Vote for MKIM in the OnCell iPhone App Contest!

Dear friends (and future friends):

Please vote for the Mt. Kearsarge Indian Museum in the OnCell iPhone App Contest and help the museum win a free channel in the OnCell App for a year. The free iPhone app award will enable us to offer our visitors an interpretive experience complete with tour content, logos, images, video, a tour map, text captioning and GPS-navigational features.

The museum has been entered as a contestant. All you have to do to improve MKIM's chances of winning is to visit the iPhone App Contest page.  When you get to the page you will see a list of the organizations that have entered.  Find our logo, click the "Vote" button, and you're done!

The contest ends January 28 at 11:59 pm, so please vote without delay and ask your friends to do the same. You may only vote once, so we need as many people to vote for MKIM as possible! Right now we are competing with 9 worthy institutions, so the odds are looking good.  Please spread the word and help the museum get as many votes as it can!


When you ask your friends to vote for MKIM in this contest, why not ask them to become friends on our Facebook page, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our blog, "In the Path of Silverstar?"

After you've voted, please write to us and tell us!

Winners from each of OnCell’s nine sales regions (plus a runner-up award!) will be awarded a free channel in the OnCell App for one year, starting by March 1, 2011. 

You can vote at these sites:

www.oncellsystems.com

www.facebook.com/oncellsystems

www.twitter.com/oncell_mobile

www.flickr.com/oncell

Contest rules and Regulations:

• All entries must be submitted via the submission form by 11:59pm Eastern time, January 28th, 2010.
• Only one entry is accepted per venue.
• All fields on the submission form must be completed in order for entries to be accepted.
• By submitting the submission form you certify the following statement “I certify that I am the author of the material I am submitting to the OnCell App Channel Contest. OnCell and its licensees may reproduce, distribute, publish, display, edit, modify, create derivative works and otherwise use the material for any purpose in any form and on any media. I agree to indemnify OnCell for all damages and expenses that may be incurred in connection with the material.”
• 10 winners will be selected.
• Winners will be announced February 1st, on OnCell’s website and via email.

Applications will be accepted during the months of December and January. The 10 winners will be determined by an online vote. Participants will use their own marketing methods to encourage visitors, fans, friends, colleagues, staff members and others to vote for their venue via OnCell’s contest page. Winners will be announced February 1st, 2011. There will be one winner from each of the nine OnCell sales territories + one runner-up. 10 winners total!

Hawk Henries' Concert and Flute Making Workshop

Friday, January 7 Hawk Henries performed a concert of Eastern Woodlands music for a large audience in the Mt. Kearsarge Indian Museum’s Silverstar Memorial Auditorium.  With his excellent musicianship, his respect for the music and those who listen to it, and his sense of humor, Hawk entertained and educated the audience for over two hours.  He played a variety of flutes, all of which he made himself.  He also played the didgeridoo and talked about its role in the music of the aboriginal people of Australia.  At one point he took out an mbira dzavadzimu (mbira of the ancestor spirits), the classic instrument of the Shona people of Zimbabwe.  After telling the audience, “I don’t play this very well,” Hawk Henries proceeded to play a composition that started simply, then gradually became more and more complex.

After the concert Hawk invited questions from the audience.  He also invited people to try some of the instruments he used in the concert.  People left the museum that evening feeling that they had just attended an excellent concert.  But this writer also felt that Hawk Henries had given us something else that night that was just as great (or perhaps greater) than the music he had shared.

Hawk Henries is possessed of a commanding yet gentle presence.  He approaches the music he plays and the people who created that music with the deepest respect.  Hawk Henries honors and reveres his native heritage and his ancestors. Hawk derives great joy from living on this earth, with all its wonderful creatures, and he shared that joy with everyone present at the concert.  Friday evening, January 7 at the Mt. Kearsarge Indian Museum, Hawk Henries gave his listeners a wonderful gift.

The following day, Saturday, January 8 Hawk led a flute making workshop from 9:00 to 5:00.  The workshop was the second in Mt. Kearsarge Indian Museum's Native American Living Arts Program.  Under Hawk Henries' direction a group of ten people started the day with ordinary pieces of bamboo and left at the end of the day with musical instruments capable of making haunting, beautiful sounds.

Hawk Henries is a member of the Chaubunagungamaug band of Nipmuck, a people indigenous to what is now southern New England. He has been composing original flute music and making flutes using only hand tools and fire for over twenty years.

