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Mohican, Algonquin Peoples Seminar Seeks Presentations

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algonquin peoplesThe Native American Institute of the Hudson River Valley and the New York State Museum invite you to submit a paper or other presentation to be given at the 13th Mohican/Algonquian Peoples Seminar held at the New York State Museum in Albany on Saturday, September 28, 2013.

Topics can involve any aspect of Northeastern Native American culture from prehistory to the present. The seminar attracts attendees from Native American enthusiasts, local historians, as well as from academia. In general presentations are allotted 20 minutes speaking time followed by a brief Q &amp- A period. Sessions will be held in the morning and afternoon (between 9:30 AM and 4:00 PM, with a break for lunch). Read more →

12th Annual Algonquian Peoples Seminar Saturday

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The Native American Institute of the Hudson River Valley and The New York State Museum are hosting the 12th Mohican/Algonquian Peoples Seminar at the NYS Museum in Albany this Saturday, September 15, 2012. A complete list of topics related to Northeastern Native American culture from prehistory to present is included below, along with the days itinerary.

9:00 &#8211 9:30 Registration –
9:30 &#8211 10:00 Welcome & Board Introduction: Mariann Mantzouris & Kevin Fuerst
Presentation of Colors by the Mohican Veterans

10:00 &#8211 10:30 JoAnn Schedler
Mohicans in the Civil War
JoAnn Schedler, BSN, MSM, RN and a Major, US Army Nurse Corps Reserves (Retired). She served over twenty years with the 452 Combat Support Hospitals (CSH) of Wisconsin. She is a life member of the Mohican Veterans and Reserve Officers Association and a member of the American Legion in Gresham, WI. In 1985 to present she serves as a founding board member for Indian Summer Festival. She serves on the Stockbridge-Munsee Community Tribal Historic Preservation Committee and the Constitution Committee and is a Peacemaker for the Stockbridge-Munsee Tribal Court. She was the first Nursing Instructor for the Associate Degree Program at the College of the Menominee Nation 2008/ 2009 and is a member of Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nurses since 1992.This continues a presentation given last year on this subject.

10:30 &#8211 11:00 Judy Hartley
Mohican Diet and Disease in Pre-contact America.
Written information by early Dutch explorers as well as oral histories transcribed by missionaries has provided insight into both the diet and general health of the Mohican Indians at the time of the arrival of
Henry Hudson in the early 17th century. From these sources as well as current-day research, it is possible to capture the essence of Mohican daily life before the arrival of Europeans.

Judith Hartley grew up on the Stockbridge-Munsee/Band of the Mohicans reservation in northern Wisconsin. Her mother was a Mohican who was active in tribal governance&#8212-serving for years as the elected tribal treasurer. Judith left the reservation upon high school graduation to attend college. She has a B.S. degree in biology and worked for years in pharmaceutical research. Currently she has obtained an MBA and has worked for the past 22 years for Roche Diagnostics Corporation, a global pharmaceutical and health care company. As retirement approaches, Judith endeavors to give something back to the tribe by way of historical research, poetry and speeches concerning her people.

11:00 &#8211 11:30 John M. Smith
Esopus Indians and the Ulster County Trader
Findings from a recently discovered Dutch account book of the fur trade in Ulster County are discussed that provide new insights into the lives of Esopus individuals and their families in the early eighteenth
century.

John M. Smith is an independent historian and contributing author to New York State Museum bulletins, the Hudson River Valley Review, and co-editor with Dutch Historian and translator Kees Waterman in the forth coming book Munsee Indian Trade in Ulster County, New York, 1711-1732.

