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Current News Releases
PRESS RELEASE: June 2006
Contact: Teresa Mitchell, Peggy Morgia, Seaway Trail Discovery Center,
315-646-1000
Seaway Trail Discovery Center Hosts First Appearance of New Akwesasne
Exhibit
“We Are From Akwesasne,” a new interactive traveling exhibit of art,
artifacts, songs, stories, beliefs, and craftsmanship, will make its
first appearance at the Seaway Trail Discovery Center in Sackets Harbor
from April 15 through July 4. Exhibit project director and Akwesasne
Museum program coordinator Sue Ellen Herne will make special
presentations about the exhibit at the Seaway Trail Discovery Center at
11 am on April 21 and June 4.
Akwesasne (AH kwey ZAH sney) is the Mohawk word for “the land where the
partridge drums.”
The Mohawk Nation is one of the six nations of the Iroquois Confederacy.
The new exhibit offers a visual, listening and hands-on experience of
the Akwesasne artistic and cultural heritage. Visitors to the Seaway
Trail Discovery Center will hear singing in both Mohawk and English, and
will have the opportunity to play a traditional Mohawk horn rattle.
Rattle and drum making, basketry, carving, beadwork, traditional sewing,
and making lacrosse sticks are all part of Mohawk life there, past and
present.
“The baskets on display include work by Akwesasne’s most famous basket
maker, the late Mary Kawennotakie Adams, and by our finest utility
basket maker, Henry Atsienhannone Arquette,” says Herne.
The principal advisors for creating the new exhibit were youth from
Akwesasne. Parents, grandparents, elders residing at the Iahkhihsohtha (YUKKY
soot tah - “our grandparents) Home for the Aged, artists and many others
contributed to the exhibit’s development.
“We are pleased to be the first host for this traveling showcase of the
Native American culture and heritage unique to the eastern end of the
Seaway Trail region,” Seaway Trail, Inc. Executive Director Teresa
Mitchell says.
The cultural heritage of the 518-mile Seaway Trail scenic byway region
along the St. Lawrence River, Lake Ontario, Niagara River and Lake Erie
was one of six intrinsic qualities that helped make the Seaway Trail one
of the first federally-designated America’s Byways in 1996.
The Sweetgrass Foundation has provided funding for the Seaway Trail
Discovery Center to host the “We Are from Akwesasne” exhibit. A 6-7:30
pm opening reception and preview – free for Seaway Trail Foundation
members - will be held Friday, April 14. The exhibit will be on display
from Saturday, April 15 10 am to 5 pm Tuesday-Saturday to April 29, and
daily 10-5 May 2 through July 4. The Seaway Trail Discovery Center and
Gift Shop, open year-round, is located at Ray and West Main Streets in
Sackets Harbor. For more information, go online to www.seawaytrail.com
or call 315-646-1000.
