"Tending the Fire," October 3–4 at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, marks the largest gathering of Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican people on their ancestral homelands since the tribe's removal westward in the 1780s.
More than 160 Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican tribal members and descendants are expected to travel from Wisconsin this October for the second Homelands PowWow, held October 3 and 4 at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox.
Shawn Stevens, president of the Homelands PowWow board, explains the weekend's theme of “Tending the Fire” to a longer tribal and local responsibility. "We have rekindled the fire that connects us to our ancestors and to these ancestral lands," he says. "Now our responsibility is to tend that fire, to nurture it, keep it burning, and pass its warmth on to the generations that follow so they do not have to know life without it."
The scale marks a real jump from last year, and the venue has grown with it. The first Homelands PowWow, held October 4 and 5, 2025, at the Darrow School in New Lebanon, brought a little over 60 tribal members and descendants back to the region for the first time in over two centuries, drawing more than 2,000 visitors over the weekend. Dancers in jingle dresses and feather regalia moving through the circle, drum groups including the Rez Dogs and Gii Taa'See keeping the dancers' pace, and a dugout canoe on display that Nipmuc tribal member Miguel Wandering Turtle Walks With No Fear said took seven people seven days to carve from a single white pine log, a yearly tradition.
With October's tribal attendance nearly triple last fall’s numbers, the event has moved to the grounds at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox. According to organizer Ginger Stevens, that crowd will make history on its own. "This will be the largest gathering of Stockbridge-Munsee people in the homelands of our people since 1786, when we began our trek to the West," she says.
The Stockbridge Mohicans were forced out of Massachusetts for New York in the mid-1780s, a displacement that continued in stages through Indiana before the tribe finally settled in Wisconsin in the 1820s and 30s, where it remains a federally recognized nation today.
Gordon Williams, an organizer with the Homelands PowWow says he grew up with a strong cultural connection to the Berkshires through generations. His 90-year-old father won't be able to make the trip this year, but Williams is bringing much of the rest of his family. "He was proud that I am representing him as a Mohican tribal member," Williams says. "I am a first-line blood descendant." His father's own mother was the first in the family born on the tribe’s final reservation in Wisconsin, around the turn of the last century; before her, every generation had been taken back to New York just to be born, at a place called Buffalo Creek.
For Williams, going back east isn't abstract. "It's like a man that knows he's Irish, to go back to Ireland and know that's where his roots are from," he says. "It is an amazing feat. The mountains really took me aback. To stand upon the mountain and look around, overlooking the valley and the lakes. It was an amazing thing that brought tears to my eyes, to realize what was taken from us on our trail of tears."
“Tending the Fire,” picks up directly from where last year left off. "A fire that has been kindled must be tended, ” the Homelands organization says. "It takes many hands, care, generosity, and commitment to keep it alive,” says Kathryn Footit, a Mohican crafter returning for her second year. "I am so honored to be participating as a board member and helping find ways to allow my fellow Mohicans to 'come home' and experience what it is like to walk on the same earth our ancestors lived on, fought on, and where some gave their lives for America's freedom."
The weekend itself centers on intertribal dancing and traditional drum groups, alongside Native artisans and vendors, indigenous food, cultural demonstrations, and storytelling. Organizers describe it as open to anyone willing to show up in good faith.
The Homelands PowWow is organized by a Massachusetts-based nonprofit founded by enrolled Stockbridge-Munsee tribal members and regional allies, with a mission specifically built around reconnection: the event's proceeds go toward covering travel and lodging costs for tribal members making the trip back east, many from Wisconsin. The organization is careful to note it doesn't speak for the Stockbridge-Munsee Tribal Council or represent the tribe itself—its role is logistical and relational, not political.
Mysti Hammer, another Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican involved with the event, framed this year's invitation as an open one. "Last year, there was something powerful about standing together in our ancestral homelands—dancing, singing, reconnecting, and feeling that undeniable sense of being home," she says. "This October, we invite you to experience it with us."
Day admission runs $20 for adults and $10 for youth (5–12) and seniors (65+); a weekend package is $30 and $15 respectively. Children under five, veterans, and dancers in full regalia get in free.
Shakespeare & Company, 70 Kemble Street, Lenox, MA 01240
Tickets and more information at homelandspowwow.org.
