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Later this month about 50 members of the Munsee-Delaware First Nation — located outside of London, Ont. — will take a trip to the United States to pay a visit to what might be best described as an old friend.
But instead of visiting a person, they’ll be stopping in to a Munsee language and history symposium in Princeton, N.J., to check in on a Wampum belt that originated in their community and is believed to be more than 250 years old.
“This actually is the first time in my knowledge where a Munsee item has come out of a museum and where our community has been able to see it,” said Ian McCallum, a member of the Munsee-Delaware First Nation and a researcher of Indigenous art, language and history.
“This is actually the first time it’s been with its community in a very long time. It’s going to be quite an event.”
Although it’s called a belt, the Wampum is typically worn around the neck, almost like a scarf, during ceremonies and important meetings.
The belt is made with strands of hemp looped through cylinder-shaped beads made of quahog shells.
Belt in ‘remarkable condition’
It’s become brittle and delicate over the years but McCallum, who visited the belt recently, said this hasn’t diminished the power of seeing it in person.
“There are bits and pieces of the belt that are missing but for the age that it is, it’s in remarkable condition,” he said.
Many aspects of its history aren’t known. It’s believed the belt was made to commemorate a treaty between the Munsee-Delaware people and King George III in the 18th century.
In or around 1907, Munsee-Delaware elder Jacob Dolson gave the belt to Mark Harrington, an anthropologist and avid collector of Indigenous artifacts in the U.S. and Canada.
Jacob Dolson, who gave…
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The Murder of William Martin: Part 1
In April of 1832 Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, the Sauk war chief known to the American settlers as Black Hawk, crossed the Mississippi River into Illinois in order to regain his homeland that he felt was wrongly taken from his people.
A conflict followed these actions that has come to be called the Black Hawk War.
In the early 1800s the Sauk and Meskwaki (commonly referred to as the Fox) often lived in the vicinity of what is now Burlington, Iowa. They called the area Shock-o-con.
In 1820, the Meskwaki Chief Tama (the Man Who Makes the Rocks Tremble) was living near what is now Gladstone, Illinois.
With so many white settlers moving into the vicinity, he decided to move his village across the river to Shock-o-con.
A few years later, Tama moved his village a few miles north to the edge of the prairie near the river.
Tama was not in favor of Black Hawk’s actions and used his great influence to persuade many warriors from joining the Sauk war chief.
His village became a place of rendezvous for many of these young men.
In May of 1832 Chief Tama crossed the river into Illinois to visit his friend, Sumner Phelps, in the village of Yellow Banks, known today by its Indian name – Oquawka.
A historian recorded the events that followed: “Things were in this unsettled state when one night Tama, an aged Fox chief, arrived at the trading house to inquire if his white brother had heard any news from the seat of war.
He was accompanied by his wife and son.
Tama had a town about three miles below the town on the Iowa side.
He had been a great chief and noted scout.
In the war of 1812, he had given valuable assistance to Edwards, then-governor of the Illinois territory, and carried…
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Hew Locke: what have we here?
For this exhibition at the British Museum, the artist Hew Locke has stepped into the role of curator, drawing together objects from the museum’s collection to probe its associations with Britain’s imperial past (17 October–9 February 2025). The show is the result of a two-year collaboration between the artist and museum and pays particular attention to Britain’s interactions with Africa, India and the Caribbean, including Guyana, where Locke spent his formative years. More than 150 objects are divided into four sections: ‘Sovereigns and Icons of Nationhood’, ‘Trade’, ‘Conflict’ and ‘Treasure’. Most of the items in the exhibition, which include a brightly coloured 19th-century Akawaio feather headdress from Guyana and a 16th-century watercolour of an Algonquian leader by the English artist John White, come from the collection of the museum, though several of Locke’s own creations are also interspersed throughout the show. These include The Watchers (2024), a new series of sculptural figures that appears to spy on visitors as they move through the exhibition.
Find out more from the British Museum’s website.
Preview below | View Apollo’s Art Diary
Akawaio headdress, before 1865, Guyana. Photo: © The Trustees of the British Museum
Armada 6 (2019), Hew Locke. Courtesy the artist/Hales London and New York; © Hew Locke
A North Carolina Algonquian werowance (leader) (c. 1586–90), John White. Photo: © The Trustees of the British Museum
Indigenous Peoples Day
Newburyport’s annual Indigenous Peoples Day celebration returns to Waterfront Park on Monday starting at 10 a.m. and running until 5 p.m. The free family event honors the region’s Indigenous communities, including all native peoples like the Pawtucket-Penacook, Massachusetts, Nipmuc, Wabanald, as well as the Wampanoag.
