SCHEDULE
August 15, 2020 | 2PM – 5PM EST | Online Zoom Event
*Sessions that include prayers, community updates, ceremonies will not be recorded
| 2:00pm | Arrival |
| 2:10pm | Opening Prayer led by Dianne Snake (Eelŭnaapéewi Lahkéewiit) |
| 2:15pm | Welcome Statements Chief Denise Stonefish, Eelünaapéewi Lahkéewiit (Delaware Nation) Chief Mark Peters, Munsee Delaware Nation Chief Vincent Mann, Turtle Clan, Ramapough Lunaape Nation Prof. Jack Tchen, Founding Director, The Public History Project |
| 2:30pm | Pre-recorded presentations by PHP research collaborators Eric Sanderson, Before New York Conor Quinn, Presenting Relations Kerry Hardy, Reflections on the Munsee Diaspora |
| 3:10pm | Panel discussion and Q&A with the researchers moderated by Chief Peters |
| 3:30pm | Honour Song by The Lil Bear Drum Group, Eelŭnaapéewi Lahkéewiit (Delaware Nation) |
| 3:35pm | Community Updates from Chief Stonefish, Chief Mann, and Chief Peters |
| 4:45pm | Group discussion and reflection moderated by Chief Mann |
| 4:55pm | Closing Remarks from Chief Mann, Chief Peters, and Chief Stonefish |
| 5:00pm | Ceremonial Close |
| 5:10pm | Closing Prayer led by Karen Mosko, Nalahii (Munsee-Delaware Nation) |
SPEAKERS AND PRESENTERS
Chief Denise Stonefish of Eelŭnaapéewi Lahkéewiit (Delaware Nation) is serving her second term as the current Chief. She has been in the First Nations political arena for over thirty years, serving as a Councillor overseeing the Education portfolio; the Grand Chief and Deputy Grand Chief for the Association of Iroquois and Allied Indians (AIAI); held the Social Services and the Finance/Admin portfolios for the Chiefs of Ontario (COO); and Assembly of First Nations’ (AFN) Council of Women both as a founding member and a term as their Chairperson. Prior to becoming Chief, she had participated with AIAI, COO and the AFN on the Missing and Murdered Women and Girls file. However, it was not always work for Chief Stonefish; she was an avid fastball player, played ice hockey, had a shot at curling, and now golfs when she gets a chance.
Chief Mark Peters of Munsee-Delaware Nation is a widely recognized community historian and has been researching and documenting Lunaape/Lenape and First Nations history for over thirty years. He has held various elected positions as both Chief and Council Member over the past two decades. Professionally, Chief Peters has practiced criminal law and First Nations law, worked on an oil rig in Northern Alberta, and been a social worker. He has a love for canoeing and has an ongoing Facebook Live series where he regularly lectures on Lunaape/Lenape culture and history. He resides in Muncey, Ontario.
Chief Vincent Mann is the Turtle Clan Chief of the Ramapough Lenape Nation, which encompasses Passaic County NJ, Warwick, and surrounding areas in New York. Chief Mann has held the title of Turtle Clan Chief for approximately twelve years. For the past five years, he has worked with the NYU Environmental Studies department. In that time, he participated in the construction and implementation of a community health survey focused on identifying and addressing health concerns within his community. To honor Chief Mann’s efforts to shed light on his community’s efforts to fight back after the Ford toxic dumping, he was awarded the Russ Berry Foundations highest award of Unsung Hero.
Conor McDonough Quinn is documentary and revitalization/reclamation linguist with theoretical interests centering primarily around morphosyntax, morphosemantics, and revitalization/reclamation pedagogy. Since the mid-1990s he has worked extensively with the Algonquian languages of northeastern North America, particularly Penobscot, Passamaquoddy-Maliseet, Mi’kmaw, and Western Abenaki, as well as those of mainland southern New England and Long Island.
His analytical efforts focus mainly on the more distinctive grammatical features of Algonquian languages: animacy, obviation, pronominal-argument configuration, nominal tense, verbal shape classifiers, and polysynthetic stem structure, among others. His most recent work focuses on how these very fundamental language features—which usually are only discussed and taught via the kind of formal/scholarly jargon used above—can be readily reframed in everyday terms, based on their real communicative meaning, to make learning Algonquian languages much more accessible, efficient, and enjoyable.
