Join us for this Native foodways event where two Indigenous women leaders share their knowledge and experiences related to food sovereignty and traditional dietary practices. This unique event brings the Indigenous past to the plate, fostering a deeper understanding of the rich culinary traditions that have sustained communities for generations. Sample Virginia’s culturally significant dishes, bring and share seeds, and participate in fun food activities from preparation and connection to exploring the sacredness of food as a source of healing and heritage.

Victoria Persinger Ferguson is an enrolled citizen of the Monacan Indian Nation of Virginia and is a graduate of Marshall University. Victoria has a background in researching science methodologies to support historical information.  She has spent 30 years seeking first-person documentation and archaeological information to help explain and support theories on the daily living habits of the Eastern Siouan populations up through the early European colonization period.  She has written and presented work at Virginia Tech, Washington and Lee, Sweet Briar College, James Madison University, Mary Baldwin, and various archaeological conferences.  She currently serves as the Program Director for Historic Solitude/Fraction on the campus of Virginia Tech.

René Locklear White, as an active member of her Lumbee Tribe, retired Air Force Lt. Col., and Virginia resident, she has dedicated her life to promoting Indigenous culture and wellness. René earned a Masters in Diplomacy and three Bachelors in Mathematics, Fine Art, and American Indian Studies from her tribal University of N.C. at Pembroke. She is co-founder of the Native American non-profit Sanctuary on the Trail. Through this 501(c)3, she and her husband Chris help leaders first, bring recognition to the contributions of Indigenous Peoples to reduce suffering in the world. She has written and presented food sovereignty work in Virginia, D.C., North Carolina, West Virginia, Minnesota, and South Dakota. As an Indigenous chef, she produced a short film, “Mapping America’s Native Food Trail” and NativeFoodTrail.org. 

These remarkable women will highlight the cultural significance of Native foods, illustrating how these practices connect us to our heritage and promote sustainable ways of nourishment that are vital not only for individual healing but also for the collective well-being of our communities. 

How does the varied topography of the Appalachian region and each individual Tribe’s culture determine which kinds of foods can help us heal?

Do the Tribes living in Appalachia mountains have pawpaw fruits, mushrooms, wild onions, berries, and black walnuts?

Do the Tribes living in the Appalachia deep valleys enjoy ramps, sunchokes, plums, fiddleheads, cherries, and purple dead-nettle?

Do the Tribes near Appalachia river systems still depend on the local fish and wildlife as food sources? Do they also depend on elderberry, dandelions, goldenseal, chickweed, and chicory?

What Native Appalachia foods are good for nutrition and wellness to include: wild game, root crops, acorns, persimmon, hickory nuts, chestnuts, blueberries, baby pinecones, sunflowers, violets, sumac, garlic mustard, grain-bearing grasses, and coveted wild ginseng? 

We will keep you posted on what we discover.

This summit marks a shift from Resilience to Revolution to Restoration. We often celebrate the truly incredible resilience of our Lakota Oyate and of Indigenous peoples of all nations, but we are not stuck in resilience. We are moving towards something more forward-thinking. Revolution is part of our identity. We come from a long line of warriors, healers and leaders who lived and died to ensure that we would still be here all these generations later, singing our songs and speaking our language. This summit is part of us: it is an expression of our responsibility to fight for freedom and find our Liberation.

​#Liberation #Restoration #LiberationSummit #YouAreOnLakotaLand

Any time I ask Timm, my husband, if he wants nikipiaq for supper, he says yes. On a recent Sunday, the northeast wind blew cold Arctic air against our home, the woodstove crackled steady all day, and I wanted Native food. The entire spread, shared with my Dad and my brother’s family, is a meal made up of fare gathered, plucked or hunted throughout the year, and harvested for nights like this. 
Timm was at the kitchen island, cutting clean the surface of a block of beluga maktak the size of his hand. We saw the motion-sensing light turn on outside. It was Dad showing up for supper, his footsteps crunching loud on the snow on the hollow deck. Our son, Henning, promptly squealed and ran to hide. The door opened. ​

