The Sons of Membertou bookended the 2024 Smithsonian Folklife Festival’s Indigenous Voices of the Americas program, with performances in the opening ceremony as well as the final featured concert in the National Museum of the American Indian’s Potomac Atrium.

Austin Christmas, J.R. Isadore, John MacEwan, and Graham Marshall represented the Mi’kmaw musical group at the Festival, joined by dancer Maisyn Sock. It was especially significant for this group—from Unama’ki (also known as Cape Breton, on Nova Scotia’s Atlantic coast)—to perform on Canada Day, July 1, with Kirsten Hillman, ambassador of Canada to the United States, in attendance.

From this prominent stage, the Sons of Membertou shared the living story and language of Mi’kmaw people. They modeled their bedrock cultural values of sharing and mutual respect, expressed in Kepmite’tmnej or the Mi’kmaq Honour Song: Let us greatly respect our Native roots. Let us help one another.

Since the 1990s, the Sons of Membertou have been part of a vibrant resurgence of Mi’kmaq musical traditions. The updated reissue of their 1995 record, Wapna'kik: The People of the Dawn, comes out today from Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.

Rebecca Fenton is the lead curator for the Indigenous Voices of the Americas program at the 2024 Smithsonian Folklife Festival.