11:30 &#8211 12:00 Katy L. Chiles
Hendrick Aupaumut: An Eighteenth-Century Mohican Diplomat
This paper provides an introduction to the work of Hendrick Aupaumut, an eighteenth-century Mohican diplomat. A sachem who fought on the American side of the Revolutionary War, Captain Aupaumut was tapped by President Washington to serve as a diplomat to the British-allied Miami and Shawnee leaders who fought against white settlers. Aupaumut’s 1792 manuscript, a record written for U.S. governmental officials, was printed in the 1827 Memoirs of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. This talk muses over Aupaumut’s “errors” in spelling and grammar, including one interesting clause: “these white people was” (sic). One might be tempted to assume, like his original interlocuters, that Aupaumut, as a Native American who had yet to master the English language, constructed a sentence with flawed subject-verb agreement. However, unlike U.S. officials who wrote that the manuscript contained  many “incorrectnesses” (sic), Chiles argues that Aupaumut’s peculiar locution astutely explored the most contemplated concerns of early America: could the many former white British subjects ever become one  people? What would the process of becoming “E Pluribus Unum” actually look like? Could people be both singular (denoted by the number of the verb was) and plural (denoted by the number of the demonstrative adjective these), and, most importantly for Aupaumut, how would all this effect how white settlers would interact with both his own and other Native American tribes? Furthermore, by comparing Aupaumut’s manuscript with the Society’s Memoirs, this presentation illustrates how editorial practices used by Aupaumut’s publishers conditioned the “original” text and allows us to consider Aupaumut’s intellectual sovereignty.

Katy L. Chiles teaches and writes about Native American and African-American literature, early American literature and culture, and critical race theory at the University of Tennessee. Her work has
appeared in journals such as PMLA and American Literature and has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities. She is currently working on a book manuscript entitled Transformable Race and the Literatures of Early America. This summer she was honored to do research at the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of the Mohican Nation in Bowler, Wisconsin. There she was able to share her work with and to learn from Sherry White, Nathalee Kristiansen, Leah Miller, and Betty Groh, all of
the Mohican Nation, Stockbridge-Munsee Band.

12:00 -1:30 Lunch on your own. Eating areas are located in the museum  should you want to bring your own lunch. There are three restaurants within two blocks of the Museum.

1:30 &#8211 2:00 Karen Hess
The Coeymans Family and the Mohicans
One of the largest 17th century land transactions between the River Indians and European settlers was transacted in 1672 by Maghshapeet, sachem of the Katskill Indians, to Barent Coeymans, Dutch colonial
miller. Confirmed as a patent in 1673, and awarded a royal confirmation in 1714, this vast tract of ancient tribal lands south of Albany stretched foreleven miles along the west bank of the Hudson River and westward twelve miles into the wilderness. The history of this patent, the home of two divergent cultures, and the relationships of Barent Coeymans and the Katskill Mohicans, will be explored in this
presentation.

Karen Hess is preparing a book about Ariaantje Coeymans whose portrait hangs at the Albany Institute of History & Art where Mrs. Hess is a docent. She has presented her research at a NYS Historical Association conference as well as other historical societies. An essential element of the story of this colonial woman is her family’s intriguing relationship with the Mohican Indians.

2:00 &#8211 2:45 Eric Ruijssenaars
A Dutch Founding Father: Abraham Staats
In 1642, surgeon Abraham Staats and his wife Trijntje Jochems emigrated from Amsterdam to Kiliaen van Rensselaer’s vast estate, Rensselaerswijck (now part of Albany and Rensselaer counties). Staats’s job was not simply to treat ailing residents but also to advise the Patroon. He  served as a magistrate of the court. Outside of court, he was often called on to resolve disputes between his neighbors. Well respected  within Rensselaerswijck, Staats was also something of a diplomat. Entitled to trade in beavers, he learn
ed the Algonquin Indian language and was, therefore, able to act as an intermediary between colonists and Native Americans. The sloop Staats purchased to further his commercial  interests placed him in contact with leaders in New Amsterdam (New York City) and allowed him to develop a personal relationship with Peter Stuyvesant.

Eric Ruijssenaars studied history at Leiden University graduating in 1988. He has written two books about Brussels and the Brontes (published in 2000 and 2003), is co-founder of Brussels Bronte Group in 2005. He started a bureau for historical research in Dutch Archives, in 2002. In 2011/2012 Eric was chosen Senior Scholar in Residence at the New Netherland Research Center in Albany.

