The Other Side of Plymouth Rock

“…Native Americans in the Valley and elsewhere in New England are looking at the [Plymouth] 400th anniversary through a different lens. For them, Plymouth Colony was the opening chapter of a far grimmer story, one in which regional tribes would be stricken by European diseases such as smallpox, forced from their land, and finally decimated by the violence of King Philip’s War in 1675-1676. It’s a fraught memorial, much like 2019, which marked 400 years since the introduction of African slaves to North America.”

Read the full story in The Recorder.

Podcast: David Brule on River Stories 2020

David Brule, president of the Nolumbeka Project, based in Greenfield, speaks about a series focusing on Native Americans in the Valley. The series, which will consist of about a dozen events, is in part a response to this year’s Plymouth 400 observance, which is more focused on white settlers and the 1620 Plymouth Rock landing by the Pilgrims.

Check out the podcast at the article link.

Nolumbeka and Elizabeth James Perry: An Island Perspective on Wampum

Saturday, February 2, Full Snow Moon Gathering, Great Falls Discovery Center, 2 Avenue A, Turners Falls, MA. “An Island Perspective on Wampum”. 11 a.m. to noon.

Join Aquinnah Wampanoag Researcher and Artist Elizabeth James-Perry of Original Wampum Art for an informative presentation focused on historic wampum arts, including adornment, diplomacy and record keeping from the perspective of a Native woman, which will include a demonstration of wampum weaving. Free. All welcome. Elizabeth will bring a display of her wampum jewelry for sale.

1—3:30 p.m. Traditional Wampum Bead-making workshop follows. Limited to 30 participants.  Materials fee $40 per person, cash, on day of workshop.  Minimum age, 15. Pre-registration recommended at Nolumbekaproject@gmail.com

Elizabeth James-Perry is enrolled with the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head -Aquinnah, a community located by the richly colored clay cliffs of Noepe (Martha’s Vineyard). She is a contemporary and traditional artist, speaker and exhibit consultant.  She continues the work of her many tribal mentors to shore up culture, through museum and archival research in local and international collections. In her creative process, Elizabeth focuses on early Northeastern Woodlands Native American culture, including traditional regalia, diplomacy and ancient wampum design. The artist explores the rich purple hues of the quahog shell in designing jewelry, sculpturing whale and bear effigies; and making fine beads to weave the luxurious drape of collars and belts.  She has revived traditional coastal plant dyes, using them to create museum-quality textile arts in milkweed and woven quillwork.  Elizabeth’s art has received national recognition; earning awards at the Heard Museum Art Show; as well as the 2014 Traditional Arts Fellowship from the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

Weather concerns? Check www.nolumbekaproject.org for cancellation. Snow date, February 3, 2019.

Co-sponsored by DCR  and a grant from the Montague Cultural Council, a local agency supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.

Stolen Identities: The Mashpee Wampanoag, Defined Out of Rightful Inheritance

Listen to Hartmann’s presentation at MCTV, from the Nolumbeka Project:

Unearthing the New Narratives of 1676

As many of you know, David Brule, president of the Nolumbeka Project, is also the coordinator of the National Park Service Battlefield Protection Program Study here in the Wissatinnewag-Peskeompskut area and helped organize this informational presentation.  The session is hosted by the Battlefield Grant Advisory Board which is composed of five towns and four tribes.

The Aquinnah Wampanoag, the Chaubunagungamaug Band of Nipmuck Indians, the Elnu Abenaki, and the Narragansett Indian Tribe, as well as Historical Commissioners from Montague, Greenfield, Gill, Northfield and Deerfield have been meeting monthly over the past five years, coordinating this battlefield study of the complex massacre and counter-attack in 1676 that has marked our region over the subsequent centuries.

6:30 — 7:15 P.M. A power point presentation will focus on the final Phase II archaeological report of the Research Team of the Mashantucket Pequot Museum. The Team did extensive field research on the battlefield terrain stretching from Riverside through Factory Hollow and into the Nash’s Mills area of Greenfield. Their discoveries and new interpretations of the event add to the growing body of knowledge, fueling high local and regional interest in the event of May 19, 1676.
7:15 — 8:30 P.M. The second part of the program will feature a panel of four Tribal Historical Preservation Officers and Christine De Lucia, noted author and assistant professor of History at Mt Holyoke College. They will address the topic of “Unearthing the New Narratives of 1676” and will welcome questions and opinions from the public.   preseThis Public Information Session is sponsored by the Montague Planning Department, and the National Park Service Battlefield Protection Program.  For more information call 413-863-3200×207 or www.kpwar.org .

Day of Remembrance: Great Falls Massacre 5.19.18

Long River, Deep History

A discussion with Lisa Brooks, PhD, “Our Beloved Kin”, and Christine Delucia, PhD, “Memory Lands”.

