JOANNE Spies

SOUNDING MOHICAN PATHWAYS

Many places in the Berkshires are honoring the Stockbridge-Munsee Community. Indigenous Day occurs on Monday,October 9th this year with a Ceremonial Walk on Main Street Great Barrington, and many organizations are honoring the tribe. The Mission House in Stockbridge has ongoing programs.

In an interview on WAMC, Shawn Stevens, cultural educator for the tribe, pointed out that all of us have indigenous ancestors. As cultural educator he is inclusive and far-reaching in his vision.

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The Trail of Tears Revisited
Monday, June 21st 2021 there was a ceremonial send-off and solstice ceremony at the Mohican Stone on Bridge Street and the Housatonic River in Great Barrington directly across from Railroad Street Youth Project to bless Shawn Stevens of The Stockbridge Munsee Community Band of Mohican Indians and Stephanie Graham, a teacher from Mt Everett school on their historic journey following the Trail of Tears from the Berkshires to Bowler, Wisconsin..

Stephanie Graham, art teacher from Mt. Everett

Info from Stephanie Graham: Over the next two weeks I will travel from the ancestral homelands of the Mohicans to their reservation in Bowler, WI visiting historical sites along their forced migration route. Through the documentation of people, places, and stories, I will address specific goals. Those goals are to create supplemental resources for the grades 3-5 curriculum shared by the Stockbridge Munsee Community, and begin to envision is to be K-12 and interdisciplinary, to build partnerships between schools and communities, and to create audio and video resources for use in the classroom and in community education settings. I’ll be accompanied by Shawn Stevens, a registered tribal member, who arrived in the Berkshires this week. His trip is being funded by a Housatonic Heritage Partnership grant.

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You cannot help but feel the presence of the Mohicans as you walk through Stockbridge, Massachusetts. This page attempts to keep track of my different performances, collaborations with the tribe and others, ceremonies and reflections over the years.

Land Acknowledgment

“It is with gratitude and humility that we acknowledge that we are learning, speaking and gathering on the ancestral homelands of the Mohican people, who are the indigenous peoples of this land. Despite tremendous hardship in being forced from here, today their community resides in Wisconsin and is known as the Stockbridge-Munsee Community. We pay honor and respect to their ancestors past and present as we commit to building a more inclusive and equitable space for all.”

For more information on the first people here: Stockbridge-Munsee Community Band of Mohican Indians - "People of the waters that are never still"

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From 2004 - 2011 I created different performances honoring the first people here. In collaboration with The Mission House I led different walks called “Sounding Mohican Pathways” to different sites in Stockbridge MA, and there was no mention of the ways the Stockbridge-Munsee Band were mistreated and their land taken away. At the end of each walk, a few participants would say aloud how guilty they felt. When you stood face to face with Shawn and others from the tribe, you felt kindness and strength, not recrimination. The concept of ‘critical race theory’ falls away when the truth is explored and when you put one foot in front of the other imagining what another feels. The land itself tells the story here. It is exciting that new curriculum is being written and a new generation will learn more true history.

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My song ‘Rise Up, Eagle’ sung by the Hoping Machine as well as performances like Karaoke Confession are all part of the mosaic and growing movement of reconciliation and respect for those who went before us and those who will come after us.

       "Rise Up, Eagle" at The Guthrie Center - center/left to right: JoAnne Spies lead vocal and six string ukelele, Sara Lee Guthrie, lead vocal, Wes Buckley, guitar, the Hoping Machine singers. words and music by JoAnne Spies.

Blog about —> Karaoke Confession

how it all started...

Back in 2004 there was a county wide celebration in the Berkshires of the Housatonic River. I wondered where the river started, and created a performance/event that would celebrate its confluence and would honor the  diversity of people in the Berkshires. I wanted to honor the first people here, the Mohicans, to begin the piece, and learned about an artist and yoga teacher who had been to the Mohican reservation in Bowler, Wisconsin - Jennifer Reis. Jennifer had put up prayer flags from the tribe to fly by the river at the Rockwell Museum, and had a continuous loop of Mohican voices playing. Through Jennifer I met Shawn Stevens of the drum group Nanapowe, who gave me a recording to play for RiverMASS.  He asked that no one record the song, as it was sacred. 

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I asked different artists in the community if they knew where the river was, and held a meeting where I gave out y-shaped branches that symbolized the confluence of the river, and quotes about the river:

Great Barrington's own W.E.B. DuBois                                                                                                             “For this valley, the river must be the center. Certainly it is the physical center; perhaps, in a sense, the spiritual center. Perhaps from that very freeing of spirit will come other freedoms and inspirations which may be steps toward diversification and enriching of culture throughout the land.”

I invited a diverse array of people from the community to be in RiverMASS: Youth Alive, pictured below, Manos Unidas, a choir from the Berkshire Music School, kids from my Becket Art Center theatre group that summer whose play was called 'Lost River,' Stefanie Weber, Hector on Stilts, Marafanyi percussion. Different spiritual traditions were honored with readings from people in the community. And of course, the audience, that was invited to participate in call and response and singing.

Here’s an article listing the amazing array of participants.

Youth Alive drum line in opening procession - first RiverMASS event at St. Stephen's Church, Pittsfield, MA photos:Julie A. Brown

In the second RiverMASS performance at St. Stephen's, the drummers from the Mohican group Nanapowe loved seeing  Raphael and Jerome from Pittsfield's Youth Alive (below) play the buckets with great skill. 

 2008 was the 400th year celebration of Hudson's voyage upriver to Albany. This was the year RiverMASS was called 'Sounding the River' and received funding from the Michael Sellon Foundation. The performance was held at Pumpkin Hollow in Craryville, NY, where the Taconic stream flowed into the Hudson.

Shawn Stevens led our group with his powerful singing.

For more information on the first people here: Stockbridge-Munsee Community Band of Mohican Indians - "People of the waters that are never still"

"Sounding Mohican Pathways"  was an educational and cultural exchange program created in 2010 in collaboration with Tammis Coffin, Education Director at the Mission House. This program received a grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and the Stockbridge Cultural Council in 2011.

 This program helped build bridges between the Stockbridge community here in Massachusetts and the Stockbridge Mohican community in Wisconsin. I worked with contacts at the Mohican reservation and at the Mission House and Indian Museum to organize an interactive music program that incorporated stories, songwriting and history. Shawn Stevens and I presented 'Origin of Songs' at the Stockbridge Library as well as the walk down Main Street to historical sites.

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Celebrating after recording my song"Survivor Tree" with Shawn Stevens, Jennifer and Michael Reis and Henry Horning at Shaun LaFramboise's Thomas Island Studio on a beautiful windy day in the fall.

Shawn also brought his powerful songs to "Mumbet, Melville and Mohicans"  in 2012, a performance I created at Herman Melville's home Arrowhead in Pittsfield, MA with Mari Andrejco and Nathan Smith, Jana Laiz, Sean Vernon, Jennifer Reis, Ann Elizabeth Barnes and Elfi Six.

The theme of forgiveness was explored in depth.

Here's the link to Melville, Mumbet and Mohicans, that honored Mumbet,  Elizabeth Freeman. Money was raised for the Elizabeth Freeman Center.

Community performances/walks continued at the Norman Rockwell Museum for three consecutive years. "Karaoke Confession,' "Trust" and "Courage" were created for the Berkshire Festival of Women Writers.