CELEBRATING THE HARVEST

Long before European settlers arrived on the eastern shores of North America, and long before people began gathering together on the holiday that came to be known as Thanksgiving, Indigenous people on the East End were celebrating the harvest in their own particular way.

That tradition has had its ups and downs over generations, as attempts at assimilation and erasure of Native culture were often, tragically, successful. But in more recent times, many Indigenous people have revived their ancient customs, and have found ways to celebrate and honor those traditions while living in modern times.

That experience is at the heart of what happens every year on the Shinnecock Indian Reservation on the Thursday before Thanksgiving, when the Shinnecock people celebrate Nunnowa.

Nunnowa is a Shinnecock word that means “harvest time,” and the holiday — which is sometimes referred to as “Indian Thanksgiving” — is marked by a large community pot-luck style gathering at the Shinnecock Community House.

According to Josephine Smith, a Shinnecock elder and longtime food vendor on the territory, the initial impetus for gathering together came from a desire to publicly honor Shinnecock men who had served in the military.

“After that, it just became an annual gathering of Shinnecock families coming together,” she explained. “We didn’t always call it Nunnowa, we would just call it Shinnecock Thanksgiving, but we’ve been in the process of revitalizing our language and ceremonies, and bringing back some of the traditions and celebrations that were part of the ancient cultural ways.”

That purposeful effort at revitalization has been necessary, Smith said, because of the long-term effects of assimilation attempts, and the ever-present burden of historical trauma it wrought on Shinnecock people and other Indigenous peoples throughout North America, which they still experience today.

Smith pointed out that many traditional Indigenous celebrations and ceremonies — like the Nation’s annual Labor Day Powwow — were federally outlawed for many years, until the passage of the American Indian Freedom of Religion Act in the 1970s.

These days, the Nunnowa feast on the reservation is a multi-layered celebration of the harvest time.

“It’s a time to come together, pray, feast, and dance,” Smith said. Tribal members are honored, as well as others who have worked with the tribe, she added, and said the entire event is in keeping with the idea of celebrating the harvest before the winter sets in.

Of course, the food is often the main event, and while some of the dishes and recipes are similar to what is found on a traditional American Thanksgiving table, there are certain foods and dishes that hold particular significance for Shinnecock people when they celebrate Nunnowa.

Turkey and venison are staples, in keeping with the tradition — upheld by many Shinnecock people to this day — of hunting those locally available animals for food. Different types of beans provide the foundation for many dishes, while cranberries, maple syrup, different varieties of squash, sweet potatoes, wild rice, and corn are all part of the equation.

Smith specializes in making a cranberry sauce sweetened with maple syrup. Samp is another traditional food served at Nunnowa. It’s a hearty soup made with hominy (dried white corn), white beans, and navy beans, and can be customized depending on who’s making it.

“Some people add meat,” Smith said. “It used to be cooked traditionally with salt pork, but some people will put smoked turkey in it.” The latter ingredient has become an important substitute in recent years, Smith said, for people suffering from Alpha-Gal, the tick-borne illness that leads to an allergy to mammalian meat that has been on the rise in the area in recent years.

Succotash is another popular dish served at Nunnowa. It’s a vegetarian meal made with cranberry beans or shell beans — sometimes called French horticulture beans — but Smith said pinto beans are an acceptable substitute. Corn is an important ingredient in the dish as well, and some people add onions, although Smith said her succotash is always onion free. Salt, pepper and a bit of maple syrup are typically added.

For dessert, there are always plenty of pies at the community Nunnowa feast, but Smith said she sometimes makes another traditional dish, called Slump. She laughed when saying she did not know the origin of that name, but noted that the Onondaga people also use the term. It is essentially a fruit soup made by boiling berries, apples and/or other fruits, and then dropping in dumplings made out of a biscuit dough, into the boiling fruit concoction. Variations of the dish are prevalent in other Indigenous cultures.

“The Lakota people make a boiled dish out of chokecherries or berries,” Smith said. “But they don’t put dumplings in it. It’s basically stewed fruit, like an apple sauce. I’ve done it with apples, peaches, and every type of berry. It’s one of our favorite dishes to serve, and at other times of year too.”

Shinnecock people are known as “the people of the shore,” so bounty from local waters also features prominently at Nunnowa. Fish, cooked or smoked, is typically served, along with oysters and oyster stew, as well as clam chowder or clam pie.

Puddings, including corn pudding, and breads — notably Shinnecock frybread — are also staples at any community feast.

Recognizing that the prevailing narrative surrounding Thanksgiving has been problematic at best — and according to many, patently false in a way that can perpetuate historical trauma for Indigenous people — many Shinnecock people do still gather for a large meal on Thanksgiving, but it is typically a smaller, more family-oriented affair, unlike the Nunnowa feast, which is a community-wide celebration. Shinnecock ideals surrounding the celebration of harvest — on both Nunnowa and Thanksgiving — don’t have anything to do with a pie-in-the-sky idea of peace and harmony between Indigenous people and European settlers, but rather are a reflection of the larger cultural practice of giving thanks for what has been provided from the earth.

“We celebrate at many different times of the year,” Smith said, adding that those other celebrations — whether it’s the ripening season with strawberries and corn planting in June, or the end-of-summer powwow, with the gathering of shellfish, and making of clam chowder — are equally important, and involve community feasting and gathering.

“We don’t just take one time of year to celebrate,” Smith said. “We celebrate and give thanks throughout the year. I can’t speak for everyone, but we think of it in terms that we’ve been gifted with the foods to nourish us, foods that come from the sea, that come from the birds, and other animals,” she said. “These are all foods that we have been gifted from the Creator, and we give thanks to the Creator and show our gratitude that we have these. It’s not a one-and-done holiday.”

Like many talented cooks and chefs, Smith doesn’t adhere strictly to specific recipes, using her own instincts and the skills she’s honed over the years to perfect the dishes she’s become known for. But for people interested in learning about traditional Indigenous foods and cooking, there are recipe books available, including The Mitsitam Cafe Cookbook, which includes recipes from the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, and The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen, by Sean Sherman with Beth Dooley.