Using his unique talents, Hawk teaches and performs in a variety of settings: educational settings from kindergarten through university levels, flute making workshops, pow­wows, cafes, museums, concert venues, festivals, and private and family gatherings. Hawk plays for audiences of all sizes but he especially enjoys small groups where he can engage his audience on a more personal level. He enjoys sharing his experiences and perspectives about life, always with the wish that he can acknowledge and honor the Sacredness in each person and all cultures. Hawk finds that his flutes and his music are a powerful vehicle for sharing.

For more information about Hawk Henries, visit http://www.hawkhenries.com/

To see pictures of the flute making workshop, go to our Facebook Photo Album, Flute Making Workshop presented by Hawk Henries.

Please plan to attend the next Native American Living Arts Program Saturday, February 5 from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm.  The topic will be making Beaded Rosettes, with Andy Bullock.  Admission for the workshop is $25.00, and preregistration is recommended.  Financial assistance is available.  Check our website, indianmuseum.org or call (603) 456-2600 for details.

All About Acorns

Here in New Hampshire at the Mt. Kearsarge Indian Museum, the acorns in the Medicine Woods are under a foot of snow.  But earlier in the fall the sound of acorns dropping from the oak trees was almost continuous, and the forest floor was carpeted with hundred of acorns.  Anyone venturing into the Medicine Woods in October would have been well advised to wear a hard hat.


In late September and early October the animals of the Woods were busy gathering these protein-rich nuts and stashing them away for use later in the winter.  These creatures know that acorns are a valuable source of important nutrients.  Across Turtle Island native people also recognized this fact, and acorns were an important staple of their diet.  Now research shows that acorns contain many healthful compounds, especially antioxidants. Acorns are an important source of phytochemicals, chemical substances found in plants that can help prevent diseases and cell damage.  Regular consumption of foods rich in phytochemicals is associated with reduced risks of chronic diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, stroke, Alzheimer's disease, cataract and age-related functional decline.  (See "Health Benefits of Phytochemicals in Functional Foods"  Cornell University, 2002.)  In addition to their phytochemical content, acorns are a source of protein (about 8 percent) and fats (37 percent.)  They are also high in calcium and other minerals.

The first Native Americans to add acorns to their diet were not aware that the nuts they were gathering contained antioxidants and phytochemicals.  However, the lives of native people were closely linked to the earth and its inhabitants, which led them to develop a great body of knowledge of the natural world.  Thousands of years of experience taught native people which foods provided the best nourishment and energy that their active lives required.

At the Mt. Kearsarge Indian Museum we have learned that the average native family in the Northeast Woodlands would need approximately 600 pounds of acorns to provide enough food for the long, cold winter months.  Given that the average acorn weighs 0.01 lbs, 600 lbs. of acorns amounts to approximately 60,000 acorns!

Before the nutmeat of acorns can be eaten, the nuts must be treated to remove tannic acid, which gives them a bitter taste.  Removing the tannins greatly improves the flavor of acorns, but there are more important reasons to flush tannins from acorns. Tannic acid can interfere with the body’s ability to metabolize protein.  Eating untreated acorns could ultimately result in starvation, even in an individual eating an otherwise healthy diet.

Animals in the wild have developed several ways to reduce the amount of tannic acid in the acorns they eat.  Animals that cache acorns, like jays and squirrels, may wait to eat them until enough groundwater has percolated through them to leach out the tannins.  Other animals buffer the effect of tannic acid by eating other foods in combination with the acorns. Some insects, birds, and mammals can metabolize tannins with few of the ill effects that could cause kidney damage in humans.

How do Native Americans remove the tannins from acorns?  After the acorns have been harvested they are spread out on a blanket and set out in a dry, sunny place for several days. The sunlight creates enough heat inside the acorn to kill any insect eggs or larvae that might be living there.  It also prevents the acorns from becoming moldy before they are shelled.

When the acorns are thoroughly dry they are cracked open and the nutmeat is picked from the shells.  Now the tannins can be removed.  Some people preferred to place the nutmeat in a basket set in clean, fast-flowing water.  After a day or two the tannic acid would be flushed away.  Others prefer to remove the tannins by boiling the nutmeat in a large pot.  When the water has turned brown it is poured off and replaced with fresh hot water.  This process is repeated several times until the water remains clear.  This job generally takes two or three hours.  When the boiling process has been completed, the acorns will have turned dark brown and will no longer taste bitter.  Eaten from the pot, the acorns have a flavor similar to that of boiled chestnuts.

Now the nutmeats must be dried again.  When they have become dry they can be roasted or chopped and eaten.  However, it is more common to grind the dry nutmeats into fine flour.  This flour can be used to make acorn bread.

Another method is to grind the nutmeat while it is still wet until it has become a moist paste.  This acorn paste is ready to be added to the acorn bread recipe.

