Tag: Munsee

TRANSCRIPT OF VIDEO

KEYRIS MANZANARES: Indigenous Peoples have deep ties to William & Mary’s campus. The land was originally claimed by native populations and prior to 1723, Indian boys attended residential school at the college’s Wren Building, and later Brafferton. Now, in a space where Indigenous peoples were stripped of their cultural heritage, including language, this group of women has chosen William & Mary as a meaningful place to meet, to awaken what was once lost.

RAVEN “BRIGHTWATER” CUSTALOW (FOUNDER, EASTERN WOODLAND REVITALIZATION): Unfortunately, through assimilation and genocidal practices, both physical and paper genocide, our people in this area haven’t spoken fluently in at least 200 years, I would say. So, all we have left are a few, maybe a thousand or so words, if that.

KEYRIS MANZANARES: Raven “Brightwater” Custalow grew up on the Mattaponi tribe reservation in King William County. She’s committed to advocating for preserving Indigenous heritage.

RAVEN “BRIGHTWATER” CUSTALOW: I think most of us can probably say, maybe a short introduction… wingapo (hello), (welcome) nitapewak (my friends), kenah (thank you) anah (goodbye), those sort of like basic words that you would use it in like everyday language.

KEYRIS MANZANARES: During meetings, Custalow, along with Diana Gates and Young Brinson, who are cousins from the Cheroenhaka Nottoway tribe, research words and pronunciations as they start trying to put the puzzle of Virginia’s Algonquin language back together.

YOUNG BRINSON (CONSULTANT, EASTERN WOODLAND REVITALIZATION): The culture of Virginia has always been steeped in Algonquin culture and I think that’s why we’ve been led to it. And so, it’s just cool that we are all coming together now to really lift this off the ground and get it started because we’re making moves and I love it.

KEYRIS MANZANARES: The group is in the beginning stages of language revitalization. And while they…

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(March 14, 2024 – New York City, New York, USA) – The Assembly of First Nations (AFN) National Chief, Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak, attended the United Nations 68th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) in New York City, on traditional territory of the Canarsie, Munsee Lenape, and the Wappinger people, as part of the Canadian delegation. The Canadian delegation also included representatives from federal, provincial, and territorial governments, including Minister of Indigenous Services, Patty Hajdu, Minister for Women and Gender Equality, Marci Ien, and Parliamentary Secretary, Lisa Hepfner. The priority theme of the CSW is, “Accelerating the achievement of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls by addressing poverty and strengthening institutions and financing with a gender perspective”.

“The empowerment of First Nations women is essential for the overall well-being and prosperity of First Nations communities and society as a whole,” said AFN National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak. “Addressing poverty and its multifaceted affects require not just policy change but also the mobilization of resources. When we finance with a gendered perspective, we’re not just investing in women but in the prosperity of First Nations and the well-being of future generations. That is why we urge governments worldwide to commit to transparent, multi-year funding for programs aimed at supporting our women and communities.”

“I was pleased to share my perspectives as part the productive discussions at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women in New York City. By working together, we can ensure that concrete steps will be taken to address gender inequalities and the unique challenges faced by First Nations women and gender-diverse people and ensure the protection of all women’s and girls’ human rights.”

―30―

The Assembly of First Nations (AFN) is a national advocacy organization that works to advance the collective aspirations…

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EAST HAMPTON, Conn. (AP) — Donna Lindstrom was lying in bed and looking at her phone Wednesday morning when she heard a loud bang that rattled her 19th-century house in the central Connecticut town of East Hampton.

Soon, the 66-year-old retired delivery driver and dozens of other town residents were on social media, discussing the latest occurrence of strange explosive sounds and rumblings known for hundreds of years as the “Moodus Noises.”

“It was like a sonic boom,” Lindstrom said. “It was a real short jolt and loud. It felt deep, deep, deep.”

It was indeed a tiny earthquake with a magnitude of 1.7, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Robert Thorson, an earth sciences professor at the University of Connecticut, said booms, rumblings and rattling have been recorded in the East Hampton area, including the nearby village of Moodus, for centuries, dating back well before a larger earthquake, recorded on May 16, 1791, knocked down stone walls and chimneys.

In fact, Moodus is short for “Machimoodus” or “Mackimoodus,” which means “place of bad noises” in the Algonquian dialects once spoken in the area. A local high school has even nicknamed their teams “The Noises,” in honor of that history.

The occurrences were frequent enough that the federal government, worried about the possible effect of seismic activity on the nearby, now-decommissioned Haddam Neck Nuclear Power Plant, conducted a study of the “Moodus Noises” in the late 1980s, Thorson said.

What they found was that the noises were the result of small but unusually shallow seismic displacements within an unusually strong and brittle crust, where the sound is amplified by rock fractures and topography, he said.

“There is something about Moodus that is tectonic that is creating these noises there,” Thorson said. “And then there is something acoustic that…

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Dr. Sarah Koenig, assistant professor of American studies, was recently awarded the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), a grant that will help grow Ramapo’s digital humanities program. 

The grant is approximately $150,000, the largest awarded in the state of New Jersey. The money will be used to train and support faculty and students but also to help partner communities, like public schools and the Ramapough Munsee Lenape Nation, learn how to use digital tools and work on their own projects.

“I love teaching in the American Studies convening group because it lets me combine my interests in American history, American religion, and American culture,” said Koenig in an email with The Ramapo News.