Christine DeLucia’s Memory Lands at GCC, with Nolumbeka Project

A brilliant exploration of the interweaving of past, present, and future, Memory Lands casts a fresh light on the maelstrom of violence known as King Philip’s War. “The landscape of New England will never look the same after reading this important and haunting book” – Karl Jacoby, author of Shadows at Dawn: A Borderlands Massacre and the Violence of History
Noted historian Christine DeLucia offers a major reconsideration of the violent seventeenth-century conflict in northeastern America known as “King Philip’s War,” providing an alternative to “Pilgrim-centric” narratives that have conventionally dominated the histories of colonial New England. DeLucia grounds her study of one of the most devastating conflicts between Native Americans and European settlers in early America in five specific places that were directly affected by the crisis, spanning the Northeast as well as the Atlantic World. She examines the war’s effects on the everyday lives and collective mentalities of the region’s diverse Native and Euro-American communities over the course of several centuries, focusing on persistent struggles over land and water, sovereignty, resistance, cultural memory, and intercultural interactions. An enlightening work that draws from oral traditions, archival traces, material and visual culture, archaeology, literature, and environmental studies, this study reassesses the nature and enduring legacies of a watershed historical event. This event is co-sponsored by Greenfield Community College, the Nolumbeka Project, and World Eye Bookshop.

          Christine M. DeLucia is assistant professor of history at Mount Holyoke College. She grew up in Amoskeag/Manchester, New Hampshire, and presently lives in South Hadley, Massachusetts, in the heart of the Kwinitekw/Connecticut River Valley.
“Having tromped through woods, swamps, and widely-flung archives, Christine DeLucia has produced a powerfully poetic study of the dynamic, frequently conflicting meanings of Indigenous and settler memoryscapes in New England.” —Jean M. O’Brien, author of Firsting and Lasting: Writing Indians Out of Existence in New England
“A remarkable ‘reopening’ of the history of New England. Christine DeLucia turns our attention to the ‘memoryscapes’ in our midst, demanding reconsideration of the markers, monuments, objects and placeworlds that memorialize King Philip’s War, alongside the processes that alternatively repress and recover Indigenous histories of survivance.” —Lisa Brooks, author of The Common Pot: the Recovery of Native Space in the Northeast and Our Beloved Kin.      
Copies of “Memory Lands” will be available at the event or call World Eye Bookshop (413-772-2186) to reserve.

Let The Landscape Speak

Please note that the May 19th appearance with Doug Harris is part of the Day of Remembrance Commemoration of the 342nd Anniversary of the Great Falls Massacre and the 14th Anniversary of the Reconciliation Ceremony between the Narragansett and the Town of Montague. The evening before, May 18, 7:30 p.m., our special guests will be authors Lisa Brooks and Christine DeLucia whose books about King Philip’s War were recently published. Read more on our website, www.nolumbekaproject.org. Reminder: Christine DeLucia will be giving a presentation at GCC on Wednesday, April 4, at 7 p.m. More on website and Facebook.

With Nolumbeka at GCC: Christine DeLucia’s Memory Lands

A powerful study of King Philip’s War and its enduring effects on histories, memories, and places in Native New England from 1675 to the present.

“A brilliant exploration of the interweaving of past, present, and future, Memory Lands casts a fresh light on the maelstrom of violence known as King Philip’s War. The landscape of New England will never look the same after reading this important and haunting book” – Karl Jacoby, author of Shadows at Dawn: A Borderlands Massacre and the Violence of History

Noted historian Christine DeLucia offers a major reconsideration of the violent seventeenth-century conflict in northeastern America known as “King Philip’s War,” providing an alternative to “Pilgrim-centric” narratives that have conventionally dominated the histories of colonial New England. DeLucia grounds her study of one of the most devastating conflicts between Native Americans and European settlers in early America in five specific places that were directly affected by the crisis, spanning the Northeast as well as the Atlantic World. She examines the war’s effects on the everyday lives and collective mentalities of the region’s diverse Native and Euro-American communities over the course of several centuries, focusing on persistent struggles over land and water, sovereignty, resistance, cultural memory, and intercultural interactions. An enlightening work that draws from oral traditions, archival traces, material and visual culture, archaeology, literature, and environmental studies, this study reassesses the nature and enduring legacies of a watershed historical event.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Christine M. DeLuciais assistant professor of history at Mount Holyoke College. She grew up in Amoskeag/Manchester, New Hampshire, and presently lives in South Hadley, Massachusetts, in the heart of the Kwinitekw/Connecticut River Valley.

Praise for MEMORY LANDS:
“Having tromped through woods, swamps, and widely-flung archives, Christine DeLucia has produced a powerfully poetic study of the dynamic, frequently conflicting meanings of Indigenous and settler memoryscapes in New England.”
—Jean M. O’Brien, author of Firsting and Lasting: Writing Indians Out of Existence in New England
“A remarkable ‘reopening’ of the history of New England. Christine DeLucia turns our attention to the ‘memoryscapes’ in our midst, demanding reconsideration of the markers, monuments, objects and placeworlds that memorialize King Philip’s War, alongside the processes that alternatively repress and recover Indigenous histories of survivance.”
—Lisa Brooks, author of The Common Pot: the Recovery of Native Space in the Northeast