Acorn meal is naturally sweet, which adds flavor to the bread.  Bread made entirely of acorn flour is very dense.  Some cooks added cattail flour, which helped keep the bread from crumbling.  A piece of acorn bread provided a nourishing meal for someone on a long trip or a hunting expedition.

The fact that the native people of the Northeast Woodlands were accomplished foresters is often overlooked.  They adopted effective and sophisticated ways to manage their acorn crops.  Lighting ground fires increased the production of acorns and made them easier to collect.  The fires killed the larvae of the acorn moths and acorn weevils, which could consume more than 95% of an oak tree’s crop.

The fires freed nutrients bound in dead leaves and other plant debris and released them into the soil.  The fire also reduced bushy growth on the forest floor, which made it acorn gathering easier.

Most North American oak trees can tolerate light fires, especially when yearly burning has consumed dead wood and other flammable materials that would otherwise accumulate around the trunks of the trees. Consistent burning removed other less fire tolerant trees from the area and created more space in which new oak trees could grow.

Oak trees bear more acorns when other oak trees do not crowd them.  The controlled burns tended to remove oak saplings and diseased trees, opening the forest canopy to allow more sunlight and water to reach the healthy trees.  The result was an open oak savanna, with trees ideally spaced to maximize acorn production.

There are many recipes for acorn bread available online or in books.  Here are a few that look interesting:

•  Acorns and Acorn Bread by Dan Fisher  http://www.jackmtn.com/acornbread.html
• Vintage and Native American Acorn Bread  http://www.grouprecipes.com/21418/vintage-and-native-american-acorn-bread.html
• Recipe for Acorn Bread from the California State Parks Online Resource for Students and Teachers  http://ports.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=25519

Bon appetit!

The MKIM Sign in December

The Influence of the Iroquois Confederacy on the U.S. Constitution

It has long been held that the structure of the Iroquois Confederacy inspired the development of U.S. government, especially the writing of the Constitution.  The Iroquois Confederacy consisted of Six Nations: the Seneca, Cayuga, Onongada, Oneida, Mohawk and the Tuscarora.

The government of the Confederacy was bound together by an oral constitution.  The law was written on wampum belts, conceived by Deganwidah, known as The Great Peacemaker and his spokesman Hiawatha. The original five member nations ratified this constitution near present-day Victor, New York, with the sixth nation (the Tuscarora) being added in ca. 1720.

It was once thought the Iroquois Confederacy started in the 16th century, but a more recent estimate dates the confederacy and its constitution to between 1090 and 1150 CE.

On June 11, 1776 while the question of independence for the thirteen original colonies was being debated, Iroquois chiefs were invited into the meeting hall of the Continental Congress. There a speech was delivered, in which they were addressed as "Brothers" and told of the delegates' wish that the "friendship" between them would "continue as long as the sun shall shine" and the "waters run." The speech also expressed the hope that the new Americans and the Iroquois act "as one people, and have but one heart." After this speech, an Onondaga chief requested permission to give John Hancock an Indian name. The Congress graciously consented, and so Hancock was renamed "Karanduawn, or the Great Tree." With the Iroquois chiefs inside the halls of Congress on the eve of American Independence, the impact of Iroquois ideas on the founders is unmistakable.

Perhaps the best way to understand the relationship between the constitution of the Iroquois Confederacy, know as the "Great Law of Peace" and the Constitution of the United States is to study the "Great Law" itself.  It is interested to note one major difference between the two documents.  The Great Law specifically grants rights to women, while the U.S. Constitution is silent on the issue.

You can read the Great Law of Peace in our next blog entry.

Twine Baskets Workshop, Dec. 4

WE REGRET TO ANNOUNCE THAT THE NATIVE AMERICAN LIVING ARTS PROGRAM ON TWINE BASKETS WITH JULIA MARDEN THAT WAS SCHEDULED FOR SATURDAY, DEC. 4 HAS BEEN CANCELED.

Native American Contributions

As this month is Native American Heritage Month, we thought it would be a good time to look at the significant contributions Native Americans have made to the U.S. and the world.

We will begin by looking at items invented by native people that have since been adopted for use by the general population.

The Totem Pole 
West Coast First Peoples consider that the first totem pole was a gift from Raven. It was named kalakuyuwish, "the pole that holds up the sky." The totem poles were often used as family crests denoting the tribe's descent from an animal such as the bear, raven, wolf, salmon, or killer whale.

There are several kinds of totem pole:

• memorial, or heraldic, poles, put up when a house changes hands to commemorate the past owner and to identify the present one,
• grave markers,
• house posts, which support the roof,
• portal poles, which have a hole through which a person enters the house,
• welcoming poles, placed at the edge of a body of water to identify the owner of the waterfront,
• mortuary poles, in which the remains of the deceased are placed,
• ridicule poles, on which an important individual who had failed in some way had his likeness carved upside down.

