The Committee on Native American Ministries for The United Methodists of Eastern PA (CoNAM) presented “The Loss of Turtle Island” in collaboration with Circle Legacy Center (CLC) for their 2nd Friday Program on March 14, 2025, in Lancaster, PA. They welcomed a group of students from West Virginia University as their special guests.
“The Loss of Turtle Island” evening began as people carried in dishes for a potluck dinner, and CoNAM members brought in their blankets and scrolls for the interactive exercise to follow the shared meal. The West Virginia University students were traveling with their professor, Bonnie Brown, who organized the trip to Carlisle PA for an immersive experience in Native American studies that included a tour of the old Carlisle Indian School campus site, the Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center at Dickinson College, and a presentation at the Cumberland County Historical Society.
Before the group was invited to help themselves to the food, a young student, Kiana Luevano of Apache ancestry, was given permission by CLC elders to carry out the tradition of the spirit plate. Many tribes believe in filling a plate with a sample of each dish, praying over it with a blessing for all who will enjoy the meal and then placing it outdoors as an offering for all creatures.
CoNAM members, Mike and Paula Shifflet, Verna Colliver, and Sandi Cianciulli, who also serves on the CLC Board, facilitated the Loss of Turtle Island exercise. After the university students and other guests enjoyed their meal, the room was symbolically turned into “Turtle Island” with blankets spread on the floor to represent North America as the homeland of Indigenous People for thousands of years prior to European contact and colonization.
As the 500-year history of “discovery” and colonization unfolded through the PowerPoint presentation, the participants read scrolls, stepped off the blankets, and removed jewelry to demonstrate the broken treaties, forced removal, loss of culture, assimilation and termination. The interactive exercise ended with a few blankets left and a tiny remnant of people standing on a diminished Turtle Island.
At one point in the exercise, the students were asked to give up jewelry showing how the Native children were forced to give up their traditional clothing when sent to boarding schools. The students even removed the lanyards bearing their names, thus symbolically pointing to the children losing their Native names and being given European ones when they were sent to the school at Carlisle.
Sharing circles were formed after the exercise, with the participants speaking in turn to express their feelings and the impact of the experience on them personally. Brown and her students “found it to be very meaningful.”
CLC members were unanimous in praise of the experience. President MaryAnn Robins, reflecting on her emotional response, said “It opens the eyes of those who are blind” to “the boarding school experience and the loss of land.” For Vicki Valentine, the “presentation was powerful, educational and effective in creating an emotional bond between the community and Native American people.” The exercise is “important to give a voice to that which has been silenced and disregarded for … centuries,” said Wendy Flanders-Hall, who went on to express “hope as the truths are spoken and a voice is given for the doors of change to open; for healing, for reconciliation.”
Sandi Cianciulli, CoNAM Co-chair and CLC board member, said, “It is always inspiring to present the Loss of Turtle Island program to people of every age who not only visualize the consequence of colonization but momentarily experience the emotional trauma of greed-driven cruelty.”
CoNAM member Paula reflected that learning about the boarding school experience was great for the WVU students and that the Loss of Turtle Island program helped them “even more, to see that not all people in our country have had the same experiences nor equal treatment under the law.” She added, “As these students go out into their professions, I hope that something, or many things they experienced in the program will stay with them.”
Boe Harris, a cultural educator, musician, poet and traditional dancer of Turtle Mountain Chippewa and Spirit Lake Dakota Oyate heritage, after thoughtful reflection had this to say, “The Loss of Turtle Island experience is a powerful awareness of specific times in history that impacted and affected the Indigenous people of this land and altered their lives forever. This experience condenses [the] historical timeline enlightening how governmental decisions were dedicated to eradicate the original peoples of this land thus solving the so-called ‘Indian problem’.” As an educator she sees that “this presentation could be adopted [by] our educational system” and wherever “decisions are being made that affect the [Indigenous] peoples of this land.”
The collaboration between CoNAM and CLC is ongoing, and the partnership has been of mutual benefit for achieving the goal of educating students at high school and college levels. Learning the history of the devastating impact colonization had on the Indigenous People is crucial to creating awareness of issues today and understanding the importance of continued advocacy for voting rights, truth and healing for boarding school survivors, tribal sovereignty, and treaty obligations.
The Native American Studies Program at West Virginia University led by Bonnie Brown is a key element in this work. The program includes an array of courses, seminars, lectures, and, notably, a workshop for educators and librarians centered on the Carlisle Indian Boarding School. For the WVU students, this experience of The Loss of Turtle Island and their visit to Carlisle Indian School is of inestimable value in combating the erasure of Indigenous history and its consequences for those who still struggle to thrive today.
Learn more about our partners.
Circle Legacy Center: http://circlelegacycenter.com/
The Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery: https://dismantlediscovery.org/
Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center at Dickinson College: https://carlisleindian.dickinson.edu/index.php/images
West Virginia University: https://nas.wvu.edu
**Photo credits to Wendy Flanders-Hall, CLC Board Member**