2:45 &#8211 3:15 William Staats
Hoogeberg, the Staats Family, and the Mohicans.
Staats Island (or the Hoogeberg: the “high hill.”) has been in the Staats family since the mid-17th century. The Joachim Staats homestead, dating from 1696, remains a family residence. Many generations of the family are interred here overlooking the beautiful Hudson River. This is  where Colonel Philip Staats saved the life of the Mohican, Ben Pie, in the late 1700s. It is no longer an island but remains a place of great history with many stories to tell.

William Staats graduated from SUNY Albany with an MS in Education in 1957. Bill grew up at Staats Island near Castleton-on-Hudson, NY in the 1696 Joachim Staats homestead. He taught in 1965-66 at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia and also taught for several years in Hudson High School and for 35 years in the accounting and computer areas at Hudson Valley Community College. In 2009 he authored Three Centuries on the Hudson River.

3:15 &#8211 3:45 Francis “Jess” Robinson
Ceremonialism and Inter-Regional Exchange Two Millennia before the Fur Trade: a View from the East Creek Site
The East Creek cemetery was excavated between 1933 and 1935 on the southeastern shore of Lake Champlain by representatives of the Museum of the American Indian- Heye Foundation. Despite its unfortunate desecration, the site contains rare and remarkable evidence of the elaborate ceremonialism and long distance exchange obtaining during the Early Woodland period (ca. 3,000-2,000 cal yr BP). While the presentation will concentrate on some of the more salient aspects of the site and what it suggests about the Native groups participating in the Early Woodland interaction sphere, mention will also be made of the analogies that one may cautiously advance regarding trade and exchange during the contact era.

Francis “Jess” Robinson is a PhD Candidate at the University at Albany-SUNY, a Research Supervisor at the University of Vermont Consulting Archaeology Program, and a current adjunct faculty member in
the Anthropology Department at UVM.

3:45 &#8211 4:00 Kevin Fuerst
The Lebanon Spring: A Work in Progress
Kevin Fuerst, NAI President, long-time board member, and New Lebanon Town Historian will provide a status update on his efforts to preserve the famous curative Lebanon Spring and interpret its Native American associations.

4:00 &#8211 4:15 Closing Remarks and Retreat of the Colors” by Mohican Veterans to conclude the conference.

CFP: 12th Mohican / Algonquian Peoples Seminar

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The Native American Institute of the Hudson River Valley and The New York State Museum are inviting papers or other presentation to be given at the 12th Mohican/Algonquian Peoples Seminar held at the NYS Museum in Albany on September 15, 2012. Topics can be any aspect of Northeastern Native American culture from prehistory to present. Presentations are allotted 20 minutes speaking time.

Interested parties are encouraged to submit a one page abstract that includes a brief biographical sketch and notes any special scheduling and/or equipment needs. For presentations other than traditional papers, please describe content and media that will be used to make the presentation. Deadline for abstract submission is June 1, 2012.
 
The Selection Committee, made up of Board members, will notify presenters no later than June 10, 2012. The final paper should meet common publication standards. The paper should be foot noted &#8220author-date&#8221 style- sources are cited in the text in parentheses by author’s last name and date, with a reference to a list of books or sources at the end of the paper. Also, a disc containing the article, bibliography, illustrations (referred to as figure 1, figure 2 etc.) and captions for the illustrations should be submitted to the Board at the Seminar.

Send abstracts to:

Native American Institute of the Hudson River Valley (NAIHRV)
c/o Mariann Mantzouris
223 Elliot Rd.
East Greenbush, NY 12061
Email : [email protected]
Telephone: 518-369-8116

11th Annual Algonquian Peoples Seminar

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The Native American Institute of the Hudson River Valley and The New York State Museum have announced the program for this year’s 11th Mohican/Algonquian Peoples Seminar to be held at the NYS Museum in Albany April 30, 2011.

This year’s featured topics will include: Archaeological Research on First Peoples of Eastern New York and the New England-Maritimes, Life’s Immortal Shell: Wampum as a Light and Life Metaphor, The 150th Anniversay of the Mohican Stockbridge-Munsee in the Civil War, Frank Speck on Penobscot and Iroquois Worldviews in the Cosmological Narratives, Investigation of the Vosburg Archaeological District, Growing up on the Reservation, Lithic reduction & resource use in southern New York State and the Stephentown Mounds


For a complete schedule and registration information email Mariann Mantzouris, Seminar Chairwoman at [email protected] or call 518-369-8116.

