On a sunny day in May 2021, I took my two young sons to my favorite childhood spot: the Nation House, where my aunt and Clan Mother, Anita “Mother Bear” Peters, tends a 13-acre farm on Garrett’s Pond in West Barnstable, MA. We gathered with our Wampanoag seedkeepers and our allies, and rematriated King Philip (Metacom), corn back to Wampanoag soil for the first time in over 300 years. The crop was decimated during King Philip’s War, the bloodiest war to ever be fought on American soil.
In 2021 and 2022, we grew the corn on the Maushop Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Farm and at the Nation House. This allowed us to get to know the crop and understand how best to feed it using our traditional methods. The following year, in 2023, we invited the community to join us. Dozens of women, children, and Two-Spirits from Tribes across the Northeast came together to honor the crop, our communities, and our ancestors. This communal-style garden is the traditional way to grow our crops. Historically, in the spring (seeqan), villages moved close to the water to be near our main food source for the season, seafood. While our men were hunting and fishing, our women and children would gather and grow food to support our seafood-rich diet for the community. We tended a single garden as a group. This ensured everyone in the village ate, because there were plenty of hands to do the work. Everyone had a job and every job was important; even the children participated by playing on watchtowers to chase out the crows and other animals. Today, the Corn Sister Circle continues this tradition. We have a word in Wopanaak, nuwneek, meaning everyone has a place in the circle.
King Philip/Metacom corn.
I am grateful for the lessons I have learned and the Elders who have guided me throughout my life. One very special Elder who has always been right by my side throughout my life is my aunt and Clan Mother. She is the Clan Mother of the Bear Clan, a master regalia maker, and an Elder seedkeeper. Mother Bear is one of the women who raised me, who made me who I am today. I had parents who loved me very much and taught me many things, but my aunt was my favorite. She is who the school would call when I had a “stomachache,” which meant I just wanted to go home to make regalia for my dolls. She led many of the cultural programs for our Tribal youth when I was growing up, and she nurtured the gardens I loved to play in with my cousins. When I went to fashion school, it was her regalia-making and her attendance at the School of Fashion Design in Boston that inspired me. Growing up, learning how to make regalia and tend to the gardens under her was the richest childhood I could imagine. When I had children, I wanted them to experience the magic of that land and those gardens.
Today, in the garden, we honor our ancestors and those we have lost. In Mashpee, we have lost a disproportionate number of Tribal members to overdose, suicide, and violence. In 2012, we lost our sister, Danyelle “Smiling Bear” DaSilva, to suicide. It was at the Nation House, where we grew up playing as kids, in our Clan Mother’s gardens. Losing my childhood partner in crime hurt, but it wasn’t until I had children of my own that I understood just how much it hurt to not have her here. Through dreams and guidance from my ancestors, I felt an over- whelming need to honor her and make a space for women and children to come together, love each other, Anita “Mother B and heal from the intergenerational trauma we carry as Natives. As women, we are the backbone of our matriarchal Tribe. If our women are not strong, we cannot carry our people. Our goal is to build up our women, help them reach their goals, defy statistics, and overcome. We are resilient.
Anita "Mother Bear" Peters
The American Psychological Association has confirmed what we already knew, that the best course of treatment for Natives struggling with intergenerational trauma is through practicing our traditions and cultural revitalization. The first step to cultural safeguarding is nurturing our connection with Mother Earth. To be connected to Mother Earth, you must understand what it is to live in balance, and you develop your understanding of a reciprocal relationship. The way we connect to her is by getting our hands in her soil. The Corn Sister Circle provides space for our people to enhance and nurture their reciprocal relationship with Mother Earth and their connection to their home-lands. My grandfather John “Slow Turtle” Peters’ words are with me every day, his teachings of living in balance and having a connection to Mother Earth. He taught me from a young age the importance of this relationship, and to this day, when I have something I need to work out, I go to the woods or ocean for guidance. It has never failed me. I share these teachings with our women and children to honor our homelands and strengthen our ability to communicate with our ancestors and Creator.
Vanessa Mendes (Tobey) tending to corn at MaushopTribal Farm in Mashpee, MA.
We come from long lines of strong, resilient people, people who have cared for this land for thousands of years. My aunt taught me in the garden, as did her mother (my grandmother, Barbara “Morning- star” Avant), her grandmother, Mabel Avant, who lived and gardened at what is today our Mashpee Wampanoag Museum, and her great- grandmother, Anna Attaquin, who lived in a large house up the street. We cannot be in balance with Mother Earth and continue to live the way that we currently do. Mother Earth is out of balance. She is sounding the alarm. We need to go back and learn about our ancestors and how they once lived. The garden is a place of healing and remembering. We all have the skills to grow these seeds: it is in our DNA. We must slow down enough to tap into these memories and allow the intuition we have as Native people to guide us. The garden is a small example of what can happen on a larger scale when we all work together as a community, each in our place in the circle, in balance, with a strong connection to Mother Earth.
Grandmother Barbara “Morningstar” Avant (child), her great-grandmother Anna Attaquin (seated right),Tink Pocknett, who escaped
Carlisle Indian Boarding School (top left), Dorcas Coombs Gardner (top right).
--Lauren “Sun Turtle” Peters (Mashpee Wampanoag) is a seed keeper, mother, and founder of the Corn Sister Circle, a project powered by her love for her community.
All photos by Lauren Peters.
Top photo: Brailyn Frye (Mashpee Wampanoag), Aukeeteamitch Uppeshau Brown (Narragansett & Eastern Pequot), Lauren Peters (Mashpee Wampanoag), Annokquus “Star Fire” Yoteeg (Narragansett & Eastern Pequot) at Mounding Moon Gathering at the Maushop Tribal Farm in Mashpee, MA.
