The canoe draws the eye at the center of the room, a long tapering organic shape ribbed like a whale, with the warm patina of old wood. Above it, the shape of a wave crosses a banner in a web of blue lines — like a three-dimensional digital model, or a weaving.
Past and future come together in Mu-he-con-ne-ok, the Mohican people, people of the waters that are never still, at the Berkshire Museum. Come in and stand quietly, and you will hear their stories in their own voices.
From the Stockbridge-Munsee Nation, Eunice Stick and Sheila Powless, Dorothy and Bruce Davids, Betty Putnam Scheil and Clarence Chicks talk about their experiences over the generations. They talk about young people leaving to work in the city, the cost of education and the resources it can bring — the challenges of learning forestry and preserving birch trees or running for office within the Tribal Council.
Photo by Kate Abbott
A wooden canoe rests at the center of Mu-he-con-ne-ok, the Mohican people, people of the waters that are never still, an exhibit curated by Heather Breugl, director of cultural affairs for the Stockbridge Munsee community of the Mohican nation, at the Berkshire Museum.
It’s powerful to hear them here, in their traditional homeland, said Heather Breugl,…