11th Mohican and Algonquin Peoples Seminar

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The Native American Institute of the Hudson River Valley and The New York State Museum invites you to submit a paper or other presentation to be given at the 11th Mohican/Algonquian Peoples Seminar held at the NYS Museum in Albany on April 30th, 2011. Topics can be any aspect of Northeastern Native American culture from prehistory to present. Presentations are allotted 20 minutes speaking time.

Interested parties are encouraged to submit a one page abstract that includes a brief biographical sketch and notes any special scheduling and/ or equipment needs. For presentations other than traditional papers, please describe content and media that will be used to make the presentation. Deadline for abstract submission is February 1, 2011.


The Selection Committee, made up of Board members, will notify presenters no later than February 10, 2011. The final paper should meet common publication standards. The paper should be foot noted “author-date” style- sources are cited in the text in parentheses by author’s last name and date, with a reference to a list of books or
sources at the end of the paper. Also, a disc containing the article, bibliography, illustrations (referred to as figure 1, figure 2 etc.) and captions for the illustrations should be submitted to the Board at the Seminar.

Send abstracts to:

Native American Institute of the Hudson River Valley (NAIHRV)
c/o Mariann Mantzouris
PO Box 327
Sand Lake, NY 12153

Schenectady Event: Mohicans Making History

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On Saturday, January 15, 2011, at 2 P. M., Shirley W. Dunn will present a lecture at the Schenectady County Historical Society at 32 Washington Avenue, Schenectady. The lecture will be based on her most recent book, &#8220The River Indians: Mohicans Making History&#8221 (Purple Mountain Press, 2009). A major part of the talk will be about Arent Van Curler’s close connections with Mohicans living around Beverwijck, connections made through a village, his farm at the Flatts and various purchases of Mohican land. Also included will be details of Mohican sales to the Dutch along the Mohawk River which indicate that the site of Schenectady, as well as the Cohoes Falls, were in Mohican territory prior to a Mohican concession to the Mohawks in 1629. Refreshments at 1:30 pm will precede the talk.

The River That Flows Both Ways: New Netherland Novel

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The earliest known written record of travel in the New York interior west of the Hudson River appears on an early map of Nieuw Nederlant (New Netherland). In 1614 a trader named Kleyntjen went west to the Mohawk along the river that now bears their name and then turned south along the Susquehanna River. If he or those who followed ever kept journals they haven’t survived, and it’s believed any records of early travels may have been tossed out when the Dutch West India Company archives were purged during a reorganization in 1674. Michael Cooney’s novel The River That Flows Both Ways recaptures some of that time, of Dutch traders, native Mohican and Mohawk people, and the fur trade that held them together in commerce.

Cooney’s novel is based on the one very early New York travelogue that has survived since the first half of the 1600s. Written by Fort Orange (Albany) barber-surgeon Harmen Meyndertsz van den Bogaert, it had somehow fallen into private hands and was discovered in an attic in Amsterdam, New York in 1895. His small party, which also included two other Dutchmen (Jeronimus dela Croix and Willem Thomassen) left in the middle of December 1634 in an effort to reach the Oneida tribe and renegotiate the price of beaver. They Oneida had nearly abandoned their trade with the Dutch in favor of the French to their northwest and Van den Bogaert, at the age of 23 was sent to correct the situation in favor of the Dutch.

The journey last six weeks and according to Van den Bogaert took them nearly 100 miles to the west-northwest of Fort Orange where he spotted the Tug Hill Plateau – a harrowing journey to say the least. Van den Bogaert experienced much generosity from the Native People he met in his travels and in 1647, when he was charged with Sodomy committed with his black servant Tobias, he fled to the Iroquois he had visited thirteen years earlier- he was captured in an Indian storehouse by a Rensselaerwyck employee named Hans Vos and in the ensuring struggle the building was burnt down. Van den Bogaert was taken back to Fort Orange but escaped &#8211 as he fled across the frozen Hudson River the ice broke beneath him and he was drowned. That incident serves as the climax of The River That Flows Both Ways.

