Penobscot: Difference between revisions
Undid revision 315575350 by 72.148.67.53 (talk); Q&A not appropriate format for encyclopedia, smellls like copyvio problem |
|||
Line 57: | Line 57: | ||
==History== |
==History== |
||
[[Image:Wohngebiet Oestlicheabenaki.png|thumb|right|300px|Historical territories of Eastern Abenaki tribes]] |
[[Image:Wohngebiet Oestlicheabenaki.png|thumb|right|300px|Historical territories of Eastern Abenaki tribes]] |
||
How do you pronounce "Abenaki?" What does it mean? |
|||
It's pronounced AH-buh-nah-kee. It means "people of the dawn," or "easterners." This name is also spelled "Abnaki," "Abanaki," or "Abenaqui." Abenaki Indians also call themselves Alnombak, which means "the people." |
|||
Is there a difference between "Abenaki" and "Wabanaki"? |
|||
Yes. Both these words have the same root, which means "easterners." However, the Wabanaki Confederacy was the name of an alliance that included not only the Abenakis, but also four neighboring tribes: the Penobscots, the Maliseets, the Passamaquoddies, and the Micmacs. Click here to learn more about the Wabanaki Confederacy. |
|||
Where do the Abenaki Indians live? |
|||
The Abenakis are original natives of Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. After European colonists arrived, many Abenakis fled to Canada or moved in with neighboring tribes. Today, Abenaki Indians live on two reservations in Quebec and scattered around New England. Abenakis in the United States do not have a reservation. |
|||
How is the Abenaki tribe organized? |
|||
In Canada, the two Abenaki bands live on reserves (also known as reservations.) A reserve is land that belongs to the tribe and is under their control. Each Canadian Abenaki band has its own government, laws, police, and services, just like a small country. However, the Abenakis are also Canadian citizens and must obey Canadian law. The leader or chief of each Abenaki band is called sagama or sag8mo in their language. |
|||
The Abenaki tribe is not federally recognized in the United States. That means Abenakis in the US don't have reservations or their own governments. The Abenaki of New England also have bands with chiefs, but they are unofficial. |
|||
What language do Abenaki Indians speak? |
|||
The Abenaki in New England speak English. Most Abenaki people in Quebec speak French. Some Abenaki elders in Canada still speak their native Abnaki-Penobscot language. It has this long name because two tribes, the Abenakis and the Penobscots, speak the same language with different accents--just like Americans and Canadians both speak English. Today Abnaki-Penobscot is an endangered language because most children aren't learning it anymore, but some Abenaki and Penobscot people are working to keep the language alive. |
|||
Abnaki-Penobscot is a musical language with com plicated verbs. If you'd like to learn a few easy Abenaki words, "kwai kwai" is a friendly greeting and "woliwoni" means "thank you." You can listen to an Abanaki elder talk in his language here and see an Abenaki picture glossary here. |
|||
What was Abenaki culture like in the past? What is it like now? |
|||
Abenaki flag Here's a story about an Abanaki child learning his family's traditions. Here are links to two Abenaki communities, the Cowasuck Abenaki Band in Massachusetts and the Missisquoi Abenaki Band in Vermont, where you can learn about Abenaki Indians today. |
|||
How do Abenaki Indian children live and what did they do in the past? |
|||
Abenaki ring and pin game They do the same things all children do--play with each other, go to school, and help around the house. Many Abenaki children go hunting and fishing with their fathers, and some like to paddle canoes. In the past, Indian kids had more chores and less time to play, like early colonial children. But Abenakis did have cornhusk dolls, games, and toys, and they practiced shooting child-sized bows and arrows. Abenaki babies, like many Native Americans, rode in baby carriers called cradleboards on their mothers' backs--a custom many American families have adopted now. |
|||
What were men and women's roles in the Abenaki tribe? |
|||
Abenaki men were hunters and sometimes went to war to protect their families. Abenaki women were farmers and also did most of the child care and cooking. Both genders took part in storytelling, artwork and music, and traditional medicine. In the past, the chief was always a man, but today an Abenaki woman can be chief too. |
|||
What were Abenaki homes like? |
|||
Abenaki wigwam The Abenakis didn't live in tepees. They lived in small birchbark buildings called wigwams or lodges, about the size of a modern camp tent. Some Abenaki families preferred to build larger Iroquois-style longhouses instead. Here are some pictures of wigwams, longhouses, and other Indian homes. An Abenaki village contained many wigwams or longhouses, a meeting hall, and a sweat lodge. Many villages also had palisades (high log walls) around them to guard against attack. |
|||
Today, Native Americans only build a wigwam for fun or to connect with their heritage, not as shelter. Most Abenakis live in modern houses and apartment buildings, just like you. |
|||
