Abenaki

The Abenaki People originally lived throughout much of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. Currently, they are recognized only as "Canadian Indians", with the exception of the Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, & Maliseet (all Eastern Abenaki) in Maine. Our focus is on Western Maine, which is loosely defined as west of the Kennebec River.

Today, Abenaki populations in the Northeast are often referred to as "Invisible People". A statement that is especially poignant in Western Maine. We find fleeting glimpses of them in early town histories. They soon fade into the shadows. Their identity, language, history, and culture hidden from sight. Our historians could not "see" the Abenaki. They wrote about Indian wars from Euroamerican view points. They described inaccurate, often negative, and sometimes highly romanticized pictures of Indians. They used labels such as noble savage, uncivilized barbarian, and lazy worthless thieves.

They told us that the Androscoggin, Piscataqua, Presumscot, Sandy, and Saco River Abenaki were gone from the forests, lakes, and rivers of their homeland in Western Maine, exterminated by war and disease or removed to Canada. But how can this be? Some of the nicest people we know are Abenaki and they live right here in Western Maine. Are they ghosts? No. Are they immigrants from Canada? Some are, but NOT all of them. Many of these families have been here for generations. They are very real, with feelings, needs, and dreams just like any other human being. However, they do seem to be invisible. Why can't we see them? Marge Bruchac, said it best when she used the phrase "they learned to hide in plain sight". In order to survive in their homeland, they had to hide their identity.

Something which they apparently learned to do very well. The Maine frontier was embroiled in colonial wars for almost 100 years. The Frenchand the English were political and religious enemies. The Abenaki People held much of the land between these two European rivals. The English wanted Abenaki land. The French wanted Abenaki souls for their Pope and soldiers for their battles. The French often supplied the Abenaki with weapons, supplies, and military leaders to wage war on the English. The warriors' families were welcomed by Jesuit priests at missions set up for them. The Abenaki were good warriors. The shout "Indians" brought fear to the hearts of frontier settlers for many generations. The wounds of war ran deep. Too deep for the Abenaki and English to openly accept each other.

But for many Abenaki, love for their homeland (N'dakina) ran even deeper. Many did go to Canada at one time or another. Some never left. Many of those that left did not stay away long. One by one, families returned to their homeland. They intermarried and joined the Euroamerican communities which were springing up like wild flowers all over Western Maine. Gradually, they became an invisible force in the history and development of the region. The Abenaki did not disappear from New England, only from our sight. Today, the descendants of the Abenaki People ask questions. Why do our elders hide their identity ? Why can't we find our Native ancestors ? Who are we ? What is our place in history ? These are very tough questions. The answers are very complex. The wounds of war have been replaced with the wounds of obscurity. It is time to begin the healing process. It is time to search for pieces of the puzzle.

It is time for Abenaki People to step forth from the shadows. Finally, it is time for the Euroamerican People to recognize the role of the Abenaki in this region's history. As Abenaki descendants speak out, our vision is improved. However, there is still much work to be done before the picture becomes clear. Modern scholars are rediscovering the Abenaki people throughout the Northeast. This is being accomplished by combining French, English, and Dutch documents with personal diaries, captivity stories, family genealogies, and oral tradition. The Abenaki story is a giant jigsaw puzzle with most of it's pieces scattered by the winds of time. By gathering existing documented information, we begin to make sense of the pieces we have. By researching family histories, we find missing pieces. By digging through old reports, ledgers, and journals, we find pieces we were not aware existed. By putting these pieces together, we begin to understand the role the Abenaki people played in the history of the Northeast and the methods they used to survive to present? Our interest at Ne-Do-Ba is in adding new chapters to the history of this region. Chapters that will define who the Abenaki people are, what sacrifices were made in order to survive, and what contributions they made to local communities.

The Abenaki (also "Wabanuok" or Wabanaki) are a tribe of Native Americans/First Nations belonging to the Algonquian peoples of northeastern North America. The two major tribes within the Abenaki people are Western Abenaki and Eastern Abenaki.

The term "Wabanuok" or Wabanakiyik means "People of the Dawn Land" in the Abenaki language, from waban ("dawn" or "east") and ki ("land")—the aboriginal name of the area broadly corresponding to New England. It is, therefore, sometimes used to refer to all the Algonquan language speaking peoples of the area — Western Abenaki, Eastern Abenaki, Wolastoqiyik-Passamaquoddy, and Micmac — as a single group.

The Abenakis were traditionally allied with the French; one of them, Assacumbuit, was declared a noble under the reign of Louis XIV.
Facing annihilation from English attacks and epidemics, they started to emigrate to Quebec around 1669, where two municipalities were given to them. The first was on the Saint Francis River and is nowadays known as the Odanak Indian Reservation; the second was founded near Bécancour and is called the Wolinak Indian Reservation.

When their principal town, Allidgewook/Norridgewock, was taken, and their missionary, Father Sebastian Rasle, killed in 1724, many more emigrated to the settlement on the St. Francis River where other refugees from the New England tribes had come to earlier. As of the early 1900s, they were represented by the Wolastoqiyik ("People of the good river" – Maliseet) on the St. John River, New Brunswick, and Quebec (, on the bay of that name, in Maine (300); the Penobscots, at Old Town, Maine (400), and the Abnakis at St. Francis and Bécancour, Quebec (430).[citation needed]

Abenaki couple

Abenakis are not a federally recognized tribe in the United States, unlike almost all of the other eastern tribes. This may change: Vermont officially recognized the Abenaki in 2006. This is in recognition of the annihilation or assimilation of the Abenaki and subsequent isolation of each small remnant of the greater whole onto reservations during and after the French and Indian War well before the US government began acknowledging the sovereignty of native tribes in the late twentieth century. Facing annihilation, the Abenakis began emigrating to Canada, then under French control, around 1669 where they were granted two seigneuries. The first seigneurie was established on the Saint-François river and is now known as the Odanak Indian Reserve; the second was established on the river Bécancour and is now known as the Wôlinak Indian Reserve.[citation needed]

A tribal council was organized in 1976 at Swanton, Vermont as the Sokoki-St. Francis Band of the Abenaki Nation. State recognition of the council was granted that same year but was later withdrawn for unknown reasons. In 1982, they applied for nation recognition which is still pending.[1]{{Fact|date=February 2007}

There are a dozen variations of the name Abenakis, such as Abenaquiois, Abakivis, Quabenakionek, Wabenakies and others.

