Eastern Woodlands Homesite
Saturday, August 2 from 11am-12:30pm
Free with registration encouraged
Join Andre StrongBearHeart Gaines Jr., Creative Director of No Loose Braids, with Tracy Ramos, William SmallEarCoyote Connors, Miguel WanderingTurtle Garate, and Nazario TallHairRedDeer Garate to learn about Eastern Woodlands culture, land use, and living presence through exploration of a traditional Nipmuc homesite, located outdoors next to Jacob’s Garden. Please wear sturdy shoes appropriate for dirt paths, grass, and uneven terrain. Meet at the Welcome Center before walking along George Carter Road.
About the Homesite
Built by Nipmuc citizens Andre StrongBearHeart Gaines Jr. and Nazario TallHairRedDeer Garate, this homesite brings Eastern Woodlands peoples and the public together to highlight urgent issues of access, health, and the sustainability of cedar swamps in the Eastern Woodlands.
The structures are crafted from cedar trees harvested from Douglas State Forest and are centered around the hearth, where Gaines led the burning of a miniature mishoon (an example of a dugout canoe) over three days in May 2022. The homesite includes a traditional fishnet station, a tripod and fish cookstation, fleshing and stretching poles used to process deer skin into hides, a deer hide rack, a large double tripod cooksite, and a miniature mishoon.
“Our people have kept a lot, but we’ve lost a lot as well,” says Gaines. “It’s really become our purpose, our mission, to have cultural revitalization and cultural preservation. One of those ways we do that is continuously building sites like this …. doing all these things that we did traditionally, so that these things don’t get lost.”
About No Loose Braids
No Loose Braids is a Nipmuc-led organization working to bring Eastern Woodland Tribal communities together in unity through cultural revitalization of traditional practices to revive community and culture. No Loose Braids aims to teach the original ways and create a space for Indigenous folks to step out of colonization, and the fractured ways of colonized thinking, to reconnect with ancestral knowledge, strengthen bonds of reciprocity, and bring balance back to our People and the Earth. No Loose Braids also works to build opportunities for future generations through changing structures of systemic marginalization and exclusion by advocating for Tribal rights and engaging in dialogue in colonial spaces.