Cooney, who writes the Upstate Earth blog, tells the story through the eyes of a young Mohican boy in a time when European diseases and war were creating chaos in the local native cultures. Using his wit and imagination, he wins over the Mohawk and finds a home with van den Bogaert. The novel brings together other historical characters like Arent van Corlaer, Adriaen van der Donck, and Isaac Jogues to weave a tapestry of life in the in the first half of the 17th century in the Upper Hudson and Mohawk valleys.

Note: Books noticed on this site have been provided by the publishers. Purchases made through this Amazon link help support this site.

10th Annual Algonquian Peoples Seminar Program

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The Native American Institute of the Hudson River Valley and The New York State Museum have announced the program for this year’s 10th Mohican/Algonquian Peoples Seminar to be held at the NYS Museum in Albany April 17, 2010.

This year’s featured speakers will include keynote speaker Tribal Council President Kimberly M. Vele, Mohican historian Shirley Dunn, Mohican military historian and veteran, JoAnn Schedler, Department of Environmental Conservation wildlife pathologist Ward Stone, noted archaeologists, and more.


Here is a complete schedule:

9:00 &#8211 9:30 Registration -Clark Auditorium -Please take the escalator or the elevator# 8 to the left of the security desk (behind the front desk) in the main lobby to the lower or Concourse level.

9:30 &#8211 10:00 Welcome & Board Introduction: Mariann Mantzouris

Presentation of Colors by the Mohican Veterans

Morning speaker introductions: Lisa Little Wolf

10:00 &#8211 10:20 President Kimberly M. Vele: “Family Circles”

Keynote speaker, President Vele’s presentation is “Family Circles”. She will be speak on reflecting on the past and what it means for the present in the context of families. Ms. Vele was elected to serve as President of the Tribal Council in the fall of 2009. Ms. Vele also served as an Associate Judge for the Tribal Court from 1996-2007 at which time she began serving as a Council member for the Tribal Council. She served as General Legal for the Stockbridge-Munsee Tribe in Bowler, Wisconsin for several years before starting a private practice which involved representing numerous Tribes throughout the country.

President Kim Vele is a member of the Federal Bar Association- State Bar of Wisconsin- Wisconsin Indian League of Lawyers and was a former member of the Wisconsin Tribal Court Judges Association- former Treasurer for the National Tribal Court Judges Association- and past Chairperson of the Management and Oversight Committee for the National Tribal Justice Resource Center. She is a faculty member at the National Judicial College and has given presentations at numerous Bar Association and Judicial Conferences.

10:25 &#8211 10:45 Shirley Dunn: &#8220River Indians: Mohicans Making History”

In her book, The River Indians: Mohicans Making History. Ms. Dunn stresses the often- overlooked importance of the Mohicans to New York history and pre-history. The new book presents a rare look at historic events in which the Mohicans (called “River Indians”) should get credit. Leaders among the native nations on the Hudson River, Mohicans welcomed explorer Henry Hudson, who visited them for 13 days, longer than he stayed with any other Indian nation. She will explain how Mohicans initiated the upriver fur trade and continued in it for a century. Mohicans were close friends with the Dutch leader Arent Van Curler, and helped save the farms of Rensselaerswyck. There is a surprise here. Did he have a Mohican daughter? There is new information about the Mohican leader Etowokoaum, who went to England in 1710. We know that Mohicans fought beside English soldiers in wars against Canada from 1690 to 1765, protected Albany from attack from Canada on more than one occasion, and enlisted in the Revolution on the American side at George Washington’s request. (After the Revolution, they were refused soldiers’ grants of their own land.) The land where the State Museum is located was once in Mohican territory.

Further, the information is valuable to archaeologists because it identifies Mohican areas taken over by the Mohawks after 1629. So, whose artifacts are being found? These overlapping locations will be explained, as well as the connections of Arent Van Curler’s grandson with the Mohicans. He ran a fur trade in Washington County in the 1700s, and lived to be 106 years old! An explanation of Mohican place names will conclude the talk.

