Skip to main content
  • Login
  • About
  • Dawnland Voices Magazine
Indigenous New England Digital Collections
Search using this query type:

Search only these record types:




Advanced Search (Items only)

  • Home
  • Items
  • Tribal Nations
  • Exhibits
  • Map
  • Search

  

Indigenous Resources Collaborative

"The Origin of the Fireball Game" (1988/89) by Ramona Peters

"Origin of the Fireball Game" by Ramona Peters

"The Eagles and the Crows" (c. 1972) by Wamsutta (Frank James)

"The Eagles and the Crows" by Wamsutta (Frank James)

The Four Grandmothers Indigenous Resources Collaborative (IRC) is a group of museum and education professionals--Joan Avant (Mashpee Wampanoag), Judy Battat, Linda Coombs (Aquinnah Wampanoag), and Joan Lester--who have worked together for over four decades to increase understanding and awareness of Native people in New England, always with an emphasis on continued and contemporary indigenous presence. Individually, and in various combinations through the years, they have caused significant changes in important groups and institutions (museums, universities, the museum field, professional development for educators), developing Indigenous perspectives and knowledge as the foundation for the teaching and interpretation that took place. 

In addition to their own writings and collections, they retain a vast collection of documents from their respectives times working with the Boston Children's Museum and Plimoth Plantation's Wampanoag Indian Program, two major institutions that significantly reduced or eliminated their Native programming.  Linda Coombs convened the IRC to ensure that her and her colleagues' years of work continue to be sustained.  

The newly-founded IRC seeks (a) to house and curate this archive and (b) to make these materials available to others who share the goals of properly relating regional Native history, correcting misconceptions and challenging stereotypes. In using the term “collaborative,” the IRC wants to emphasize that this work requires the efforts of both Native and non-Native people.  

This exhibit shows just a tiny sampling of the kinds of Native writing included in the IRC archives. For more information, visit their webpage.

Joan Tavares Avant

Bio of Joan Avant

"Mashpee's Identity" by Joan Tavares Avant

"Mashpee's Identity"

"An Indian Side of the Christopher Columbus Story" by Joan Tavares Avant

"An Indian Side of the Columbus Story"

"Welcome to Mashpee" by Joan Tavares Avant

"Welcome to Mashpee"

Linda Coombs

Bio of Linda Coombs

"Maushop Brings His People Home" (2003) by Linda Coombs

"Maushop Brings His People Home"

← Tomaquag Museum
Indigenous Resources Collaborative

Tribal Archives: Untold Histories of Activism and Survival

  • Passamaquoddy Cultural Heritage Museum
  • Tomaquag Museum
  • Indigenous Resources Collaborative

Latest Tweets



Tweets by @DawnlandVoices

This site is a companion to Dawnland Voices: Indigenous Writings from New England, edited by Siobhan Senier with 11 tribal editors and published in 2014 by the University of Nebraska Press.

Both the anthology and this website showcase the wide variety of literature produced by Native people from this region.

Tribal archives and contemporary authors are contributing individual items from their collections: letters, political petitions, stories, and photographs. You can explore these items on a map of the area, browse them according to the tribal nations represented here, or visit some of our exhibits.  You can read new writing in our online magazine, Dawnland Voices 2.0.

Find Us on Facebook


Dawnland Voices: Indigenous Writing in New England
  • Home
  • About
  • Terms
  • Privacy
Copyright  Dawn Land Voices.  All rights reserved. Design and Hosting by Sly Media Networks, LLC