The Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians were driven west by expanding European settler colonialism in the early 19th Century after calling the Northeast home for millennia. Now, the Wisconsin-based community is preparing to return to reignite its relationship with the homelands it’s missed for centuries.
“We traveled out east there to the homelands, and we found healing,” Wanonah Kosbab told WAMC. “So, we wanted to extend it to the rest of our people. And so, we started working together on how we could get our people back to the homeland so that they can start their healing journey as well and dance on the homelands and touch down where our ancestors were.”
Kosbab is a board member for the Homelands PowWow, a recognition of the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians’ long history in the region that will take place on the grounds of the Darrow School in New Lebanon on Saturday and Sunday.
“The powwow is a gathering,” she explained. “It’s a celebration of people, of life, in this case, of land, and past stewards of that land, and current stewards of that land coming together, to share in community, to share meals, laughter, joy. It’s all about coming back together. And in this particular case, it’s important, because when we left them homelands, there was a lot of negative energy that was left behind. And so that negative energy just kind of sits there and stews, and it’s a stale energy. And so when we reconnect in a good way, we replace that negative energy with all of this good energy that we’re bringing by coming back together in community, in love this time.”
Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohicans member Ginger Stevens, who also sits on the powwow’s board, made her inaugural trip to the homelands – a region spanning…
Continue reading



The two-day festival transferred to downtown Loudonville on Saturday. Credit: Hayden Gray