On Saturday, we attended the 19th annual Native American Thanks Giving Celebration at the Old Indian Meetinghouse in Mashpee. This year’s celebration was in honor of the late June “Green Fire Lightning Woman” Tiexeira, a revered elder and matriarch of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe.

The displays of love, perseverance and reverence for ancestors and their ancient ways in the meetinghouse that morning managed to conquer the gray, chilly rain falling outside its centuries-old walls. All you could feel in that meetinghouse was love, warmth and community.

Three generations of women raised by Ma June, as she was affectionately known, spoke at the celebration—one of her daughters, granddaughters and great-granddaughters. Each of their speeches was both beautiful and heart-wrenchingly sad, the way

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