Inspiring music at Belleville
Le Vent du Nord opens the Belleville Roots Music 2024-25 Series on Friday at 8 p.m. Enjoy the energy of a Quebecois Saturday night kitchen party as this award-winning progressive string band returns to Belleville, delighting audiences in English with the flavors of French tradition. Tickets are on sale at www.bellevilleroots.org.
Crafting Cinema
Newburyport Recreation and Youth Services and The Screening Room will show the film “Practical Magic” on Saturday at 1 p.m. as part of its monthly Crafting Cinema program. Ever wanted to bring your crochet to the cinema but it’s just too dark? Work on that knitted scarf but worried about annoying the person next to you? For more info, visit: www.newburyportmovies.com/practical-magic.
Fall into fall
The Newburyport Chamber of Commerce & Industry’s annual Fall Fest returns to downtown Newburyport on Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Plenty of live local bands, local food trucks and libations, artisans and crafters (including lots of Halloween items) will be on hand. On Saturday, check out the chamber’s annual Oktoberfest at Waterfront Park.
‘Little Mermaid’ at the Firehouse
Join Ariel and her friends in a costume parade following the Saturday performances of “The Little Mermaid” at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. at the Firehouse Center for the Arts. Come dressed as your favorite character from “The Little Mermaid” (or any fun costume of your choice) and join the parade. All children will receive a treat and a prize…
GOSHEN — The third annual Indigenous Peoples Day Celebration at the Goshen Theater will take place Oct. 14.
Hosted by the City of Goshen Community Relations Commission, the free program begins at 6:30 p.m.
Doors open at 6 p.m., with booths featuring local Indigenous artists in the lobby.
This year’s event will feature a presentation by Doug Peconge, ARPA Project Manager and citizen of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma, along with drum and dance performances featuring dancers from the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians and the Ribbon Town Singers. Peconge will discuss the Miami Tribe’s journey to regain land in Fort Wayne.
Doug Peconge, a citizen of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma, has worked with the tribe’s Cultural Resources Office since 2015. He currently oversees a 45-acre property in Fort Wayne, known as peehkihkayonki (The Beautiful Place), focusing on food, health, wellness and cultural preservation.
Ribbon Town Singers, founded in 2003, is led by John Topash Warren (Potawatomi) of South Bend. The group is named after “Zēnba-Odanek,” the Potawatomi term for South Bend, where Potawatomi people once traded furs. The group will showcase both traditional and contemporary dance styles.
For more information, visit pokagonband-nsn.gov/our-culture.
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Williams’ 1737 deed claimed land that was already home to the Mohicans. (Photo courtesy of Special Collections.)
The father of Williams College’s founder, Ephraim Williams Sr., played a direct role in the displacement of the Stockbridge-Munsee Tribe from the Town. Documented in a 1737 deed, Williams Sr. claimed land that was already the home to Mohicans.
In interviews with the Record, however, multiple students said that the College has been slow to enact recommendations proposed by a variety of working groups seeking to improve the College’s relations with Indigenous people.
“There isn’t a question about what the campus should be doing — it’s already outlined,” said Daisy Rosalez ’25, a leader for the Native American Indigenous Students Alliance (NISA).
In 2021, the College’s Committee on Diversity and Community published a report entitled “Recommendations for Reckoning with Our Institutional Histories.” The recommendations were meant to “to better represent and reckon with the College’s histories, and where needed, repair relationships with community members.”
One of the recommendations, “to create a committee, or committees, which directly address particular problematic histories; for instance, having a committee that reckons specifically with Indigenous displacement,” led to the creation of the Native American and Indigenous Working Group. The College also published an official land acknowledgment, per another one of the committee’s recommendations.
Later that year, Mirabai Dyson ’24, Gwyn Chilcoat ’24, Hikaru Hayakawa ’24, and Jayden Jogwe ’25 drafted a list of recommendations in their independent study that called upon the College to provide reparations to the Mohican Nation and create free housing for members of the Stockbridge-Munsee Community. The Native American and Indigenous Working group has since added to the students’ list of recommendations.
“Nothing has happened,” Jogwe said. “[The College] created the working group…
Stockbridge — Despite the rain, a crowd of several dozen gathered at the end of Park Street in Stockbridge on Thursday morning, by the footbridge that leads across to Ice Glen and Laura’s Tower, for a dedication to celebrate new signage honoring our land’s Mohican heritage.
