Emma Tyler Fielding Baker, Mohegan leader and medicine woman

I didn't expect to find a photo of the medicine woman Emma Baker, but I found several! "Emma Tyler Fielding Baker Dec. 5, 1828 - Jan. 20, 1916) was a member of the Mohegan Pequot [nation] and was posthumously awarded the title of Mohegan medicine woman in 1992. Medicine women were culture-bearers and required to have an in-depth knowledge of tribal customs and possess good leadership qualities. She was also a tribal historian and ceremonial leader of the Mohegan Tribe.

"Baker was born in the village of Mohegan (now Fort Shantok, Montville, Conn. on December 5, 1828, to Francis Fielding and Rachel Commenwas Hoscott and was one of ten children. As an adult, Baker helped preserve tribal historical records and oral traditions, thus becoming known as a culture-bearer. Baker married a Mohegan man named Henry Greenwood Baker on November 30, 1854, who became the father of her eight children.

"Leadership within the tribe. In 1860, Baker served as the president of the Church Ladies Sewing Society which was considered to be an auxiliary of the Mohegan Church. This group of women worked to preserve Mohegan culture and, as part of their matriarchal role within the tribe, considered new chiefs and decided land claims. This group met regularly at the Mohegan Church in Montville, Conn.

"One of Baker's actions as president was to restore an ancient Mohegan Green Corn Festival nicknamed the "Wigwam Festival" ("wigwam" meaning "welcome"). This Festival continues into the present as a celebration of Mohegan culture and is annually held during the third weekend in August. Because the Mohegan Green Corn Festival was to be held on the grounds of the Mohegan Congregational Church (whose land was tribally owned), this provided solidarity for the tribe in the following years when the reservation land was eventually broken up. Baker also served as a Sunday School teacher at the Mohegan Church.

"Baker was elected president of the Mohegan Indian League in 1896. She represented the Mohegan Nation before the all-white, all-male Connecticut legislature as part of an endeavor to protect Mohegan land and sacred sites. She also chaired the Mohegan tribal council. and documented the desecration of the Norwich Royal Mohegan Burial Ground. Baker also lent some "Indian Relics" to the Converse Art Gallery in Norwich, Conn., for display in honor of the anniversary of the town on Saturday, July 3, 1909; this display was curated by the Daughters of the American Revolution. Long after her death, she was posthumously elected as a member of the Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame in 1994.

"Baker was a "nanu" (mentor or respected elder woman) to her niece Gladys Tantaquidgeon, by instructing her in spirituality and herbal medicinewhich Baker had learned from Martha Uncas, her grand-aunt.

"Baker died on January 20, 1916, and is buried at Shantok Burial Grounds in Uncasville, Conn. Baker was immortalized in 2017 by artist Adam Chambers when he created her portrait for one of eleven ornaments to decorate one of the 56 trees representing each U.S. state and territory at the President's Park in Washington, D.C. She was selected because she is considered a Connecticut native who dedicated her life to promote tolerance and diversity."

]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Fielding_Baker

This one dates to maybe 1850-60, based on the dress style.

Excerpt from the book The Lasting of the Mohegans: Part I, The Story of the Wolf People, by Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel

Has has good information about her family and the lineage of female leaders she belongs to:

"Emma lived from 1828 to 1916 and dominated the Mohegan cultural and political scene of the mid-19th to early 20th century. She served as Tribal Chair, Sunday School Superintendant of Mohegan Church, and Coordinator of the Church Ladies Sewing Society (which sponsored the Tribe’s annual Wigwam Festival). Non-Indians described her as “a very intelligent member of the Tribe” who “knew Latin.” She was married to a Mohegan man named Henry Baker and they had six children. Gladys described Emma as follows:

'She influenced my life at that time in connection with “the ceremonial.” She was one of my grandfather [Eliphalet] Fielding’s sisters; [therefore] she was technically my aunt. [But] she was one of the women whom I used to refer to [respectfully] as “grandmother.'

