RHODE TRIPS
her five-year-old granddaughter. Another table displays dried calendula. She is harvesting the extracts from the flowers using sweet almond oil, which will create a natural skincare product. Several traditional corn husk dolls are displayed in vivid colors, and posters of her artwork are on display, featuring Indigenous women that resemble mountains built into the earth.
Dawn feels that the Indigenous crops they plant at Ashawaug Farm are like members of their family. She and her husband, Cassius, used to manage the Narragansett Tribe’ s farm, where they planted Narragansett Flint Corn in a community space for the first time.“ That was very significant, because it was being grown on a communal property owned by the tribe, and operated by the tribe. So, it was for us, by us,” she says.
Dawn recounts how the whole community, including the children, helped to harvest that Narragansett Flint Corn. And Dawn’ s grandmother— who was 100 at the time— was there, and she had never done that before.“ My husband and I planted it. We had never had that in our community in her lifetime of 100 years. So it was significant,” Dawn says,“ but the thing that really would get me, is when you went up to the edge of the corn, and if you just stood there, you could feel the energy coming off it.”
It was almost like the corn was holding the memories of their ancestors in the way the stalks swayed and rustled in the wind.“ We had a Food Summit in 2018 and I had a couple of [ Indigenous ] ladies that came, and I said,‘ Just go stand by the corn.’ So they went, and I didn’ t tell them what to expect,” Dawn says.“ They came back a few minutes later, and tears were streaming down their faces.
“ We have ties to this land that predate everybody else, and people like to act like that’ s not the case, but it is the case,” she says, biting back tears of her own.“ What we are feeling is so much more intense and deeper. Something like that corn being brought up from the earth … that is our ancestors. They put the love in that corn so that it could come back … so we have to keep doing this.”
Ashawaug Farm, 120 Main St., Ashaway, ashawaugproject. com
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