"You still hear folks around town asking each other, 'You see the herring run yet?'"
—Phillip Wynne, Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe of Cape Cod (Otter Clan) reflecting on a collection of dried and smoked herring

"My name is Phillip Wynne; I am a traditional artist, educator, and historian from the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe of Cape Cod (Otter Clan). For over a decade I served as a public historian with Plimoth Plantation’s Wampanoag Indigenous Program and five years as the Lead Native Museum Educator of Education & Outreach. Through research and the shared knowledge of our elders, I have learned to promote cultural continuity of our ancestral lifeways through practicing traditional skillsets. I currently work as a teacher assistant at our Nation’s language/cultural immersion school for lower elementary on the Mashpee Wampanoag Reservation."

—Phillip Wynne, Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe of Cape Cod (Otter Clan)

The Peabody Museum asked Wampanoag tribal members to reflect on collections spanning the seventeenth to twentieth centuries and stewarded by the Peabody Museum. Listen in as they share memories, thoughts, and reflections about collection items made by their ancestors and relatives and learn how Wampanoag life and culture continues to flourish today.

Dried and partly smoked herring. Gift of Robert Kornfeld, 1939. © President and Fellows of Harvard College, Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, PM 39-42-10/18404; Phillip Wynne photo (detail) by David L. Gray