Still Here and More:

A Gallery of

New England Through Today
 Cotuit, Mass., 1928: Herring Pond Wampanoags at an early public Powwow. Courtesy of Great Moose/Russell H. Gardner, late Wampanoag Tribal Historian
      King Philip's War (1675-76) brought the Pequots' 350-year "fate" to most of Native New England. As before, the inter-human failures of profit and "reform" brought on the enraged logic of invasion. Within 100 years Mary Rowlandson's "captivity narrative" had sold out 30 editions: people loved to read of her being dragged from a front-line colonial plantation out into the "wilderness."
      The thrills of Mary's frontier temptations (essentially whether to chuck The Bible and live where her body is), her story's pious rhetoric worked like today's TV: it bonded white America's soon-to-be Revolutionary colonies into an "imagined community": a "national identity" above all things Not Indian. (See Anderson, Barrett, Pearce, Drinnon and Armstrong/Tennenhouse.) Outside the dream, New England became a place where it was prudent to conceal any part of a blood-heritage from the National Other.
      Star, a.k.a. Bruce Curliss, is a Nipmuc of many aspects from wise-cracking Powwow MC to serious spokesman of national scope. He'd laugh to be called a "leader"; but he has all the required memory, listening-skills and eloquence.

     ...I had a great grandmother who lived in a stone long-house in old Union City, which is no longer there. Luckily I was old enough to understand when grandparents were around who still lived really close to that---the way she grew up, knowing the things about the herbs, about gathering, and knowing the times of year when you did various things. And trying to have that shared---It made you realize that part of who we are today is based on our families taking it underground, as our survival tool; taking our traditions and turning them into values.

     And what we've been able to accomplish is that in fact we are a "core" of families that moved together out of the Homelands. The Federal government doesn't like hearing the Homelands model, but those places are where for the most part we stayed. We just moved into different parts of it, settling sort of where the industry and the work was. But we settled as clusters of families and were always connected. I mean, for time immemorial the three big celebrations were the Mashpee Wampanoag Powwow, the Narragansetts' Annual Meeting and The Nipmuc Fair. In a way New England's whole year of public Powwows came of that. I look back at old photos from the 1920s and see some of my family dressed up in Western regalia. Headdresses, tepees---That's what outside people were expecting to see. So that's what they did....

     But growing up in the 1940s, 50s and 60s, this stuff was even laid on the Native people who knew they were Native. You know, "The Indians are savages, they're no good, lazy, they're alcoholics" (which was one of their coping mechanisms). In the school system where I was brought up, it was "Oh, you got a bad mix of Native Today" when you got into some stupid little kid's fight on the playground that had nothing to do with race. But in some cases, you'd use the racism to sort of insulate and protect yourself, saying "Yeah, I was a little crazy, I am Indian. If you come up against me again...."

     But as you get older, and you progress through your life, you see---This is really the oppression. This you either change as an adult, or you end up fitting into those categories in which they placed you...."

     1998 interview in Dempsey; NANI: A Native New England Story
 The first "National Day of Mourning" rather than of thanksgiving took place in 1970 near the so-called Plimoth Rock and statue of Wampanoag Sachem Massasoit (photos courtesy of Great Moose/Russell Gardner). Historians and citizens "disturbed" by the Civil Rights Movement had rarely doubted decades of professional claptrap filtering down to their children's schools:

...We know...the lurid tales of Indian savagery then circulating through Europe...but [The Pilgrims] seem to have trusted in Captain Miles Standish to improvise a system of defense....For their other relations with the natives, they trusted in The Ten Commandments....[Standish] hurried off to stage a preventive massacre at Massachusetts Bay. No further punishment was inflicted....The natives were given to understand that treachery would not be tolerated....But it was also made clear that The Pilgrims bore the Indians no ill will, and that the aborigines had nothing to fear so long as they behaved themselves....[The] Indians had nothing to offer save their labor, their land, and a few furs....Even on a practical level, Indian claims to the greater part of Plimoth Colony were extremely weak, since most of their territory was used only intermittently as a game preserve.

