Category: Munsee

New Name Honors First Stewards of Land that Became Yonkers

(Left to Right: Yonkers Parks, Recreation & Conservation Commissioner Steve Sansone; President Shannon Holsey, Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians; Mayor Mike Spano; Sculptor Al Wadzinski; Yonkers City Councilwoman Deana Norman; Yonkers City Councilwoman Tasha Diaz with the newly installed “Many Trails” sculpture at Daylighting II at 2 Mill Street. Photo Credit: Maurice Mercado/City of Yonkers

Mayor Mike Spano today announced the official renaming of Daylighting II at 2 Mill Street to Many Trails Park, in recognition of the Indigenous people who first inhabited the land that is now the City of Yonkers.  

The new name honors the region’s Native American heritage, including the Lenape, Munsee, and Mohican people, whose history and traditions remain deeply connected to the Hudson River Valley.  A new metal sculpture, designed by Native American artist Al Wadzinski, that recognizes how the history of Yonkers and Native American are intertwined was installed at the rededicated park.

“This name reminds us that the story of Yonkers began long before our City was founded,” said Mayor Spano. “By renaming this site Many Trails Park, we honor the first stewards of this land, the Lenape, Munsee, and Mohican people. We also recognize the deep history that continues to shape Yonkers today.”

“Parks are where community, culture, and nature come together,” said Yonkers Parks, Recreation, and Conservation Commissioner Steve Sansone. “Many Trails Park will serve as a lasting tribute to the Indigenous people whose connection to this land is woven into the fabric of Yonkers’ history.”

Located along the daylighted Saw Mill River, Many Trails Park stands as a symbol of respect, remembrance, and unity. The park’s name was chosen to reflect the many paths,…

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LANSING — Building on longstanding partnerships with Indigenous nations, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources is increasing efforts to restore native wild rice, or manoomin, across the Upper Peninsula and beyond — part of a broader, statewide movement among Michigan’s tribal nations to revive the sacred “food that grows on the water.”

The DNR’s Wildlife Division has worked with the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community for more than a decade to seed thousands of pounds of manoomin in western U.P. waters and recently expanded projects to the east. This year, the DNR finalized a seeding agreement with the Bay Mills Indian Community and is working toward a similar agreement with the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, according to the department.

Fifty-eight participants from multiple state departments attended a two-day August manoomin camp at the Ralph A. MacMullan Conference Center in Roscommon, the DNR reported. Tribal instructors from Bay Mills, the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe, the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians, the Cree Nation and the Gun Lake Tribe led sessions on ceremony, harvesting tools, seed care and processing.

“The goal of the camp was to raise awareness of the ecological importance of manoomin on the landscape, as well as the cultural and spiritual significance of wild rice,” said organizer Bill Scullon, a U.P.-based field operations manager for the DNR’s Wildlife Division. “We want to work with our tribal partners whenever we can.”

Manoomin — Ojibwe for “the good berry” — is a native aquatic grass that thrives in shallow, slow-moving waters, provides energy-rich food for migrating waterfowl and remains central to Anishinaabe culture and food sovereignty.

“With the continued decline of wild rice across many of our lakes and rivers, I often reflect on the teaching, ‘If we don’t use it, we lose it,’” said Kathleen Smith of…

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By John Faucher

WAUPACA/PORTAGE COUNTY LINE — When Tim Tautges headed to his deer stand on a crisp autumn day near the Waupaca–Portage County line, he expected to see a trophy buck.
The land was a hunter’s dream — a mix of hardwoods and clearings, carefully managed for wildlife.
Tautges was a guest on what he called “the promised land” of deer hunting.
When the woods suddenly fell silent, the moment turned from peaceful to primal. What he saw next was the opposite of any hunter’s dream.

The woods turn quiet

To be clear, Tautges isn’t easily shaken. At six-foot-five, the seasoned outdoorsman is used to the woods’ sounds — and its silence.
As the sun dipped below the tree line, the chickadees, juncos, squirrels and a flock of turkeys beneath his stand suddenly fled.
“It was eerie, even the sound of the wind through the pine needles stopped. I knew something was coming,” said Tautges.
He figured it was a black bear or a wolf — both had been seen on the property before.
“I stood up in the stand and started looking around because I thought, well, this is kind of odd. I looked over my left shoulder and there was absolutely nothing there.
“I turned and started slowly coming back toward my right and out of my peripherals, that’s when I saw it up on the ridge, to the right of me, peering out from behind a tree,” said Tautges.
“I didn’t want to look further, but its gaze drew me to look at it, and we locked eyes. It was as if my soul got sucked out of me,” said Tautges.
It paralyzed him.
“I couldn’t yell, I couldn’t scream, I couldn’t look away.”

