CONCORD, MASS.- The Concord Museum is paying tribute to Indigenous people in the Concord area and everywhere with this weekend’s opening of the People of Musketaquid gallery – Musketaquid is a word of antiquity and means Grassy Island suggesting the place now called Concord 12,000 years ago. The focal point of the gallery is Turtle Island, a 600-piece ancient stone tool display in the shape of a Turtle, chronicling Concord’s human history to present day and showcasing the Museum’s extraordinary archeological collection.

Turtle Island was a collaboration between Elizabeth James-Perry, Aquinnah Wampanoag artist, who wrote the text and drew the turtle symbol which inspired the display, and Concord Museum archeologist, Shirley Blancke, who arranged the artifacts to show change through time and frequency from 10,000 years ago to the 1600’s. Turtles are frequently featured in Native art, and to the Wampanoag represent the connection to Mother Earth. The spear points, arrow heads, knives, scrapers, sinkers, and other stone tools pay tribute to the over 500 Native American Nations that call North America Turtle Island.

Adjacent to the display is a video of Jonathan James Perry, Aquinnah Wampanoag, discussing the making of stone tools and demonstrating the making of a haft for an axe. Accompanying this 5-minute video is the hafted stone axe that Jonathan made.

The People of Musketaquid gallery also features fragments of 19th century Native crafts from the Museum collection juxtaposed with contemporary works of art by Wampanoag and Nipmuc artists. An example is a 19th century Micmac quill box that belonged to Henry David Thoreau, paired with Aquinnah Wampanoag artist Elizabeth James-Perry’s hand-woven porcupine quillwork bracelet cuff. Another example is a woven “pre-contact” style birch bark basket and a “post-contact” basket woven from plastics repurposed from Starbucks cups and straws, by Nipmuc artisan Brittney Walley. A tactile rail with four stations includes a Mishoon model, showing the importance of dugout canoes in Native culture, which was made by Darius Combs, Mashpee Wampanoag.

Ramona Peters, Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Historic Preservation Officer, 2018 said, “The town of Concord sits on the border of Wampanoag and Nipmuc tribal home lands. The large rivers that run through and around the town offered a great deal of canoe travel for many tribes trading, visiting, and foraging. The enormous artifact collection at the Concord Museum speaks to the lively occupation through thousands of years.”

Along one wall is a photographic mural by James Higgins of the land now known as Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge in Concord. Great Meadows, abundantly fertile and conveniently near the river, was inhabited continuously for thousands of years.

The People of Musketaquid gallery is one of several new galleries that Concord Museum recently opened and is the first phase in a two year renovation and redesign project.