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Mohegan Tribe Honors Its Ancestors in the City of Norwich
Mohegan Nation (September 11, 2008) -- The City of Norwich is now home to a special memorial to Mohegan Indians whose final resting place was encroached upon over many centuries, but has been restored to its rightful position as a historic and sacred site. Located at the intersection of the Washington and Sachem streets – a symbolic and appropriate address if there ever was one -- it is now known as the Royal Mohegan Burial Ground.
On the morning of August 15th, Tribal members and officials gathered to dedicate the memorial, which is at the former site of a Masonic temple. To begin the dedication, Tribal Council Chairman and Pipe Carrier Bruce “Two Dogs” Bozsum performed a ceremonial smudge, lighting herbs in a seashell and spreading the fragrant smoke among those gathered at the site, flanked by the fellow members of the Tribal Council, and the Tribe’s Council of Elders. The lighting of a smudge has existed among the Tribe for many centuries as a blessing, intended to help bring good spirits into a new site. Benjamin Lathrop, Mayor of Norwich, gave a welcoming address, surprising the attendees by speaking in the Mohegan language, provided with the words by Stephanie Fielding of the Tribe's Council of Elders. Together, Chairman Bozsum and the Tribe’s newly-appointed Medicine Woman Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel stepped to the microphone to read a list of some of the names of those who were buried at the site from pre-Colonial times through the post-Civil War period.
After decades of tribal protests and appeals, the Tribe began negotiations in earnest with the City of Norwich in 1998 to decide the fate of what had once been their sacred burial ground. The grounds are located near two areas of great historical significance to the tribe: The Uncas Memorial obelisk,a monument to the Tribe’s grand sachem, which was begun in 1833 and completed and dedicated in 1842; and Indian Leap, a place of local legend where Uncas was said to have made a leap over rocks and rushing water that saved him in a battle with the Narragansett Tribe. Over the course of the centuries, the once-sprawling cemetery continued to shrink from its original size of approximately 16 sequestered acres, down to a parcel of land 50 foot square. The Mohegan Tribe made the decision in 2003 to raze the Masonic Temple which had been built in 1928, but suffered from years of neglect and disarray. The way became clear for the restoration of the Royal Mohegan Burial Ground.
The burial ground has been left to nature, except for a small commemorative monument chosen by the Council of Elders, who also served as overseers of the project. Native trees and bushes surround the monument,a circular formation of thirteen inscribed stone columns. The stone columns signify each of the moons of the Mohegan calendar – and they also serve to mark the thirteen generations of Uncas’s descendants who have lived and worked in the region for centuries. Surrounding the columns, an ancient Mohegan symbol containing four domes signifies the sacred directions, while a red circle is placed in the center of the domes to symbolize the spiritual force of the universe.
The restoration of the site is a tribute to those Mohegans who worked so hard to save it over the last several centuries, and to the leaders of Norwich and the State of Connecticut who supported its restoration. Among those attending the dedication was state Representative Tom Reynolds who presented the Tribe with a citation from the State of Connecticut. In a heartfelt speech, Representative Reynolds might have said it best: "This project did not have to happen. In purely economic terms it made no sense, but they chose to do it because it represents the values and traditions that they hold dear. And let that be a lesson to all of us to not just speak of values, but to live them and exemplify them, as this tribe does so often."
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