What was Abenaki clothing like? Did they wear feather headdresses and face paint? |
|||
Abenaki clothes |
|||
Beaded moccasins Abenaki men wore breechcloths with leather leggings. Abenaki women wore wraparound deerskin skirts. Shirts were not necessary in Abenaki culture, but in cool weather both genders wore poncho-like blouses. The Abenakis also used moccasins, cloaks, and pointed hoods. Later the Abenakis adapted European costume such as cloth blouses and jackets, decorating them with fancy beadwork. Here are more pictures of Abenaki clothing styles, and some photographs and links about American Indian clothing in general. |
|||
The Abenakis didn't wear long warbonnets like the Sioux. Usually they wore a headband with a feather or two in it. Sometimes an Abenaki chief would wear a tall feathered headdress. They did not paint their faces. Abenaki women wore their hair loose or braided on top of their heads, and Abenaki men sometimes put their long hair in topknots. |
|||
Some Abenakis today have a traditional cloak or moccasins, but they wear modern clothes like jeans instead of breechcloths... and they only wear feathers in their hair on special occasions like a dance. |
|||
What did Abenaki Indians use for transportation in the days before cars? Did they paddle canoes? |
|||
Abenaki canoe Yes--the Abenaki tribe was well-known for their birchbark canoes. Canoeing is still popular among Abenakis, though few people handcraft a canoe from birch bark anymore. Over land, the Abenakis used dogs as pack animals. (There were no horses in North America until colonists brought them over from Europe.) The Abenakis used sleds and snowshoes to help them travel in the winter. They learned to make those tools from northern neighbors like the Cree Indians. |
|||
Today, of course, Abenakis also use cars... and non-native people also use canoes. |
|||
Abenaki fishing spear What was Abenaki food like in the days before supermarkets? |
|||
They hunted deer and moose and fished in the rivers. Abenakis still cherish these activities today (though most hunters use guns now instead of arrows and spears.) Abenaki Indians also planted corn and beans, picked berries, and made maple syrup from tree sap. Here is an Abenaki soup recipe. |
|||
What kinds of weapons and tools did the Abenakis use? |
|||
Abenaki fishermen used pronged spears like this one to catch fish, as well as nets. Abenaki hunters and warriors used bows and arrows, spears, and heavy wooden clubs. Here is a picture of a Wabanaki war club. |
|||
What are Abenaki arts and crafts like? |
|||
Abenaki basket Abenaki artists are best known for their quillwork, beadwork and black ash baskets. Here is a website of Abenaki basket photographs. Like other eastern American Indians, Abenakis also crafted wampum out of white and purple shell beads. Wampum beads were traded as a kind of currency, but they were more culturally important as an art material. The designs and pictures on wampum belts often told a story or represented a person's family. |
|||
What other Native Americans did the Abenaki tribe interact with? |
|||
The Abenaki traded regularly with all the other New England Indians, and they often fought with the powerful Iroquois. But their most important neighbors were the Penobscots, Passamaquoddies, Maliseets, and Micmacs. These five tribes formed an alliance called the Wabanaki Confederacy. Before this alliance, the Abenaki were not always friends with these tribes--in fact, they sometimes fought wars against each other. But once they joined the Confederacy, the Wabanaki tribes never fought each other again. They are still allies today. |
|||
What kinds of stories do the Abenaki Indians tell? |
|||
There are many traditional Abenaki legends and fairy tales. Storytelling is very important to the Abenaki Indian culture. Here's one legend about Gluskonba (Glooscap), the culture hero of the Abenaki tribe. |
|||
What problems do the Abenaki Indians face today? |
|||
In the United States, the government does not officially recognize the Abenaki tribe. This upsets the Abenakis because they do not have hunting or fishing rights, they cannot sell arts and crafts under Indian craft laws, and other American Indians don't always recognize or cooperate with them. The Abenaki want to be recognized as a true Indian tribe, but because their ancestors often hid from the Americans or fled into Canada, they cannot prove that they lived in New England continuously since the 1600's. Here's a newspaper article about that. |
|||
What about Abenaki religion? |
|||
Religions are too complicated and culturally sensitive to describe appropriately in only a few simple sentences, and we strongly want to avoid misleading anybody. You can visit this site to learn more about Abenaki mythology or this site about Native American religion in general. |
|||
==Notable Penobscots== |
==Notable Penobscots== |
Revision as of 21:06, 22 September 2009
The Penobscot (Panawahpskek) are a sovereign people indigenous to what is now Maritime Canada and the northeastern United States, particularly Maine. They were (and are) significant participants in the historical and present Wabanaki Confederacy, along with the Passamaquoddy, Maliseet, and Mi'kmaq nations.
