Northfield, Massachusetts' Indigenous Origins

This recorded testimonial is the account of an Indigenous resident of Northfield, Massachusetts, Joe Graveline, creating a sense of the town's pre-European history. Graveline's discourse is strongly rooted in archaeological and geological findings right around his own home and fields. He is open to the way the land itself speaks to him in the Connecticut River Valley. Here is the setting for 11,000 years of Indigenous intertribal exploration, settlement, and conquest along the vast waterway, told with animation and intimacy. Indigenous stories and memories have been long suppressed by those who spread out over these stolen lands we call New England. Isn't it the victors who always write the history? The clarity and passion of this account awakened us to new ways of thinking about New England culture and history—from an Indigenous point of view. Local Indigenous people have been reminding us that, “We are still here.” Those who left have in many cases returned. Those who never left are speaking their past, dancing the dances, singing the songs, chanting the chants and reseeding the land and culture with ancient knowledge.

A grant from the Northfield Cultural Council, a branch of the Mass Cultural Council kicked off an oral history project to gather local memory about life and times of residents of this special town on the New Hampshire border in western Massachusetts. The 350th Committee stressed the need for an in depth understanding of pre-European settlement of the Town. Massachusetts State Senator Jo Comerford has supported the project and has been particularly concerned with our recording Indigenous narratives. This pleased us and we have been thoroughly enjoying interviewing Joe Graveline and other Indigenous scholars and cultural practitioners. The Northfield 350th Anniversary Oral History project has drawn intense interest from a wide variety of residents and turned up all kinds of profound renderings of the past. Much of the work has been carried out with grit and determination from local volunteers.