Martha Uncas

"This great matriarch lived from 1761 to 1859. She was born into a difficult era following a tribal plague in 1755. Tribal records show two colonists named Daniel Leffingwell and Robert Allen—who claimed to be “well acquainted all along with the Indians since childhood”—wrote that “of late the number of the said Tribe has been very much diminished by a mortal sickness that came upon them.” At that time, 28 male heads of households were listed.

"In 1774, tribal regent Zachary Johnson verified a tribal roster consisting of 14 “male heads of households” (or 26 including female heads). By 1799, Mohegan numbers were diminished by Samson Occum’s removal of the Mohegan Indians to Oneida Indian territory (in New York) and by the Revolutionary War. Records show Mohegan heads of households equaling 35 and the grand total of individuals numbered 84. However, when considering these numbers, it is important to note that many Mohegans were seamen, and their extended numbers are unknown.

"Amidst all this, Martha Shantup Uncas fought for the demographic survival of her Nation. During the course of her life she had several husbands. Her men frequently moved away to look for work, hunt, or fight in wars. Some passed on at young ages. Regardless, she managed to raise numerous children who were descended from diverse tribal lines. Furthermore, she still found time to pass on traditional tribal lifeways to select Mohegans.

"In keeping with Mohegan tradition, Martha taught her most important lessons only to two chosen protégés, one generation removed from her offspring: her granddaughter Fidelia A. Hoscott Fielding and grandniece Emma Baker. Mohegan Medicine Woman Gladys Tantaquidgeon explained how culture-keepers, like Martha, Fidelia, Emma, and herself, selected their students:

"One thing I notice, that in connection with the Wigwam Brush Arbor Festival, my great aunt Emma Baker selected her niece Nettie Fowler, and I assisted her and I was her niece. So in later time, I worked as her Vice President [in the ladies’ Sewing Society]. Then it went from aunt to niece. That might hold true now…I might skip a generation.

"Some of the tumultuous events of Martha’s life, including the birth of her seven children, are synthesized in the following description by her student Emma Baker:

'Martha married [John] Uncas and had two children, Levi and Mary. Uncas got mad set the wigwam afire and ran away, was in the revolutionary war, was with Arnold, went to Canada; [I] have heard him tell me how much he suffered and one thing made me remember it. Mrs. Sigourney sent my brother a little book that had an account and scenes of different battles of the war and I remember one picture [where] in the background stood an Indian just ready to strike with his tomahawk and [I] always thought it was John Uncas. He was gone 20 years before he came to Mohegan. In the time Martha had a son by a Hoscott [named Samuel] and had married Bartholomew Tantaquidgeon and had two children, Nancy and Mary. After this she lived with [Gerdon] Wyyougs [a Pequot-Mohegan grandson of Samson Occum’s sister Sarah] who left a wife [Hannah Cooper] and had five children and in the sight of the smoke of the house, as the old squaws used to say, went and lived with Martha; she had two children Sarah [Fidelia Fielding’s mother ] and Charles Wyyougs.'"

https://connecticuthistory.org/the-story-trail-of-voices/

Jeets Bodernasha (Flying Bird)/Fidelia Fielding

"The life of tribal culture-keeper Fidelia A. Hoscott Fielding bridged pre-reservation and post-reservation Mohegan society. She was born in 1827 and lived until 1908. Fidelia married William Fielding, and together they raised the offspring of her relative Effie Cooper. Fidelia’s grandmother, Martha Shantup Uncas, taught her to be the last fluent speaker of the Mohegan-Pequot dialect. Fidelia’s grandfather, Gerdon Wyyougs, was a Pequot.

"Along with Emma Baker, Fielding served as a teacher to future Mohegan Medicine Woman Gladys Tantaquidgeon. In the following passage, Gladys remembers Fidelia:

