Performers

Chief Donna Abbott will give a blessing at the Maryland Folk Festival opening ceremony Friday, Sept. 20, at 6 p.m.

Donna Abbott grew up in lower Dorchester County, Maryland, in the small community of Robbins, near Shorter’s Wharf. As a child, Abbott spent a lot of time outside and enjoyed picking wild asparagus, going in the woods to cut the family Christmas tree and occasionally sneaking in a day on the marsh trapping muskrat. She graduated from Chesapeake College with an associate’s degree in allied sciences and has worked as a radiological technologist for 30 years. Abbott is mom to a son, Gentle Bear, a Newfoundland puppy, Saffron, and a Leopard Appaloosa, Spot.

The Nause-Waiwash Band of Indians are a group of about 300 people, based in Dorchester County. They are descendants of what Europeans call Nanticoke and Choptank Indians, whose home was, and still is, the Eastern Shore of Maryland. The name Nause-Waiwash (nah-soo WAY-wash) is a reference to two ancestral villages. Nause was located outside Vienna, along the Nanticoke River, and Waiwash was located along the Choptank River outside of Cambridge. In the 1700s, these people fled to the marshes of lower Dorchester to avoid execution by the Maryland Militia. In the late 1980s, Sewell Fitzhugh, Elihu Abbott, Gilbert Robbins, Lee Hughes and others decided the history, culture and traditions of these Dorchester County Indians needed to be preserved. A council was formed and an election was held.

Being a matrilineal society, the women of the tribe voted Sewell Fitzhugh (Winter Hawk) to be the first chief of the Nause-Waiwash Band of Indians, Inc. Chief Winter Hawk led the Nause-Waiwash in a positive direction. The tribe prospered and grew by leaps and bounds while under his leadership for 25 years. In October 2014, the Nause-Waiwash Band suffered a tragic loss. Chief Sewell Winter Hawk Fitzhugh suddenly crossed the veil while at home with his wife, Kathy. In November 2014, having worked with Chief Winter Hawk so closely, the women of the tribe elected Donna Wolf Mother Abbott as Chief Winter Hawk’s successor and the first woman chief to lead the Nause-Waiwash. Chief Wolf Mother’s goal is to continue leading the tribe in a positive direction and to educate.