by: Gale Courey Toensing / Indian Country Today
NORTH STONINGTON, Conn. - In 1675, the colony of Connecticut passed a series of laws governing the Pequot Indians, including prohibitions against non-Christian forms of worship.
''That whosoever shall expose or speake against the onely living & true God, the creator & ruler of all things, shall be brought to some English court to be punished as the nature of the offence may require; That whosever shall powau or use witchcraft or any worship to the divill or any fals god all be convented & punished,'' the law said.
The ban didn't stop the tribe from holding pow wows, but they were low-profile affairs and in later years they were conflated with a religious meeting on the fourth Sunday of July.
These days, the event takes place on Saturday and Sunday of the fourth weekend in July and includes annual tribal elections on Saturday; a Sunday prayer meeting, which is a traditional meeting with the drum, singers and religious ceremonies led by Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation Chief Roy Sebastian; and a pow wow in the afternoon. The pow wow attracts people from tribes all over the Northeast, attracting between 500 and 1,000 people.
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