Category: Munsee

BRADEN ROBERTS
Staff Writer

UMW is not taking enough action to publicize Native American history, culture and diversity, despite being built on Native American land and having a hall named after the Seacobecks, who were a Native American group that lived in the Fredericksburg area before European settlers colonized it. The few ways that UMW offers information about the Seacobecks are not well-advertised to the student body. 

UMW has a responsibility to teach students and staff about the origins of Seacobeck Hall’s name, as many do not know about the Seacobeck village. Providing a more robust detailing of the tribe’s history and culture, as well as spreading awareness of that information, is necessary for the University to continue using the name.

Another difficulty in using the Seacobeck name is that it may not be what the Indigenous Peoples referred to themselves as.

“Basically, Secobeck was the name of a town, probably inhabited by people of the Cuttatawomen nation,” said history and American studies professor Jason Sellers. “In working with the present-day Rappahannock tribe recently, we’ve preferred to describe many of these peoples living along the Rappahannock River as ‘Algonquian-speaking communities.’ That reflects their common linguistic and cultural backgrounds.”

Since the Seacobeck community no longer exists, it is impossible to fully know the truth of their name, especially due to how their name was first recorded.

“John Smith would have been the first to map them and record the name for European audiences,” said Sellers. “It’s possible he misunderstood what he was being told—maybe the word described where they lived but wasn’t a name, for instance. But given its similarity to other place names, that it’s clearly an Algonquian word and that Smith was pretty accurately recording a lot of this sort of information, that’s probably what they called themselves.”

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MANISTEE — Two portraits of the same woman hang side by side at the Ramsdell Regional Center for the Arts. 

The series, called “Great Grandmother” is by local artist Judy Jashinsky. Her work is part of the “First Americans” exhibit currently on display at the Ramsdell.

In one portrait, Jashinsky’s great grandmother is drawn from a picture that used to hang in her childhood home. In the other, she appears as she might have — had she not attended an Indian boarding school.

“This was the picture that we used to see on the reservation when I was a kid. And I used to say to my mother, ‘this is Grandpa’s mom … she doesn’t look like an Indian,’” Jashinsky said. “I used (beadwork) to do a portrait of her had she not gone to missionary school and then turned white.”

Jashinsky, a member of the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians, is also an organizer for the First Americans exhibit which held its opening reception on Nov. 13.

While she has participated in a number of art shows, Jashinsky says very few, like the First Americans exhibit, provide an explicit venue for Native American perspectives. 

“I was in a show in 1992 at the time of the quincentenary at the Natural History Museum, but that was different because the tribes are from all over the United States, and very few of them could actually make it to the opening,” Jashinsky said. “It wasn’t like this, where you could actually have been able to meet and talk to the other Native Americans here.”

The Ramsdell Regional Center for the Arts, listed in the National Register of Historic Places, is located on the ancestral land of the Anishinaabe people. 
 
It is…

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A new healing lodge to help First Nations people in southwestern Ontario deal with addiction problems is scheduled to open next spring at the Kettle & Stony Point First Nation on the southern shore of Lake Huron.

The lodge, with land-based activities operating alongside modern and traditional medical services, will replace a facility closed in 2016 at another First Nation in the area. Other efforts, including provision of materials to reduce dangers for drug users, have already started this fall, according to Kettle & Stony Point First Nation Chief Jason Henry.

The new lodge will enable those battling addiction to “reconnect with former knowledge that was taken away with residential schools and forced removal from our territories,” Henry tells Windspeaker.com. “We want to get people back in touch with hunting, fishing, basic land skills, and learning their culture and spirituality.”

Medical services are a vital part of the plan. “When you’re talking about interventions for opioid problems, you have to have that,” Henry explained. Permanent staff will be hired, with a focus on the medical side although social workers and “cultural staff” will be part of the mix.

Henry says chiefs from across the region have been working on securing funding and a new location for the healing lodge since it closed in 2016. The former lodge shut down after management conflicts ended its 18-year operation at the nearby Munsee-Delaware Nation, according to news reports at the time.