Shirley Wiltse Dunn, a holder of Masters’ degrees in English and History, has worked as a teacher, museum interpreter, and historic preservation consultant. A scholar of the Mohicans and early Dutch, she is the author of The Mohicans and Their Land, 1609-1730 (1994), The Mohican World, 1680-1750 (2000) and co-author of Dutch Architecture Near Albany: The Polgreen Photographs (1996), and The Mohicans (2008), a booklet for young readers. (All have been published by Purple Mountain Press.) She also has edited a book of family stories, Pioneer Days in the Catskill High Peaks (Black Dome Press, 1991) and three bulletins, each containing Native American Institute seminar papers, for the New York State Museum. She became interested in the Mohicans two decades ago while studying Indian deeds for early properties in the Albany, New York, area.

10:45 &#8211 11:00 Break

11:00 &#8211 11:20 JoAnn Schedler “Mohican/Stockbridge Military History”

Ms. Schedler will review Mohican/Stockbridge military history and present information on individuals as it relates to their military service in various wars and conflicts from our homelands to Wisconsin. She will share the projects the Mohican Veterans are working on to preserve this history and honor our ancestor’s military service.

Ms. Schedler, BSN, MSM, RN, is a life member Reserve Officers Association, Mohican Veteran Officer founding member, 1996-present, American Legion post # 0117, 2004-present, Tribal Historic Preservation committee for Stockbridge-Munsee Community, 2004-present, Constitution committee for the Stockbridge-Munsee Community, 2005-present, Peacemaker, Stockbridge-Munsee Tribal Court 2005- present Nursing Instructor for Associate Degree Program at College of the Menominee Nation 2008/ 2009, Officer in the US Army Nurse Corps Reserves 1984, served over twenty years with the 452 Combat Support Hospital (CSH), retired as a Major from the Army Reserve in July 2004, Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nurses since 1992, National Alaska Native American Indian Nurses Association # 10179.

11:25 &#8211 11:45 Ted Filli: “The Importance of Exploring Waterways Flowing To and From the Hudson River in Relation to Locating Contact Period Mohican Sites”

This presentation will cover from the early 1600&#8242-s &#8211 mid 1700&#8242-s newly discovered Contact Period Mohican sites that have not been documented before in Columbia county. Physical evidence will be shown demonstrating trade and interaction with the early European settlers in the Claverack / Greenport areas of Columbia County. The objective of this presentation is to encourage more research in this area and to demonstrate a larger need to study these waterways.

Ted Filli has lived his entire life in the town of Claverack, NY and as a young man was mentored by the well known advocational archaeologist, Ken Mynter, who excavated the with Claverack rock-shelter the results being included in the Recent Contributions of the Hudson Valley Prehistory by Robert Funk. Ted is a former town historian and is still active in Native archaeological research.

11:50 &#8211 12:10 Matthew T. Bradley: “Reconstructing the 17th century path across the Berkshires”

This presentation presents the first rigorous reconstruction of the course of the 17th century path connecting Springfield and Albany which was documented at least as early as the foray into the Berkshires lead by Major John Talcott in August of 1676. Evidence for the reconstruction will include textual accounts (including those related to the Talcott foray and the Knox Expedition of 1775–76), early cartographic records, archaeological site distribution, and topographic features.

The reconstruction will add to already existing work on regional transportation networks such as the Mohawk Trail
and as such will aid scholars concerned with the broader historical geography of New England and the Mid-Atlantic. It will also be of interest to descendent communities of the indigenous peoples of New England and the Mid-Atlantic as well as to all current residents of the Berkshires and the Capital Region.

Matthew Bradley is a graduate student affiliated with the Indiana University Anthropology Department and currently residing in the Berkshires. His interests include the culture history of the Iroquoian peoples, north/south interaction within the Eastern Woodlands culture area, and the history of the discipline of anthropology as it relates to the study of American Indians.

