The second United Lenape/Lunáapeew Nations Pow Wow will take place on Saturday, Sept. 13 and Sunday, Sept. 14 at the LeFrak Center at Lakeside in Prospect Park.
Join the nonprofit Prospect Park Alliance, Éenda-Lŭnaapeewáhkiing Collective, which brings together Lunáapeew/Lenape communities who have been displaced across Turtle Island (North America) and American Indian Community House, which promotes the well-being and visibility of the American Indian community, for a two-day public event that includes family friendly fun, culture, art and learning with Indigenous dancers, drummers, and artisan craft and food vendors.
Pow Wows are gatherings where Lenape/Lunáapeew and neighboring Indigenous nations socialize and celebrate life. Prospect Park hosted formal Pow Wows from 1916 to 1972. Reviving this tradition, the Lenape/Lunáapeew will celebrate their culture in their homelands and offers Brooklynites of all backgrounds the chance to enjoy the drumming, dancing, singing, art, crafts and foods of the original stewards of this land.
Lunáapeew/Lenape means human beings or, more specifically, "the ones who came from thought," and is the name of the indigenous peoples whose ancestral homelands encompassed what is today Brooklyn and the surrounding region. Éenda-Lŭnaapeewáhkiing, "the land of the Lunáapeew," holds the stories of a civilization rich with a deep understanding of the delicate balance and mutual relationships necessary to nurture and sustain a healthy world.
The Pow Wow is part of the ReImagine Lefferts initiative, which is transforming the Lefferts Historic House museum to explore the lives, resistance and resilience of the Indigenous people of Lenapehoking, whose unceded ancestral lands the park and house rests upon, and Africans who were enslaved by the Lefferts family.
Currently on view at Lefferts is Eelunaapéewi Ehaptoonáakanal: Voices of Lunáapeew/Lenape, an exhibit celebrating 400 years of Indigenous resilience. Featuring video interviews with Lunáapeew/Lenape knowledge-keepers and culture bearers about their relationships to their ancestral homelands.
The celebration takes place between 12:00pm and 6:00pm on both days. RSVP here.
