Why Should Delaware Care?
While the Sussex County-based Nanticoke Indian Tribe faced fundraising setbacks this past month, the tribe has bounced back and appears to be flourishing ahead of its annual powwow and new cultural center renovations. This momentum for the Delaware tribe stands out amid federal funding cuts for tribal organizations.
Preparations for the upcoming Nanticoke Indian Tribe powwow — an annual event celebrating the tribe’s culture and traditions that draws more than 10,000 attendees — were not all smooth sailing for the tribe. Just three weeks out from the event, scheduled for Sept. 6 and 7, the Sussex County-based tribe was facing a $30,000 funding shortage.
Within 10 days of launching a GoFundMe campaign to close that gap, however, more than 130 community members came together to donate the additional money the group needed to fully carry out the annual event.
Now, between the flurry of community financial support and the tribe breaking ground on a new community center last week, Nanticoke Assistant Chief Farrah Norwood-Stigall said members of the tribe are feeling the forward momentum heading into their 47th annual powwow.
“We’re totally excited,” Norwood-Stigall said. “I like to say the powwow is pretty much a living classroom for people.”
Nanticoke powwow history
Slated to be held at Hudson Fields in Milton on Sept. 6-7, the two-day powwow will feature dancing, drum circles, church services, and an all-around effort to educate people about Native American culture, Norwood-Stigall said.
The Nanticoke tribe has its roots in the Millsboro area of southern Sussex County, and the majority of the tribe’s 600 members still live in that area, Norwood-Stigall said. Some members have moved away from Sussex County, so the tribe’s reach now extends to parts of New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York, she said.
Other Native American tribes from across the Eastern Seaboard and even as far away as Canada make the journey to Sussex County to take part in the weekend-long cultural celebration, she added.
The Kent County-based Lenape Indian Tribe, Delaware’s only other state recognized Native American tribe, also attend the event every year, Norwood-Stigall noted.
The grand entry and prayer takes place at the beginning of both Saturday and Sunday’s festivities and is perhaps the most memorable display of Native American culture for attendees.
“It’s hard to describe,” Norwood-Stigall said. “You get to see all of the tribes all together in unity and their flags.”
June “Morning Star” Robbins, who is well-known in the community for making the tacos that fuel attendees all weekend, said the various dance performances throughout the weekend, including the Round Dance and the Nanticoke Toe Dance, are the highlight of the powwow for her.
“I’ve been a dancer since I was a little girl. It’s a great honor to dance,” said Robbins, who is the coordinator of the tribe’s museum in Millsboro.
Robbins added the Round Dance signifies inviting all people, regardless of whether they are Native, to join in the powwow and connect with one another.
University of Delaware professor Jessica Horton, whose work focuses on Native North American art, said the powwow is a modern form of intertribal gathering that originated as a reaction to the late 19th century federal government policies of forced assimilation for indigenous people.
Now, Horton said, the powwow is both a space of celebration and a chance for reconnection among the Native American community.
“The powwow is this vibrant cultural form that makes it so clear that Nanticoke and other native people are here,” she said. “They’re culturally vital and alive and part of the present and future.”
Mixed fundraising results
While the Nanticoke tribe faced some severe fundraising shortages ahead of this year’s powwow, the group simultaneously succeeded in its capital campaign project to build a new community center.
The tribe was $30,000 short of its $80,000 powwow fundraising goal until the Cape Gazette published its GoFundMe on Aug. 14.
In just 11 days, 137 people donated just more than $16,500 to the campaign. The rest of the gap was covered by donations directly to the tribe, Norwood-Stigall said.
Norwood-Stigall said she is not exactly sure why the tribe struggled with funding for the first time this year.
She speculated that some businesses and individuals have been giving smaller donations to events across the board due to general economic concerns.
Though the majority of the $80,000 in fundraising goes toward powwow-related expenses, the money also sustains some of the tribe’s operations, like paying its employees and supplying electricity to its building throughout the rest of the year, Norwood-Stigall said.
“The powwow is our No. 1 fundraiser,” she noted.
In addition to programming at the Nanticoke Indian Museum throughout the year, the tribe has a couple smaller events that it also hosts annually. These include celebrating Native American Day in November and Heritage Day in May.
Horton, the UD professor, said the revoking of federal funding for tribal communities has left tribal cultural institutions across the country more vulnerable.
Since the Nanticoke are a state-recognized tribe rather than a federally recognized tribe, however, they have not been impacted by federal funding cuts, Norwood-Stigall said. Instead, it was decreases in donations from local donors that made fundraising for this year’s powwow more difficult.
But separate from the powwow funding, the tribe completed a $3 million capital campaign for a new community center and broke ground at the site, an expansion of the current community center located off of Route 24 in Millsboro, on Aug. 25.
Norwood-Stigall said the group had been working on fundraising for the community center since before the COVID pandemic, securing various state and federal grants and getting the necessary permits from the county.
“It’s been a very long time coming,” she said.
The updated center, which is set to be completed by the end of summer 2026, will continue to offer the youth cultural education programs that the previous center had. Norwood-Stigall said she also hopes to put a food bank in the center, and expand to host other events for the broader Millsboro community.
More expansion
A couple of minutes down Route 24 from the tribe’s community center is its history museum, which has not received any updates or repairs since the 1980s, Norwood-Stigall said. In an effort to update both of the tribe’s spaces, she said, the group is also launching a fundraising campaign for museum renovations.
In the wake of federal funding cuts for Native American institutions, Norwood-Stigall said she is more worried about fundraising for the museum project.
“We are a little bit concerned about what the future holds for that,” she said.
While the tribe has held its powwow at Hudson Fields in Milton for the past four years, Norwood-Stigall said the ultimate goal is to bring the annual gathering to the 31 acres of land the tribe owns behind its community center.
Reaching that goal will require adding some more infrastructure to the land, such as bathrooms and electricity access points. Still, Norwood-Stigall said, it would allow the tribe to continue growing and sharing its cultural identity through the annual powwow.
“It’s a sacred space where our people can gather, and a space where we can teach others our mission to preserve our identity, assert our sovereignty and create opportunities for youth,” she said.
Get Involved
The Nanticoke Indian Tribe Powwow will be held at Hudson Fields in Milton from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 6, and Sunday, Sept. 7. Entry is free for children under 10, $5 for kids ages 11-17, and $10 for adults.
Maggie Reynolds is a Report for America corps member and Spotlight Delaware reporter who covers rural communities in Delaware. Your donation to match our Report for America grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://spotlightdelaware.org/support/.
