To burn a mishoon is to hollow, and hallow, a canoe
The Herring Pond Wampanoags resurrect a centuries-old ceremony
An arrow-straight section of white pine, 20 feet long, two-and-a-half feet wide, probably 150 years old, arrived from western Massachusetts on Monday, August 14.
The Herring Pond Wampanoag Tribe could have found their own tree but enlisting help from André Strongbearheart Gaines Jr. and his “No Loose Braids” organization expressed kinship with that area’s Nipmuc Tribe, as Tribal Chairlady Melissa (Harding) Ferretti explained.
That’s just one goal for a “mishoon burn,” not accomplished along the shores of the pond for three centuries, Ferretti believes, maybe longer. Over the course of a week, carefully burning and scraping, the big trunk assumed a new hollowed (and hallowed) life as a canoe, aka mishoon. Tribal members gathered in a week-long “mishoon camp” in Plymouth to embrace and execute the transformation – and hang out.
“We thought this would be a fine way to teach the littles,” smiles Ferretti, whose Wampanoag name is Golden Dragonfly — “when you see me I guess you can tell why,” she laughs:
“We pass on traditional knowledge, and when we’re done we’ve created more access and travel on the water highways, something pragmatic.”
Sisters Taylor and Miciah Harding (who share past generations with Ferretti) played lead roles in making sure the burn stayed under control, not too fast and hot. The log was prepared for days, stripped of bark, both ends charred to seal in pine resin. Oak chunks were added to build red-hot coals that smoldered as they were churned, water tamping down intensity as needed, 24-hour vigilance required. Chanting, drumming, jokes, explanations to visitors, book reading, camping out, all played parts.
Taylor was proud that the ceremony was women-led, she believes for the first time in Tribal history, though she added that matriarchy is deep in Wampanoag tradition:
“You know what our word for ‘woman’ is?” she asked. “I’ll spell it as Mutamwuhsus, which translates to, ‘The final say.’”
Then she laughed, sifting and turning more embers.
The Herring Pond Tribe has been named in many ways over time; Patuxet, Manomet, Comassakumkait, Praying Indians. Melissa says a census from the early 1600s counted 120 members. By 1885 that diminished to 40, explanations ranging from genocide and intermarriage to fears of self-reporting. The Tribe has been growing again and now she counts 200 self-identified members. Though Herring Pond is not federally recognized, one thing is for sure:
“We are located at the heart, Ground Zero, of the long history of colonization and appropriation of indigenous lands in North America,” says Ferretti. “That’s called Plymouth, Massachusetts.”
The Tribe has always been “quiet,” Golden Dragonfly continues, because “that’s how we survived.” Ancestral land in what is now Plymouth, Bourne and Wareham included areas at the fringe of the European colony, where people retreated trying to escape The Great Plague that killed so many, also trying to avoid direct conflict:
“My grandmother Verna, born in 1905, used to say that we survived by being seen, not heard,” recalls Melissa. “I remember hearing that it might be safer saying you’re Black versus Wampanoag, or White versus Wampangoag, depending on how you looked.
“But I’ve come to believe that if we’re not sharing our story, we can’t expect people to know it. Our silence in a way perpetuates our erasure.”
Ferretti walks that walk: In May, 2022, she was elected to the Bourne selectboard:
“I walk in two worlds,” she says. “I wear my tribal hat and that’s dear. But I took the town leap because we need to see Wampanoag people, and women of color, in those seats (she is the first). I wanted to show that you don’t need to be a ‘politician’ to be in that role.”
The Tribe had a recent success; by unanimous town meeting vote in 2019, Bourne returned six town-owned acres in Cedarville. The land includes a cemetery at the top of a knoll certain to contain Wampanoag remains, behind an historic little red schoolhouse. A fieldtrip identified 31 edible plants there, smiles Ferretti. She hopes to install signage, clean up and better define the cemetery.
Six acres, compared to uncounted thousands, is bittersweet. The Tribe also controls two other parcels with an historic Meetinghouse, the heart of Tribal activity that at one time transformed into a Church “for protection,” says Melissa:
“All of this land never stopped belonging to us, but we’re realistic, we wouldn’t try to take people’s homes. Our goal is conservation, protecting vacant land and becoming stewards, receiving from private owners if they’re ready to give back the land.”
No one is holding breath for that, and without federal recognition — a costly, complicated, contentious process — the Herring Pond Wampanoags have far less leverage and none of the federal funding available to the Mashpee or the Aquinnah.
But that is a far cry from concluding they don’t exist, a convenient legal position for a society that overtly and subtly, violently and through manipulation, tried to eradicate them.
Burning a mishoon is another culture’s way of saying that didn’t altogether work.
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Mutamwuhsus = woman = "the final say." I'm not going to forget that anytime soon. Thanks for this informative and inspiring story. Has the mishoon been launched?