A creature beyond belief

Tautges described it as enormous — a…

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Anderson’s name carries a history much deeper than most realize. Long before streets and factories, before schools and churches, this land was home to the Miami people.

In the early 1800s the Lenape, also known as the Delaware Indians, settled here through agreement with the Miami. Chief Kikthawenund, remembered to us as Chief Anderson, established a Lenape village on the White River. That settlement, called Wapeminskink or the “Place of the Chestnut Trees,” became an important stop in the Lenape journey west.

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BEMIDJI — The Beltrami County Historical Society will host its annual history mystery event at 5:30 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 24, and Saturday, Oct. 25, at the history center, 130 Minnesota Ave.

This year’s event, “History Mystery: The Suspicious Death of Emma Davids,” invites the public to step back in time to the early days of the North Country, a release said.

“This year’s mystery revisits the life and untimely death of Emma Davids, a woman of Stockbridge-Munsee heritage who came north seeking a new beginning amid Bemidji’s 1906 logging-boom frontier,” the release added. “Found dead at the European Hotel under suspicious circumstances, her passing was officially recorded as ’cause unknown.’

“More than a century later, her story still echoes through the streets of Bemidji and the pine forests of northern Minnesota.”

Community actors will bring Emma’s final days and hours to life in a live mystery performance, after which audience members will step into the role of detective — interviewing suspects, gathering clues, and determining the location of the crime.

Each evening will conclude with prizes for the fastest detective, a random winner drawn from completed clue cards and best costumes. Guests are encouraged to arrive dressed as lumberjacks or ladies of the evening, with family-friendly attire and all genders welcome to choose either role.

The release adds that Face It Together Bemidji is partnering with the historical society to provide attendees with information and resources related to overdose prevention, treatment and addiction recovery, given themes of this year’s event.

“In 1906, laudanum, a potent opiate common in household medicine chests, was both a comfort and a curse across the North Country,” the release said. “It numbed pain but claimed countless lives (perhaps including that of Emma Davids), just as today’s opioid epidemic continues to devastate families and communities across Minnesota.”

Tickets cost…

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Welcome to the Street Prophets Coffee Hour cleverly hidden at the intersection of religion, art, science, food, and politics. This is an open thread where we can share our thoughts and comments about the day. Roses symbolize love, royalty, beauty, sensuality, secrecy, and mysticism.

In 1904, the City of Spokane, Washington, obtained 95 acres of land which became Manito Park. The name manito is an Algonquian Indian word for spiritual forces. Rose Hill was developed in the late 1940s as a joint venture between the Spokane Rose Society and the Spokane Parks and Recreation Department. The gardens now hold 150 varieties of hybrid tea, grandiflora, floribunda, and miniature roses. Shown below are nearly a dozen different roses from the garden.

Sunshine Daydream

Beverly

Over The Moon

Henry Fonda

Graham Thomas

Rina Hugo

Marilynn Monroe

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Hugh Kane/The Williams Record

The Homelands PowWow, hosted this weekend at the Darrow School in New Lebanon, N.Y., marked the first powwow hosted by members of the Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican Tribe on their ancestral lands since their forceful expulsion in the late 18th century. 

Saturday’s main event was Grand Entry, a procession of community leaders,  dancers, and veterans of any service into a central circle where the majority of the powwow’s events took place. Directed by emcees from the Stockbridge-Munsee Reservation in Wisconsin and accompanied by Rez Dogs, a drumming group from Indian Island, Maine, participants processed into the circle, marking the high point of the day. 

According to its website, this year’s Homelands PowWow was intentionally small so as to foster relationships and community that will grow the event into a sustained, annual tradition that celebrates the Stockbridge-Munsee Mohicans. “Our mission is to honor and reconnect the Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican people with their ancestral lands,” the website reads. “Through the annual organization of this PowWow, we raise funds to support travel and lodging for tribal members who wish to return to these sacred homelands. Rooted in tradition, community, and cultural resilience, our work helps ensure that the connection between the Mohican people and their lands endures for generations to come.”

Shawn Stevens, who is the chairman of the Homelands PowWow Committee and a registered member of the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohicans, traveled from Wisconsin to put on the event. Stevens spoke with the Record about the inspiration for the powwow. “My older sister Ginger met with another friend of ours, and they said, ‘Hey, it would be great to have a powwow,’ not thinking much about it,” he said. “But, they were very serious about it, and we talked to a lot of local…

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NORTH ANDOVER — Tim Weisberg, of Spooky Southcoast for SPOOKY SALEM 2025, will be hosted by the North Andover Historical Society to lead a paranormal investigation at the Parson Barnard House from 6 p.m. to 1 a.m., on Saturday, Oct. 11.

The Parson Barnard House was built for the Rev. Thomas Barnard, a minister who helped accused victims of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692.

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