12:15 -1:15 Seminar Luncheon: Buffalo Loaf (“Thunder Rumble”), Maple Roasted Turkey, Wild Rice with Nuts and Berries, Succotash, Maple Squash, Corn Bread and Strawberry Desert- Fresh Brewed Coffee, Decaf, Hot Tea and Water

Afternoon speaker introductions: Larry Thetford

1:15 &#8211 1:35 James C. Davis: “A Brief Look at the Links Between the Prophecies of the Algonquin People and the Ongoing Elimination of Ancient Sacred Ceremonial Sites in the Hudson Valley Region”

This presentation will include original footage from the &#8220Cry of the Earth: The prophecies of the First Nations at the United Nations&#8221 in November 1993 as well as, a reading of a portion of Grandfather William Commanda’s statement on The Seven Fires Prophecy Belt. He will also speak about the damage currently being done to the sites that may have been used for millennia, including the Ulster Ridge sites and the lack of any Native American review of such sites. This work is an outgrowth of Grandfather Commanda’s statement of 2008, &#8220Respecting the Sacred in the Land:”Inherent in the prayer of the Indigenous Nations of Turtle Island is the deep knowledge that we are all connected –my people in the east say GINAWAYDAGANUC. The prayer is a celebration of the profound knowledge that we are connected with the each other, as well as with the chief elements–Mother Earth, Water, Air and Fire–the animate and inanimate, the plants and animals and the larger universe, connected energetically.

Spirit embraces and unifies us all~ Inherent in the prayer is a deep respect for both Mother Earth, the penultimate provider and nurturer, and all her children. The prayer is a constant reminder to honor this connectedness, and walk gently in the places of our differences, for those are the places of co-creation.&#8221

James C. Davis is Environmental Director of the Wittenberg Center for Alternative Resources in Woodstock, NY. and a co-founder of the Earth Reunion Project which works with traditional wisdom keepers of Earth traditions from around the world. For the past 30 years Jim has pursued mastery of the wisdom of the Earth and of the earth-based traditions. His primary focus has been the Hudson Valley and the Catskill watershed bio-regions, yet he has travelled extensively to explore the shamanic teachings of many traditions and was adopted as an Elder by the Yuin Nation of Australia. He has written a lexography of the Annishinabe places of the region

1:40 &#8211 2:00 Ward Stone: The Destruction and Contamination of Mohican Ancestral Lands by the Cement Plant Operation in Ravena, Albany County, New York

Ward B. Stone, Elyse Griffin, Elyse Kunz, Amanda Allen, Michael M. Reynolds, and Aaron W. Behrens New York State Wildlife Pathologist, NYS Department of Environmental Conservation, Delmar New York, Community Advocates for Safe Emissions, Ravena, New York, State University of New York of Agriculture and Technology at Cobleskill, NY

Since 1962 in Ravena, Albany County, New York cement plant operations have impacted thousands of acres of land with plant operations, quarrying of limestone, and pollution. This extensive environmental damage is within several miles of the site where the Mohican council fire was located on Schodack Island in the Hudson River. Much of this Albany County area has received little study by professional archeologist. Valuable artifacts and Mohican cultural material may still be able to be saved.

It appears that historic preservation studies have been, at least very limited, on this former Mohican land. The requirements were not in place in 1962 on the cement plant and permits have largely been “grandfathered in”. We will present a case for the need of a thorough historic preservation study.

Ward B. Stone, B.A., M.S., Sc. D. (Hon.),Wildlife Pathologist NYS Dept. Environmental Conservation, Wildlife Pathology Unit, Delmar, NY- Adjunct Professor, SUNY Cobleskill- Adjunct Professor, College of Saint Rose.

2:05 &#8211 2:25 Ed Lenik: Mythic Creatures: Serpents, Dragons and Sea Monsters in Northeastern Rock Art

Serpentine images carved into non-portable rock surfaces and on portable artifacts were invested with ideological and cultural significance by American Indian people in the Northeast. These images occur on bedrock outcrops located along the shores of lakes, the banks of river, seaside bays, low hills and mountains. Serpentine images have also been engraved into utilitarian and non-utilitarian artifacts such as tools, ornaments, pebbles, and on small, flat stones. They appear on wood and bark, and as facial tattoos on an 18th century Mohican Indian and on a portrait of a Delaware Indian. These various images are described and an interpretation of their origin, age and meaning is presented.

