Welcome back to the Belongings Blog. I am Chrystal Mars Baker, Narragansett Nation Citizen and Education Coordinator for Tomaquag Museum and this is my very first ever blog post! In my short time here, I have had the privilege of being scheduled to staff the Away From Home/Stolen Relations Exhibit hosted by Tomaquag Museum on the University of Rhode Island campus from November 10, 2021 until January 7, 2022. A thank you to those who visited the exhibit by showing your interest in the history of Indigenous peoples by engaging with this very powerful and conversation invoking exhibit. The exhibit had over 1000 visitors and the opportunity to share its content from an Indigenous perspective has been both an emotionally moving and rewarding experience as it is important for we, as Indigenous people, to have our voices heard and our stories known.
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In 2016, the Tomaquag Museum was one of ten institutions across the United States to receive the Institute of Museum and Library Service’s National Medal. As part of the being awarded the medal, these ten institutions were asked to participate in the Story Corps oral history project, which began in 2003 in Grand Central Terminal in New York City. The mission of the Story Corps Project is to “preserve and share humanity’s stories in order to build connections between people and create a more just and compassionate world.” In the Tomaquag Museum Archives, the recordings of the Story Corps Project are part of a collection of oral history recordings going back more than 50 years. In this guest blog post, our summer intern, Ryan Savage from the University of Rhode Island shares his experience working with these oral history recordings.
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Hello and welcome to the Belongings Blog! Written by Haley Johnson, the museum’s Education Intern and Mashpee Wampanoag Ceramicist , they will discuss the ceramic traditions of Indigenous peoples in Southern New England.
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Hello and Happy Wuttahimneash! Welcome to another installment of the Belongings Blog’s From the Archives series where Archivist Anthony Belz shares some of the interesting things found in the Tomaquag Museum Archives. This installment celebrates the Strawberry Moon, also known as Strawberry Thanksgiving by highlighting some of its history over the years here at the Tomaquag Museum.
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Hello, my name is Haley Johnson and welcome to the Belongings Blog! I am the Indigenous Empowerment Network Intern here at the Tomaquag Museum. I belong to the Mashpee Wampanoag Nation and will be graduating from Rhode Island College in Spring 2021 with a Bachelors of Fine Arts concentrating in Ceramics and Art History.
Storytelling has always played a large role in Native communities. Traditionally, these stories help to pass down cultural knowledge and understanding from generation to generation. Now, we use them to educate all who are willing to learn. With todays social distancing and quarantine woes, I thought I would share some book recommendations for our young readers.
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Hello and Happy Thanksgiving! Welcome to the Belongings Blog’s next installment of the From the Archives series, in which our Archivist Anthony Belz shares some of the more interesting materials found in the Tomaquag Museum archival collections. This fifth installment is lengthy and focuses on the Dovecrest Restaurant which was located in Exeter, Rhode Island adjacent to where the Tomaquag Museum is today. The Dovecrest Restaurant was an award winning and well renowned Indigenous cultural and culinary fixture in southern Rhode Island from 1963 until its closure in 1984.
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This story begins a few years ago when Narragansett Tribal Elder Dawn Dove donated her own personal signed copy of a vinyl record by a recording artist Leonda entitled, Woman in the Sun (1968). A wonderful donation for the collection-not only because the archive does not have very many vinyl records but it is also signed by the artist, which as something an archivist who is trying to build a archive here at the Tomaquag made this record unique and immediately worth preserving. In this installment, we’ll see how a worn vinyl record in the archives led us to discover the music of Leonda Hardison and her performance at the dedication of the “New Tomaquag Indian Memorial Museum” in 1972.
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The United States Census Bureau, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic had initially extended the 2020 enumeration timeline from October 31, but has now shortened it to September 30, 2020, which reduces the counting period by 31 days. The extended time was initially allotted to create additional access for Enumerators but since the pandemic had closed so many scheduled outreach events, it completely reduced community gatherings and stopped most door to door data collection. This shortened deadline will not only affect the overall accuracy of the 2020 Census calculations, but it will undoubtedly impact Indigenous communities the hardest, as historically Indigenous people are drastically under counted by astronomical numbers compared with other populations in the United States.
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During the Fall 2019 semester at Brown University, a course was co-taught by Ronald Potvin, PhD., & Lorén Spears, MsEd. titled; Pursuit of Happiness: Environmental Justice & Indigenous Rights. As part of their final project students created short films based on the course discussions. The four films are posted below with quotes from some of the students to accompany each video.
Student Statement: “We explored Indigenous survivance in the face of colonial ecological exploitation and violence. Indigenous self-determination and healing entails fighting for access to land and resources, ensuring environmental health, and preserving lifeways.”
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Hello and welcome to the third installment of the Tomaquag Museum’s Belongings Blog, From the Archives series, in which our Archivist Anthony Belz will share some of the interesting items found in the Tomaquag Museum’s archival collections. This installment features a small color Instamatic photograph of the exterior of the Chief Poking Fire Museum located in Quebec, Canada.
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Welcome to the next installment in the Belongings Blog’s new series, From the Archives where we’ll share some interesting things found in the Tomaquag Museum’s archival collections. In this installment, our Archivist Anthony Belz will highlight a cassette tape recording of a television interview with Princess Red Wing (Mary E. Gongdon) from WHDA in Boston on December 19, 1971.
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Welcome to the inaugural installment of From the Archives, a new series in the Belongings Blog where our Archivist and Collections Manager Anthony Belz will be sharing some of the interesting items he has found in the Tomaquag Museum collections.
When you visited Tomaquag Museum did you ever notice the large mural on the wall at the far end of the museum? Or have you seen it in a photograph or film from one of our events and wondered what was there? In this post we’ll tell you the interesting history of this amazing and enduring mural that has been a feature in this building for around 60 years.
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