EUROPE WALKED OVER TURTLE ISLAND

"When the first Europeans arrived, Columbus and his crew, he came and he called us Indians, because of the obvious reasons, he thought he was lost in India. But what did we call ourselves before Columbus came? That's the question so often asked. And the thing is in every single tribe, even today, when you translate the world that we each had for ourselves, without knowledge of each other, if was always something that translated to basically the same thing. In our language it's Ninuog, or the People, the human beings. That's what we called ourselves. So when the Pilgrims arrived here, we knew who we were, but we didn't know who they were. So we called them Awaunageesuck or, the strangers, because they were the ones who were alien, they were the ones that we didn't know, but we knew each other. And we were the human beings." - Tall Oak, Narragansett

photo of Native Americans - Jay Winter Nightwolf & grandson Alex