Food Sovereignty

No Loose Braids aims to teach the original ways and create a space for Indigenous folks to step out of colonization, and the fractured ways of colonized thinking, to reconnect with ancestral knowledge, strengthen bonds of reciprocity, and bring balance back to our People and the Earth. No Loose Braids also works to build opportunities for future generations through changing structures of systemic marginalization and exclusion by advocating for Tribal rights and engaging in dialogue in colonial spaces.

Indigenous people have the highest rates of food insecurity on Turtle Island. Diabetes and other diseases related to food access disproportionately impact our community. By rebuilding our food systems and helping our community reconnect to  eating traditional foods we hope to bring physical health back to the community. Our traditional medicines also help to heal these medical issues.

As part of our food sovereignty work, we conducted a wild rice study that helped us to locate and culturally reconnect with wild rice on Nipmuc lands after centuries of disconnection. Finding the wild rice reaffirms our ancestral stories and connects these stories to our present day. We are working to protect and revitalize the presence of this rice in our Territory.

We are also working with land deed holders to establish permanent access to the places we are finding these foods and medicines through cultural respect easements. We are working to raise awareness about our inherent rights as Indigenous peoples to hunt, fish, and gather in our usual and accustomed places that were commemorated in 16th and 17th century treaties and reaffirmed in Massachusetts Executive Order 126.