Preface: Belonging to the Trail

Zobel, Melissa Tantaquidgeon

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Preface: Belonging to the Trail

Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel

Place, Nations, Generations, Beings: 200 Years of Indigenous North American Art

The Quinnipiac Nation belongs to the territory now known as New Haven, Connecticut. According to Indigenous scholar Lisa T. Brooks (Wabanaki), a nation cultivates and renews such “belonging” through connective acts of kinship with the land,...

Author

Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel

PublisherYale University Art Gallery

Related print edition pages: pp.12-13

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-20486

Chapter subject tags:Mohegan IndiansIndian decoration and ornamentIndian baskets--North AmericaIndian mythology--North AmericaIndians of North America--Exhibitions

Preface: Belonging to the Trail

Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel
(Mohegan)

The Quinnipiac Nation belongs to the territory now known as New Haven, Connecticut. According to Indigenous scholar Lisa T. Brooks (Wabanaki), a nation cultivates and renews such “belonging” through connective acts of kinship with the land, waters, plants, animals, spirit beings, ancestors, and living people of a place.1Brooks, Our Beloved Kin, 17, 20, 173. The Quinnipiac people forged connections to the neighboring Mohegans as one way of strengthening their belonging in Connecticut and protecting their Northeast woodland home from colonial expansion; for example, in 1775 Solomon Adams (Quinnipiac and Farmington) married Olive Occom (Montauk and Mohegan), the daughter of prominent Mohegan Samson Occom. Like many eighteenth-century Natives of the region, Olive and Solomon Adams sought to further broaden their tribal bonds in the Northeast: they joined the Indigenous Brothertown Movement in upstate New York, where they could live with extended tribal kin, free from immediate colonial encroachment.2Samson Occom was one of the founders of the Brothertown Movement. W. DeLoss Love, Samson Occom and the Christian Indians of New England (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2000), 353–54. Other nearby Native nations survived by staying put, including the Eastern Pequot, Golden Hill Paugussett, Mashantucket Pequot, Mohegan, and Schaghticoke. Some members of these Native nations expressed their sense of belonging by painting meaningful designs on baskets and other items.

For the Mohegan people, the Trail of Life symbol is one such design (fig. 1). It depicts the region’s rolling landscape, punctuated by small dots (representing people) and sometimes by leaves (representing woodland remedies). This symbol reminds us that, when we are at the bottom of life’s trail, healing plants, ancestors, living people, and others can lead us back uphill, for all beings are interdependent. The Trail of Life is also known as the east–west Path of the Sun, which reflects our journey from birth and sunrise to our passing into the spirit land and sunset. A third name for this symbol is the Great White Path, which describes the swirling trail of our pipe smoke, as it sends prayers to the spirit beings and ancestors among the stars in the Smoky (Milky) Way. Thus, sun, sky, stars, land, plants, ancestors, and living people are intertwined in this symbol, emphasizing the need for connective, and reciprocal, caring for the health of all. The late Mohegan Medicine Woman Gladys Tantaquidgeon and her niece Nonner Jayne G. Fawcett explain how the spirit of our baskets is reflected in these painted symbols: “To the Mohegan, designs and life are more than simple representations of nature. There is a spiritual force that flows through all things, and if these symbols are true representations of that force, this spirit should be expressed in the designs.”3Gladys Tantaquidgeon and Jayne G. Fawcett, “Symbolic Motifs on Painted Baskets of the Mohegan-Pequot,” in A Key into the Language of Woodsplint Baskets, ed. Ann McMullen and Russell G. Handsman (Washington, Conn.: American Indian Archaeological Institute, 1987), 99–100.

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Fig. 1. Trail of Life symbol

Exhibiting such spirited Northeast woodland basket art is not new to Connecticut. Our Mohegan Tribe’s Tantaquidgeon Museum, in Uncasville, has showcased baskets and other Indigenous objects since 1931, making it the oldest Native-owned and -operated museum in America. This institution was originally built by Chief Harold Tantaquidgeon and his father, John, and curated by Gladys Tantaquidgeon. During Gladys’s long life (1899–2005), visitors to the Tantaquidgeon Museum included faculty and staff affiliated with Yale University. As a young woman, Gladys knew George Grant MacCurdy, Curator of Archaeology and Anthropology at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History from 1902 to 1931. His widow, anthropology scholar Janet G. B. MacCurdy, maintained a friendship with Gladys, and I sometimes accompanied Gladys on visits to the MacCurdys’ home in Old Lyme, Connecticut. Harold Conklin, who taught anthropology at Yale and served as the Peabody’s Curator of Anthropology from 1974 to 1996, enjoyed visiting Gladys at the Tantaquidgeon Museum, as did Lyent Russell of Yale’s Department of Physics, who shared with Gladys a special love of painted Northeast woodland baskets.

Just as Gladys helped Yale scholars understand baskets and other Native objects, our tribe’s ongoing collaboration with Yale is evident in our participation in Place, Nations, Generations, Beings: 200 Years of Indigenous North American Art. It is our way of continuing to cultivate that relationship through a connective act. As tribal people, we realize that presenting Indigenous concepts, like “belonging,” represents an untrodden trail for many museums. We therefore honor this exhibition’s attempt to illuminate such philosophies through Native voices. It constitutes a firm step on a better trail, for Yale and for Native people—a more collaborative path, open to Native philosophy and spirit, that may lead to a brighter hilltop overlooking a more interconnected space of active belonging to Quinnehtukqut (Connecticut), Turtle Island (North America), Mother Earth, and our universe.

I wish to thank Mohegan Medicine Woman Gladys Tantaquidgeon and Nonner Jayne Fawcett for passing on oral tradition regarding Northeast woodland basket designs, Mohegan Archivist Emeritus Nonner Faith Davison for her Quinnipiac bibliographical material and research in the Mohegan archives, and beloved Schaghticoke elder Trudie Lamb Richmond for first introducing me to the history of the Quinnipiac and their sachem, Shaumpishuh, in the 1980s. I am also indebted to Lisa T. Brooks for her descriptions of the notion of Northeast woodland Native “belonging” in her masterful book, Our Beloved Kin (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2018), and for allowing me to cite her.

1 Brooks, Our Beloved Kin, 17, 20, 173. »

2 Samson Occom was one of the founders of the Brothertown Movement. W. DeLoss Love, Samson Occom and the Christian Indians of New England (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2000), 353–54. »

3 Gladys Tantaquidgeon and Jayne G. Fawcett, “Symbolic Motifs on Painted Baskets of the Mohegan-Pequot,” in A Key into the Language of Woodsplint Baskets, ed. Ann McMullen and Russell G. Handsman (Washington, Conn.: American Indian Archaeological Institute, 1987), 99–100. »

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