In Celebration Of A Mashpee Legend - Editorial
A powerhouse community figure, a proven leader in education, a role model with a storied history, beloved Deer Clan Mother and Elder within the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe and one of Mashpee’s very own homegrown legends turned 85 this week. Her name, to nearly everyone, is Granny Squannit—her given Native name. We call her Joan.
Joan has written columns for this newspaper for many, many years, always using her writing as vehicles to share ideas, embrace and revive culture, shift perspectives and teach us a thing or two along the way. Her long-running column, titled “Tales From Granny Squannit,” harkens back to one of the oldest Wampanoag legends, from which Joan’s name comes.
Briefly put, the legend of Granny Squannit is of an old medicine woman with long, black hair hanging over her face, obscuring much of what’s underneath—including the singular eye in her forehead. She snatches up misbehaved children and ferries them away in her canoe to her cave, where she scares them into being good. Good children don’t have to worry about Granny snatching them up—she had a benevolent side, too, and gives gifts to good kids—but the bad ones know to watch out. It was a tradition of Joan’s to dress up and play Granny Squannit for years and, after keeping her alive through both writing and action, Joan was given Granny Squannit as her Native name.
This editor has spent many months getting to know Joan. One of the first meetings we arranged after taking over editorship of this paper was with Joan, and we’ve spent many hours with her since then, just sitting and talking, but more importantly, listening and learning. We weren’t entirely unfamiliar with Mashpee as a town, but in the context of our new role, we knew there was much to learn.
So that’s what we set out to do: learn. And Joan welcomed that with open arms, offering not only her stories, knowledge and experiences, but her time. Together we swapped oral stories, and lots of reading material. We worked on her writing together, as writer and editor tend to do. And she answered all of the questions we, in typical journalist fashion, asked, graciously giving thoughtful answers time and time again. And we, without a doubt, are all the better for it.
On our most recent visit, this editor got to take a look at the official Proclamation from the City of Boston, declaring November 1, 2021, to be “Joan Tavares Avant, M. ED Day.” The proclamation lists dozens of Joan’s accomplishments, including three terms as Tribal Council president, time serving as director of the federally funded Mashpee School District’s Indian Education Program, and being the first Native American recipient of the Dr. Josephine White Eagle Lifetime Achievement Award for her commitment to Native American education and culture at the University of Massachusetts, where she earned a bachelor’s degree and is currently working toward a doctorate.
Joan’s accomplishments speak for themselves, but one can only glean so much from a list of things accomplished, distilled down from an entire life lived. What we’ve learned is that there is no better way to really get to a person than to just talk with them, and most importantly, to listen and to learn. So that’s what we did. And there really is no better way to get to know a town than through its people.
This editor is particularly grateful to have the privilege of spending time getting to know the legendary Granny Squannit. Joan has dedicated her entire life to bettering the communities around her—the Town of Mashpee, fellow Cape Codders and Tribal citizens both in and beyond the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe—and her influence is undeniably all around us. The knowledge she’s imparted on us alone is invaluable, and we’re just one person—so we would imagine that her impact on the greater community, our readers and those who know her personally is tenfold. And for that, we should all be grateful.
Joan’s Native name belongs to a legend, but we think Joan herself, through her life’s work and her impact on her community and far, far beyond, had achieved legend status herself.
Happy birthday, Granny Squannit!