Category: Munsee

CLARION – With the new year comes a new phase of life for outgoing Clarion County Sheriff Rex Munsee.

After 12 years in office, Munsee decided earlier this year not to seek reelection to a fourth term.

“I always wanted three terms,” Munsee said of his time in public service. “I accomplished what I wanted to do, and I think it’s a good time to be done.”

A native of Erie County, Munsee came to the area in December 1981 after graduating from the state police academy and being assigned to the Shippenville-based station.

“I had never heard of Shippenville before,” he laughed last week, noting that, although he liked the station, his initial plan was to stay in Clarion three years before returning to his hometown. In the meantime, Munsee met his wife, Cindi, and the rest is history. “Forty years later, I’m still here.”

Munsee served as a state police trooper in Clarion — with a one-year stint in Punxsutawney — for more than 27 years before retiring from the force as a corporal in February 2009 to run for sheriff.

“You can’t run for political office and be in the state police,” he said, pointing out that he announced his candidacy the day after his retirement. “I was looking to do something a little different, and I thought sheriff would be a good fit for me.”

Going into his first term, Munsee said that his goal was to make his office and deputies more visible in Clarion County, a task that he believes he has accomplished over the years.

“I think people would say that we have a higher visibility now than we had before,” he said, adding that his department’s responsibilities now include securing events such as Autumn Leaf Festival, the Peanut Butter Festival and Horsethief Days, and hosting justification and ladies’ self defense…

Continue reading

Jake Gamble  |  Special to The Star Press

Cold December skies darken the woodland trails around you. Heading back to your car, you note how dark it’s getting by only 4 p.m. The cloudy day and setting sun seem to only emphasize the slumber of winter’s nature. Gone are the months of vibrance and color, making way for gray and brown. Nearly to your car, now you spot something… green?

Yes, it is! Something green cuts through the woods and grabs your attention with an intensity you thought only spring could bring. As you move to inspect, the image becomes clear. Bright green leaves protrude directly from the earth, a living oasis among dormancy. Singular smooth leaves accented white and olive by parallel veins running from the soil to the tip. A curious find for sure, so grabbing your field guide, fingers flip through pages as your eyes examine the pictures.

Finally, you find the image that matches, but the answer to the plant’s identity surprises you: an orchid?

Orchids are everywhere, indigenous to six continents and nearly every country in the world. Indiana alone hosts more than 40 species. Though often more discreet than their tropical counterparts, native Indiana orchids can showcase some of the most interesting flowers and beautiful leaves you can find in the woods. There are several species, in fact, that produce brilliant foliage over winter and have none during the summer.

The puttyroot orchid (Aplectrum hymale) happens to be one of these species. Leafing out during September through October and persisting through spring, these common native orchids decorate the forest floor with large oval leaves throughout winter. The small brown flowers of this species can be found in May through June and are pollinated by bees. The name “puttyroot” refers to the sticky substance produced by crushing the pseudobulb. Historically, this…

Continue reading

Breadcrumb Trail Links

1. Local News

Author of the article:

Calvi Leon  •  Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Publishing date:

Nov 29, 2021  •  9 hours ago  •  3 minute read Kyleigh Alexander (left), Tania McCormick (middle) and Fatima Taylor are the three women behind the foster care program, called Alternative Care, at Mnaasged Child and Family Services in Munsee-Delaware First Nation, southwest of London. The Indigenous child wellbeing agency is now recruiting Indigenous and non-Indigenous foster parents across Southwestern Ontario to apply. (CALVI LEON, The London Free Press)

Article content

MUNSEE-DELAWARE NATION — A foster parent to two kids, Tania McCormick’s only regret is not becoming one sooner. But after caring for Indigenous children in need of support, both at home and at work, she felt compelled to help others do the same.

Advertisement

This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.

Article content

“Once I started getting my first foster kids, I realized that I couldn’t bring all of the foster kids home with me,” said McCormick, whose spirit name is Biidaankwat (Stormy Clouds are Coming). “The next best thing was to help all of the foster kids find homes like mine.”

McCormick, who’s from Serpent River First Nation, is one of three women leading the Alternative Care foster care program at Mnaasged Family and Childcare Services at Munsee Delaware Nation, about 30 minutes southwest of…

Continue reading

The Europeans who began colonising North America in the early 17th century steadfastly believed that God communicated his wrath through plague. They brought this conviction with them – as well as deadly disease itself.

Plague brought by early European settlers decimated Indigenous populations during an epidemic in 1616-19 in what is now southern New England. Upwards of 90% of the Indigenous population died in the years leading up to the arrival of the Mayflower in November 1620.

It’s still unclear what the disease behind the epidemic actually was. But this was the first of many plagues that swept through Algonquian territory – Algonquian being the linguistic term used to describe an array of Indigenous peoples stretching, among other places, along the northeastern seaboard of what is now the US.

The 1620 Charter of New England, given by King James I, mentioned this epidemic as a reason why God “in his great goodness and bountie towards us and our people gave the land to Englishmen”. Plague supported property rights – it informed the back story of Plymouth Colony that was founded after the arrival of the Mayflower.

The English believed God communicated through plague. But my research argues that declaring “God willed the plague” simply opened, rather than closed, the debate. Rulers, explorers and colonists in the 17th century had an interest in pinpointing the cause of disease. This was partly because plague was used to procure land deemed as empty, and even clear it of inhabitants.

Justification for entering the land

Many colonists described New England as an “Eden”. But in 1632 the early colonist Thomas Morton said the epidemic of 1616-19 had rendered it “a new found Golgotha” – the skull-shaped hill in Jerusalem described in the Bible as the place of Christ’s death. Most pilgrims and puritans viewed plague as…

Continue reading

Nov. 23—The Daniel McMahon Chapter, National Society Daughters of the American Revolution held its November meeting at the Athens Country Club, with Regent Susan Barkley presiding. Special guests were welcomed, including program speaker Kristie Campbell and her mother, Susan Byram from Klein. Also welcomed was Alex Hill, daughter of chapter member Sharla Hill and granddaughter of chapter member Nancy Smith.

Kristie Campbell presented the program, “Pocahontas, The Real Story.” Everyone knows the story of the “Indian Princess” who saved John Smith’s life in the early days of this country. Much has been written about Pocahontas, and there are a host of movies that bear her name. Pocahontas was not her real name and as we also learned, she may or may not have saved the life of John Smith. Kristie presented enlightening information and helped separate the truth from myth regarding this famous Native American. Kristie is a member of the San Jacinto Chapter, NSDAR, in Tomball. She is a past regent of her chapter and an active community volunteer for many organizations.

Karen Stanley, Jan Boyles, Sue McCown, Carol Webster, Marie Hickman, Mamie Stafford and Susan Barkley represented the chapter at Athens Arboretum for the Veterans Day Ceremony. The chapter provided a wreath for the ceremony, and Marie and David Hickman donated patriotic flag pins that were presented to the veterans.

Chapter members gathered donations for Corsicana Troop Support Angels’ holiday gift boxes that are mailed to active duty troops. Additionally, chapter members Nancy Smith and Betty Hollowell met a special request by the Angels, to sew adult “bibs” for veterans in area nursing homes.

Chapter member and Wreaths Across America liaison, Lynne Stultz brought information for this year’s Wreaths Across America Day on Dec. 18. The mission of WAA is to Remember, Honor, and Teach by coordinating wreath laying ceremonies at cemeteries…

Continue reading

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.”

…

Continue reading

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…

Continue reading

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…

Continue reading

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),…

Continue reading