♪ ♪
On behalf of the Stockbridge- Munsee tribal community,
we have a proclamation, in honor and recognition
of Ruth Gudinas and Dorothy Davids,
members of our community, tribal members, respected elders,
who have taught us that we must resolve
a fierce dedication to education,
even in the face of any adversity.
In honor and recognition of you two,
and your commitment to address the social injustices in society
through education and understanding
and practical wisdom-- that's not here, that's me--
and in honor of your lifetime commitment to our community
through your dedication to the Historical Committee
and its work, as well as your efforts toward providing
a forum for education on Mohican history
through the annual Mohican History Conference.
Now, therefore, the community declares that a feast
will be held in your honor, celebration and recognition.
[applause]
♪ ♪
Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican History was funded in part by
Irene Daniell Kress,
Francis A. and Georia F. Ariens Fund
of the Community Foundation for the Fox Valley Region,
Evjue Foundation,
Ron and Patty Anderson,
Ira and Ineva Reilly Baldwin Wisconsin Idea Endowment,
National Endowment for the Humanities,
and Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.
[rippling stream]
>> Koolamalsi.
Good morning!
My name is Kim Vele.
I'm an enrolled member of the Stockbridge-Munsee tribe,
otherwise known as the Muheconneok,
which means "people of the flowing water."
And I will begin with Kishelemukonk.
[speaking Delaware language]
which means
"Thank you, Creator, for this beautiful day
and the opportunity to share my tribe's story with others."
We're not aboriginal to Wisconsin.
We are one of the-- what is commonly known as one of the
New York tribes, and originally occupied much of the land
north of Albany, all the way into Lake Champlain,
along the Hudson River, which is a large river
that ebbs and flows with tides, is why my people are known
as Muheconneok, people of the flowing waters.
The shortened version of that is Mohican.
The Hudson River has many islands, and one of the islands,
which is called Schodack Island,
is one of our great counsel fires.
And that is where our ancestors met and took care of business
for the tribe.
It's where the sachems resided
and was the center of the government, basically.
Until the Dutch came, and it's believed that my ancestors
were among those that greeted Henry Hudson
when he first came up the Hudson River,
helped him and his crew survive.
And it was during that time that diseases started to spread
throughout the tribes in the upper New York area,
including my tribe.
Continuing factions and warring between the Mohawks
and the Mohicans resulted in a dramatic loss of members.
Eventually, it was very difficult for some of the
remaining bands to continue to survive in that area.
We have historically had approximately
three sachems in the tribe, which would be known as chiefs.
One would be the chief of the people
and deal with essentially issues
that would be unique to just our tribe
and our tribe's issues.
And then we would usually have a spiritual sachem
who would guide the tribe on a spiritual level
and guide the other sachems in a spiritual way.
And then we also had basically what would be the international
diplomat, if you will, and that sachem would be, basically,
the chief among other bands of our tribe and other tribes.
At the time we had two sachems, Umpachene and Konkapot.
They were approached by Scottish missionaries
to missionize and stabilize the tribal membership
and advocated for Christianization of the tribe
and, I think, convinced Umpachene and Konkapot
that this might be a good idea for survival.
Neither one of the chiefs wanted to bind the membership
with that decision without first taking it back,
had numerous meetings with the tribal members
and came to a decision that
maybe this was best for the tribe, to set up,
basically, a reservation in western Massachusetts.
And I don't think people really understand how difficult that is
for a people, to leave your homeland,
you know, that you have been there for thousands of years,
to walk away from everything that is familiar to you
to go someplace new.
This is about 1732, and at that time
two townships were set aside for our members.
They actually became members of a town board, so to speak,
and set up a mission school, set up a sawmill,
set up a gristmill, and learned farming,
became Christianized, and became educated.
Some of the members started the Indian School, which, I think,
is the predecessor to what is now Dartmouth College.
The Berkshires, where they settled,
is supposedly geographically similar
to an area in England known as Stockbridge.
So, it was easy for people to always refer to us
as the Stockbridge Indians.
And so, to this day, we carry that English name forward,
but in our way and in our traditions, we are Muheconneoks.
We lived fairly peacefully during that time,
in western Massachusetts,
until the American Revolution broke out.
We have a significant history of fighting in wars,
and our members chose to fight for the colonists.
There are very significant battles that are commemorated,
involving many Stockbridge who sacrificed their lives
during that time.
And it was following the war that the men returned back to
Stockbridge, Mass, and discovered that
a lot of the missionaries and non-Indians
had taken over the farms and the land,
and the children and the elders and the other members
were pushed back into wigwams in the woods.
There was a lot of struggle to regain that land.
Petitions were filed
with the territorial government of Massachusetts to no avail.
And because it had such a devastating impact
on the membership,
the New York Oneida tribe invited the Stockbridge
back to New York, where they had a reservation.