The new facility will be created in partnership with Atlohsa Healing Services of London, Ont., and will feature a mix of residential and day programs for First Nations people, on- or off-reserve. A possible location at the former Kettle Point Park is being considered.

Modular buildings will be erected at first for washrooms and a kitchen, with bricks and mortar possible in the future. However, Chief Henry emphasizes…

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Four centuries ago, the roots of Thanksgiving first took hold in our American soil. We living today commemorate the solemn dinner, back in the fall of 1621, shared by the Pilgrims of Plymouth, Mass., and the Wampanoag Indians, the local tribe who generously pulled the fragile Pilgrim colony through their first winter and taught them how to plant corn.

Let’s talk turkey about our Native American heritage. Suppose you had been one of the early explorers or settlers of North America. You would have found many things in your new land unknown to you. The handiest way of filling voids in your vocabulary would have been to ask the locals what words they used. The early colonists began borrowing words from Native Americans almost from the moment of their first contact, and many of those names have remained in our everyday language:

In a letter that English explorer John Smith wrote home in 1608 he described a critter that the Algonquian called a rahaughcum. Over the years the word was shortened and simplified to raccoon, one of the very first English words coined in America.

Pronouncing many of the Native American words was difficult for the early explorers and settlers. In many instances, they had to shorten and simplify the names. Identify the following animals from their Native American names:

apossoun (Don’t play dead now.)

otchock (How much wood?)

segankw (What’s black and white and stinks all over?)

The hidden animals are: opossum (Algonquian), woodchuck (Narragansett) and skunk (Algonquian). To this menagerie we may add the likes of caribou (Micmac), chipmunk (Ojibwa), moose (Algonquian), muskrat (Abenaki) and porgy (Algonquian).

You can expand the lexicon with the likes of food — squash (Narragansett), pecan (Algonquian), hominy (Algonquian), pone (Algonquian), pemmican (Cree) and succotash (Narragansett) — and other ingredients of Native American life — moccasin (Chippewa), toboggan (Algonquian), tomahawk (Algonquian),…

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With a rich history, natural beauty galore and a concentration of world-class cultural sites, New York’s Hudson Valley is the perfect escape from fast pace of New York City.     

Historic cities, towns and villages still tell the tales of its settlers beginning with the Munsee, Mohican and Mohawk nations all the way to the Henry Hudson’s 1600s travels and the arrival of the Dutch and the English. 

Parks, nature preserves and hiking trails offer ample opportunities to truly take in the natural beauty of the region. Here are our picks for the best places to visit in the Hudson Valley. 

Peekskill

Located in Westchester County, Peekskill is situated on a Hudson River bay approximately 50 miles north of New York City (and accessible from the city via the Metro-North railway). This town borders Blue Mountain Park, a nearly 1,600-acre preserve with over 20 miles of hiking and biking trails, fishing piers and the only Sportsman Center shooting complex (archery, rifle and pistol) found in a state recreation area.

Art lovers should visit the Hudson Valley Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), a 12,000-sq-ft exhibition space. The Hudson Valley MOCA sponsors a sculpture trail that features over 25 works of public art along the Hudson River and throughout the city.   

The city of Troy is filled with colorful 19th-century buildings that are now boutiques, small shops and galleries © Barry Winiker/Getty Images

Troy

Located on the eastern bank of the Hudson River just north of Albany, Troy was once known as “Collar City” due to its expertise in producing detachable collars for men’s shirts. Though it doesn’t get as much attention…

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Event listing from Boston Public Library: Wednesday, November 3 from 6:00 PM to 7:30 PM

