Mashantucket ― Inside a 1,500-pound, 16-foot portion of partly hollowed-out tree, a fire smoldered, blackening the tree and filling the air with smoke.

Nearby, Mashpee Wampanoag Cultural Historian Darius Coombs had an important job: to keep a close eye on the flames and douse them with water if they got too big. Otherwise, six days of labor on this four-person mishoon, or canoe, would go to waste.

“Don’t walk away from it,” Coombs said laughing. “And don’t turn your head for too long.”

Indigenous tribes who could access the water, including the Mashantucket Pequot tribe, historically used similar canoes for traveling, fishing, trading, diplomacy and socializing, Coombs said.

The canoe building was one of many displays of Indigenous culture that could be found Sunday during the second day of the Mashantuckets’ annual Schemitzun Feast of Green Corn and Dance festival, which celebrates harvest tradition. The festival was open to tribal members and the general public.

“In this region, there’s the Washington County fair, there’s the North Stonington Fair, those are all surrounding harvest traditionally and the celebration of a good harvest,” Nakai Northup, head of education at the The Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center, said Sunday.

“That’s exactly what this traditionally was, a three-day feast where we’re celebrating the harvest of green corn,” Northup added.

On the second day of celebration, over 50 tribes from all over North America, as far away as Alaska and even New Zealand, gathered to celebrate the harvest season. Tribal members in attendance included roughly 250 dancers, all of whom gathered at noon to dance in the grand entry event, while seven indigenous drum groups supplied the background music.

“It’s an honor to be the host community and have people travel here to our homelands and show them a good time, teach them some of our ways but also have that exchange and learn their ways as well,” Northup said. “It’s something we’re really proud of here in Mashantucket.”

Chief Lance Young of the Nemasket tribe is someone who has been coming to Schemitzun since the Mashantucket Pequot tribe first began hosting it in the 1990s, he estimated. His tribe, the Nemaskets, are from the Fall River and New Bedford area of Massachusetts.

“I think it’s a great sharing and it’s a strengthening because we might have our different traditions, but we all underneath have the same beliefs,” Young said.

Those beliefs, Young said, are a respect for earth, the environment, and all living creatures.

“And also, traditionally powwow was a celebration of the harvest and, you know, thanking the ancestors and the gods for the bounty that we would go into the winter with. So to come together and have that unity is a great thing,” Young said.

Meanwhile, the celebration also featured many clothing, craft and food vendors.

At a booth for the Native Art Market, Heather Tracy and her family, who are members of the Navajo Tribe in Arizona, sold turquoise jewelry, knives and dream catchers. Since the summer began, Tracy’s family has been on the powwow trail. They started in the west and then met up with her brother in Minnesota and drove to Mashantucket.

“We have the largest reservation with the largest population of Indigenous people,” Tracy said, referring to the Navajo Nation. The Navajo Nation stretches into the states of Utah, Arizona and New Mexico and covers over 27,000 square miles.

One difference between Navajo culture and eastern tribes like the Mashantuckets, Tracy said, is their craft materials. Eastern tribes frequently use white and purple shells, known as wampum, to make crafts, while Navajo use a lot of turquoise.

Tracy’s family market is the first Indigenous-owned shop in the Old Town section of Scottsdale, Ariz. It’s a co-op, she said, so the artists get back the profits for their crafts.

“Native arts and crafts is a billion-dollar industry that natives see less than one percent of, Tracy said. ”So our whole mission is just to create safe spaces for natives to sell directly to the public.“

Tracy said that she and her family have sent more than $2.5 million to native artisans and their families across the country in the two years that they’ve been in Scottsdale.

d.drainville@theday.com