Monday, October 5, 2026 · 6:30 PM – 7:45 PM
Smith Commons (5th floor), Sargent Hall, Suffolk University — 120 Tremont St., Boston, MA
Paula Peters will explore the deep relationship between environmental health, Indigenous knowledge, and cultural practice. Focusing on native materials such as bulrush and wampum, the talk will show how plants and shells are not simply resources, but living connections to land, water, craft, and identity. Peters will discuss how invasive species, development, and ecological imbalance threaten these traditions—and how restoration efforts to bring native plants back can help renew both the landscape and the cultural practices rooted within it. Paula Peters is the founder of the Native American creative agency SmokeSygnals , an independent scholar and a politically, socially, and culturally active member of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe. As an independent scholar and writer of Native, and particularly Wampanoag history, she is a producer of the traveling exhibit “Our” Story: 400 Years of Wampanoag History and is currently engaged in the Wampum Belt Project in search of the lost treasures of Metacom, including an effort to restore the art and tradition of wampum making among her people. She is the executive producer of the 2016 documentary film Mashpee Nine and author of the companion…