Wabenaki means “the place where the sun is born every day”, making the people of this place “The people of the dawn land.” Mohican translates to “People of the Waters that Are Never Still” referencing the Hudson River. The Mohican, Stockbridge, and Munsee bands were pushed west in the late 1700’s to Wisconsin where they have a reservation today. They maintain tribal land on the Hudson River near Troy NY and come regularly to Massachusetts to retain cultural ties to their historic homelands. Nipmuc means “People of the Freshwater”, and they are here in Massachusetts, with a small reservation of land that has never been ceded. Nonotuck means the “middle of the river” in reference to the oxbow area of the Kwinitekw River.

We are in the watershed of the Kwinitekw River, or Connecticut River. While this river has known several names by many different groups of people along its flowing path, Kwinitekw has stuck. It is important to remember that this area has been an integral place for Indigenous communities to reside, gather, farm, hunt, and fish for millennia. It is even more important to know they are still living here.

We encourage all of our participants, their parents, our staff and our partners to get to know the Indigenous people of your area, and ask what you can do to lift and raise their voices, honor and respect their history.

In that spirit, we have the following suggested action items:

Get to know what local issues are important to the Indigenous communities of your area. In ours, The Nipmuc Cultural Preservation is actively seeking assistance with the funding and restoration of repatriated land in Petersham, and their tribal building on 4 1/2 acres of reservation land in Grafton.

We invite you to deepen your relationship to these living lands and waters. Please check out the work of The Nolumbeka Project. This organization is a non-profit that “envisions a Connecticut River Valley where the histories, cultures, and persistence of Northeastern Indigenous Peoples are recognized and celebrated, and where all beings coexist in balance and reciprocity.”

Their free 10-part video series offers a needed perspective on native life past and present in our beautiful valley.