TURNERS FALLS — Hartman Deetz of the Mashpee Wampanoag nation will be guest speaker at the annual Beaver Moon Gathering at the Great Falls Discovery Center on Avenue A on Saturday from 1 to 4 p.m. The topic will be “Stolen Identities: The Mashpee Wampanoag, Defined Out of Rightful Inheritance.”
Deetz has worked in the field of cultural education and preservation for more than 20 years and been active in native politics since 1988. As an activist, Deetz began in junior high school and has worked with groups such as the Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee, 1994 Walk for Justice, Mashpee Coalition for Native Action, The Longest Walk 2 San Francisco to D.C, Idle No More SF Bay, NoDAPL, Indigenous People Organizing for Change, the Sunflower Alliance and No Bayou Bridge Pipeline.
Deetz’s activism has been centered around Native American rights, and environmentalism. As a cultural educator, Deetz has worked with the Wampanoag Language Reclamation Project, Plimoth Plantation Museum, Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe Museum, Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe Education Dept, Mashpee Tribal Historic Presrvation Office, Decolonize Academy, as well as speaking at various colleges, museums, historic societies, panels and conferences. Deetz is also a contributing author to Food First’s 2017 publication “Land Justice: Re imagining Land, Food and the Commons in the United States.”
Doors will open for the event at noon. Donations are appreciated.
A raffle of items donated by vendors at the August Pocumtuck Homelands Festival will continue and the drawing will take place at the end of the event. Items are pictured at: www.nolumbekaproject.org. This event is co-sponsored by the Nolumbeka Project, state Department of Conservation and Recreation and the New England Peace Pagoda.