STARTING today and for the next week, St. David’s Islanders whose ancestors were Native Americans of the Pequot and other Indian tribes brought here as slaves, will be in the forefront of Bermuda’s cultural and social activities. And they have the backing of Government’s Department of Community & Cultural Affairs under Folklife Officer Dr. Kim Dismont Robinson (pictured).<$f"FranklinGothic-DemiCond">

A St. David’s Night at the Berkeley Institute auditorium will be the opening event, with the climax being a Festival on Friday and Saturday next at the St. David’s Island Cricket Club ground.

According to Sinclair (Brinky) Tucker, it promises to be a most colourful and spiritual event, with 80 Native Americans flying here to join with their Bermudian kin. Mr. Tucker traces his ancestry to the Pequot Tribe back to 1743.

Dr. Robinson said her department was happy partnering with the St. David’s community for the opening programme.

She added: “This is part of our Historical Heartbeats Lecture Series, where we feature one lecture per month from April to October, on different aspects of Bermuda’s culture and history.

“The wonderful thing about the St. David’s Night programme is that it really features striking elements of St. David’s culture specifically, and Bermudian culture generally.

“For example, the Blanket Dances illustrate the reconnection between Native Americans on the mainland United States and the branches of the tribe that extend to Bermuda.”

The event tonight at the Berkeley is open to the public, free of charge. The highlights will be all about St. David’s Islanders, with a focus on war veterans, a presentation by artist Ronnie Chameau, and a showcase of the work of talented Bermudian filmmaker Lucinda Spurling.

She will be showing excerpts from her documentary St. David’s: An Island Near Bermuda.

Guest speaker for the event at the Berkeley will be Jessie (Little Doe) Baird, who is being brought here by the Cultural Affairs Department. A scholar, she is a citizen of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe and Wampanoag Women’s Medicine Society. She received her master of science in linguistics from MIT in 2000.

Guest speaker is the co-founder of the Wopanaak Language Reclamation Project that began in 1994. This is an inter-tribal effort between the Mashpee, Aquinnah, and Assonet Wampanoag.

The aim of the project is to reclaim Wopanaak as a spoken language. There were no speakers of the language for six generations. Her two-year- old daughter, Mae Alice Weekanashq, is the Wampanoag Nation’s first Native speaker and she is the seventh generation.

St. David’s Night at the Berkeley Auditorium starts at 7 p.m. A free bus will be available,,leaving from St. David’s Primary at 6 p.m. It will make stops as far as Francis Patton Primary and will follow the same route on the return trip.