Many moons ago, indigenous people taught Europeans the importance of cranberries that provide good medicine, healing, and love for all.

I recall very clearly picking cranberries with a scoop in Mashpee. Oh Yes, I saw a small turtle changing his turtle jacket. He asked me if I wanted some cranberry pizza. I said, "next year, my dear."

Grandma cranberry has many cousins, sisters, and brothers. Friends that grow all over Cape Cod and in Wareham on bogs. She woke up in Mashpee in October, and high winds were blowing around. Grandma's relatives started crying all over the bog. Worms poked their heads out of the ground, asking what was going on.

Grandma Cranberry said, "be quiet! Get back in bed. I'm waiting for Grandpa Turtle so we can go to the lower Cape and look for our other relatives and get married."

Off we went from Chiefie Mills bog over near the herring run and Mashpee Wampanoag Museum down Route 130 and to route 28. Yeah, yeah, we are here with our cranberry relatives and got married. Cranberry juice, cranberry wedding cake waiting for us on the bogs bank, and a beautiful rainbow. We are waiting and singing; pick your cranberries as your ancestors did.

May the Eagle fly and bless your home. Chief Silent Drum says, "I have been proud to be Chief of this Tribe, the Mashpee Wampanoag People of the First Light. The history of our Tribe could not be complete without our sovereignty."

Elder Joan Tavares Avant, M.Ed., Deer Clan Mother