New Lebanon, N.Y. — The first-ever Homelands PowWow will be held at the Darrow School, located at 110 Darrow Road, on Saturday, October 4, and Sunday, October 5, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The event is organized by a group of Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican Tribal members and other allies from across the state.
According to its website, the mission of the event is to:
… honor and reconnect the Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican people with their ancestral homelands in the Berkshire Region of Western New England. Through the annual organization and celebration of the Homelands PowWow, we raise funds to support travel and lodging expenses for tribal members wishing to visit these sacred lands. Rooted in tradition, community, and cultural resilience, our work ensures that the bond between the Mohican people and their homelands remains strong for generations to come. While we do not speak on behalf of the Stockbridge-Munsee Tribal Council or represent the Tribe, we are deeply honored to help create a space for connection, culture, and healing in the homelands for our community.
The event will feature performances and music by tribe members, as well as various arts, crafts, and vendor booths.
Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohicans member Shawn Stevens is one of the co-organizers of the event and is a member of the organization’s board of directors. Stevens is a cultural and historical educator, as well as a scholar of the Mohican language. “This event is about returning to our footsteps, our culture, our songs, our dances, and to the ancestral lands that have always carried our songs, dances, and stories,” Stevens told The Berkshire Edge. “The spirit of our culture has never left. It’s still there, and it’s imprinted with our lands and with our ancestors. The people who live there today may not know us very well, but the land itself has never forgotten us, and we have not forgotten her. It’s about making that reconnection.”
The Stockbridge-Munsee tribe’s original homeland in the 1700s included what is now Berkshire County.
However, as a result of repeated colonial encroachments and forced removal from their lands, the tribe eventually resettled in Wisconsin. “Many of us who have grown up here on the reservations in Wisconsin have never seen the ancestral lands we have come from,” Shawn Stevens said. “Having this powwow is a way of trying to bring people from our community back to the homeland. These lands are important because thousands of our ancestors have been buried here, and many of them were absorbed into the land, including the soil, the trees, and nature. It is all still living energy that is still alive there. This is a way we will connect to our Mother Earth, land, and our ancestors.”
“There is a desire to see people return to see their original homelands,” said organization board of directors member Ginger Stevens.
Ginger Stevens is an enrolled member of the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohicans and a Stockbridge-Munsee elder. She previously chaired the Mohican Veterans Traditional PowWow Committee for 12 years and is a co-founder of the Mohican Veterans Association. “Coming back to the homelands is something that has to be experienced,” she said. “My first time walking on the land [in what is now Berkshire County], that feeling is hard to put into words. There is a feeling of the land reaching out, enveloping you, and welcoming you. It’s a feeling that reaches the deepest part of your soul. You get this feeling that you are being welcomed, that is overpowering and amazing.”
Ginger Stevens said that she hopes this event will foster more awareness of Native American history and culture. “I think that, a lot of times, there is a misconception that the tribes are all alike,” she said. “There is this ‘You’ve seen one Native American, you’ve seen them all’ type of thinking. There’s just this lack of knowledge. In my travels out to the Massachusetts and New York area, there are still a lot of people that I have talked to who didn’t even know that we were still around. They didn’t know we moved to Wisconsin, and they thought the tribe had been wiped out. There has always been a question of not just what to teach, but how to teach someone else’s culture. Teachers seem to be reluctant to teach our history because they don’t know it, and they are worried about making a mistake.”
Ginger Stevens emphasized that “each tribe has their own identity, and part of that identity belongs to the land out there in Berkshire County.”
“A powwow is a prayer, it’s dancing, it’s a ceremony, and it’s all about how we feel,” Ginger Stevens said. “We are communing with the earth, our families, and even the spectators. It’s a way for everyone to come together. The Stockbridge-Munsee tribe is still around, but some people need to see it to really understand that.”
Tickets are $20 per day for adults; $10 for children five to 12 years old, veterans, and senior citizens 65 years and older; and free for children under five years old. For more information about the event, visit its website.
