About the collective

The Women of Wampum Collective began in 2022 with the goal of empowering Indigenous women to restory and reclaim their roles and leadership in wampum traditions, stewardship, fashioning, and treaty-making through collaboration and knowledge sharing rooted in cultural resilience and ecological sustainability. This initiative was created by women, for women, to amplify Indigenous women’s voices and perspectives within the cultural, climate, and political waterscapes of Turtle Island. As part of this knowledge-sharing and collective learning journey, virtual workshops were held in which the women led discussions on themes such as language revitalization, data sovereignty, and women’s wampum knowledge. 

These workshops culminated in an in-person Gathering on Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard, where participants visited the Mashpee and Aquinnah Wampanoag homelands, engaged in knowledge-sharing workshops, explored culturally significant sites and learned from the land and coastal waters. The Gathering shaped new relationships, deepened historical understandings of wampum, and strengthened the bonds between the women and the living tradition of wampum.