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 The ban was repealed in 2004."
#SettlerColonialism #NativeAmericanTraditions #Nipmuck #IndigenousTraditions #Massachusetts #PreservingNativeAmericanTraditions