Fidelia Fielding was the last speaker of our Mohegan-Pequot dialect…she and her grandmother Martha Uncas lived together and were said to have the Indian tongue used more than English…She lived about a mile east of our house. It was the last of the log houses on the reservation and she used to refer to it as a “tribe house”…She was what we would think of a true full blood Indian type. She was a little over five feet tall and a little bit on the medium build. She had jet black hair, black eyes, high cheekbones, and used to wear a calico dress and in cool weather she wore capes. She didn’t participate in Green Corn Festival [Mohegan Wigwam Celebrations] and meetings of the women in their [Church Sewing] society meeting. She was very much a loner, very much to herself. Fidelia was not pleased with non-Indian neighbors… I’ve heard that in several instances children in school were expected to learn English and forget all about their Indian cultural background, and if some of the older Indian women were speaking, like Fidelia, and some of the younger children appeared, they would cease talking because they didn’t want the children to be punished for learning the [Mohegan] language… It was she [Fidelia] who left [me] that very old belt that I wear with my Indian dress. It had belonged to her grandmother Martha Uncas.

"Along with maintaining the tribal language, Fidelia learned traditionalist beliefs from Martha regarding the Makiawisug (Little People of the Woodlands)."

But the author disapproves of Fielding's distrust of settlers: "While Fidelia Fielding instilled fearful, xenophobic attitudes in her student, Gladys Tantaquidgeon, those negative notions were countered by the optimism and worldliness of Gladys’s other teacher, Emma Baker." This seems unfair. Jeets Bodernasha was a traditionalist who had seen much white intrusion in her life.

Belt of Martha Uncas, passed down a female line of succession of medicine women.

"Today, we honor the great Mohegan matriarch Martha Uncas during National Women’s History Month. Martha lived during a difficult era for the Mohegan Tribe, as the Tribe’s population had been severely depleted. Martha fought for the survival of her Tribe, teaching her most important cultural lessons to her two chosen protégés – her granddaughter Fidelia Fielding and her grandniece who later became Medicine Woman, Emma Baker. Pictured here is Martha’s belt which was passed down to Fidelia Fielding and then to our late Medicine Woman Gladys Tantaquidgeon."

https://www.facebook.com/themohegantribe/photos/a.1413549138941192/2659688584327235/

Martha Shantup (1761 - 1859) was the great-aunt of Emma Baker.

"Martha Uncas Hoscott Tantaquidgeon Wyyougs was the daughter of Joseph Shantup and Hannah Ashbow. Her first husband was John Uncas with whom she had two children, Levi and Mary Uncas. She had a child with Isaiah Hoscott, a son Samuel Hoscott (d. 1831). Martha’s second husband was Bartholomew Tantaquidgeon and the couple had Nancy and Mary Tantaquidgeon. She had two more children with Gurdon Wyyougs – Sarah and Charles Wyyougs.

"Martha was known as a Mohegan culture-keeper and passed her knowledge to two proteges, her granddaughter Fidelia Ann Hoscott Smith Fielding and grandniece, Emma Baker. In 1850 she was a signatory to a petition to the Connecticut General Assembly protesting the ability of several individuals of selling shares in Mohegan Tribal lands: "Remonstrance of Anson D. Cooper and Others."

https://nativenortheastportal.com/bio/bibliography/shantup-martha-1761-1859?fbclid=IwAR3MP-f67pnwO_-2wTJAgyKOuIJhlUIkWPVlfyt-RUy2bK8SDuwI9f0v1Xo

Mohegan Tribe FB page has this photo of the belt of Martha Uncas which she passed to Fidelia Fielding and she to Emma Baker and she to Gladys Tantaquidgeon: https://www.facebook.com/.../a.14135491.../2659688584327235/

A whole lineage of medicine women, leaders, historians, and culture carriers.

From Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel, granddaugher of Gladys Tantaquidgeon: "In keeping with Mohegan tradition, Martha taught her most important lessons only to two chosen protégés, one generation removed from her offspring: her granddaughter Fidelia A. Hoscott Fielding and grandniece Emma Baker. Mohegan Medicine Woman Gladys Tantaquidgeon explained how culture-keepers, like Martha, Fidelia, Emma, and herself, selected their students:

"One thing I notice, that in connection with the Wigwam Brush Arbor Festival, my great aunt Emma Baker selected her niece Nettie Fowler, and I assisted her and I was her niece. So in later time, I worked as her Vice President [in the ladies’ Sewing Society]. Then it went from aunt to niece. That might hold true now…I might skip a generation."