Back To The Roots At Eastham's Turnip Festival

Last weekend, Eastham went back to the roots with its 21st turnip festival. To show just how far and deep those roots stretch, members of the wampanoag nation were there to sing, dance and teach their craft.

29 November, 2024 – EASTHAM, MA – Last weekend, Eastham went back to the roots with its 21st turnip festival. To show just how far and deep those roots stretch, members of the Wampanoag Nation were there to sing, dance and teach about their craft and their ancestral homeland.

“It’s a way to spread the word about Wampanoag people and how we celebrate each other. How we celebrate the land, the waters, all of the gifts from the creator by through the song and the dances that we carry,” says Kitty Hendricks-Miller, Manager of the Wampanog Nation Singers & Dancers. “People are very receptive to songs and getting up and moving and learning about the people whose land that they are a upon, because this is our ancestral homeland. All of Cape Cod, Marthas Vineyard and Nantucket, and all the way down South Narraganset Bay. (…) We are one of many, many native nations. We are the Wampanoag nation.”

How Do The Wampanoag Celebrate Their Community?

Kitty Hendricks-Miller, whose spirit name is Nanaweeta, is a Song Carrier and Culture Keeper. She and her fellow dancers and singers gathered the audience in the middle of the dance floor at the Eastham Library. As an ice breaker the group starts with their Round Dance. Kitty Hendricks-Miller explains why.

“All these things that are gifted to us are circles and we celebrate those. That being of the return of the herring every year, the cycles of things, the moon, the grandmother that regulates our tides, grandfather sun. All of these beings and entities are circular,” she says and explains further that even our eyes, with which we see and experience the world, are round. In the Round Dance the participants hold hans to “keep the good medicine that we call good energy flowing from one person to the next person in your circle,” says Kitty Hendricks-Miller and reminds people that communities are circles too.

What Is The Turnip Festival?

Speaking of keeping one’s community circle: More than 700 people came to the Eastham library to celebrate the iconic – and circular – crop: the Eastham turnip. This vegetable legacy is no coincidence. When Eastham was a farming community turnips and asparagus were the two main crops – the farmers could use the same field as the two vegetables are of two different seasons. Folklore tells of the especially sweet and mild local turnip that could only thrive within a particular radius of Eastham’s sandy soil.

Who Visited The Turnip Festival?

This year, two festival visitor in particular stood out from the crowd. Marianne Sinopoli, Turnip Festival Chairman, was thrilled to see theatre aficionados Caroline DeBrota and Shawyoun Shaidani, a young Medford couple who visited the festival for the first time last year. 

“They have totally embraced the whimsical nature of this quirky homespun event and have made it extra fun for us too,” says Sinopoli.

Caroline and Shawyoun rarely miss an opportunity to wear costumes and visit cape cod. Preferably at the same time. 

“So mine is a turnip mage with my long turnip root hood,” says Caroline and points to her costume. “And he is a turnip bard with his ocarina

as his little musical instrument.”

Caroline has been sewing for 20 years. “Not the whole time though,” she says and laughs. “I decided I wanted to come up with something that would be more of a cohesive full outfit. And I used some 3D printing to make the little turnip bits that we've got on the hat and the wand.”

If they have tried an Eastham turnip yet? The answer is a unison yes. 

“I love a turnip and I think they're a particularly good turnip,” says Caroline. 

“I think they're an underrated vegetable and that's part of what attracted us

to this in the first place,” says Shawyoun. “Like you think of fall, you think of,apple picking, pumpkin picking all this stuff. And turnips are not something

that get a lot of attention.”

“It’s an underdog vegetable,” adds Caroline.

“It is an underdog,” Shawyoun agrees. “It’s down to earth, you know?”

And speaking of Earth, Kitty Hendricks-Miller brings a message.

“ I think at this juncture in time where we are all, we all have a common goal and that is to nurse this earth back to what it can be and what it was. Because we have to think about generations and generations to come and what are we gonna leave them, a ball of fire? (…) Everything that's connected is living and breathing and it's our job as stewards of this earth to take care of it and try to nurse her back and respect people for doing so.”