BALTIMORE— The Maryland State Arts Council has announced the winners of the 2024 Heritage Awards through its traditional arts program, Maryland Traditions.
Locally, the Pocomoke Indian Nation is the MSAC Heritage Award for Pocomoke Homelands in the category of Place. The $10,000 unrestricted award will support the nonprofit’s mission:
“To preserve the heritage and way of life of the Pocomoke Nation , whose villages and resources encompassed the Annemessee, Manonoakin, Monie and Pocomoke watersheds and hinterlands; the sounds of Tangier and Pocomoke and their islands, as well as the coastal bays and island of Chincoteague.”
As nominator Virginia R. Busby, PhD, noted, “Pocomoke Homelands, Pocomoke Paramountcy and the Pocomoke Indian Nation are synonymous. They are maintained through traditional practices in place which include within-tribe teaching, land and water stewardship, and public education throughout their homelands…. Conceiving of tribal people and place as synonymous is characteristic of American Indian cultures across the Americas and is exemplified by the continual relation of the Pocomoke to their Lower Shore homelands.”