Join us for a discussion with Larry Spotted Crow Mann, award-winning author and Citizen of the Nipmuc Tribe of Massachusetts. He will talk about his new book, Drumming & Dreaming, an inspiring and healing journey of Algonquian Tales of the Nipmuc Tribe. Boston Public Library President David Leonard will provide opening remarks. This program will take place in the Rabb Lecture Hall on the Lower Level of the Johnson Building at the Central Library in Copley Square. Registration is required. To attend in-person, please visit the link in the registration box on this calendar entry. This program will also happen over Zoom webinar. To attend online, please visit this link to register. About the book: Drumming & Dreaming is an inspiring and healing journey of Algonquian Tales of the Nipmuc Tribe. Award-winning writer Larry Spotted Crow Mann skillfully brings forth the Oral Tradition in this brilliantly woven Collection of Legends that beckon the Spirit of the Land and the Ancient Voices that still have so much to Teach us all. The Art of Native American Story Telling has been passed down for thousands of years. They give life and meaning to everything in the Universe. They show us lessons of Love, courage, kindness, respect, humility, truth, and wisdom. We learn the skills to interact with our environment as a living being and codify those teachings within our own existence. All Lovers of Native American legends, culture, and history will be vividly inspired and thrilled to add this captivating book to their collection. Some of the Stories in Drumming & Dreaming will be featured in a state-wide curriculum across Massachusetts as part of a Life Skills Training for teacher and student and for alcohol and drug prevention in Native American teens. To…

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As burning sage perfumed the air on a crisp fall morning, campus, state and tribal leaders gathered yesterday to ceremonially bless the ground and announce the name of the University of Maryland’s first new dining hall in nearly 50 years.

It will be called “Yahentamitsi” (Yah-hen-tuh-meet-c), which means “a place to go to eat” in the Algonquian language spoken by the Piscataway, who are indigenous to Maryland, and will open in 2022.

“Today we have the opportunity to reimagine and to see what is familiar to us, but through Piscataway eyes. This campus has been here for a very long time—yet many of us were blind to its history,” said UMD President Darryll J. Pines. “As a land-grant institution, I believe it is our responsibility to record, to interpret and to raise public awareness about tribal history. This effort was long overdue.”

This is the first UMD building to be named for Maryland’s Native American heritage; it will feature art, artifacts and other educational materials from the Piscataway people, on whose ancestral lands the university stands today. The name was developed in partnership with Piscataway elders and tribal members, as well as UMD faculty, staff and students, including the American Indian Student Union (AISU).

“Having a beautiful place like this that is being represented and being honored for our ancestors, it means a whole lot,” said AISU treasurer Jeremy Harley ’23, a member of the Piscataway Conoy tribe. “It makes me feel like I have a space here on campus that I can truly say this represents myself, this represents my people, this represents my family.”

Yahentamitsi is part of the new Heritage Community, which includes Pyon-Chen Hall, which opened in August, and Johnson-Whittle Hall, which like the dining hall will open in 2022. Each building’s name…

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This is quite a story. A couple months ago, Cyndy Martin Munsee decided to wear her mom’s ring (Lois Martin’s) on a trip to Erie. Later she realized it was gone. After looking everywhere for two months, the other day while making the bed, she noticed something shining on the carpet. It was the missing ring. What was special – it was her mom’s birthday. According to Cyndy, “things happen in mysterious ways.”

It was a double party for Barb Peterson who was celebrating her birthday and retirement.

Dottie Morgan also had a nice retirement party at the Elks Club hosted by here sisters Vickie Stull, Theresa Williams, Barb Chase and Kelly Way plus others, with music by Knuckle Down.

I see that Nikki Arison has taken over for Mary Norton in the junior bowling program at Bowl-Aire Lanes.

Belated 93rd birthday wishes to a special lady, Gerri Cragg, and to her daughter-in-law Rachel Cragg. Celebrating today are Jen Lesher, John Brundage and Becky Frazier (also happy anniversary), tomorrow Ralph Amoroso, Aundrea Proctor, Beth Dolan, Blaine Walp, my aunt Alice McCray and my cousin Dick Root. Monday is special for Dianne Hamilton, Mike Sita, Dennis Kubiak and Lindsay Combs who was in England the last I knew (or perhaps Scotland).

Happy 22nd birthday yesterday to Tyler Burlew. I’ll never forget the night he scored five touchdowns.

The Corry Manor is holding a special trick-or-treat event around the outside of the building so the residents can enjoy looking outside. It’s next Saturday from 2-5 p.m.

Get well wishes to Peggy Kubich who I met when she worked at The Journal way back when.

Skip Laird and I were talking about the state golf tournament and we’re pretty sure that Walt Bowen was Corry High School’s first-ever qualifier, and that Irv Downs was his…

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