She also gave Tantaquidgeon a belt that once belonged to Fielding’s grandmother Martha Uncas, who was known as a Mohegan culture-keeper.įielding died in 1908. Fielding passed on the stories of the Makiawisug, or Little People. While she was considered a bit of a loner who did not attend many festivals or meetings, she was a mentor to Gladys Iola Tantaquidgeon and passed down many Mohegan traditions. Here are just a few of those Indigenous figures who have been champions for their tribes and people.įidelia Hoscott Fielding, born in 1827, is considered the last speaker and preserver of the Mohegan Pequot language, and her journals have been preserved and used to help reconstruct Indigenous languages, according to the Mohegan Tribe’s website.įielding lived a traditional Mohegan lifestyle and was the last in the tribe to continue living in log-style dwellings, according to the same website. Kascak's list of Indigenous heroes in Connecticut is 20 names long and includes people from every tribe in Connecticut and every era from Colonial times to the 2020s. So it was Trudie who taught me to hold my head up high and be proud." We also share those stories of struggle and survival, and our families. Our people have been here for 12,000 years, and that's something that you don't learn in school," Kascak said. "Part of a storyteller's responsibility is to learn the stories of our people. Kascak cites her aunt, Trudie Lamb Richmond, master storyteller, as the reason she became a tribal story teller. Our heroes are different than other people." "They kept us younger native children, inspired. "There so many people who were influenced by some of these historical figures," Kascak said. As a storyteller, she passes down the stories and traditions of her tribe.
#FIDELIA FIELDING FULL#
Stephanie’s full interview is available on the WNPR website.Connecticut has five tribal nations with unique traditions and stories whose people have changed the history of the state and fought for recognition of their tribes and histories.ĭarlene Kascak is the education director for The Institute for American Indian Studies and is a traditional Native American storyteller for the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation. She will be teaching courses on Mohegan and language revitalization. This prestigious award, part of the Initiative for Faculty Excellence and Diversity, recognizes “approximately 10 exceptional scholars and practitioners who contribute to inclusive excellence.” As part of her fellowship, Stephanie will be joining the Department of Linguistics as a lecturer. Stephanie was awarded the Yale Presidential Visiting Fellowship for the 2017–2018 academic year. She also launched the Mohegan Language Project, a website with learning materials for Mohegan. In 2006, Stephanie published A Modern Mohegan Dictionary. In addition, Stephanie uses reconstructed words from Mohegan’s ancestor language, proto-Algonquian, to deduce what their Mohegan counterparts might have looked like. This is done in part by studying historical documents, which often contain Mohegan words, as well as by studying Mohegan words and phrases borrowed into the varieties of English spoken by modern Mohegans. With support from the Mohegan Tribe, Stephanie’s work focuses on recovering the grammar and vocabulary of the language despite the destruction of Fidelia’s notes. After Fidelia’s death, her notes on Mohegan, the last descriptive records of the language, were destroyed in a fire. Instead, Fidelia and a group of peers learned the language secretly from her grandmother. Not wanting their children to undergo the experience of being denied their native language, Fidelia’s parents did not teach her to speak Mohegan. As Stephanie recounts in her interview, the Mohegan language gradually became extinct as schools forbade Mohegan students from speaking the language. Its last speaker, Fidelia Fielding, was Stephanie’s great-great-great aunt. Mohegan is a Native American language once spoken in Connecticut. Lecturer Stephanie Fielding was featured on Connecticut Public Radio (WNPR) last Monday, where she discussed the Mohegan language with host Lucy Nalpathanchil.