Ed Lenik has thirty-seven years of fieldwork and research experience in northeastern archaeology and anthropology, specializing in rock art research, documentation and preservation.

M.A. in Anthropology, New York University- Registered Professional Archaeologist.

Proprietor and Principal Investigator of Sheffield Archaeological Consultants, Wayne, NJ Author of these books: Making Pictures in Stone: American Indian Rock Art of the Northeast (University of Alabama Press, 2009) and Picture Rocks, American Indian Rock Art in the Northeast Woodlands. (University Press of New England, 2002) [The first comprehensive study of rock art in the northeast].

2:25 &#8211 2:40 Break

2:40 &#8211 3:00 Paul Nevin: The Safe Harbor Petroglyphs &#8211 Research in the New Century

The Safe Harbor Petroglyphs, Lancaster County, PA, are one of three major rock art sites on the lower Susquehanna River and the only one that remains accessible in its original location. Information on the general nature of the site with and emphasis on research conducted there in the past ten years will be presented.

Paul Nevin: Safe Harbor Petroglyph documentation and research, 1982-present- Board Member, Eastern States Rock Art Research Association (ESRARA)- President, Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology, Inc., 2007-2008- Contributing Author, The Rock Art of Eastern North America (University of Alabama Press, 2004)- Pennsylvania Historic Preservation Award, 2003, Safe Harbor Petroglyph Recording Project.

3:05 &#8211 4:15 Panel Discussion:

John Bonafide, Historic Preservation Services Coordinator, New York State Historic Preservation Office

Nancy Herter, Scientist, Historic Preservation Archaeology Analyst, New York State Historic Preservation Office

Charles E. Vandrei, Agency Historic Preservation Officer, New York State Dept. of Environmental Conservation, Bureau of State Land Management, Historic Preservation Unit

Jeff Gregg, Indian Nations Affairs Coordinator, New York State Dept. of Environmental Conservation, Office of Environmental Justice

The Army Corps of Engineers will have two representatives

Representatives from the New York State Historic Preservation Office, the Department of Environmental Conservation and the Army Corps of Engineers will discuss the process of reviewing potential projects within the State of New York. The focus will be on determining whether it is a federal, state, or SEQR project and how the agencies consult with the Native American Tribes.

***Please note!
This panel is here to describe their agency’s criteria for determining sites. Questions will not be entertained on specific sites.

4:15 &#8211 4:30 Closing Remarks and Retreat of the Colors” by Mohican Veterans

For questions or for a copy of the registration form, email Mariann Mantzouris, Seminar Chairwoman at [email protected] or call

Shirley Dunn To Speak On Mohicans And Dutch

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Shirley W. Dunn, who has published two books about the Mohicans (The Mohicans and Their Land 1609-1730 and The Mohican World, 1680-1750) and has one in press, will speak on October 22nd at the Smithsonian Institution’s Heye Museum in Manhattan (a branch of the Museum of the American Indian) beginning at 6:00 pm. Her topic will be the Mohicans and the Dutch, and the she will deal with contributions of the Mohican Indians to Dutch settlement and to the Colony of Rensselaerswijck. The talk is free and open to the public.

Mohican Seminar April 4th in Albany

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Native American Institute of The Hudson River Valley will host ten scholars who will present papers on all aspects of Mohican culture on April 4, 2009 at the New York State Museum in Albany.

The Native American Institute of the Hudson River Valley (NAIHRV) specializes in the study of the native Algonquian people, or Mohicans, who were long settled along the river. Described by Hudson’s crew as &#8220loving people,&#8221 they greeted the explorer in a friendly manner and later played an important role in the survival of the new colony.

The NAIHRV is a nonprofit organization of interested volunteers, educators, archaeologists, historians, and researchers devoted to promoting an awareness of Native Americans in general and the Mohican Nation in particular.