National Native American Heritage Month

The Town of Pound Ridge, the Pound Ridge Library, and the Human Rights Advisory Committee are joining together to celebrate National Native American Heritage Month and Native American Heritage Day on November 25.

Every year, communities across the United States dedicate the month of November to honoring Native American culture and achievement and remembering the history of colonization of Indigenous peoples. In 1986, President Ronald Reagan established a week-long celebration called, “American Indian Week.” Since the 1990s, each President has issued a November statement recognizing Indigenous people and culture, eventually extending it to the month-long observation we know today. 

According to the National Congress of the American Indian, “The month is a time to celebrate rich and diverse cultures, traditions, and histories, and to acknowledge the important contributions of Native people. Heritage Month is also an opportune time to educate the general public about tribes, to raise a general awareness about the unique challenges Native people have faced both historically and, in the present, and the ways in which tribal citizens have worked to conquer these challenges.”

For this year’s Native American Heritage Month, join us in highlighting these histories and efforts, and continuing our learning as a community. Below are a few free resources that you can share with your friends and families: 

• Using your Pound Ridge Library card number, you can borrow eBooks about Native American history through Hoopla, an online platform for free digital media. Here is a link to specific titles. 
• If you are new to Pound Ridge, consider planning a trip to Ward Reservation’s Trailside Nature Museum, which is home to the Delaware Indian Research Center and has Native American artifacts, educational structures, and maple-sugaring demonstrations.
• The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) is currently hosting its Native Cinema Showcase, an annual celebration of the best in Native film. You can view the showcase films for free at this link through midnight tonight.
• NMAI is also offering a free online exhibit called “Americans,” based on an immersive museum experience at The Smithsonian in Washington, DC. It “highlights the ways in which American Indians have been part of the nation’s identity since before the country began.”
• To learn about the first Thanksgiving, young students can go to youarethehistorian.org, an online game produced by the Plimoth Patuxet Museums.
• On the crowdsourced platform, Native Land Digital, type in your current address or zoom in on the map to discover the Indigenous tribe, language, or treaty associated with a particular geographic location; then, click on the links to learn more.

Lastly, we would like to share a land acknowledgment, drafted in collaboration with Carolynn Sears of Growing Pound Ridge, that honors the first inhabitants and stewards of the beautiful town that we all call home:

Pound Ridge lies within the traditional lands of the Tankiteke, as well as those traversed by the Wappinger, Siwanoy, Lenape, and others. We wish to honor the First Peoples with gratitude for their stewardship of this land and for the land itself. It is our wish that acknowledging the past and ongoing relationship of Native Americans to the land upon which we live may deepen an ethic of care for the environment, for humanity, and for the welcoming and diverse community we aspire to uphold for future generations.