The following announcement was provided by the Pigsgusset Initiative:
Watertown’s 4th celebration of Indigenous Peoples Day will be held on Sunday, Oct. 12, 2025, from 12:00 to 3:30 p.m. at the Hosmer Elementary School, 1 Concord Road, Watertown, MA. The free event will feature Indigenous musicians, artists and vendors.
Performers include: Wampanoag Nation Singers and Dancers; Teddy Hendricks, Mashpee Wampanoag & Nipmuc, storyteller; and Maria Hendricks, Assonet & Mashpee Wampanoag, MC. Artisans Darius Coombs and Eleanor Coombs, Mashpee Wampanoag, will be demonstrating how to create wampum and corn husk dolls. Participants will be able to make their own corn husk dolls. Gianni Hendrix, Mashpee Wampanoag & Nipmuc, will provide face painting.
Wampwheels, a food truck, will be outside on Concord Road and will be selling delicious Indigenous food that people can bring into the event. Indigenous vendors include: Claudia Fox Tree, Arawak-Taino iukaieke Guainia, Arawak Designs, Linda Coombs, Aquinnah Wampanoag, Leslie Tuplin, First Nation Mik Maq-Lennox Island – PEI, Native Solutions and Cindy Shelley, Up the Creek Traders. Belmont Bookstore will be selling books by and about Indigenous people and the Watertown Free Library Bookmobile will have books about Indigenous people to borrow.
A special feature of this year’s celebration will be a preview of “Pigsgusset and Watertown: What You Didn’t Know About the Original Peoples and the Founding of Watertown,” a Storymap. Presenters include Dr. Mishy Lesser, Upstander Project and Dr. Nathan Braccio, Assistant Professor of History at Clark University. They will be joined by Marilynne K. Roach and Joyce Kelly of the Historical Society of Watertown. Those who attend will be among the first to view the newly created storymap.
This event is funded by a generous grant from Watertown Community Foundation together with support from the Human Rights Commission, Watertown Citizens for Peace, Justice & the Environment, Stone & Skillet, Hampton Hotel by Hilton, Wicked Bagel and donations from individuals.
Members of the community-based Pigsgusset Initiative, a working group of Watertown Citizens for Peace, Justice and the Environment, are organizing the event. The organizing committee includes Stephanie Stonefish Ryan, Lenape, Kim Kublius, Jacqui Gross, Maria Hendricks, Assonet & Mashpee Wampanoag, Nathaniel Harrison, and Jennifer Wolfrum.
Supporters of the event include: the Cunniff, Hosmer and Lowell Diversity and Belonging Councils, First Parish Watertown, Watertown Boys and Girls Club, Watertown Free Public Library, Watertown Recreation Department, and WHERE ARE ALL THE BLACK PEOPLE? World in Watertown is the event sponsor and a funder.
For further information contact: Jennifer Wolfrum, jenniferwolfrum13@gmail.com IPD-2025-Flyer-V1