​My brother, Fred Jay, and his wife, Yanni, took off their boots and jackets, then walked into the kitchen carrying a plastic food storage container full of bowhead maktak and a gallon-sized Ziploc bag of dried pink salmon.
In Unalakleet, we aren’t bowhead whale hunters, as the large whales do not migrate through the shallow ocean waters of the Norton Sound. But my brother is adept at trading with acquaintances on St. Lawrence Island, where they have long traditions of hunting the 60-foot whales, and he always seems to have the maktak in his freezer — maktak valued both because of our own inability to harvest the rich food and for its mild flavor. He trades dried pink salmon for the prize. 
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Two days later, our family boated back down to Shorty Cove to harvest black trash bags full of eggs the herring had spawned since the last time we were there, translucent dots thickly coating the green fingers of seaweed that clung to the rock shore. The eggs pop between your teeth like Pop Rocks candy, and the seaweed embedded inside the thick layers of eggs adds flavor and rich nutrients. The night we had my family over for dinner, offering both spawned-on-seaweed and popped herring eggs felt like indulgent dining, like ordering both French fries and onion rings with a burger.  
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Location:
James A. Thomas Hall
University of N.C. at Pembroke
333 Braves Drive
Pembroke, NC 28372

“Each year the Lumbee Film Festival gets better and better. I am so excited about this year’s lineup of short and feature films. Some are traditional and some have us thinking out of the box.  Some are local and some are far away. Just like in real life. Something for everyone. Come join us. You will be glad you did,” – Kim Pevia, Festival Director

The Lumbee Film Festival is a partnership between the Lumbee Tribe of NC and the Cucalorus Film Foundation.

For questions about the Lumbee Film Festival, email dan@cucalorus.org or kim@kimpevia.org.

​5th Annual Lumbee Film Festival
Pembroke, N.C.
July 6-8, 2023​

National Conference for Undergraduate Research (NCUR)
University of Wisconsin-EAU Claire, WI
April 13-15, 2023

2023 UNCP Pembroke Undergraduate Research and​ Creativity Center (PURC) Symposium
Pembroke, N.C.
April 12, 2023
​
18th Annual Southeastern Native Studies Conference
Pembroke, N.C.
​March 30-31, 2023

Archaeologists in Israel have discovered evidence of what may be the first-ever baked fish supper. After analyzing the remains of an enormous extinct carp, the study authors concluded that the animal was carefully cooked at a low-to-moderate heat 780,000 years ago, pushing back the earliest use of fire to prepare food by over 600,000 years.
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Mastery of fire is seen as a major milestone in human evolution as it allowed our ancient ancestors to cook and digest food more easily, leaving more energy available for cognitive development. According to the study authors, cooked fish in particular may have facilitated brain growth and sharper intellect in extinct hominid species, laying the groundwork for our present acumen and culinary skills.
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“Although fish can be eaten raw, cooked fish are more nutritious, safer to eat, easier to digest and, when cooked by steaming or baking (but not grilling), they retain their [docosahexaenoic acid] and eicosapentaenoic acid contents,” they write. “When fish cooking first began, however, is still unknown and there is no consensus as to when hominins first developed the ability to control fire and cook.”

While some evidence exists to suggest that Homo erectus may have figured out how to use fire by 1.7 million years ago, it’s unclear if they utilized it for food preparation. Until now, the earliest direct evidence for cooking fires had been attributed to ancient communities of Neanderthals and modern humans some 170,000 years ago.

However, carp teeth discovered in a layer of sediment dated to 780,000 years ago at the Gesher Benot Ya'aqov (GBY) archaeological site suggest that earlier hominid species were already baking their fish in the more distant past. Using X-ray powder diffraction to analyze the size and structure of enamel crystals within these teeth, the researchers determined that they had been cooked at a controlled temperature of less than 500°C (932°F).

“Identification of the cooking method practiced by the GBY inhabitants is indeed a challenge, especially since no traces of cooking apparatus have been preserved at the site,” write the study authors. “Nonetheless, ethnographic and experimental studies indicate that fish cooking requires production of low–moderate heat (300–500°C [572–932°F]), while preventing fast cooling or direct burning. One possibility, therefore, is that the GBY inhabitants used some kind of earth oven that maintained a temperature below 500°C to cook their fish.”

Commenting on these findings in a statement, study authors Dr Irit Zohar and Dr Marion Prevost explained that “the large quantity of fish remains found at the site proves their frequent consumption by early humans, who developed special cooking techniques.” 

“These new findings demonstrate not only the importance of freshwater habitats and the fish they contained for the sustenance of prehistoric man, but also illustrate prehistoric humans' ability to control fire in order to cook food, and their understanding the benefits of cooking fish before eating it."

The study is published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.

By Amanda Fiegl, Smithsonian Magazine

Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian
Mitsitam Native Foods Café
4th St. & Independence Ave. SW
Washington, D.C.
http://www.mitsitamcafe.com/