The Second United Lenape / Lunáapeew Nations Pow Wow

Join Prospect Park Alliance, the nonprofit that sustains the Prospect Park in partnership with the city, Éenda-Lŭnaapeewáhkiing Collective, which brings together Lunáapeew/Lenape communities who have been displaced across Turtle Island (North America), and American Indian Community House, which promotes the well-being and visibility of the American Indian community, for the Second United Lenape/Lunáapeew Nations Pow Wow at the LeFrak Center at Lakeside in Prospect Park. 

The first Pow Wow held in Prospect Park since 1972, and the second ever Lenape Pow Wow in New York City, this free, two-day public event welcomes the original Indigenous Lenape peoples who were forced to relocate across the continent back to their ancestral homelands to reunite and share their cultures with Brooklynites today. Join the weekend of family friendly fun, culture, art and learning with Indigenous dancers, drummers, and artisan craft and food vendors.

Second United Lenape/Lunáapeew Nations Pow Wow
Saturday, September 13 + Sunday September 14, 12–6 pm
LeFrak Center at Lakeside, Prospect Park

Pow Wows are gatherings where Lenape/Lunáapeew and neighboring Indigenous nations socialize and celebrate life. Prospect Park hosted formal Pow Wows from 1916 to 1972. Reviving this tradition in Prospect Park provides the Lenape/Lunáapeew an opportunity to celebrate their culture in their homelands and offers Brooklynites of all backgrounds the chance to enjoy the drumming, dancing, singing, art, crafts and foods of the original stewards of this land. 

Lenape grandfather George Stonefish organized the First United Lenape/Lunáapeew Nations Pow Wow at the Park Avenue Armory in 2018. In 2024, Prospect Park Alliance held a culture fair with the American Indian House and EL Collective as a precursor to the Pow Wow. Prospect Park Alliance is honored to help continue this important tradition by hosting Lenape and allied Indigenous artists and creators, dancers and drummers, and artisan craft and food vendors in Prospect Park for a weekend of family-friendly culture, learning and fun.

Lunáapeew/Lenape means human beings or, more specifically, “the ones who came from thought,” and is the name of the indigenous peoples whose ancestral homelands encompassed what is today Brooklyn and the surrounding region. Éenda-Lŭnaapeewáhkiing, “the land of the Lunáapeew,” holds the stories of a civilization rich with a deep understanding of the delicate balance and mutual relationships necessary to nurture and sustain a healthy world.

The Pow Wow is part of the Alliance’s ReImagine Lefferts initiative, which is transforming the Lefferts Historic House museum to explore the lives, resistance and resilience of the Indigenous people of Lenapehoking, whose unceded ancestral lands the park and house rests upon, and Africans who were enslaved by the Lefferts family.

Currently on view at Lefferts in connection with the Pow Wow is Eelunaapéewi Ehaptoonáakanal: Voices of Lunáapeew/Lenape, an exhibit celebrating 400 years of Indigenous resilience. Featuring video interviews with Lunáapeew/Lenape knowledge-keepers and culture bearers about their relationships to their ancestral homelands.