Today is Monday, Oct. 12. Massachusetts officially calls it Columbus Day. Boston calls it Indigenous Peoples' Day. Marblehead adopted Indigenous Peoples' Day locally. Depending on which town line you're standing on, it's one holiday or the other.
My take: honor both. On Friday I wrote that Columbus had nerve, and Nanepashemet was already here. Both of those things are true. You can respect a man who sailed off the edge of the known map, and also respect the people who were already fishing these coves, planting these fields and naming these hills. Nanepashemet was the sachem of the people who lived along this shore, from the Mystic River to Salem and Marblehead. That's local history, not a culture war.
Where to go today
The Peabody Essex Museum in Salem has free admission for everyone today, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. (161 Essex Street).
- Film: We Still Live Here: Âs Nutayuneân, 11:30 a.m. and 1 p.m., Morse Auditorium (84 minutes). Anne Makepeace's documentary follows Jessie Little Doe Baird (Mashpee Wampanoag), who won a MacArthur award in 2010 for bringing the Wampanoag language back after it went silent for more than a century.
- Artist presentation with Elizabeth James-Perry (Aquinnah Wampanoag), noon to 1:30 p.m., Main Atrium. She's a 2023 NEA Heritage award winner known for wampum shell carving. Her work is also on display in the museum's On This Ground exhibit.
A language almost lost, spoken again on the same ground. That's worth a Monday afternoon, whichever name you put on the day.
Honor both. Then go see it for yourself.
— John Nestor
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