Dozens of community members braved the cold on Saturday to gather at Greenfield Community College for a celebration of the Full Snow Moon and an Eastern Woodlands Social Dance.
The fifth annual event, organized by the Nolumbeka Project, a nonprofit dedicated to cultural and historical preservation of Native American history, included speeches from various Indigenous community leaders.
This year’s dance was led by Annawon Weeden, founder and director of the First Light Foundation who is of Mashpee Wampanoag, Pequot and Narragansett lineage. The event included call-and-response performances and circle dances, with community members joining hand-in-hand around GCC’s dining commons, stepping to the rhythm of Weeden’s singing, chanting and drum-beating.
The Full Snow Moon — the full moon of the month of February — represents the most challenging part of winter, typically coinciding with the heaviest snowfalls and coldest temperatures. Liz Coldwind Santana-Kiser, tribal historic preservation officer for the Chaubunagungamaug Band of Nipmuck people, the first of several speakers for the event, discussed ancestral practices during these frigid, difficult months.
“Our ancestors knew that this was a time to take it easy,” Santana-Kiser said. “Taking it easy means sitting by the fire, close to our families.”
“The Snow Moon also reminds us of resilience,” Santana-Kiser added. “When the long winters require preparations, sharing, trusting each other — that went a long way through the winter months.”
Much of the event was dedicated to education on Indigenous communities in New England and traditional Indigenous values. Kasko Crane managed a table dedicated to teaching the Abenaki language, where attendees could pick “language snacks” — strips of paper with English phrases and the Abenaki translation — out of a bowl for Crane to teach the pronunciation and etymological reasoning behind each word.
“A lot of languages are in reclamation,” Crane said. “People want to learn the language of their land.”
Crane started learning Abenaki prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and started teaching in 2021. She currently teaches at Middlebury College and via online courses. Crane called Saturday’s event “a fantastic opportunity to meet friends, new and old” and an “introduction to teach the language and history … so many people think Indigenous communities were gone after the settlers came. It’s not true.”
David Brule, event emcee and president of the Nolumbeka Project, pointed out that this year the event was able to represent three Native American nations whose ancestors inhabited what is now western Massachusetts: the Mahican, Abenaki and Nipmuck.
Dan Shears, material culture advisor for the Nulhegan Abenaki Nation, was the second to speak before the dance commenced. Shears’s speech focused on his work in historical preservation and archives; in one anecdote, he described a common misconception that maple sap was typically boiled using hot rocks.
“Prior to European contact, we used clay or soapstone vessels to render the sap,” Shears explained. Hot rocks would add ash to the sap, eventually making it inedible.
Rich Holschuh of Brattleboro, Vermont, a researcher of Indigenous cultures, spoke next, focusing on connectedness and community. “Another word in Abenaki for the moon passing just now is ‘alamikos,’ the ‘greeting makers’ moon,’” Holschuh said. “We come here together to greet each other, and I encourage you to do that. Let’s build community, let’s find kinship.”
Closing the series of speeches were brother and sister Shawn Stevens and Wanonah Kosbab, both members of the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mahicans, once inhabitants of western Massachusetts and the Hudson Valley in New York, who were forcibly displaced to Wisconsin around the 19th century. Stevens’s speech centered on the emotional response to returning to his Northeastern ancestral homeland: “the land, the air, the waters … it was like a welcoming home.”
Kosbab focused her speech on epidemics of mental health faced by Native Americans. She cited startling statistics of Native American populations. “In 2022, data showed [suicide] rates 91% higher than the total population,” she said.
She offered the teachings of Red Road Reclamation, a non-denominational Native American church for which she is the secretary, as an alternative to western mental health practices. “Indigenous mental health doesn’t look at what’s wrong with you,” Kosbob explained. “It looks at what happened to you. And, as importantly, who are your people? Where do you belong? Who holds you while you’re struggling?”
The dancing commenced after a short intermission, beginning with a call-and-response line-dance led by Shears, before Weeden arrived and led several others.
Jennifer Lee, a board member of the Nolumbeka Project, commented on the mission of the day’s event: “We are here to learn, teach and make Native voices heard.”
To watch a recording of Saturday’s event, visit https://www.youtube.com/live/Qk0mKiPOF70.
For more information on the Nolumbeka Project and future events, visit nolumbekaproject.org/events.