NEWS
RECOGNITION AND RESPECT:
NATIVE AMERICAN LEGACIES AT TUFTS
By Aroha Mackay Content Warning: Anti-Indigenous racism, defilement of burial sites, genocide.
O
n October 11, Tufts celebrated Indigenous Peoples’ Day (IPD) for the fifth time since the university officially renamed the holiday on Tufts academic calendars in 2016. Starting with commemorating IPD, students and faculty have pushed the university to acknowledge its ties to Indigenous communities, advance scholarship on indigeneity, and draw more Indigenous faculty and students. This university has been tied to Indigenous people since its founding. Tufts was built in 1852 on the Massachusett, Nipmuc, and Wampanoag tribes’ territories. The hill Tufts is built on was not an empty plot. While constructing the reservoir in 1879, previously located on the residential quad, excavators found nine Indigenous people’s skeletons and several artifacts in a burial mound. According to the Concise Encyclopedia of Tufts History, “students scavenged the site for items which were used by many to decorate their dorm rooms.” Cyrus Kirby, a senior and founding member of the Indigenous Students’ Organization at Tufts , believes celebrating IPD serves as a reminder of this land and the people that lived on it. “At the root of 6 TUFTS OBSERVER OCTOBER 25, 2021
the issue is that [IPD alongside land acknowledgment] combats erasure. It combats the history of indigenous peoples being forgotten,” Kirby said. For the past seven years, students and faculty have worked to change the policy and narrative around Indigenous issues to ensure that IPD celebrations could take place. In 2014, the Indigenous Peoples’ Day Movement, which had both student and faculty members, pushed Tufts to rename Columbus Day. The Indigenous Peoples’ Day Movement organized several panels, rallies, and petitions leading up to the faculty vote that would determine the name change. Benya Kraus, a sophomore at the time, told the Tufts Daily, “What we’re trying to do is disrupt that narrative that says that we as a society, as an institution, want to celebrate a history of genocide, pillaging, rape and thievery, and instead disrupt that and replace it with the narrative of the resistance and dignity and culture of indigenous peoples.” Initially, faculty voted down the 2014 Tufts Community Union resolution to rename the day. Two years later, in 2016, with the support of over 50 student groups and 1200 signatures on their petition, faculty members voted in favor. Five years later, the 2021 IPD celebration featured four speakers and a performance by The Nettukkusqk Singers, who were present at Tufts’ first IPD event as well. The event was organized by ISOT, and Kirby said that the group was very happy with the event’s success. Kirby noted that he would like to see more support from the administration in the future. “Tufts hasn’t organized an Indigenous Peoples’ Day event—I feel confident in saying—ever,” Kirby said. “Going forward, we would like the administration to institutionalize the celebration, so that [it] doesn’t set the burden of