So, the membership moved back
and were given a reserve within the New York Oneida's reserve,
which is known as Stockbridge, New York...
and did the same thing again: set up a mission house,
a school, set up a gristmill,
got farming, built homes.
And it wasn't long after that that the federal government's
policy was to remove tribes from aboriginal territory.
There was a lot of tension between non-Indians
and fights over the land.
And the policy shifted then to move all of
the Eastern bands and Eastern tribes west of the Mississippi.
And the migration out of New York started in, I think,
about 1819, 1820 to what is now Muncie, Indiana.
The Munsees had also promised us some land there
as part of their treaty, but by the time some of our members
got there to stake a claim, the Munsees had been deprived
through another treaty of their treaty reservation.
So, both the Munsees and the Stockbridge were out,
and joined, and moved to the next place,
which was around Lake Winnebago.
And that's where we get the Stockbridge-Munsee Indians.
In fact, some of our members are from the Munsees.
We were continuing to be forced west, and...
the tribe was really, really resisting that.
So, being the diplomats that they are,
began to negotiate with the Menominee tribe directly
for some kind of property to allow us a permanent settlement.
And, in fact, the Menominee tribe and the Stockbridge tribe
reached agreement and submitted the agreement
to Congress for ratification and approval, and it was denied.
Congress then did get involved in establishing a reservation.
And the reservation here in Wisconsin
was established by a treaty of 1856.
So this is where we have been ever since.
They built log homes.
They had to clear the land.
Work horses
pulling these huge roots, burning and clearing,
and the toil that it took to move some of the boulders
just to clear a field to plow and plant a garden.
We set up the mission house, set up another school.
Electa Quinney, one of our members, opened the school up,
and the tribe opened the school up to be a public school.
And that was before Wisconsin was a state,
so we stake her claim as being the first public school teacher
of Wisconsin, which we're very proud of.
She wrote a brief history of the tribe.
And her father, John Quinney, wrote a brief history,
and some of his speeches survive.
They are very eloquent.
John was a sachem, made many trips back to New York
for redress of the loss of our lands in New York, to no avail.
Throughout the years, that's something that we carry with us
from generation to generation.
We have always been a very political people,
politically active, never afraid to stand up
for what we believe is right and just,
and with a significant, dignified eloquence.
I think education has impacted,
and that is also a very significant value in my tribe,
to be educated, to educate our youth.
And so, we believe in education,
and everywhere we've traveled along our many trails,
one of the first things we've done is establish a school
and get a teacher for the children.
And I think along the way, that's really helped
to be the kind of diplomats that our ancestors proved to be.
Some of their letters and speeches, that I read now,
are amazing.
I wish I could write half as well as they.
I wish I could make these eloquent, compelling arguments
and speeches that they made,
but I'm really inspired by their words and their vision.
And I think it's only through their vision
that we really have survived as well as we have over the years,
despite of all these things that worked against us.
The federal government is what I call "schizophrenic"
in their policies.
And it depends on who's in political power,
whether they want to see tribes survive or whether they don't,
whether the goal is termination and assimilation.
It changes with the wind.
And we even realize that today
throughout the 200-, 300-, 400-year history
that we have working with
federal and state governments that it really depends on
who's in political power as to how much sovereignty
and how much respect you get nation-to-nation.
But I think what people don't realize is
the United States government set it up in the U.S. Constitution
that tribes would be dealt with on a treaty basis,
and that this was an issue for the federal government
and not local and state governments to really address.
So when people talk about how unique tribes are,
it's because of that legal history that we have
and being included in the U.S. Constitution.
I think that the impact of colonization, Christianization,
re-education, the boarding school, eliminate the language,
beat the Indian out of you, and assimilate, and be good people,
dramatically had an impact on us as a people.
And you see that wave going from east to west.
The tribes that are the furthest point west had that experience
in later years, but, you know, having first been introduced
to the colonists so much earlier than the other tribes,
we have a longer history of being without.
So, our language all but died, and the history conference
has always been about re-discovering ourselves
through what's written and combining it with
what's carried through oral traditions in our families.
A lot of this was done when we were invited to attend
by scholars in New York having the annual Mohican Conference.
Some people, non-Indians, it's amazing,
they live their entire lives just studying
histories and traditions and things about our tribe.
But, it was really important, I think, for the history committee
to make corrections to some of the record
and to really tell the story from our perspective.
Because,I mean, it's our history.
[laughing]
I know people are really well-meaning,
but it doesn't have the same sense of importance and truth
as it is when it comes
from the very people you are speaking about.
So, I think that's the most significant thing
about our Mohican History Conference is
the majority, if not all, of the presenters were enrolled members
who are re-discovering things about our tribe.
