PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by George Stonefish, Founder of Eenda-Lunaapeewahkiing Collective
2:08:05
·
11 min
George Stonefish, founder of the Eenda-Lunaapeewahkiing Collective, provided testimony on Lenape history, culture, and initiatives in New York City. He discussed the formation of the Lenapehokam Circle, recent cultural events, and the importance of inclusivity among indigenous groups.
- Highlighted the need for embracing all Lenape groups, including those not federally recognized
- Described plans for using virtual reality to teach Lenape language and history
- Emphasized the importance of traditional structures like the big house for ceremonies and cultural preservation
George Stonefish
2:08:05
My name is George Stonefish.
2:08:08
I am the cousin of Brent Stonefish, and I am the individual who started, the Lenapehokam Circle.
2:08:20
Basically, it was started as a consequence of one of my, cohorts, Jack Chen, who was at that time with NYU and, running their Asian program, but he was always sympathetic to the Lenape.
2:08:35
And because, NYU refused to create any Lenape programs or or or even bring in Lenape or native students in general, he would sponsor these events for us.
2:08:49
And through that relationship, he was called to testify at the, Landmarks Commission about the Confederate flags and all that.
2:08:59
And they were talking about what they can do for the Lenape, and he spoke up and said, well, how can you make decisions?
2:09:05
Because they suggested giving us a statue and that the statues of Christopher Columbus could not be removed in New York because there's too many Italians.
2:09:15
So, I mean, during the time the time of this, commission meeting, he spoke up
UNKNOWN
2:09:20
and says, how can you say you're gonna give
George Stonefish
2:09:22
him a statue?
2:09:23
There's no Lenape here.
2:09:25
How do you
UNKNOWN
2:09:25
know they even want one?
George Stonefish
2:09:27
So he spoke up on our behalf.
2:09:28
And to make a long story short, Darren Walker was the cochairman of the the commission, and he approached him and says, you know, you got a lot of ideas about the Lenape.
2:09:39
He says, why don't you write me a letter, and I'll give you a grant?
2:09:41
So he calls me up after he leaves.
2:09:43
He says, George, blah blah blah letter.
2:09:45
I says, well, write the letter.
2:09:47
So he wrote the letter.
2:09:48
Within two and a half months, we got a $250,000 grant from the Ford Foundation for Lenape.
2:09:53
Then he calls me up, says, well, what
UNKNOWN
2:09:55
am I gonna do now?
2:09:56
We got this money.
2:09:57
What are we gonna I says,
George Stonefish
2:09:57
we're gonna go and call a chief because as a Lenape individual my name is George Stonefish.
2:10:03
I'm turtle clan member.
2:10:05
I'm a Lenape member.
2:10:06
And as was stated with Brent, my mother was one of the founding members of the American Indian Community House's board.
2:10:12
I've been on the board of directors for a great many years.
2:10:15
I just got off.
2:10:16
Thank god.
2:10:18
And now I have a little bit more freedom to do things.
2:10:21
The the the the bottom line is, though, it's you know, from our things, we put together this craft fair in in, Prospect Park this past weekend.
2:10:31
Phenomenal turnout.
2:10:33
The thing is, though it was a Lenape based craft fair, we invited members of non Lenape native groups to participate in it.
2:10:45
Because you have to understand when you're talking about traditional Lenape viewpoints, we always integrated and and embraced our brethren, the Canarsie, the Shinnecock, the Pousehmatuc, the Ramapo, the, the up in Connecticut.
2:11:05
They're all allies of the Lenape community.
2:11:08
The Lenape nation went from just below, upstate New York over by, our our our capital over there, all the way down to the state of Delaware.
2:11:20
This is all of our territory, but we were separated by language, different languages.
2:11:26
Up here in the New York area were Muncie speakers.
2:11:30
When you go down south towards towards Jersey, towards the border with, Delaware and so forth, They're UNAMI.
2:11:38
They're a different branch of Lenape that aren't from this area.
2:11:43
And although I I appreciate what the, Lenape Center has been doing in recent years, I take, Ambiance.
2:11:53
I take, exception with the fact that they do not work with the native organizations in New York that come from all over Turtle Island.
2:12:04
They're our brothers.
2:12:05
We should embrace them hand in hand and not try to isolate them and separate them from performing in spaces and that type of thing here, which is unacceptable.
2:12:15
And the thing is what we're trying to do is, you know, they they kept mentioning federally recognized tribes.
2:12:23
I hate to say this, but, the time of the great white father telling us who are Lenape and who are not are over.
2:12:33
We have different Lenape groups all up and down the East Coast who refused to be removed to the state of Oklahoma and stayed back, who hid in the in the mountains, in the swamps, and remained as constructive territories.
2:12:52
With our organization, we are embracing all of them.
2:12:56
I mean, we have a requirement of for Lenape's to be involved with us, and that is they have a tribal council, they have a chief, they have a constitution, they have a membership policy, and that they're basically functioning as a Lenape community.
