Written in the mid 1990’s, after the Wabanaki Confederacy gathering at Indian Island, Penobscot reserve in Maine
Excerpts by Charlie True, Abenaki Nation of New Hampshire
The report on my attendance at the Wabanaki Confederacy gathering at Odanak last year was very positive…..The good news is that, as usual, the overwhelming majority of people who came brought their beauty of spirit, warm friendliness and sense of humor. To sit in circles with these people always makes the trip worthwhile, and the spiritual bonding that takes place helps me to understand why the Wabanaki people have been able to survive as a viable and vital cultural group in spite of the tremendous multiple pressures over several centuries to “disappear” into the dominant culture……
I had previously heard, and in the past three years have myself sensed, that Abenakis are not generally respected within the Wabanaki Confederacy. I think it’s important that we look first to ourselves to determine how this attitude may have come about; that we take a hard, objective look at ourselves as a people to try to determine the root causes of it. But first, in our defense, some historical circumstances need to be looked at which will help us to understand some significant differences, at least on the surface, between ourselves and the other Wabanaki tribes. They are for the most part based in well-established communities and have American/’Canadian federal recognition. With the exception of the Odanak reserve and to a certain extent the Missisquoi community, today’s Abenakis (and several generations before us) do not come from cohesive native communities. We are for the most part spread out over northern New England and Quebec, trying to break through those family “codes of silence” and find each other again. Partly because of this, the other Wabanaki people are seeing in us a factionalized group who don’t even seem to know each other very well. They don’t see us as a cohesive family expressing a common culture.
Our history has also led to a greater degree of assimilation, and the inevitable “thinning out of the blood”. I addressed this in the elders’ circle, among other things; because I believed it was very much a part of the “problem” under discussion. Any discussion of blood quantum always leads me to this question: At what point does the parent say to the child, “I am Abenaki, but you can’t be Abenaki”? For me, this is the same as determining when the Abenaki people should decide that our native blood is too thinned out to warrant calling ourselves Indians any longer, and that we no longer exist as a distinct culture. Many people are uncomfortable with this kind of discussion, but in my opinion it needs to be addressed head on because it deals with our ability to survive into the future. In the circle I observed that I had seen many white looking spouses and sweethearts on their reserves, and suggested that they were only a generation or two behind us in the inevitable intermarriage with non-natives. There were several affirmative nodes around the circle when I said this. I appealed to them to consider now how they will prepare their “non-Indian looking” grandchildren to carry their ancestral fires into the future and not let their cultures fade because of pressures based on their appearance.
So much for historical circumstances; what about this self-responsibility we have to our apparent reputation among Confederacy tribes? I have expressed the opinion before that the Abenaki people are in a period of “reconstruction”, that is, trying to regain the essential elements of our culture that were all but lost, and that this requires that we individually and then by sharing in groups, learn to make connections with those ancestral roots that we are all born with. In addition to strengthening our self-identity, I believe this process also enhances our sense of relatedness because we are ultimately drawing on the same tap root for our directions and understanding of community responsibilities. A more harmonious relationship will come about in time and we’ll begin to look a more unified people to outsiders. In the meantime, we need to put aside the inflated egos, old internal disputes, and start acting like we are, in fact, a Nation based on mutual respect, with common roots and a sense of urgency about our place within the sacred hoop. At this time our somewhat different circumstances present us with an opportunity and a challenge to demonstrate to others how “white Indians” may also be respected firekeepers in the twenty first century. In any case, we can’t demand that our Wabanaki cousins have more respect for us; like everything else, we have to earn it.
Excerpts by Charlie True, Abenaki Nation of New Hampshire
The report on my attendance at the Wabanaki Confederacy gathering at Odanak last year was very positive…..The good news is that, as usual, the overwhelming majority of people who came brought their beauty of spirit, warm friendliness and sense of humor. To sit in circles with these people always makes the trip worthwhile, and the spiritual bonding that takes place helps me to understand why the Wabanaki people have been able to survive as a viable and vital cultural group in spite of the tremendous multiple pressures over several centuries to “disappear” into the dominant culture……
I had previously heard, and in the past three years have myself sensed, that Abenakis are not generally respected within the Wabanaki Confederacy. I think it’s important that we look first to ourselves to determine how this attitude may have come about; that we take a hard, objective look at ourselves as a people to try to determine the root causes of it. But first, in our defense, some historical circumstances need to be looked at which will help us to understand some significant differences, at least on the surface, between ourselves and the other Wabanaki tribes. They are for the most part based in well-established communities and have American/’Canadian federal recognition. With the exception of the Odanak reserve and to a certain extent the Missisquoi community, today’s Abenakis (and several generations before us) do not come from cohesive native communities. We are for the most part spread out over northern New England and Quebec, trying to break through those family “codes of silence” and find each other again. Partly because of this, the other Wabanaki people are seeing in us a factionalized group who don’t even seem to know each other very well. They don’t see us as a cohesive family expressing a common culture.
Our history has also led to a greater degree of assimilation, and the inevitable “thinning out of the blood”. I addressed this in the elders’ circle, among other things; because I believed it was very much a part of the “problem” under discussion. Any discussion of blood quantum always leads me to this question: At what point does the parent say to the child, “I am Abenaki, but you can’t be Abenaki”? For me, this is the same as determining when the Abenaki people should decide that our native blood is too thinned out to warrant calling ourselves Indians any longer, and that we no longer exist as a distinct culture. Many people are uncomfortable with this kind of discussion, but in my opinion it needs to be addressed head on because it deals with our ability to survive into the future. In the circle I observed that I had seen many white looking spouses and sweethearts on their reserves, and suggested that they were only a generation or two behind us in the inevitable intermarriage with non-natives. There were several affirmative nodes around the circle when I said this. I appealed to them to consider now how they will prepare their “non-Indian looking” grandchildren to carry their ancestral fires into the future and not let their cultures fade because of pressures based on their appearance.
So much for historical circumstances; what about this self-responsibility we have to our apparent reputation among Confederacy tribes? I have expressed the opinion before that the Abenaki people are in a period of “reconstruction”, that is, trying to regain the essential elements of our culture that were all but lost, and that this requires that we individually and then by sharing in groups, learn to make connections with those ancestral roots that we are all born with. In addition to strengthening our self-identity, I believe this process also enhances our sense of relatedness because we are ultimately drawing on the same tap root for our directions and understanding of community responsibilities. A more harmonious relationship will come about in time and we’ll begin to look a more unified people to outsiders. In the meantime, we need to put aside the inflated egos, old internal disputes, and start acting like we are, in fact, a Nation based on mutual respect, with common roots and a sense of urgency about our place within the sacred hoop. At this time our somewhat different circumstances present us with an opportunity and a challenge to demonstrate to others how “white Indians” may also be respected firekeepers in the twenty first century. In any case, we can’t demand that our Wabanaki cousins have more respect for us; like everything else, we have to earn it.
