Historic Germanna welcomes guest speaker, Victoria Ferguson, Program Director for Historic Solitude/Fraction Site on the campus of Virginia Tech and citizen of the Monacan Indian Nation, for a special presentation in honor Native American Heritage Month. Presented in person at Historic Germanna and online, the November 10 presentation will highlight the emergence of the Eastern Woodland women of Virginia’s interior as the dominate force and foundation of these tribal groups. Her research has found that the matrilineal culture of these Indigenous people developed around the family ties of the female’s blood line, and that the female’s line was used to trace clans back to their beginning. Clans carried such names as deer, bear, wolf, and turtle. Women’s roles extended to cover matters such as who would be responsible for a particular job, who could and could not marry, who someone was buried with, which town they lived in, and who would be chief of a village or town. Women managed a great deal of work which served as a driving force within communities until European colonization destroyed their tribal structure and their functioning societies. This program is made possible in part by a grant from Virginia Humanities.

Learn more & RSVP Lecture Highlights Life of Virginia’s Siouan Tribes – Historic Germanna