The scent of incense filled the air as Minoweh Ikidowin remembered her Wampanoag ancestors and gave praise to Mother Earth and the spirit of womankind.

The ceremony, which was held at Dighton Rock, ensured that all mothers were remembered on Mother’s Day, especially Mother Nature.

“We’re offering a prayer of thanks to Mother Earth, who nourishes us, and to mothers of all creation, who give renewed life and new birth,” she said, keeping alive the traditions of her Wampanoag ancestors.

It was far from a typical Mother’s Day brunch, but a crowd of approximately 30 gathered at the Dighton Rock Museum to watch the ceremony. “We honor women, because women gave birth to all life,” Ikidowin said. 

She appeared at Dighton Rock — a place she said held special cultural significance for her ancestors — as part of the nonprofit museum’s monthly speaker series. Manuel Da Silva, president of the Friends of Dighton Rock Museum, will speak next month about theories that inscriptions on the rock were carved by Portuguese explorers.

Other theories about the mysterious rock, which once sat in the tidal waters of the Taunton River, hold that the inscriptions are American Indian, Viking or Phoenician in origin.

Ikidowin was invited to perform the Mother’s Day ceremony after meeting Friends of Dighton Rock Museum board member Nancy Possinger at a conference about the museum. As the two got talking, they learned that their families once shared strong ties. It turned out that back in the late 1800s, Possinger’s maternal grandparents, Clara and Thomas Moore, were friends and neighbors of a local Wampanoag doctor named William Pequot Pellawonquo Perry, one of Ikidowin’s direct ancestors. “We were pleased to have her here,” Possinger said.

During her presentation, Ikidowin displayed and explained the significance of several items, including a braid of sweet grass, a quahog shell and ears of Indian corn. Respect for nature, she said, is very important for many American Indians.

“My people tried to show everybody how to live in this world and let the world live,” she said. That lesson, she explained, is still alive. “Those who came to this land tried to destroy our spirits,” she said. “But in our beliefs, the only one who can take away life is the giver of life, the creator.”

Photo by: Gerry Tuoti at gtuoti@tauntongazette.com.