HOPKINTON/ASHAWAY/ASHAWAUG — One entrance of the wetu looks out toward the back of Ashawaug Farm and its woods, while the other opens up to a meadow overlooking a corn field, the stalks still high even after they’d been harvested.

Cassius Spears, who owns the farm and is a member of the Narragansett Indian Tribe, built the wetu — a traditional style of dwelling — to help show what the village of Ashaway, which comes from the word “Ashawaug,” meaning “land between rivers,” would have looked before European settlers.

He said he wanted to create “a sense of going back in time.”

But the future is never far from view — a solar-powered well sits off to the side of the meadow.

“Always improving in our modern world,” Spears said.

Cassius and his wife, Dawn Spears, who is also a member of the Narragansett Indian Tribe, started Ashawaug Farm in 2019.

“We pretty much focus on our traditions, on our heritage foods,” Cassius said, both as a way to feed people and teach them.

Dawn called it a “learning space, but not so formal that it’s not welcoming.”

On their 6 acres, they grow traditional crops such as Narragansett flint corn, crookneck squash, and strawberries. Some of their produce makes its way to local restaurants, but they also use what they grow for Narragansett celebrations, like the strawberry and corn harvests.

The couple want the farm to be a place for both the tribal community and the general public.

There’s a farm stand on the property, and Dawn suggested that if folks pass by, and they see the couple outside, which the pair often are, they should come say hello.

Before he started the farm, Cassius founded the Narragansett Food Sovereignty Initiative on Crandall Farm around 2014. (Dawn brought it up, saying she knew Cassius wouldn’t toot his own horn.)

“It was about sharing,” Cassius said. As the couple has gotten older, he said, “you can see those with and those without.”

There were also plenty of people who came to them with questions or the desire to remember more of their traditions.

Cassius had lived traditional agricultural practices growing up on a farm. With a big family and lots of siblings, farming helped put food on the table.

At Ashawaug Farm, where the squash, beans, and corn that make up the “Three Sisters” grow together, helping each other thrive, and mounded beds keep roots moist in dry times and out of the water during deluges, Cassius employs many of those same traditional techniques.

“When you grow up relying on the harvest you can grow, you really become aware of your surroundings,” Cassius said.

“It’s so important to stay connected,” he added. Paying attention to the natural world helps a person know that when a certain indicator plant blooms, it’s time to sow a certain crop, or that an area’s soil is fertile from what types of trees are growing around it.

Not only does staying connected make you a better food producer, he said, “when you disconnect from the land it’s really hard to connect to the cultural aspect of who we are.”

Dawn agreed, referring to the corn as a “medicine” — not just something to eat but, through the process of planting, growing, and harvesting, a way to help “heal our community,” she said.

“For me, my mom always had gardens,” Dawn said, but now having farmed and produced at this scale, it feels different. It’s harder, for sure, she said, but there’s also something else.

Dawn said she can feel the energy coming from the corn during the harvest, but “what good is it if it’s just you feeling that?” It drives her desire to share the experience and the farm with others.

“You can’t learn it on a small space,” Dawn added, “you have to do it.”

“It’s hard to explain it,” Cassius agreed, “you have to live it.”

Being so closely tied to the land, which is an important Narragansett value, also helps the couple, especially Dawn, an artist, stay creative.

Cassius pulled out some of Dawn’s prints, saying she wouldn’t boast about herself, and pointed out how her work ties into the Narragansett creation story, agricultural practices like the Three Sisters, and even climate change.

Dawn, who is the executive director of the Northeast Indigenous Arts Alliance, said she wants to use the farm space to practice and teach both culture and agriculture, combining both of their knowledge.

The couple has been married 40 years, Cassius said. Well, almost 40, Dawn reminded him. Their anniversary is in May.

They have three children and eight grandchildren, another reason they’re so happy to have the farm. The grandkids are already learning about growing, about nature, about stories and traditions.

Dawn said she’d like others to come and experience the farm, too — to take a stroll around the path, find a quiet place to think, see the corn and the wetu and experience how history and tradition have carried into the present and will continue into the future.

As elders in their Tribe get older and pass away, the couple said, it’s important to pass on the cultural and historical knowledge so it doesn’t slip away.

“I’m just asking you to remember,” Cassius said.