#Mishoon Completed in #WestportMassachusetts

"Weeden, of the #MashpeeWampanoag Tribe, and Andre StrongBearHeart Gaines (No Loose Braids), of the #NipmucNation, have served as artists-in-residence at a 'mishoon burning' at the Westport Town Farm on Drift Road, guiding the construction of a traditional Wampanoag mishoon, or canoe, that would have been familiar to his ancestors here hundreds of years ago."

May 31, 2023

"We've done (these things) for thousands of years but over these last few hundreds of years, you can't even light a fire without a permit. You can't do a lot of things — I can't even beat a drum and sing, and that's my form of worship. And that is the #Wampanoag experience. We have to walk it every day."

Read more:
https://mashpeewampanoagtribe-nsn.gov/2023-june-mittark-blog/2023/5/31/mishoon-completed-in-westport

#SettlerColonialism #NativeAmericanTraditions
#Nipmuck #IndigenousTraditions
#Massachusetts #PreservingNativeAmericanTraditions

Charlestown Traditional #Indigenous #CanoeBurning First Time In 400 Years

Nov 5, 2022

CHARLESTOWN, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) — "Indigenous tribe members gathered in #Boston for a traditional canoe burning for the first time in four centuries. Members burned a large piece of white pine and carved out the inside to create a #mishoon, a traditional canoe.

"Andre StrongBearHeart Gaines Jr. of the #Nipmuc tribe said his group waited for five months to perform their graft inside Boston for the first time in 400 years.

"'My ancestors weren't allowed to do things like this anywhere near the city over the last 400 years,' Thomas Green, a Massachusetts tribe member, told WBZ's Kendall Buhl. 'We did not disappear, we did not die off, we are still here.'"

In the 1670s, a law made it punishable by death for an indigenous person to enter the city of Boston unless accompanied by a musketeer. The law banned indigenous people for almost 330 years. The ban was repealed in 2004."

Read more:
https://wbznewsradio.iheart.com/content/-charlestown-traditional-indigenous-canoe-burning-first-time-in-400-years/

#SettlerColonialism #NativeAmericanTraditions #Nipmuck #IndigenousTraditions #Massachusetts #PreservingNativeAmericanTraditions

So, last Sunday, I went to go check out the group making a mishoon (canoe) via burning at Ltl Mystic Channel and they had FINISHED!
So I was lucky enough to be there when they put it in the water for the first time.
Congratulations on a successful burning and launch!
https://twitter.com/bostonpatch/status/1587903911175852032
Article on previous mishoon group made on Nipmuc land
https://olmstednow.org/more-than-a-mishoon

#BostonHarbor #Boston #Nipmuc #Massachusett #indigenous #mishoon