Residency 2022 – 2023 – Pamela A. Ellis and Deborah Spears Moorehead Join Larry Spotted Crow Mann as the Bunker Hill Community College's 2022-2023 Artist and Scholars in Residence
Pamela A. Ellis, Esq.
An enrolled member of the Nipmuc Tribe, Ellis has served as a tribal council member to the Hassanamisco Nipmuc Indian Council, the Nipmuc Nation Tribal Council, and the Natick Nipmuc Indian Council where she also served as Tribal Historian and Genealogist. For over 20 years Ellis served as the primary organizer for the Deer Island Memorial and Sacred Paddle, an annual Event that commemorates the removal and internment of Nipmuc and other Native peoples from South Natick in October 1675 during the resistance known as King Philip’s War. A traditional singer and dancer, she is a founder of and performer with the Nettukkusqk Singers (My Sisters Singers), a group of southern New England Native women dedicated to the rematriation and reclamation of women’s drumming and singing traditions. Ellis currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Native Land Conservancy, the first Native-run land conservation group east of the Mississippi and the Clearing Brook, LLC, an intertribal land rematriation, food sovereignty, and Indigenous agriculture project. Ellis currently works as the Principal/Owner of Chágwas Cultural Resource Consulting, LLC. A graduate of Dartmouth College, she holds a JD and Certificate in Federal Indian Law from the Arizona State University College of Law where she was designated a Yates Fellow. She is retired from the practice of law in Massachusetts and was previously admitted to practice before the Mohegan Indian Nation.
Deborah Spears Moorehead
Deborah Spears Moorehead is an internationally known fine artist, painter, and sculptor from the Seaconke Pokanoket Wampanoag Tribal Nation. Currently, she is the 2023-2024 Distinguished Artist Scholar in Residence at Bunker Hill Community College in sponsorship with the Mary L. Fifield Art Gallery. She earned her Master of Arts in Cultural Sustainability and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting and Sculpture. Spears Moorehead is the owner and director of Turtle Island Native American Tourism Company, Painted Arrow Studio, and Talking Water Productions, where she creates and teaches art. Through her art, cultural tourism and contributions as a Native American Elder, consultant, and historian, Spears Moorehead aims to educate, assert, promote, value, and validate the identity of the past, present, and further generations of the Eastern Woodland Tribal Nations. She is a direct descendant of the Pokanoket Wampanoag Supreme Chief Sachem Massasoit, who befriended and saved the lives of Pilgrims in 1620. She has authored two books, Finding Balance: The Oral and Written History and Genealogy of Massasoit’s People and Four Directions at Weybossett Crossings. She co-founded the Nettukkusqk Singers (My Sisters Singers), a women’s learning and teaching music performing group. Spears Moorehead is the recipient of numerous commissions and awards. Her work has been commissioned and displayed in Bunker Hill Community College’s Mary L. Fifield Art Gallery, the Mashantucket Pequot Museum, the National Museum of the American Indian, and The Quinnipiac Dawn-land Museum of Gilford, Connecticut, which recently procured two of her murals as part of their permanent collection, and a collaborative piece was procured by New England Historic Society for the Casey Farm Museum. Spears Moorehead was Brown University‘s John Nicholas Brown Nightingale-House Artist in Residency and awarded a Fitts Family Grant. In 2015, the Rhode Island State Council for the Arts honored Moorehead with a Community Leadership Award for her pioneering work in creating the “first” State Native American Art Exhibit. Two years later, she was the winner of the National Congress of American Indian Art Contest. Also, Spears Moorehead was honored by The Tomaquaug Museum with a Princess Redwing Arts Award in 2020. She was also the winner of the Youth Mural Art Contest from the Smithsonian Institute.
Larry Spotted Crow Mann
Larry Spotted Crow Mann is Bunker Hill Community College's 2021-2022 Artist and Scholar in Residence. Mann's residency includes a variety of Native American programming. On September 2, 2021, President Eddinger welcomed Larry Spotted Crow Mann at the College's Convocation. On October 1, Mann hosted an in-person retreat for faculty at the Ohketeau Culture Center to learn about Native American culture. Fifteen faculty fellows are consulting with Mann on a year-long project that embeds Native American culture and history into the curriculum. As part of the College's Compelling Conversation's series, on October 5, Mann led an engaging talk focused on the spiritual, cultural, and social significance of 'Place and the Art of Story' on the Indigenous peoples of New England.
Mann will also provide virtual professional development workshops about Native American history, culture, and storytelling. He will develop a short-documentary film about the history and banishment of the Nipmuc people on Deer Island. Mann will facilitate new partnerships among BHCC and Native Americans within the Massachusetts area. He will consult on a culminating gallery exhibit on campus in the Mary L. Fifield Art Gallery and coordinate a Native American cultural component at BHCC's graduation ceremony.
As part of his residency, Mann has authored an original Land Acknowledgement Statement for BHCC and recommends the following action steps:
- Please get to know the Indigenous people of your area and ask what you can do to lift and raise their voices, honor, and respect their sovereignty.
- Recognize and make changes to the dominant narrative that glorifies colonization and genocide of Indigenous peoples of this area.
- Support Native American organizations.
- Reach out directly to the People of the Massachusetts Tribe and see how you can get involved and be an ally (http://massachusetttribe.org).
- Six Tribes of Massachusetts support five bills in the State House right now that address racist mascots in public schools, Changing Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day, respecting cultural heritage, and a bill to create an appropriate educational curriculum on MA. Please contact your local legislator through MAIndigenousAgenda.Org and encourage them to co-sponsor and support these bills.
- Support Native American organizations such as the Ohketeau Cultural Center.
Larry Spotted Crow Mann is a member of the Nipmuc Tribe of Massachusetts. He is an award-winning writer, poet, cultural educator, traditional storyteller, tribal drummer/dancer, and motivational speaker involving youth sobriety and cultural and environmental awareness. He travels throughout the United States, Canada, and parts of Europe to schools, colleges, powwows, and other organizations sharing the music, culture, and history of the Nipmuc people. He has also given lectures at universities throughout New England on issues ranging from Native American Sovereignty to Identity.