David Bushnell,"The Treatment of the Indians in Plimoth Colony,"

New England Quarterly XXVI, 193-218 (1953)
      New English print-culture still leads the way with The Boston Globe's annual preemptive strikes each Thanksgiving and Columbus Day. "Massasoit needed the [Pilgrim] help," our Editors muse (Nov. 23, 2000). "His people were being pressed hard by inland tribes." As if the Narragansetts intended to wipe out the Wampanoags. By 2000, Nanepashemet's studies such as you heard above were well-abroad. Our Editors sensed a need to turn their untrained muskets toward the vocal local demand for more than filiopiety, in the place where Progress stumbled ashore.
      "For several years," our Editors wrote---from the first (and last) Thanksgiving until "Philip began his doomed war"---"the Pilgrims and Wampanoags coexisted peacefully." That's what Mary Rowlandson said: Philip literally had no "reason." Our Editors sensed a need to explain a new Plymouth town-plaque, fought for and placed in 2000 "as a reminder of the genocide..and the relentless assault" on these inhabited shores. Unmentioned was the annual Pilgrim Parade with its stern display of guns borne through the streets past The Rock That Wasn't. Imagine the reception of a well-intended Indian War Party marching through town. Our Editors were comforting: "The best lesson [of Thanksgiving] is that we humans have a great need to join together to celebrate our material blessings, whether it is a plentiful harvest or a steady job....That enduring lesson will survive the changing interpretations of a complex event."
      Gee, Grandmaw, don't that stuffin' stifle talk round the turkey! The "new complexity" a la Globe boils down and back to the 1950s' still-unchallenged The Plymouth Adventure, from MGM with Spencer Tracy; whose most interesting moment is the Pilgrim families' being storm-tossed in Mayflower's hold. An Oscar for Special Effects (what else?) drew attention from 5 seconds of Native presence at the American end---in the background gratefully sawing wood for Plimoth suburbs. Another millenium of quarantine dawns and yawns between The Love-Feast of Democracy and its needless evangelical inversion, the Preemptive Massacre.
      They've always been here, and will be. See the Links for a few paths beyond the palisade...
       Slow Turtle and Nanepashemet (dancing, left) were just two of many New England leaders who keep the country lively week by week around the year. This is not Renaissance, but Continuance where change (progress by way of remembering) has made it safer. Other people are learning from this courage.

On October 21, 2001

These puddingstone Memorials were dedicated as symbols of hope

that the souls of the first inhabitants of Wessagussett, the Massachusetts Indians,

and the first settlers of Weymouth, the Weston colonists,

have reconciled their differences and found peace.

Great Spirit,

Whose Voice I hear in the winds

and Whose Breath gives Life to all the world,

hear me!

I am small and weak. I need Your strength and wisdom.

Let me walk in beauty

and make my eyes ever behold the red and purple sunset.

Make my hands respect the things You have made,

and my ears sharp to hear Your Voice.

Make me wise, so that I may understand

the things You have taught my people.

Let me learn the lessons You have hidden in every leaf and rock.

I seek strength,

not to be greater than my brother

but to fight my greatest enemy---Myself.

Make me always ready to come to You

with clean hands and straight eyes;