2:13:15
Now if they have all of these things in place, we will accept them to our Lenapehokam or organization because both me and Brent determined at the beginning when I brought him in as a cochair for this organization that we did not provide we did not have the wherewithal to determine who would was and was not LA NAEP, but their history would.
2:13:41
So when they're accepted to the organization and they make it known and we go and make a presentation to their tribal council, to their chiefs, and to their community, and we get to an agreement where we're accepting, where they understand that no politics are allowed with this organization.
2:13:58
Unacceptable.
2:13:58
I will kick them out because we don't have time for politics.
2:14:02
We're coming together to create a a a voice of the Lenape people that goes throughout Turtle Island, which is what we call the United States of America and Canada and and New Mexico or Mexico.
2:14:16
If you look at it, it's a turtle.
2:14:19
And so we recognize that before the arrival of the Dutch.
2:14:23
Now a lot of things you know, we're looking at this as a full round thing.
2:14:28
I mean, we're not just talking about doing, craft fairs.
2:14:33
And then I did the big powwow at the Park Avenue armory, in 18, and I'll be doing another one this year.
2:14:41
But the fact of the matter is we do those things as an educational tool to let non Indians and also our Indian communities have some place to celebrate and come together whether they're in Lenape or not.
2:14:54
Because at the craft fair, we had people from New Mexico, from from, Navajos in New Mexico, from up in Canada.
2:15:02
We had them from all over along with the different Lenape groups because this is the way that we do business.
2:15:09
I'm an old time person who's been a powwower and when I could walk, I was a championship fancy dancer.
2:15:16
And on the other hand, I'm a born and bred New Yorker.
2:15:20
I went to PS 6.
2:15:22
I went to Wagner Junior High School.
2:15:25
I went to the Bronx High School of Science, and I went to Syracuse University.
2:15:31
However, every summertime I spent up in Canada, up on Ravenstown and up on the other territories, up there learning tradition and so forth.
2:15:40
So, I mean, I've had that duality.
2:15:43
And the reason why I wanted this organization in the first place because as a New Yorker, you ask anybody who were the Indians that met the Dutch, and they can never tell you that they were either the Delaware, which is the same thing this is the white person way of saying Lenape.
2:16:02
So but they'd have no knowledge of that.
2:16:05
And I said I wanted to bring back all of the histories of dispossession because we were all chased from this area except for those 2, groups that went down to Oklahoma.
2:16:16
The rest of us were all massacred and and chased chased all the way into Canada, chased into Wisconsin, chased into, Jersey, and we still remain.
2:16:26
But because we're not federally recognized, people have a tendency of not looking at we are traditional people.
2:16:34
And I'll tell you one thing.
2:16:36
The Nanticoke in Southern Jersey, they have the only big house of all the Lenape nations throughout Turtle Island.
2:16:46
And a big house is, similar to the long house of the Confederacy.
2:16:51
It's where we hold our traditions and our our our ceremonies.
2:16:55
And we hold ceremonies there now.
2:16:59
And, you know, the Oklahomas, when they went to Oklahoma, they passed tribal resolutions that they will not embrace the longhouse or the big house again.
2:17:08
So they're not involved in tradition.
2:17:10
They know nothing about tradition, let alone language.
2:17:13
We have the only language speaker in our territory and we're promoting that.
2:17:18
We're going to use virtual reality to teach our young, to teach language to our other our other people.
2:17:24
And with our organization, these are the types of things that we have that we're working on, where we're gonna set up virtual reality studios on all of the Lenape communities to create the histories of dispossession, to do whatever the tribal councils want them to do because we believe that we're not gonna make those decisions.
2:17:44
It's the chiefs and the clan mothers of our communities that will determine what we wanna do.
2:17:51
And when coming to New York City, this is our homeland.
2:17:55
So I wanna tell you, as your landlord, I welcome you.
Carlina Rivera
2:18:01
Thank you.
2:18:01
Thank you very much.
George Stonefish
2:18:03
Thank you.
2:18:04
I'm basically done.
2:18:05
I wanna just touch on those areas so that you understand that.
2:18:08
K.
Carlina Rivera
2:18:08
Thank you.
George Stonefish
2:18:09
But I wanna end with one thing.
2:18:11
For what?
2:18:13
Just calm down.
Carlina Rivera
2:18:15
He's gonna wrap it up right now.
UNKNOWN
2:18:17
I want
George Stonefish
2:18:17
to, I want to sing you an honor song in celebration of all that you're doing here for day for indigenous communities.
2:19:07
Thank you very much for all that you're doing for us.
2:19:10
And, hopefully, you'll find us some money.
Maeve Montalvo
2:19:14
I'm done.
Jason Baumann
2:19:14
Thank you.
Carlina Rivera
2:19:15
Thank you very much.
George Stonefish
2:19:16
That's why they don't let me talk too often.
