fbpx

Casey Farm’s ‘Three Sisters’ RainKeep Gets a New Bilingual Label

Oct 17, 2024

When visitors come to Casey Farm, in Saunderstown, Rhode Island, one of the first things they spot is the ‘Three Sisters’ RainKeep. With its vibrant purple petals, bright yellow canopy, and shiny, textured, aluminum base, this functional sculpture has been a feature of the farm’s landscape since 2021. The sculpture was a collaboration between artists Allison Newsome and Deborah Spears Moorehead. Beyond its beauty and functionality as a 500-gallon rain barrel, the ‘Three Sisters’ Rainkeep honors Indigenous history and connections to the land through the Eastern Woodlands creation story of The Three Sisters—corn, beans, and squash

Tall sculpture in an outdoor setting with a field of daisys in the foreground and a stone wall behind it.
‘ThreeSisters’ RainKeep at Casey Farm in Saunderstown, Rhode Island.

As an institution, we always strive to find new ways to tell the stories of the landscapes, histories, objects, and places we steward. This spring, Historic New England installed a new interpretative label to help visitors learn about the sculpture and its meaning. Casey Farm is located on the ancestral homeland of the Narragansett People. It was important to us to represent the history of Indigenous communities in Rhode Island and reflect the Indigenous peoples continuing to live in their ancestral homelands.

Historic New England’s Collection Services Team and Recovering New England’s Voices Indigenous Community Liaison, Kimonee Burke, partnered with members of the Narragansett Indian Tribe, including Dawn Dove, to translate the English label into Narragansett. Language is one of the most important ways we, as humans, express our culture, communicate our values, beliefs, and dreams, and pass down customs and traditions to future generations. As Lorén Spears, Narragansett cultural leader and director of the Tomaquag Museum, teaches, despite the violence and trauma inflicted on the Narragansett People by White colonists, the survival and perseverance of the Narragansett language is an important cultural touchstone and demonstration of survivance. Survivance is the idea that Indigenous people not only survived but resisted the violence of settler colonialism and have continued to grow as communities. Now, visitors to Casey Farm will see English and Narragansett side by side on the new label. 

Outdoor scene at a farm. In the foregorund, a person is standing and installing a sign. Another is sitting and watching.
Nora Ellen Carleson, Associate Curator, and Ryan Neal, Facilities Technician, install the new label for the sculpture this spring.
Outdoor scene at a farm. A person kneels in the foreground, planting flowers around a signpost.
Jane Hennedy, Site Manager for Southern, Rhode Island, re-plants flowers temporarily moved to install the new label.

To make the label more accessible, Historic New England is also introducing audio labels for the ‘Three Sisters’ RainKeep. In addition to the written description, visitors will find a QR code on the new label. After scanning the code with a mobile device, visitors will be brought to the “Garden & Walls” section of the Casey Farm web app. From here they will have the opportunity to read more about the sculpture, plus listen to the audio description in either English or Narragansett. 

Written by Dr. Nora Ellen Carleson, Associate Curator

With our deepest thanks to Dawn Dove and the other members of the Narragansett Indian Tribe who helped translate the label and read the label for the recording.