To non-natives, totem poles do not have the same significance attached to them. However, they are frequently used to evoke the Pacific Northwest and the spirit of the people who were its first inhabitants.

Toboggan
Toboggan comes from the Algonquian word odabaggan. The toboggan is an invention of the Eastern First Peoples. Indian hunters first built toboggans made of bark to carry game over the snow. The Inuit used to make toboggans of whalebone. Otherwise a toboggan is made of strips of hickory, ash, or maple, with the front ends curved back.

Tipis
Tipis were invented by the Plains First Peoples. Using materials at hand, the buffalo hunters of the Plains created a sturdy dwelling that could stand up against severe prairie winds and yet could be dismantled at a moment's notice to follow the moving buffalo herds.

Kayak
The kayak was invented by the people of the Northwest and Arctic regions. The skin-covered kayaks of the Arctic people are excellent examples of a technology developed over centuries of experimental refinement and everyday use.

Open boats were of little use in the stormy, cold waters of the North Pacific. When the boats were taken out to sea the crashing waves quickly filled them with frigid water, creating conditions that seriously endangered the life of the boat's occupant.

Much experimentation led to the practice of covering the open boats with seal or other animal skins.  Then fishing could be done in relative comfort, and with less danger to the life of the fisherman.

The word "kayak" means "man's boat" or "hunter's boat".  Each kayak was custom built by the man who used it (with assistance from his wife, who sewed the skins).  The kayak builder's boat was closely fitted to his size for maximum maneuverability. A special skin jacket, called the tuilik, was then laced to the kayak, creating a waterproof seal. This enabled the "eskimo roll" to become the preferred method of quickly regaining posture after the kayak had been rolled upside down in the water.  Few of these fishermen could swim, and the waters are too cold for a swimmer to survive for long.

The modern version of a tuilik is a spraydeck made of waterproof synthetic material stretchy enough to fit tightly around the cockpit rim and body of the kayaker, which can be released rapidly from the cockpit to permit easy exit.

As with the tipi builders, the kayak builder used materials found in his environment to create a craft fitted to his own body. The length of a kayak was typically three times the span of owner's outstretched arms. The width at the cockpit was the width of his hips plus two fists (and sometimes less). The typical depth was his fist plus the outstretched thumb (held in hitch hiker fashion). The typical kayak was roughly 17 feet long, 20–22 inches wide and 7 inches deep. This measurement system puzzled early European explorers who tried building their own kayaks because each kayak they found was a little different.

Birch Bark Canoe
The birch bark canoe was invented by the Eastern First Peoples. The word 'canoe' originiated from the word 'kenu' - meaning dugout. However, unlike the bulky pine dugout canoe, the birch bark canoe is a maneuverable lightweight craft.  The skin of the canoe is birch bark.  After the bark was carefully peeled from the tree, it was turned inside out so the dark brown inner face of the bark, called the cambium, was revealed.  With the white bark facing the inside of the boat, the bark was fastened to the frame of the canoe.  As the cambium is waterproof, it makes a perfect lightweight skin for a boat that can be easily portaged and easily repaired. 

Snowshoes
Snowshoes were invented by the Eastern First Peoples. Hunting in the deep snow of the Northeast without snow shoes was cold, exhausting work. By creating wide, long shoes that could distribute a person's weight over a great area, native people found that they could walk virtually on top of the snow. Various designs evolved to suit different snow conditions. 

Lacrosse
The game of lacrosse, now a popular middle school and high school sport, was invented by the Native American tribes living around the St. Lawrence River in New York and Ontario.  The game was subsequently spread by the Huron and the Iroquois. The original name for the game came from the name of the ball that was used, baggataway.  Later, French missionaries called the game lacrosse, because the shape of the player's stick reminded them of a bishop's staff, or crosse.

According to the Iroquois, lacrosse is pleasing to the Creator. It is also a rite sacred to the Thunders, the seven honored elders (Grandfathers) who move across the sky from west to east cleansing the earth with winds and rains.

The Cherokees called the sport "the little brother of war" because it was considered excellent military training.

Moccasins
Moccasins originated with the Eastern North American tribes. Traditionally, the word referred to a shoe with a puckered u-shaped 'vamp' over the instep. The name of the Great Lakes Ojibway tribe means 'people of the puckered moccasin'.

The southern New England Narragansett word for the shoe is 'Mocussinass' or 'Mockussinchass'. 

There certainly are many more examples of Native American inventions that were later adopted and adapted by non-natives. If you know of any that you would like to see included in this list, please submit a comment below.