Dianne Snake (nee Whiteye) was born on the Eelunaapeewi Lahkeewiit (Delaware Nation) and was raised by her grandparents Eliza (Lewis) Whiteye and Jamieson Whiteye. She grew up in a household where Lenape was her first spoken language. In her early life she found it difficult to be integrated into mainstream English schools and was shocked and confused to have the English language spoken to her. Dianne graduated from Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, Ontario, from the Language Program where she learned how to instruct the Lenape language to her students. She has devoted her entire life to her language, first by working for the Nation in the Language Department and now, at the age of 78 years, teaching full time to five (5) students. She has been fortunate to teach her language to students who have shown commitment, hard work, a willingness to learn their language and who are now eager to start teaching others. Dianne married Philip Snake (former Councilor and Chief of the Delaware Nation) and together they raised 3 daughters, all of whom are strong independent women in their own right.
Eric W. Sanderson is a senior conservation ecologist at the Wildlife Conservation Society. He is the best-selling author of Mannahatta: A Natural History of New York City (2009), which re-constructed the historical ecology of Manhattan before European discovery. He is now working on the Welikia Atlas, describing the historic hills, dales, streams, springs, ponds, marshes, Native American sites, and wildlife of the other four boroughs. His work has been featured by TED, NPR, CBC, the New York Times, National Geographic, The New Yorker, and many other outlets. Sanderson holds a Ph.D. in ecosystem and landscape ecology from the University of California, Davis.
Jack (John Kuo Wei) Tchen is a historian, curator, and writer devoted to anti-racist, anti-colonialist democratic participatory storytelling, scholarship, and opening up archives, museums, organizations, and classroom spaces to the stories and realities of those excluded and deemed “unfit” in master narratives. Professor Tchen has been honored to be the Inaugural Clement A Price Chair of Public History & Humanities at Rutgers University – Newark and Director of the Clement Price Institute on Ethnicity, Culture & the Modern Experience, since Fall 2018. He is the Founding Director of The Public History Project.
Karen Mosko is from Nalahii (Munsee-Delaware Nation) in Ontario, Canada. Along with her mother, she has played a vital role in the repatriation of the Lunaape language for Munsee-Delaware Nation. She has been teaching predominantly unfunded Lunaape language classes in various locations across Canada and the United States. Her goal is to revitalize what the government considers a dead language.
Kerry Hardy is a researcher, eco-historian, and author who studies the human ecology of pre-Contact Native Americans, primarily through geographic and linguistic analysis. He is the Lead Researcher and Cartographer at the Public History Project, the Stewardship Coordinator at the Vinalhaven Land Trust, and author of “Notes on a Lost Flue: A Field Guide to the Wabanaki” that delves into the Native American foodways, languages, place names and ecologies of Maine in 2009. He has presented talks at Maine Audubon, the Conference on Endangered Languages and Cultures of North America, Algonquian Conference, and was a keynote speaker at the Common Ground Fair, Maine. He was the former executive director and education coordinator at Merryspring Nature Park, a nonprofit organization in Camden, Maine. He holds a Master’s Degree in Landscape Architecture from the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental Studies
The Lil Bear Drum Group is made up of the following Eelunaapeewi Lahkeewit Youth: Scott Snake, Andrew Snake, and Dilan Jacobs-Snake.
SPECIAL THANKS
This event is made possible due to the generous support of the Ford Foundation, close collaboration with the Clement Price Institute on Ethnicity, Culture and the Modern Experience, Rutgers University – Newark, the Eelŭnaapéewi Lahkéewiit (Delaware Nation at Moraviantown), the Munsee Delaware Nation, and the Ramapough Lunaape Nation. We are also grateful for the contributions of the following individuals:
Alex Peabody, PHP Research Consultant
Beatrice Glow, PHP Strategy Manager
Clan Mother Michaeline Picaro Mann, Turtle Clan, Ramapough Lunaape Nation
Claudia Sepulveda, Price Institute Administrator
Deputy Grand Chief Gordon Peters, Association of Iroquois and Allied Indian, Turtle Clan, Eelünaapéewi Lahkéewiit (Delaware Nation)
Frances Pollitt, Web Design Consultant
Huff Media Solutions
Jessica Hernandez, Price Institute Program Coordinator II
Kimberly Snake, Director of Operations, Eelünaapéewi Lahkéewiit (Delaware Nation) Council
Leora Fuller, PHP Research Collaborator
Mehreen Mian, Price Institute Program Coordinator
Michele Hopkins-Altiman, Councils Strategic Research & Development Analyst, Eelünaapéewi Lahkéewiit (Delaware Nation) Council
Norris F Branham/TGEFilms, Ramapough Lunaape Nation, Sacred Sites Journey Filmmaker
Sam Hege, Rutgers University, Department of History, Doctoral Candidate
Sonia Louise Davis, PHP Administrator
