Food and Culture: The Wampanoag Tribe of Aquinnah

Food—its capture, cultivation, preparation, and consumption—represents a cultural act. To explore the multi-cultural tables of Martha’s Vineyard, we head to The Gay Head Cliffs in Aquinnah to venture behind the scenes with members of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah). There, we explored their roots through stories, tradition and their relationship with the land.
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Our guide is tribal member Juli Vanderhoop, who builds community via her outdoor wood-fired bread oven at Orange Peel Bakery in Aquinnah. Summertime pizza nights bring Vineyarders and visitors from across the island together to share a slice every week. A storyteller in her right, Juli traveled the world as a commercial pilot and teacher before she returned home to the rolling moors of Aquinnah to open the bakery. Now, she works to pass on the traditions of the past to the next generation. 

Our adventure with Juli began weeks before the tour group arrived. We sat down with to hear the story of the Wampanoag's from the tribe - the good, and the bad. As Juli collected the information from her own life, she came across a box of documents in her house including an old newspaper clipping of the Gay Head Cliffs which looks very different from today's view, along with letters handwritten by her family during significant times of their history. It was powerful to watch the unraveling of a story that hopefully can continue to build into the story of hope and to rebuild the infrastructure of an important culture.

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Photo provided by Juli Vanderhoop

​We needed help to tell the Wampanoag story. Thanks to Juli Vanderhoop, Linda Coomes, Director of the Aquinnah Cultural Center, Buddy Vanderhoop, purveyor of Tomahawk Charters, Daniel, a young member of the Martha's Vineyard Wampanoag Tribe who works for the Natural Resource Department, and Christina Hook,  the tribal elder of the Martha's Vineyard Wampanoag Tribe. 

Here are a few fascinating facts:

1. The Wampanoags have a series of Thanksgiving traditions and holidays that center around harvest times throughout the year:
-The New Year is celebrated during spring planting time.
-Summer is celebrated with Strawberry Thanksgiving, when the first berries ripen.
-In mid-summer, they celebrate the Green Bean Harvest and Green Corn Harvest.
-Cranberry Day or Harvest to celebrate the ripening of the last berry.
-A ceremony is held at the time of the winter solstice

2. Cranberry Day is a particularly important holiday for the Wampanoags, as explained on wampanoagtribe.net, "because it gives us a chance to give thanks to the Creator for this fruit that has always helped our people survive. The cranberries are stored and used throughout the winter to help vary our diet.

In the old days, fishermen who went out to sea for a long time would take cranberries with them, knowing that the vitamin C in cranberries would prevent sickness. In the old days, some of the harvest was sold on the mainland and the money was used to purchase items that weren’t grown on the island, like molasses and sugar.

We have continued to celebrate the Cranberry harvest, remembering the different ways the cranberry has helped us.”

3. In 1654, a separate school for Wampanoag boys and men was built on the island. By 1656, six members of the island’s school were sent to Harvard College to be trained as ministers in the first class for Native Americans. Harvard, not surprisingly, would not admit these students to their current classes of white students. Rather, they segregated them into their own classes in different buildings. Author Geraldine Brooks’s novel, Caleb’s Crossing (2011), is a fictional account inspired by the life of Caleb Cheeshahteaumauk—one of the Wampanoag student converts to go to Harvard.

4. The Wampanoags ancient ancestors have been roaming this land for over 10,000 years. Back then, what we know as Martha’s Vineyard was not yet an island. The ocean was over seventy-five miles to the south and to the east, and landscape and climate resembled something of an arctic tundra. Fast forward five thousand years and the island began to resemble something of what we now experience. (Railton, 1-3).

5. Like all histories of colonization, the story of how the island was settled is complex When Gosnold landed in 1602, over 3,000 Wampanoags inhabited the island, which they called Noëpe—meaning “land between the currents.” The Wampanoags’ early contact with Europeans mainly revolved around trade transactions that generally ended in violence and sometimes even the enslavement of the Wampanoags. By 1700,  the Wampanoag population would diminish to 1,000. According to the 2000 Census, the resident population of the Wampanoags is now 91.

6.  In 1987, The Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) became a federally acknowledged tribe on April 10, 1987 through the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Wampanoags signed a Settlement Act with the federal government that granted them approximately 485 acres of Tribal Lands purchased (160 acres private and approximately 325 acres common lands).

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The tour...

We started at Juli's bakery, Orange Peel Bakery, and rode horse and buggy thanks to our friends at Sonnyside Rides all the way to the cliffs while we listened to the stories about her childhood within the Tribe. If you are on the ferry, you will notice there is a picture of a group from the 1800s traveling up the cliffs by horse and buggy, a traditional way of touring the area that was lost by mode of a car.

Photo cred: Jackie Gorman

The next stop was at the Aquinnah Cultural Center to meet Christina Hook, Tribal elder and Amira and Michael, two of the young tribal members talk about their heritage and modern experiences in the Tribe.

Photo cred: Jackie Gorman

After an amazing collection of history, stories and intuitive foraging, we continued to the cliffs with Juli to have some bites inspired by Wampanoag traditional cuisine and a breather overlooking the beach below and the lighthouse beyond.

Photo cred: Lisa Vanderhoop

Lighthousekeeper, Richard, provided 

Photo cred: Lisa Vanderhoop

Photo by: Lisa Vanderhoop

Video cred: Jackie Gorman

​The tour ended by celebrating the community via Juli's weekly Wednesday Pizza Night. Juli's only request to guests is that they BYOB and BYOT (Bring your own topping). Jackie Gorman, our project manager, designed the pizza toppings seen below: Arugula Pesto with caramelized onions, Kale with homemade ricotta and radishes, Morning Glory Farm sausage with red onion and balsamic mushrooms, and a traditional Margherita pizza.

Photo cred: Jackie Gorman

​The tour ended with a stop in from local, and famed charter boatsman and storyteller, Buddy Vanderhoop. We visited old friends and made new along this adventure. It was just another Farm. Field. Sea. - experiencing how dynamic an mysterious this island can be, and how cool it is to explore with locals.

Photo cred: Lisa Vanderhoop