Shandaken’s Native American Spiritual History 

Shandaken Historical Museum 
26 Academy St. Pine Hill, NY 12465  

845-254-4460   www.shandakennymuseum.org 

Dedicated to the memory of Kathleen Myers 

In this thought-provoking illustrated lecture, Professor Evan Pritchard, founder, Center for Algonquin Culture, will share insights collected over many years while walking the mountains surrounding Pine Hill and Esopus Creek. To illustrate the native history of these mountains, he will use landscape paintings by local artists and acknowledge the unspoken indigenous history behind each scene. To help us understand the mysterious “cairns” (ceremonial stone piles) that cover the mountainsides, he will use maps, linguistics, oral tradition, astronomy, science, and a little archaeology to underscore their “message.” This “message”, as interpreted by Doug Harris, advisor to Overlook Mountain Center in Woodstock, and Retired Deputy Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for the Narragansett Tribe of Rhode Island is “to live in harmony and balance with nature and one other.”

This approach to oneness is the “one commandment” our ancestors set in stone on this land over three thousand years ago. Everything spoken since is a footnote.

(Talk followed by Q and A and book signing)

(Above right; a singular 3000 year old column of stone hidden in the Shandaken Mountains, suggesting perhaps the oneness of all things.)