repatriation of ancestral remains and cultural items as part of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.

“The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act grants help ensure the longevity of Native American cultural heritage and the National Park Service is committed to supporting the critical work of Tribal consultations, documentation and repatriation,” said Park Service Deputy Director Shawn Benge.

Eleven grants will fund the transportation and return of 11 cultural items, more than 4,000 funerary objects, and human remains comprising 82 ancestors.

One recipient, the Delaware Tribe of Indians of Bartlesville, Oklahoma, will repatriate the remains of individuals and burial objects removed from the Abbott Farm Historic District, a National Historic Landmark archaeological site in Mercer County, New Jersey. The Delaware Tribal Historic Preservation Officer was to travel to the Robert S. Peabody Museum of Archaeology in Andover, Massachusetts, to reunite the remains of 35 ancestors with over 600 funerary objects and prepare them for the journey to their final resting place. Additional representatives from the Delaware Tribe of Indians, Delaware Nation, Oklahoma, and Stockbridge Munsee Community, Wisconsin, will travel to Morrisville, Pennsylvania, to respectfully reinter the ancestors at a designated site on the banks of the Delaware River near the Abbot Farm site.

Twenty-two consultation and documentation grants will fund museum and tribal staff travel, consultation meetings and research, all in support of the repatriation process.

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign will conduct a collections review and host a consultation event to address NAGPRA-eligible cultural materials and ancestral remains recovered from Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site. Located near East St. Louis, Illinois, Cahokia Mounds is the largest pre-contact site in North…

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The Pawnee Nation has hosted a children’s summer camp as long as Mike Ortiz can remember. He decided last week to cancel the camp for the second straight year amid a resurgence of COVID-19 infections in Pawnee County and across Oklahoma.

“We don’t want to be a hindrance health-wise,” said Ortiz, who noted the back-to-school camp is for children between the ages of 6 and 18, meaning half cannot yet receive COVID-19 vaccines.

Medical experts say the disease is spreading quickly across the U.S. because of a highly contagious variant that now accounts for most new cases. The rapid return of COVID-19 prompted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to reinstate its face mask recommendation for all people in crowded settings. 

Leaders of many Oklahoma tribes are reupping safety measures and redoubling vaccination efforts to stem the spread within Indigenous communities, which suffered outsized losses during earlier waves of the COVID-19 pandemic. The recent steps include closing some tribal headquarters to the public and canceling annual events that organizers had hoped to bring back this year. 

“We are hearing from the experts and epidemiologists that the infection is spreading so rapidly that it’s more important now than ever that people are taking personal protection measures,” said Mark Rogers, executive director of the Absentee Shawnee Tribal Health System. The tribe has clinics in Shawnee and Norman, as well as a 24-hour coronavirus hotline that is answering more and more calls.

Rogers said COVID-19 cases are increasing among the health care system’s more than 22,000 patients. Most who have tested positive in recent weeks had not received a COVID-19 vaccine. Many are in their 20s, 30s and 40s. Some have been hospitalized. 

“It is a second pandemic of the unvaccinated,” said Rogers, who is Cherokee. 

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Curtis Zunigha remembers shedding tears when he heard the age of one Native American whose remains were part of a reburial ceremony in Ohio several years ago.

It was a girl, 11 when she died. Her young age, which reminded Zunigha of his granddaughter, along with the girl’s inclusion among the many Indigenous people throughout U.S. history who experienced indignities such as being moved from their homelands, left him shaken.

“I was emotionally distressed,” he said during a recent telephone interview.

Zunigha, cultural director of the Delaware Tribe of Indians, said the experience illustrates the long-lasting effects of the country’s history and the ongoing importance of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, or NAGPRA, which was passed in 1990. The law mandates that institutions receiving federal funding return Native American remains and cultural items to tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations.

The Delaware Tribe of Indians expects the remains of nearly 200 ancestors to be reburied at the Pennsbury Manor near Philadelphia in the fall and thousands of belongings to be returned.

Nationally, there are almost 200,000 human remains of Native Americans that have been identified under the law, according to the National Parks Service. Remains have been uncovered in all 50 states and are now on display in museums, in university labs for anthropology research and tucked away in boxes in the back of closets across the country.

The Department of the Interior in July announced new proposed regulations for the protection and repatriation law to clarify the process as well as take the burden off tribes to initiate and complete the required steps. The federal government is consulting tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations about the new proposals and will open them for public comment in October.

The Delaware tribe has been working for…

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POUGHKEEPSIE – Vassar College’s Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center presents a summer of art with exhibitions ranging from Robert Rauschenberg’s news-inspired screen prints and a related photo display, drawings by sculptor Harry Roseman, and a poignant commemoration of Juneteenth.

The Loeb Art Center also returns to regular public hours, every day (except Monday) from 11am to 5pm. As always, admission is free. For more information about accessing the Vassar campus, please refer to VassarTogether.

Summer exhibitions include:

Time Capsule, 1970: Rauschenberg’s Currents, an in-depth look at avant-garde artist Robert Rauschenberg’s famous 1970 series of politically charged screen prints, is on view from June 26 – September 19, 2021. In 1970 Rauschenberg superimposed stories, headlines, advertisements, and images clipped from newspapers and tabloids to produce Surface Series from Currents: eighteen large-scale screen prints that reflected the strident social and political change of the period. The series is both a technical feat of modernist printmaking and a chance to peer inside Rauschenberg’s time capsule and witness the cacophony of violence, warfare, and political backlash that defined world events of the time.

Organized by guest curator Calvin Brown, the exhibition also features two original collages on loan from the Rauschenberg Foundation as well as sixteen related works from the Loeb’s collection

Photo Currents: Media, Circulation, Spectacle, is on view upstairs in the Hoene Hoy Photography Gallery from July 10 – October 10, 2021. In light of the radical transformation of popular media with the rise of the internet, citizen journalism, and social media, this exhibition considers photography’s role as a mediator of collective experiences and memories of historical events.

Tilled Fields, a solo show by New York sculptor Harry Roseman, who taught at Vassar for 40 years, is featured in the Project and Focus galleries from July 3 – September 12, 2021. The exhibition engages viewers with eighteen striking…

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