By Donna Laurent Caruso
OXFORD, Mass. - For millennia, Nipmuc people observed the summer solstice from KekamowadChaug, a place in what is today Oxford, which means ''mountain where the earth trembles.''
''It is a very sacred site to our people,'' said Larry Spotted Crow Mann, of the Historical Nipmuc Tribe.
After King Phillip's War in the late 1600s, KekamowadChaug was taken over by French settlers. A fort was built to defend against Nipmuc attacks.
Now, however, for the first time in more than 300 years, Nipmuc people are again observing the solstice from what is today known as Huguenot Hill.
Seven acres of land there was recently returned to the Nipmuc by a descendant of one of the settlers.
The present-day Nipmuc ''reservation'' is famous for its size: It is only four and one-half acres, the smallest in North America, as well as one of its first. The tribe had won federal recognition in 2002, only to have that decision overturned by the Bush administration. Land claims and appeals are ongoing.
Spotted Crow had formed a Unity Conference with his cousin, David White Tall Pine, following the disarray after the overturned decision. Tall Pine is on the Chaubunagungamaug Band of Nipmucs Tribal Council.
By the 20th century, KekamowadChaug was owned by LaMountain Bros. Inc.
''One of the brothers, Richard LaMountain, was killed not long ago in a motorcycle accident. The other brother, Jim, had a dream shortly after Richard died,'' Spotted Crow said.
In the profoundly life-altering event for Jim, Richard conveyed in the dream that their land needed to be given back to ''the Indians,'' that the place was special to them. Not aware of the local Nipmuc bands, it took an intense search on Jim's part before he located Tall Pine, who as a result of the Unity Conference was then able to accept the land transfer for all the bands.
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