A lot of the history kind of gets lost
in time and movement and translation,
but there is a lot of written work that's preserved
that we can go back to and piece together and learn.
So, a lot of our culture is coming alive again
after being repressed.
You know, things have a way of just coming in a big circle...
which is central to our beliefs, and in everything we do.
[drumming]
Our language, we're part of the Lenape family.
We started language camps.
Some of our members are getting to the point where
they can carry on conversations.
Prayers are being said in the traditional language,
and we brought our drums back.
And the drum in our culture represents
the heartbeat of life, and so to be part of a drum
and to have a drum be part of everything that you do,
reminds you of how central it is.
Everything is a circle.
A drum is a circle of singers;
there's power in a tornado, which goes in a circle;
robins and birds make their nests in circles;
life and death is a big circle;
and our seasons are circular.
Everything about our life is in a circle, if you think about it,
and we are at the center of the circle, as human beings.
And, so, when we refer to bringing the drum back,
there was a period of decades where the drum was pagan,
and it was a bad thing,
and you should not practice your religion,
you should not speak your language.
You need to be good Christians, and speak English,
and cut your hair, and assimilate.
And this wasn't just taught.
I mean, you were beaten, beaten as a human being
if you did these things.
So, you have a couple of generations
of our ancestors who were afraid and couldn't.
And you lose that when it's not passed from your grandparents
to your aunties and uncles and to the children.
And that's been resurrected.
And there are more and more people going back to the drum
and going back to those basic beliefs,
because that's what makes you whole as a person.
If you live what we call "in the traditional red way",
it means that you recognize that you're part of a greater circle,
that you are interrelated and related to everything around you
and about you...
Everything, your environment, the air, the water.
Water is considered the blood of Mother Earth, and to not have
that sacredness in everything that we do is heartbreaking.
But the fundamental issue is,
our polluting our Earth,
and the waters that we rely on to drink,
and the air that we breathe.
And this goes back to those things
that we need to survive as a people, as a human being,
not just as a tribe, but as human beings.
And until we understand and protect all those relationships,
we'll die... we'll die.
I consulted with our historic committee members
and elders in the community,
and I asked them, "As the representative for the tribe,
what would you like the message to be that I carry?"
And it is always very simple: that we survive,
that the last of the Mohicans Fenimore Cooper talked about
is not true, we still live.
And people need to know that.
I think it's hugely significant
that we survived against all odds,
and that we know how to survive.
If you don't have food you make food,
you hunt, you fish, you gather.
And so, our land is so central to how we live
because if gaming were to go away
or something catastrophic would happen
and we were all off the grid, we have land here that we know,
as a people, we could survive.
And that's so important because I think we always lose track
of what's really, really important in our lives,
and it is just basic food, being together,
breathing clean air, drinking clean water.
And these are fundamental values
that go to the core of who you are as a people.
And it's not just for our tribe.
As human beings, our very survival depends on it.
I think that's something that we carry.
We're a spiritual people.
You know, Christianization,
some are very Christianized still to this day.
We have faith.
Some believe in the Creator, some believe in God.
We have different--
We represent different religions, but that spirit
and that faith, I think, also carries us as human beings.
So, our emblem is called "many trails"
to exemplify all the different removals that we've had,
from east to west, and all the times that
we had to just set up and make homes and then leave.
And you'll see in the Many Trails sign,
the sign of the Cross, which indicates our Christianization.
We have a lot of teachers in our tribe today
and they've been very active in developing curriculum
to teach children about the tribe's history.
And one of the exercises they have is for the children
to move in the classroom from station to station
and start something and not be able to finish it
and be told, "Now you need to move to the next station."
And the children, you'll see,
"I'm not done!" or "I'm not finished!"
or "Why do I have to move?"
And it's like, "Nope, just move! We said 'Move', move now!"
It really illustrates for the children
to understand what that's like, to move, move, move.
Redo, redo.
Start over
So, there is a resilience there and it's a strength.
Probably from our faith
and knowing the basics on how to live.
And we are reminded of that all the time.
Just a couple months ago, one of our elders
came to open session at a tribal council meeting
and said, "What are your plans as our leaders
if something were to happen and our grid shut down?
Remember, we need to survive."
So, it's part of our planning, you know.
We're ready.
Bring it on!
[laughing]
>> To learn more about the sovereign Indian nations
in Wisconsin, visit WisconsinAct31.org.
To purchase a DVD of this and other
Tribal Histories programs visit wpt.org
or call (800)422-9707.
♪ ♪
Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican History was funded in part by
Irene Daniell Kress,
Francis A. and Georia F. Ariens
Fund of the Community Foundation for the Fox Valley Region,
Evjue Foundation,
Ron and Patty Anderson,
Ira and Ineva Reilly Baldwin Wisconsin Idea Endowment,
National Endowment for the Humanities,
and Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.