The word "Penobscot" originates from a mispronunciation of their name "Penawapskewi." The word means "rocky part" or "descending ledges" and originally referred to the portion of the Penobscot River between Old Town and Bangor. The tribe has adopted the name Penobscot Indian Nation.
Penobscot is also the name of the dialect of Eastern Abenaki (an Algonquian language) that the Penobscot people speak.
History
Pre-Contact
Little is known about the Penobscot people pre-contact. Indians are thought to have inhabited Maine and surrounding areas for at least 11,000 years.[1] They subsisted off beavers, otters, moose, bears, caribou, fish, seafood (clams, mussels, fish), birds, bird eggs, berries, nuts, and possibly marine mammals like seals, all which were found throughout their native lands.[2] Furthermore, agriculture was practiced but not to the same extent as that of indigenous peoples in southern New England.[3] Food was only potentially scarce toward the end of the winter, in March and February. However, for the rest of the year, Penobscots as well as other Wabanakis probably had little issue feeding themselves because the land offered much, and the amount of people taking from the land was too small to deplete the land’s resources.[4] Furthermore, they moved seasonally depending on where the most bountiful food would be.
Contact and Colonization
Contact with Europeans was not uncommon during the sixteenth century because the fur trade was lucrative and the Penobscots were willing to trade pelts for European goods like metal axes, guns, and copper or iron cookware. However, the abundance that had existed in Penobscot territory quickly disappeared as demand for the resources in the Penobscot homelands rose. This trade also brought alcohol to Penobscot communities for the first time. The presence of alcohol brought alcoholism, which Europeans frequently tried to exploit in dealings and trade. The Europeans also brought foreign diseases to which the Penobscots had no defenses. The population was also depleted during this time because of ongoing battles between the Wabanaki Federation and the Mohawk Indians. This catastrophic population depletion may have also led to Christian conversion (amongst other factors) because the European priests who had not suffered from the pandemics explained that the Indians had died because they did not believe in Jesus Christ.[5]
The beginning of the seventeenth century saw the first Europeans that lived year-round in Wabanaki territory.[6] At this time, there were probably about 10,000 Penobscots (a number which fell to below 500 in the early nineteenth century).http://www.penobscotnation.org/museum/pana'wahb'skk'eighistory.htm As contact became more permanent, after about 1675, conflicts arose. There were both French and English settlers in the Penobscots’ homelands.
The Penobscots sided with the French during the French and Indian War in the mid-eighteenth century after the English’s refusal to respect the Penobscots’ intended neutrality. This refusal is evidenced by the Spencer Phipps Proclamation of 1755, which put a bounty on the scalps of all Penobscots. Also, the French posed a lesser threat to the Penobscots’ land and way of life in that there population was significantly smaller and intermarriages were accepted.[7]
After the Battle of Quebec in 1759, the Penobscots were without their European ally and left in a weakened position. During the American Revolution, the Penobscots sided with the Patriots and played an important role in defending British offensives from Canada. However, the American government did not reciprocate, and the power dynamics that had existed before and during the war persisted.[8]
In the following centuries, the Penobscots attempted to make treaties in order to hold onto some form of land, but, because they had no way to enforce the treaties with Massachusetts and then with Maine, Americans kept encroaching on their lands. From about 1800 onward, the Penobscots lived on reservations, specifically Indian Island. The Maine state government appointed an Indian Agent to oversee the tribe. The government believed that they were helping the Penobscots, as stated in 1824 by the highest court in Maine that “…imbecility on their parts, and the dictates of humanity on ours, have necessarily prescribed to them their subjection to our paternal control.” This sentiment of “imbecility” set up a power dynamic in which the government treated the Penobscots as wards of the state and decided how their affairs would be taken care of. This perceived charity from the government was actually the Penobscots’ money from land treaties and trusts, which the state had control over and used as it saw fit.[9]
Land Claims