so that when Life fades as the fading sunset

my spirit may come to You without shame.
      These ceremonies and words were shared by the peoples of Weymouth, Massachusetts in October 2001---on the site of Wessagusset colony and of the massacre. Until now an "empty" wood-lot (with a natural spring) among neighborhood houses, this place came alive thanks to Ms. Jodi Purdy Quinlan of Weymouth (at far right in last photo above), the Weymouth Fore River Watershed Association, its Historical Society, and others who know the ground beneath the present. These "amateurs" recognized a priceless past: their enthusiastic and patient diplomacy convinced their city to dedicate half a million dollars to new spiritual life.
      This still-developing park by the sea is a place for transforming past and present. A street-parade of hundreds came together that morning and down Sea Street for the ceremonies---and chief of these was a Lay-Down of Arms between "English" and Native representatives. A "dark" unheeded presence in this place, this day, began to change. Publicly addressed, it begins to strengthen (sophisticate) our schools. The Mayor and officials, historians and citizens stood solemn as Native sweet-grass smokes of purification gathered their thoughts. People spoke, and heard the facts from all sides, and were not afraid. They sang together. Some not without tears. Children took part and learned many things. No invited Plimoth guests turned up. Since then, words of dedication engraved in two stones speak in the minds of visitors to this past.
      These people stood on many shoulders. This day came of many days like it before---People choosing to step off the paths that go nowhere, choosing to make their children not victims, but dancers...
      
       
      What's this? A wild witty experimental film called The Maypole of Merrymount produced by Andrew Knight and shared with communities since 1999?
       
       
      And then here (below) come the Massachusetts Archaeological Society's meetings and Lecture Series (open free to the public for years already) at the Robert S. Peabody Museum of the American Indian at Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass.---another warm and dynamic forum where land and people, amateurs and professionals share what they know and teach it with their joy: where exhibits like the one below, "Let Us Remember The Old Mikmaq," are typical of a new professional rigor and conscientious context. By all means, visit! And get on the RSPM/MAS mail list about future events at NNGruener@aol.com...
      
And then there's The North Shore's Rebecca Nurse Homestead whose lands and programs bring connections alive between new and familiar histories. Right now Quincy Historical Society is re-creating its permanent Native and Colonial exhibits in state-of-the-art form..The list goes on in a region that has the assets (from trumping Columbus on down) to lead a national renaissance of learning. This is the country with 78 million households tuned in for The Pilgrims---How many would watch if learning "values" was a pleasure?

      Make room, room for the bouncing belly,

       First father of sauce, and deviser of jelly!

       Welcome, friends! Feast and dance till ye nod---

       Break all thy girdles, and break forth a god!

       ....For dancing is an exercise

       Not only shows the mover's wit

       But maketh the beholder wise

       As he hath power to rise to it....

         Ben Jonson, Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue, 1628
      May 5, 2002: These are the good things that happen when together we embrace the ambiguous past....
      
       
      Thanks to the gracious open minds of Quincy Parks Department, The Weymouth Fore River Watershed Association and Weymouth Historical Society, Revels 375 was the biggest celebration yet of the achievements of English and Native American peoples at Thomas Morton's Ma-Re Mount (or "Merrymount"); who lived together in peace, trade and friendship such that they raised a Maypole toward a common future here, at Maypole Park on Wollaston Beach near the islands of Massachusetts Bay, in May 1627...                                                                                                                                        
      
       
      Chief One Bear and the members of the multi-tribal Order for the Preservation of Indian Cultures opened this day with prayer and blessings of The Four Directions; and Morton presented him and wife Margaret with gifts of wampum in thanks, as Morton did, for permission to be here at all....
      The Wolf Tail Singers brought a wild and powerful sound to the whole day---and you can hear it all in this website's final film-clip just below (not to mention Wolf Tail's website full of music!). Thanks to George Estes/Thunder Trumpeter and more than 20 there was no stopping the dances. And with them---taking turns and playing together too---were the seasoned artists of Urban Myth and The Village Circle Band (at right): Nouri Newman, Jessica Lupien, Vitaly Kakuta, Cathy Reuben, Melika Fitzhugh, Gayle McKennon, Deb Lempke, John Schumlan and Frank Jones, filling the day with sounds of May and more that the crowd---as Morton hoped---couldn't resist!
      With brave city support, "a different America" past, present and future began to unfold in the music(s) and dances and solemn good-humored ceremonies in honor of courageous cooperation. Morton got there amid a beautiful green dawn by the sea, and with Fox Running of Connecticut's Quinnipiacs decorated the hill for things to come. "The Poem," our continent's first poetry in English and a long-stifled message of hope, was posted anew. All day people puzzled at it too, as they first did! But the neighborhood kids wanted to know---and had no problem understanding---why a man like "Mine Host" had been banished and silenced so long. Indeed they danced and asked more questions than anybody. And they took what they learned back to future years in school (for testing teachers), without a hint of losing all moral bearing.
      Morton gave his two-hundred-odd guests ("malcontent indentured servants all!") hearty welcome, and after first-greetings, took half this crowd on a Nature Walk. People sang English songs of the land to the drum of Glenn Mairo---and when all came together again atop Maypole Hill, there was Morton bearing the bright-wrapped Maypole up the hill to its place of honor...
      
