One of the most storied tribes in Indian Nation has taken another step toward reclaiming history that was ripped away from it more than 200 years ago.
The Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican Tribe of Wisconsin recently closed a deal to purchase 372 undeveloped acres of Monument Mountain, which carries sacred meaning and is part of its original homeland in Massachusetts.
Shannon Holsey, President of the Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican Nation, makes remarks last summer.
The Mohican Tribe had been located on what is now parts of Massachusetts and New York for thousands of years before being forced to move by European colonists, and eventually settling in Wisconsin more than 200 years ago. The tribe has been reclaiming some land in New York and Massachusetts in the past few years.
“It represents a ‘landback’ movement to reclaim land in a way that differs from the Western colonial way of thinking about it,” Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican Nation President Shannon Holsey said in a statement. “We are trying to reclaim our ways of being, which was never based on money. It’s the reclamation of our kinship systems, our governance systems, our ceremony and spirituality, our language, our culture and our food and medicinal systems. Those are all based on our relationship to the land.”
Mohican people still make pilgrimages to Monument Mountain as it has always been a place where tribal members would leave stone offerings imbued with prayers to Creator. The stones had been formed into a monument, giving the mountain its name.
The mountain’s peak reaches 1,642 feet and includes public hiking trails offering views of a river valley and the Berkshires highlands and Catskill Mountains.
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