In 1790, the young federal government enacted the Nonintercourse Act, which stated that the transfer of Indian lands to non-Indians had to be approved the United States Congress. Between the years of 1794 and 1833, the Penobscots and Passamaquoddy tribes ceded the majority of their lands to Massachusetts (then to Maine after it became a state in 1820) through treaties that had not been approved by the Federal government. In the 1970s, the Maine Indians sued, calling for some sort of compensation in the form of land, money, and autonomy for the violation of this Act. The disputed land accounted for 60% of all of the land in Maine, and 35,000 people (the vast majority of whom were not Indians) lived in the disputed territory. The settlement, reached in 1980, resulted in an 81.5 million dollar settlement that could be used to acquire more land, some of which could be held in trust by the federal government and the rest of which could be used to purchase land in the normal manner. The act also established the Maine Indian Tribal-State Commission whose function was to oversee the effectiveness of the Act and to intervene in certain areas such as fishing rights, etc. in order to settle disputes between the state and the Penobscot or Passamaquoddy.[10]
Language
The Penobscot language is an Algonquian language and is very similar to the languages of the other members of the Wabanaki Confederacy. There are no living members of the Penobscot nation fluent in the spoken language, but there is a dictionary, and the elementary school and the Boys and Girls Club on Indian Island are making an effort to reintroduce the language by teaching it to the children.[11]
The alphabet used in the Penobscot language shares some characters with the Roman alphabet, but also has distinct characters used for making sounds that do not exist in the Roman alphabet.[12]
Crafts
Baskets
The Penobscots traditionally made baskets out of sweet grass, brown ash, and birch bark. These materials grow in wetlands throughout Maine. However, the species are threatened due to habitat destruction and the emerald ash borer, an insect that threatens to destroy all ash trees in Maine, much as it already has devastated ash forests in the Midwest. Originally, the baskets were made for practical use, but after European contact, the Penobscots began making “fancy baskets”, which they could trade with the Europeans. Basket making is a skill that is passed down in families traditionally and has recently made a significant comeback in the tribes.[13]
Birchbark Canoe
The birch bark canoe was at one time an important mode of transportation for all tribes in the Wabanaki Conference. The shape of the canoe varies slightly between the tribes. The canoe is made one piece of bark from a white birch tree, which, if done correctly, can be removed without killing the tree.[14]
Religion
Penobscot tradition describes Gluskabe as the creator of man and women. Legends which explained phenomena such as the wind and the growing of corn were passed down orally from generation to generation. With the arrival of the French colonists, many Penobscot people converted to Christianity. Now there are a wide range of religions practiced on Indian island.[15]
Gambling
In 1973 Penobscot High Stakes Bingo opened on Indian Island. This was the first commercial gambling operation on a reservation in the United States. Bingo is open one weekend every six weeks. The Penobscot tribe has pushed for legislation allowing them to add slot machines to their bingo hall, but have not been granted it thus far.[16]
History
Notable Penobscots
- Andrew Sockalexis, a marathon runner who competed in the 1912 Stockholm Olympics, inducted into the Maine Running Hall of Fame in 1989. [4]
- Louis Sockalexis, the first native American in major league baseball.
- Donna Loring, Vietnam veteran, tribal representative, and author
- Joseph Nicolar, Penobscot Tribal Representative to Maine State Legislature and author of 1893 book "The Life and Traditions of the Red Man."
- Charles Norman Shay, Decorated war hero of Omaha Beach, Normandy, in WWII, recipient of the French Legion of Honor medal
- Tena Zapantis, owner of the Strand Theatre in Clinton MA.
See also
References
- ^ The Wabanakis of Maine and the Maritimes. American Friends Service Committee, 1989.
- ^ Wabanakis of Maine and the Maritimes
- ^ James Francis. “Burnt Harvest: Penobscot People and Fire,” Maine History 44, 1 (2008) 4-18.
- ^ Wabanakies of Maine and the Maritimes
- ^ Wabanakies of Maine and the Maritimes
- ^ Wabanakies of Maine and the Maritimes
- ^ Wabanakies of Maine and the Maritimes
- ^ Wabanakies of Maine and the Maritimes
- ^ Wabanakies of Maine and the Maritimes
- ^ Diana Scully. “Maine Indian Claims Settlement: Concepts, Contexts, and Perspectives” 14 February 1995. http://www.abbemuseum.org/d_scully_landclaims.pdf
- ^ [1]
- ^ [2]
- ^ [3]
- ^ http://www.penobscotriver.org/content/4060/Birch_Bark_Canoe/
- ^ Wabanakies of Maine and the Maritimes
- ^ http://penobscotbingo.com/
External links
- Official Website of the Penawapskewi
- "The Ancient Penobscot, or Panawanskek." Historical Magazine, February, 1872.
- Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. .
- [5] Indian island school
- [6] Penobscot bingo
- [7] Entirely by hand . . . from the ground up, Tom Hennessey, Saturday, September 22 2007, Bangor Daily News
- [8] information on native languages, and summaries of other aspects of native cultures
- [9] national park online book on wabanaki history
- [10] Bangor Daily News, Judy Harrison “Indian Reservation Priests Follow a 300 year old tradition”