They were described in the Jesuit Relations as not cannibals, and as docile, ingenious, temperate in the use of liquor, and not profane.[2]

All Abenaki tribes lived a lifestyle similar to the Algonquin of southern New England. They largely relied on agriculture when it came to their diet, which is why villages often were located on or near river floodplains. Other less major, but still important parts of their diet include hunting, fishing, and wild plant gathering.[1]

They lived in scattered bands of extended families for most of the year. Each man had different hunting territories inherited through his father. The Abenaki were patrilineal, unlike the Iroquois. Bands would come together during the spring and summer at temporary villages near rivers, or somewhere along the seacoast for planting and fishing. These villages occasionally had to be fortified, depending on the alliances and enemies of other tribes or of Europeans near the village. Abenaki villages were quite small when compared to the Iroquois', the average number of people only being 100.[1]

An Abenaki Indian man in
traditional clothing.

Most Abenaki settlements used dome-shaped, bark covered wigwams for housing, though a few preferred oval-shaped long houses. During the winter, the Abenaki lived in small groups farther inland. The homes there were bark-covered wigwams shaped in a way similar to the teepees of the Great Plains Indians.[1]

Government

The Abenaki were ruled by elected chiefs called Sagamores, who usually served for life but could be impeached. They had little actual power, but European colonizers still treated them like monarchs, resulting in many miscommunications and oversimplifications.[citation needed]

Language

There are two primary dialects of Abenaki: Western Abenaki, the language of the Abenaki community at Odanak, and Eastern Abenaki, which is represented by the modern language of the Penobscot tribe, as well as in the Abenaki linguistic materials of the colonial French missionaries.[citation needed

The Abenaki language is closely related to those of their neighboring tribes such as the Mi'kmaq, Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet), and Pestomuhkati (Passamaquoddy). There were numerous cultural differences between the Algonquian tribes and those of the Five Nations with linguistic and spiritual differences being the most noticeable.

There are very few native speakers of the original Abenaki language still alive. There are active Abenaki communities in Quebec, Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire.

Their language has been preserved in the monumental dictionary of Sebastian Rasle, in Joseph Laurent's 1884 grammar, and in the 1994 dictionary by Gordon Day.

Population and epidemics

Before the Abenaki — except the Pennacook and Micmac — had contact with the European world, their population may have numbered as many as 40,000. Around 20,000 would have been Eastern Abenaki, another 10,000 would have been Western Abenaki, and the last 10,000 would have been Maritime Abenaki. Early contacts with European fisherman resulted in two major epidemics that affected Abenaki during the 1500s. The first epidemic was an unknown sickness occurring sometime between 1564 and 1570, and the second one was typhus in 1586. Multiple epidemics arrived a decade prior to the English settlement of Massachusetts in 1620, when three separate sicknesses swept across New England and the Canadian Maritimes. Maine was hit very hard during the year of 1617, with a fatality rate of 75%, and the population of the Eastern Abenaki fell to about 5,000. Fortunately, the Western Abenaki were a more isolated group of people and suffered far less, losing only about half of their original population of 10,000.

The new diseases continued to cause more disaster, starting with smallpox in 1631, 1633, and 1639. Seven years later, an unknown epidemic struck, with influenza passing through the following year. Smallpox affected the Abenaki again in 1649, and diphtheria came through 10 years later. Once again, smallpox struck in 1670, and influenza again in 1675. Smallpox affected the Native Americans again in 1677, 1679, 1687, along with measles, 1691, 1729, 1733, 1755, and finally in 1758.

The Abenaki population continued to decline, but in 1676, they took in thousands of refugees from many southern New England tribes displaced by settlement and King Philip's War. Because of this, descendents of nearly every southern New England Algonquin can be found among the Abenaki people. Another century later, there were fewer than 1,000 Abenaki remaining after the American Revolution.

The population recovered to almost 12,000 in both the United States and Canada.

Location

The homeland of the Abenaki, known to them as Ndakinna, which means "our land", extended across most of northern New England and into the southern Canadian Maritimes. The Eastern Abenaki's population was concentrated in portions of Maine east of New Hampshire's White Mountains, while the other major tribe, the Western Abenaki, lived in areas west of the mountains across Vermont and New Hampshire to the eastern shores of Lake Champlain. The southern limits of the Abenaki's homeland were near the present northern border of Massachusetts, excluding the Pennacook country along the Merrimack River in southern New Hampshire. The maritime Abenaki lived around St. Croix and the Wolastoq (St. John River) Valleys near the boundary line between Maine and New Brunswick.

The settlement of New England and frequent wars caused many Abenakis to resort to retreating to Quebec. Two large tribal communities formed near St-Francois-du-Lac and Bécancour. These settlements continue to exist to this day. Three reservations also exist in northern Maine, and seven Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet) reserves are located in New Brunswick and Quebec. Other groups of Abenaki, without reservations, are scattered across northern New Hampshire and Vermont.