The Stockbridge-Munsee band of Mohicans called themselves “People of the Waters that are Never Still,” and they called this place “Wa’thatinik,” meaning “the Land Beyond the Mountains.” As a result of their input, a sign bearing this word, along with a turtle, a symbol important to the tribe, will grace this Housatonic River crossing, as well as nine other locations in town as yet to be fully determined. A 10th sign was given to the tribe, said Stockbridge Select Board member Patrick White, who began reading the dedication.
The first sign will be installed at this pedestrian crossing of the Housatonic, with another being donated to the tribe. Photo by Kateri Kosek.
“Please say it with me—Wa’thatinik. Translated, it means, ‘the Land Beyond the Mountains.’ What the ancient voices named this place we now know as the Berkshires,” White began. “It may be hard for some of us to imagine, but for time immemorial Mohican was the language of these lands. Beyond this bridge lies an ancient forest now known as Ice Glen, so old that its same trees were already mighty when Chiefs Konkapot and Umpachene welcomed white settlers with some trepidation nearly 300 years ago.”
Sherry White, the Stockbridge-Munsee tribal liaison who was visiting from Wisconsin, picked up with the reading of the statement, which finished, “Wa’thatinik is but a fragment of the many words of these ancient, old growth woods. If the forest could speak, the stories it might tell. We are honored to take…
STOCKBRIDGE — To honor the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohicans, the area’s original settlers, town leaders and residents attended a ceremony Thursday dedicating the first of 10 new Housatonic River crossing signs — Wa’thatinik, the Mohican word for “the land beyond the mountains.”
Select Board member Patrick White organized the brief gathering and Select Board Chair Jamie Minacci presided under rainy skies at the Goodrich Memorial Footbridge at the end of Park Street. The bridge connects to a riverside walk and popular trails leading to Ice Glen and Laura’s Tower.
The ceremony marked “another symbol of the tribe and the town of Stockbridge creating beginnings and working together,” Mohicans tribal liaison Sherry White told The Eagle. Citing the walking tour of local Mohican landmarks offered for people to learn about the tribe, she pointed out that “there are people here who don’t even know yet that we exist.”
Sherry White, tribal liaison of the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohicans, reads during a dedication of a Housatonic River crossing to honor the town’s original settlers. The ceremony marked “another symbol of the tribe and the town of Stockbridge creating beginnings and working together,” she told The Eagle.
BEN GARVER — THE BERKSHIRE EAGLE
“We were talking this morning about some other opportunities to strengthen our relationship with efforts that began decades ago, to keep it moving forward,” Patrick White added. Among the other signs to be posted is at the river crossing on East Main Street near the Stockbridge Golf Club.
At the ceremony, he presented a dedication stating that “Wa’thatinik is what the ancient voices…
Advisory: ICA Returns to New York Climate Week to Champion Indigenous-led Solutions—a Just Future for All
September 20, 2024
Lenape (Lenapehoking), Manahatin, Canarsie, Shinnecock, Reckgawanc, Munsee and Haudenosaunee Nation | New York City, NY — As thousands plan to gather for Climate Week 2024, Indigenous Climate Action (ICA) is proud to announce its delegation. Indigenous leaders and climate justice advocates will amplify Indigenous-led solutions, utilizing divestment, Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC), Just Transition, as well as the threats and risks of Nature-based solutions on global human rights. These efforts will center Indigenous knowledge in addressing the accelerating climate crisis and phase out of fossil fuels.
ICA, in partnership with Sacred Earth Solar, will co-host a hybrid panel discussion: Invest in Indigenous Sovereignty on Tuesday, September 24, 2024. This panel, featuring leaders in Indigenous divestment and land defense, will explore how divestment can shift power back to Indigenous communities, strengthen Indigenous economies, and push for systemic change that prioritizes land protection, environmental justice, and accountability from financial institutions.
Complimenting this vital conversation, ICA will introduce a Divestment report: Healing the Land: Indigenous Perspectives on Divestment, exploring Indigenous divestment strategies as effective and transformative tools, emphasizing the relationship between divestment and Indigenous sovereignty. In conjunction with the report launch, ICA will host a collaborative Indigenous Divestment Working Group to provide feedback on the current Indigenous Divestment Working Group and Indigenous Caucus. This session will also explore long-term Indigenous divestment strategies, offering space to discuss goals for Indigenous-led divestment in so-called Canada.
Beyond these critical co-hosted events, ICA’s delegation will be actively participating in multiple panels and discussions throughout the week.
The delegation will be on the ground, co-hosting, speaking, and engaging in roundtable sessions. With a strong emphasis on Decolonizing Climate Policy and advocating for Indigenous rights and sovereignty in national…