On April 22 - Earth Day 2008 - WPKN 89.5 and WPKM 88.7 presented Earth Day on Long Island.
From Indian Island County Park on Long Island we bring you Earth Day recorded on April 22, 2007. Heard are members of the Shinnecock Nation.
The Shinncock have lived continuously for millenia on land that is now Southampton Town.
The speakers are Shinnecock Elder Elizabeth Thunder Bird Haile, daughter of the late Shinnecock Ceremonial Chief Thunder Bird and Elder Haile's neice Becky Genia.
Elder Haile is a founder of The Shinnecock Museum and Cultural Center located on Montauk Highway at West Gate Road just east of the Stony Brook Southampton Campus.
Becky Genia is leader of an Inter Tribal organization devoted to preserving Native American and Colonial era settler burial sites.
Click and Listen Here!
You heard Shinnecock Elder Elizabeth Haile and her neice Becky Genia recorded at Indian Island at the mouth of the Peconic River on Long Island on Earth Day 2007. The program was recorded by WPKN's East End News Team.
UPDATE on Preservation of Native Burial Sites
Ms. Haile sent us this note last week:
"On Tuesday, May 13, 2008 there will be a hearing at Southampton Town Hall when the Community Preservation Fund will decide whether or not to purchase the Konner property where the Native American burial was unearthed last year.
It will be a public hearing and should be monumental.
The property owner is in favor of the sale. We have been waiting for this day to preserve the land as a sacred site, and cemetery. This was called the St. James site on Montauk Highway, Watermill and considered an Indian village since the 1970's when archeology was done by the Town and artifacts found.
This is an old story that should end in allowing these ancestors to rest in peace."
Elizabeth Haile
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East End Report suggests that letters to the Town Board in support of the purchase would be appropriate.
