Essex — The Nehantic Native Nation and the Elnu Abenaki Tribe shared and celebrated their heritage Saturday at the Connecticut River Museum in Essex.

The joint event was conducted by the museum, the Nolumbeka Project, which is a nonprofit organization that seeks to honor Northeastern Tribal Heritage, the tribes and the Essex Historical Society. It was the second year in a row for the “Day of Stories and Songs with the Nehantic and Abenaki.”

The Nehantic and the Abenaki have been in New England for thousands of years. According to the museum, and to Nolumbeka Project President David Brule, who is also a member of the Nehantic Tribal Council, the Nehantics have moved throughout the lower Connecticut River Valley and Pawcatuck Rivers, and the Abenaki are original natives of northern New England.

“The Nehantics are a people whose tribal homelands extended from where we are from in Lyme, out this way not quite into the Quinnipiac territory in New Haven, and all the way over into what’s now known as the state of Rhode Island,” Brule said Saturday.

Brule said the Nolumbeka Project put together a program in 2020 to include Indigenous people from near the Quebec border along the Connecticut River down to Essex with presentations at different locations. It was meant to “counterbalance” a large 400-year anniversary celebration taking place in Plymouth to celebrate the arrival of the Mayflower in 1620, Brule said.

“The Nolumbeka Project, Inc., envisions a Connecticut River Valley where the histories, cultures, and persistence of Northeastern Indigenous Peoples are recognized and celebrated, and where all beings are recognized as sharing a mutual existence in an environment of balance and reciprocity,” the Essex Historical Society wrote in a news release.

Saturday’s event, which started at 10 a.m. and lasted until 4 p.m., drew more than 60 people at any one time, and hundreds of people as the day wore on. A ceremonial fire burned all day. The Humble Spirit Drum Group played in a raucous drum circle for most of the day. Children’s educational activities and crafts were also available to the public.

The event also included historical discussions with author and historian Jim Powers presenting on “What Happened to the Quinnipiac,” offering a “Case Study in Dispossession.”

Later in the afternoon, “Tribal Community Conversations” took place with members of the Nehantic and the Abenaki Tribes sharing personal and communal stories about family lineage in Connecticut and elsewhere.

“We’ve been interested in many years in working with our Indigenous partners, so they can share their stories and extend that heritage and involve that in our education,” Essex Historical Society Executive Director Melissa Josefiak said Saturday. “We enjoy working with the Nolumbeka Project, the Abenaki and the Nehantic to create a program celebrating everything that goes on along the river.”

Jennifer Lee sat in a tepee in the center of the green outside the river museum Saturday afternoon. Surrounded by baskets made of bark she’d made, she described how her native background informed her artwork.

“I grew up unaware of my native heritage, and as an adult, I knew that what I learned in school was not accurate at all. I’ve spent my adult life researching history, meeting other native people, finding out what really happened here,” Lee said. “As I was reading, I found out how the Northeast Woodland Tribe, which was from the Great Lakes and all of New England and beyond, our material culture is bark. It’s what we made our wigwams out of, canoes, baby carriers, storage containers.”

s.spinella@theday.com