Koenig’s research focuses on how Americans have narrated history, looking particularly at the American West, the taking of Native American lands and how religion has shaped encounters between Native Americans and European settlers. 

These events are interesting to Koenig because, despite happening in the 19th and 20th centuries, the events she studies still affect Americans today.

“The way we narrate history tells us a lot about our hopes, fears, and values,” Koenig stated. “History can seem like a just series of facts, but it’s also about interpretation: we make decisions about what to emphasize, what to leave out, and how to depict different people and actions.”

In the past, Koenig has worked on three digital humanities projects at Ramapo. The first was “The Human Side of a Pandemic: A Ramapo College Digital Humanities Project,” which was a project where Ramapo students collected oral histories of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The second is titled “Mapping the Ramapough Munsee Lenape Nation,” which is an interactive map that features important Ramapough Munsee Lenape places and histories. The third project Koenig has worked on at Ramapo is called…

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The mystery surrounding the Lost Colony, Roanoke and Sir Walter Raleigh’s early explorers is one that’s fascinated generations of North Carolinians.

Next week, archaeologists will dig in the Elizabethan Gardens with hopes of finding new evidence of the lost “Algonquian village of Roanoke” — which was home to Sir Walter Raleigh’s explorers in 1584.

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Last summer, the First Colony Foundation team uncovered tantalizing clues in the ongoing mystery. They dug up shards of Algonquian pottery dating back to the 1500s, as well as a ring of copper wire they believe could have been an earring that once adorned a warrior from an indigenous tribe.

“Finding domestic pottery – the type used for cooking – in close proximity to an apparent piece of Native American jewelry, strongly confirms that we are digging in the midst of a settlement,” says Eric Klingelhofer, the First Colony Foundation’s Vice President for Research.

And Roanoke is the only known village at that site.

A copper ring could mean a village once stood in the Elizabethan Gardens

Historians say copper had an almost spiritual significance for the indigenous tribes.

“They prized the metal the way the English valued gold and silver. For example, tribal chiefs would honor brave warriors with trinkets made of beaten copper, indicating the value native peoples placed on it,” said a release from the First Colony Foundation.

The ring, in particular, supports the idea they may have found remnants of Roanoke.

“Made of drawn copper, the wire was…

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Elizabethan Gardens. [Courtesy outerbanks.org]

MANTEO, N.C., Feb. 28, 2024 – Archaeologists with First Colony Foundation will begin a new dig at Roanoke Island’s Elizabethan Gardens next week, looking for more evidence of the Algonquian village of Roanoac that hosted Sir Walter Raleigh’s explorers in 1584. The weeklong dig, starting Monday, March 4, is the first of two excavations the foundation has slated, with another set for Fort Raleigh later in the spring.

The upcoming Elizabethan Gardens dig builds on tantalizing finds uncovered last summer, when the First Colony Foundation team uncovered sherds of Algonquian pottery dating to that time – an interesting find, by itself — but the most intriguing discovery was a ring of copper wire. About the size of a quarter, the loop could have been an earring that once adorned a Native American warrior.

“Finding domestic pottery – the type used for cooking – in close proximity to an apparent piece of Native American jewelry, strongly confirms that we are digging in the midst of a settlement,” says Eric Klingelhofer, the First Colony Foundation’s Vice President for Research. “And Roanoac is the only known village at that site.”

            The ring, in particular, supports that view. Made of drawn copper, the wire was almost certainly brought to America by English explorers as part of their trade goods. Local natives did not have the technology to produce such rounded strands. And neither the French nor the Spanish ventured as far north as Roanoke Island to trade.

For Native Americans, copper had an almost spiritual significance. They prized the metal the way the English valued gold and silver. For example, tribal chiefs would honor brave warriors with trinkets…

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Anishinabek Nation Council members joined Day 1 of the Anishinabek Nation Lands and Resources Forum in North Bay, Ont.

By Kelly Anne Smith

NORTH BAY— During the Anishinabek Nation Councils Panel at the Anishinabek Nation’s 8th Land and Resources Forum, Kina-Gego-Naabadosin – Everything is Connected, in North Bay from February 13-15., Eshki-niigijig Advisory Council member Lance Copegog of Beausoleil First Nation talked of important work being done to protect the Great Lakes.

The panel had members from the Anishinabek Nation Getzidjig Advisory Council including Nmishomis Leroy Dolson of Munsee Delaware Nation and Nmishomis Mike Esquega of Biinjitiwaabik Zaaging Anishinabek. The panel also featured Eshki-niigijig Advisory Council members Brittnee Waindubence of Shequiandah First Nation, Terra Roy of Beausoleil First Nation, Pierre Debassige of M’Chigeeng First Nation, and Katelyn Peters of Munsee Delaware Nation.

Peters shared her perspective as urban Indigenous youth, introducing spirituality on how we view the water.

“When it comes to the people who are watching this, it doesn’t only have to be [Indigenous people], it could also be white people. Because when I was in university in my Indigenous Studies courses, there are a lot of great, amazing white people who really want to help our people and who are going to be running this country in twenty years. They need to understand why do Anishinabe people respect the water? How do they see the water because they might not be exposed to that in any other capacity.”

Copegog spoke of being gathered at the 2024 Anishinabek Nation Lands and Resources Forum because of the commitment to the lands and resources of the Anishinabek Nation’s communities. He spoke of innovative solutions that can be worked on together when facing challenges.

“We’re very committed to carrying forward some of the work we’ve…

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