Inclusive Celebrations at USN: Indigenous Peoples Day

By Ian Dinkins, Assistant Director of Marketing and Communications

Through several lessons, students in all divisions of University School of Nashville will learn more about the origins of Indigenous Peoples. Fifth Grade Social Studies Teacher Connie Fink and High School History Teacher Mackey Luffman each share land acknowledgment statements with their class.

A Land Acknowldegment Statement is a public statement of the name of the traditional Native inhabitants of a particular place. The Land Acknowledgement Statement for Luffman’s classes reads, “The Land: Please take a moment to acknowledge the land we live on and its original inhabitants. Each of our families can tell its unique story about how we came to live in Nashville; for some of us, that arrival may have been weeks ago, and for others, that arrival was generations ago. Regardless of our family’s story, we should recognize that Nashville and its surrounding communities sit on the ancestral lands of the Cherokee, Shawnee, and other neighboring tribes. Our life in Nashville today is part of the legacy of the forced removal of those Native American peoples by the federal government in the 1830s. As we pursue our history lessons, let’s remember the sacred status of this land for those tribes, and resolve that our learning about them and their ancestors will be done with respect and honor.”

Sites like Native-Land.ca can show you whose lands you reside on and the treaties that remain in place today. USN's campus is on the land of the Tsalaguwetiyi (Cherokee), Shawandasse Tula (Shawnee), and S'atsoyaha (Yuchi).

HS History Teacher Ayesha Nawaz said she will commemorate the observance with her 11th grade U.S. History class when the group travels to Long Hunter State Park to attend the Pow Wow, a gathering of American Indians from across the nation, to learn about how Indigenous people today celebrate and live their cultures.  

According to Live Kindly, indigenous cuisines are rooted in ancestral ingredients provided by the local land. Sometimes, this includes meat and fish, but it also largely relies on grains, roots, herbs, fruits, and vegetables native to North America. Corn, wild rice, squash, tomatoes, beans, and potatoes feature prominently in many indigenous dishes.

During a Forest Day last year, students in the Class of 2032 honored Tennessee's indigenous tribes by preparing Three Sisters Stew, a recipe from the Chickasaw tribe, with Lower School Naturalist Teacher Lauren Hagan. Click here for the recipe that combines the three sisters: corn, beans, and squash.