Because indigenous tribes called Franklin County home for thousands of years before European colonization began, we now live in an area that is rich in Native American history.
We can better understand and celebrate this part of our local heritage when the fifth annual Pocumtuck Homeland Festival takes place from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturday at the Unity Park Waterfront in Turners Falls. The day-long event is presented by the Nolumbeka Project, with support from Turners Falls RiverCulture.
This free and family-friendly festival welcomes Native Americans from across the country who will share their music, artwork, crafts, stories and games, offering not only entertainment but a strong educational component. There will be demonstrations of primitive skills, including flintknapping, the ancient art of birch bark biting and pounding ash logs to make baskets.
In addition, there will be a living 17th-century native history display featuring replicas of weaponry, clothing and other items made and used by the different cultures visiting the Great Falls in the mid-1600s. A variety of guest speakers will offer history lessons on various aspects of Native American life.
“We want people to know that the Native Americans are still here,” said Diane Dix, the events coordinator for the festival and a co-founder of the Nolumbeka Project, a non-tribal organization that strives to provide a deeper and more accurate depiction of New England Native Americans. “So many people still come up to us and say ‘We thought all the Indians were gone.’ They don’t know they survived the genocide. They didn’t know that they still have their traditions — they just kept them a lot quieter.”
The festival began when Turners Falls RiverCulture invited the Nolumbeka Project to present a Native American event at Unity Park. The Nolumbeka Project was relatively new at the time, and its only previous community exposure had been hosting a raffle and information table at the Turners Falls block party, welcomed the opportunity. The festival was named for the Pocumtuck tribe who used to call this area home.
Having the festival located at Unity Park is of great significance, Dix explained.
A reconciliation ceremony was held at Unity Park on May 19, 2004, the 328th anniversary of the infamous Great Falls Massacre led by Capt. William Turner. Roughly 300 Native Americans, mostly women, children and the elderly, were killed during the raid. The ceremony was initiated by the Montague Selectboard, which invited members of the Narragansett tribe to perform a healing ceremony.
“We feel that, in a lot of ways, the festival is an extension of that reconciliation ceremony, which was about healing differences from the past and bringing the cultures together,” Dix said. “It is a big part of what we are trying to do with this festival — attempting to help bring the cultures together.”
Tribes from all over once flocked to Great Falls, especially during the times of shad and salmon migrations.
“Our hope is that every year, for at least this one day, what we will do is bring the tribes back to this area for a celebration,” Dix said. “That is the mood we want to create.”
And what better way to create a celebratory mood than with music.
Some of the musicians who will perform original and Native American music at the festival are singer-songwriter and guitarist Bryan Blanchette, who will play traditional and new songs in both Abenaki and English. Blanchette is also a member of the internationally acclaimed Black Hawk Singers, an Abenaki drumming group that is part of the lineup. Additionally, the Kingfisher Singers will perform Eastern Woodlands music and talk about cultural celebrations in which their music figures prominently.
Flutist Kelvin Mockingbird of Arizona, one of the leading Native American flutists, will be making his debut at the festival this year. Mockingbird, who is from Dine/Navajo descent, has released 10 albums including “Spirit in the Wind,” which was nominated for a Grammy in 2003. Mockingbird has worked with popular artists like Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne and Lyle Lovett.
“I play the Native American flute for healing, whether it be in reflection or grounding,” Mockingbird said. “One may also use this music for yoga and massage, but the frequencies are known for healing — for the mind and the cells of one’s body. My melodies are all self-composed and come from my experiences of ceremonies and dreams.”
The Amherst-based intertribal pow-wow group Urban Thunder, which has recorded music for the video game “Bioshock: Infinite” and the motion picture “Crooked Arrows,” will also perform.
“Intertribal is a style of singing that has evolved over hundreds, or even thousands of years, that comes out of various groups interacting with each other and trying to find ways where they could all participate together,” explained Justin “Bigishkibin” Beatty, a member of Urban Thunder and the festival’s emcee.
On the literature front, the festival will host a special authors and book section presenting the work of writers like Christine Almstrom, who will be signing and selling copies of her children’s book “Grandfather Thunder and the Night Horses,” a bilingual Lakota story based on the legend of the Thunder Horses.
“I am looking forward to being a part of the festival (for the first time) and sharing my enthusiasm for art and children’s books, as well as my mission to keep the language and culture of my people strong,” Almstrom said.
As the Pocumtuck Homelands Festival celebrates its fifth anniversary, Dix said it is like a homecoming with many people coming back year after year. The festival organizers are thankful for the strong community support they have received from sponsors, as well as the seven cultural grants they have received, allowing the festival to remain free.
“We have it free to everybody because we know that education is key and that a lot of people were misled growing up,” Dix said. “We were told a story about the Native people that wasn’t true.”
“We have been misrepresented and excluded from controlling our own narrative, about who we are as Native people,” Beatty said.
Beatty, who is of Ojibwe and Saponi descent, said it means a great deal to him to be a part of the Pocumtuck Homelands Festival.
“Being able to participate in an event like this really does give Native people the opportunity for visibility and the opportunity to pass on certain information to the general public that they otherwise might not have,” Beatty said. “This will hopefully allow the audience to start to look at Native people as people, and start to see us in a different light.”
The Pocumtuck Homelands Festival is a rain or shine event. All entertainment and food is sheltered. For a full schedule of events, visit nolumbekaproject.org or turnersfallsriverculture.org.
Sheryl Hunter is a music writer who lives in Easthampton. Her work has appeared in various regional and national magazines. You can contact her at soundslocal@yahoo.com.