      375 years before, Morton's men had "wanted wives" as well as closer trade-relations with Native Americans. The Revels brought them both, so it was only proper to crown a May Queen and King (Allison Russell and Jordan Howard of Stoneham). Back then the Queen was more likely a Native woman, as ever like her mothers on the human frontiers...
       
      
       
      Nor did the day lack a formal matchlock-gun salute--- to the viability of Merrymount's model for inevitable colonies. Thanks for the skill and generosity of Messrs. Jon Karl Tritt, Charles Schifferdecker and William Gates! This place worked and it ended only because Morton was arrested. When that happened, so were the past and future until this day came back to the sunshine...with a bang! you can hear in the film-clip just below...
      No invited Plimoth guests turned up: not The Boston Globe, not the "alternative newspaper" Phoenix. All they missed was a spirit-hungry community cutting a national path in the act of learning to nourish itself, by acting together in knowledge and joy. Morton the "lawless reckless amoral adventurer" (C.F. Adams Jr.) gave his community an "idol"---a singing, dancing, hand-holding symbolic means with which to express their bonds. What are yours? For that is what we humans are---Bodies in a "Symbolic" Universe. The people you see are aglow from within because they pick and choose what inevitable "idols" in which to invest themselves. These still work. Parks Department phones rang for a week---With luck, we'll see you there next year!
      Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue. As the last round-dance ended in a tight-spiraled crunch of laughing people round the Maypole, as the last Hip-Hip-Hooray! faded on bright air, Morton stole these lines from his drinking-pal Ben Jonson to send his "initiates" home:

It follows, now, you are to prove

The subtlest maze of all---that's Love.

Go, in Peace and Beauty. And with a mind

as gentle as the stroking wind runs o'er the gentle flowers.

And so let all your actions smile

As if they meant not to beguile the courtiers, but the hours.

Grace, Laughter and Courtesy may meet, and yet the Beauty's not worth less---

For what is noble should be sweet; but not dissolved in wantonness.

Will you, that I give the law to all your sport, and sum it?

It should be such should envy draw, and ever overcome it.

Virtue, She it is in darkness shines;

and She in You Herself refines.

Click on Merrymount's memorial-stone to see and hear Revels 375!
      We Are Still Here has a special meaning for Native people of the Quinnipiac (the western-Connecticutt region from Totoket/Branford to New Haven). Their Grand Sachem, Iron Thunderhorse, is as alive, powerfully creative and dynamically in action as a leader can be. Under his leadership, ACQTC---the Algonquian Confederacy of the Quinnipiac Tribal Council, see their website) has been restoring its ancient heritage, teaching and serving its multicultural communities for decades. And Iron has been unjustly and sadistically imprisoned by the the state of Texas for over 20 years. If Texas has its way it will be for life.
     If you think this website reflects professional judgment, take it for fact (till you see) that Iron Thunderhorse is a scholar, whose works range from new dictionaries of Native language to cutting-edge studies of region-wide petroglyphs, land-forms and cultures.     Without people like this right now, priceless knowledge will fall through the cracks of time. Iron is also a recognized artist of many skills. The crime for which young Iron went to jail was paid for in exemplary fashion with the amazing range of works before you (and Sources). After release, Iron was injured and taken unconscious to a hospital outside his parole zone---and Texas ever since has locked him in hell.
      Needless pepper-spray attacks, isolation due to inmate-violence against "Indians," and days of lock down knee-deep in prison sewage (just last year) could break any human being. Incredibly, Iron has gone on creating a mountain of quality works to make free professors look lazy. But Iron's eyes and health are failing. A whole group of historians went there to testify at a parole hearing in 2001. Texas played games with process, denied Iron even these visitors, and said No: Iron is "a threat to the community." Lost in their own pathetic fantasies, Iron's torturers think nobody sees what they're doing. They live in a good ol'fashioned bubble. And it's still true: What they can do to Indians, they'd do to all of us.
      But it ain't over yet. Activism by Iron's friends has brought him a slightly-healthier change of address for his severe medical problems. If you'd like to get hold of Iron's works and/or act on his behalf, write to him: Iron Thunderhorse, 624391 Hughes Unit, Route 2, Box 4400, Gatesville TX 76597. He'd love to hear from you! And his works will feed your spirit...
      Like the poetry of Little Owl, Duda (Great Mother) of the Quinnipiac who herself has led the struggle for Iron's release while creating both art and scholarship too. With her kind permission, this website's features close (for now) with Little Owl's own pages from Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow...and you can write to her at 201 Church St., Milltown IN 47145.

PAHTSUONK

Rame magazak

chawgun noweta mamonchu.

Sibsiz manummappu,

pahtsuonk wutche

pawtumpung ouwan.

Webe wah seepus hom mauwa

pahtsuonk ramuk aqueewants

wutche arraksak.

Wah wabun anoohomaonk

attabowawunk

weeche wah anumwussukuppe.

Wah tukkoag saioo kitzummodean

ea kesuk rame wunnonkou.

Sibsiz manunnappu,

pahtsuonk rame magazak.

WAITING

In the shadows

something moves.

A little bird is quiet,

waiting for

the morning mist.

Only the river can see him

waiting under a blanket

of stars.

The wind is singing

a prayer

with the willow.

The waves are simply washing

today into yesterday.

The little bird is quiet,

waiting in the shadows.

SKETAMBOUGH-MENUHKENUM

Chawgun moh askam

pahke mouche wonk.

Tabanah wah Nartauintantak

wutche Mittaukuk, Kehtanit,

uttchadchimmoas neawun arkeis

weeche nappewetappomowauwunk

rame wohpretewunk wutche aquene,

atta mutche mamattinunguesoak

wotterainainauh Mishimayigat,

wame kesuk wame ahapummuks

weeche wah milkissoowunk

wutche attabowawunk;

wutche kemenaumhewawungansh;

wutche neawun assema;

wutche milkesewunk wutche magun.

 

Wutche jenoujaaious,

waughhean arroukassomo wampsin,

neawun natchkok quah umskommen

wah rashauwunk wutche k'thun;

wutche arraksak; wutche m'sansh;

wutche sowhawmen;

quah neawun waughtaun.

 

Wah webe pakkadtawauwunk

atta neh wame sketambough mouchh

nemarrewungan wutche wame

kattaggansh pummayawungansh.

Youh atta yeiache wah negonnijek

Sketambough-menuhkenum

chauket attamo sketambough woweriewunk.

AN INDIAN FORT

What was before

must be again.

When The Maker

of the World, Kehtanit,

blessed our nations

with fitting together

in a bond of peace,

 

there are thousands

walking The Great Trail,

each day filling all places

with the power

of prayer;

of visions;

of our ancient sacred tobacco;

of the virtue of giving.

 

From the beginning,

knowing He is everywhere,

we seek for and find

the spirit of the sea;

of the stars; of the stones;

of the Indian corn;

and we understand.

 

The only law

is that all persons must

care for all

other beings.

This is always the ancient

Indian fort

wherein stands the people's

happiness.

NEAWUN MATTA WAUHTAWN TEN

Wah Wampanoag soenummis

quinnuppe, rio tanseunganak

pokkinnauauk re wah wabun!

Pharitchch' wutche neawun

nabbajek eo, webe noweta

matchkok kejahittawunk

rame sunhok ux wososhquit.

 

Skeje watchuh, wutche quompaio

neawun hom coto

rame attabowawunk,

webe wah peeouchaukoag

hom arrakonnuh neawun, nux atta,

weeche auwun noweta sonnuckhog

quah micheme neawun mouchh

arkassounk paquodjok

wuwusinnamanak.

 

Webe wutche nejek

kattauchossowawunk wutche

pauasoungansh neh matta hom

kattabrawahikkomuk quah rio,

otambasionanauush nejek negamo

motantammewunk,

nejek mamman neawun!

Oowee! Neawun matta wauhtawn ten

auwarchan rio mittash nenar

yous wutche peeouchaukoag.

Nejek bitch matta nux petammuk

chawgun nejek negamo

unnehtongquatash kokoodumchauwus.

WE DO NOT KNOW HOW

The Dawnlanders are spread

round about, like seed

cast to the wind!

Many of us

are dead now, but some

find salvation

in a cave or marsh.

 

Upon the mountain, for a time

we may stand

in prayer,

but the strangers

may capture us, even there,

with some falling trap

and forever we must

work without

rest.

 

It's because they

crave

the riches that cannot

satisfy and so,

to gain their own

liberty,

they take away ours!

Alas! We do not know how

to improve such hearts as

these of the strangers.

They will not even hear

what their own

stories teach.

NUT-TOO'WEN

Kehtanit wussuckhosu

peasin squayopog,

peasin wessawayopog,

zegweskimin wosowancon,

quah besek wunnuppoh

weenont.

 

Arra wussuckhosu

kici papuhumesunc

werrena ause ashkashki

coowas toueukomuk,

maquamittiniyew watchuh

wutche paddaqassun,

wutchep ' woayeu

re wah anoohomaonk,

seewamp-wayo patuck.

 

Wussuckhosu

weeche rio werregowunk

neh neen rashauwunk

seboghomman ouse wame

wah wampayo niquilguats

kesakuk!

Nut-too'wen skeje wabun

weeche shaious

wowerriewunk kenawmen

rio arwejanunquat

peaio keonewunk.

I FLY

Kehtanit paints

a little red leaf,

a little yellow leaf,

a raspberry roe,

a a dark-winged

raven.

 

Then He paints

a grand rainbow

far above the green

pine tree forest,

from the west mountain

of thunderstone

eastward

to the singing,

blue waterfall.

 

He paints

with such beauty

that my spirit

sails above all

the white clouds of heaven!

I fly on the wind

with great

happiness to see

such a glorious

mystery.

MASUNUK WAH RUHT

Neawun neghikqueoushannak,

spe nejek mutchisunkombane,

poquauttawne werremauwunk

wutche neawun ea kesuk.

 

Negonnijek as-hittewunk

nekokkoodunnohikqun neawun

rauweto wutche

wah werrego squayo mayi.

 

Pummean weeche neen,

netomp; pummean

skeje wah wunnuppoh

wutche wah wabun.

 

Mashagquenog

rashawandowe pummayawunk

wutche howan neawun mutche.

 

Wutchappuk

mutche werrego

quah

pompamantejek narra.

 

Masunuk

wah ruht

quah kenawmen.

TOUCH THE FIRE

Our ancestors,

by their faithfulness,

preserve the truth

for us today.

 

Ancient traditions

teach us

the value of

the good red road.

 

Walk with me,

my friend, ---Walk

upon the wing

of the wind.

 

Embrace

the spiritual substance

of who we are.

 

The root

is good

and

living still.

 

Touch

the fire

and see.

Aquene Quinnupohke! Peace, Everywhere on Earth!