July 15, 1997
The St. Albans Messenger Newspaper, Page 04
The Editorial Section – Letters of the Editor
They are not true Abenaki
You have a fraud in your midst!
On Merchants Row, a new sign appeared declaring an
Abenaki Tribal Office. These people are in no way Abenaki. They are a bunch of
white people who are trying to capitalize on Indian ceremonies, and food people
who are trying to make their way to the Abenaki offices. These people are
disgruntled because their genealogies could not stand the test of truth to link
them to any Abenaki ancestor.
The real Abenaki Nation has been methodically going
through every genealogy of those who claim membership and have found some
people who once claimed to be Abenaki had no right to do so.
Prior to this methodical research the nation was fooled
in the past by certain charlatans.
The Abenaki Nation is on the eve of recognition by the
federal government. To accomplish this task, every true member has to be
thoroughly examined through their genealogy. This is a requirement of the
Bureau of Indian Affairs.
These frauds on Merchants Row have even attempted to
steal grants as they pretend to imposter themselves as the Abenaki Nation.
What would you do, if someone moved in next door to you
and put up a sign with your name on it, conducted business as you tried to get
money due to you?
You would quickly find out that it’s difficult to deal
legally with such a fraud. You have to advertise and write letters identifying
the real you.
This is the dilemma of the real Abenaki Nation at Depot
Street.
Kathleen Kalina
Ojibway
Highgate Springs
It is really a fascinating dynamic when an "Ojibway" (self-identifying?) living in Highgate Springs, Franklin County, Vermont can write such a Letter to the Editor piece.
One group of frauds, calling their sloughed off "Abenaki" STD calling their Incorporation the so-called "Traditional Abenaki of the Mazipskwik & Related Bands" Incorporated Under Vermont State Law for a filing fee.
Led by Connie Brow (the now-deceased Homer St. Francis Sr.'s cousin) and David Gilman, with members such as Charles Lawrence "Megeso" (Soaring Eagle) Delaney, and Michael and Ina Delaney (also from Homer's group), along with the now-deceased Bruce Dubois and his mother ... they were a splinter group, scrapped off of the 1975 created group of Homer St. Francis Sr. & Company.
To claim one group is Abenaki, and the other is not, was calling the kettle black. Hypocritical Nonsense and badmouthing.
Where did Homer & his group gain the awareness of doing the Abenaki Dances?
Answer: Odanak People. (W'abanakik Dance Troupe)
Where did Homer & his group gain the awareness of doing the Abenaki Totem Carvings?
Answer: Odanak People. (Fred Watso)
Where did Homer & his group gain the awareness of speaking the Abenaki Language?
Answer: Odanak People. (Cecile Wawanolette)
Where does the Vermont "Abenaki" so-called culture, dances, carving, language, etc come from?
Answer: Odanak
Now, in retrospective, reading this Letter To The Editor by Kathleen Kalina, and in light of the BIA Reports of 2005 and 2007, what sort of evaluation did they do on their Homer St. Francis Sr. & Companies Genealogies, when they didn't even know their own "Chief" was a fraud and not an Abenaki himself ?!
Oh, that's right ... Homer and John Moody were making-it-up as they went along.
Oh, that's right ... Homer and John Moody were making-it-up as they went along.
What does it say, when NOT ONE MEMBER OF THEIR GROUP that Ms. Kalina advocated for in her editorial letter, could not and did not even substantiate ONE person or ONE FAMILY as being descendants of the Abenakis, without being connected to Odanak ancestrally?
[We know from reading the Decisions of the BIA Petition ... that the O'Bomsawin's were evaluated and determined to be Abenakis from Odanak who lived at Thompson's Point, Chittenden County, Vermont; but that the 8 descendants from this family i.e. Jeanne (nee: Deforge) Brink were not members of the Homer St. Francis Group calling themselves the "St. Francis - Sokoki Band" of Abenakis]
[We know from reading the Decisions of the BIA Petition ... that the O'Bomsawin's were evaluated and determined to be Abenakis from Odanak who lived at Thompson's Point, Chittenden County, Vermont; but that the 8 descendants from this family i.e. Jeanne (nee: Deforge) Brink were not members of the Homer St. Francis Group calling themselves the "St. Francis - Sokoki Band" of Abenakis]
The late Michael Delaney (so-called Tribal Judge) was "good enough" for Homer for years, until Michael Delaney and his wife Ina absconded and joined the splinter group, perhaps even helping create it, and solicit membership into it.
One does have to evaluate the merits of these people. The so-called "methodical research" was never done.
Carol N. (nee: Gromatski) and Christopher Roy & Company were merely "cooking the books" and implied implied implied ...
OH YOU don't recognize the name Gromatski (?)
Well, she went by Carol Nepton, her mother's mother's maiden name, apparently after her divorce from Louis F. Mottor.
It's interesting that in this research, one has to be careful about what is REAL and TRANSPARENT and what is an untruth and not transparent at all.
Obviously, the "culture" of Vermont's so-called re-invented "Abenakis" derives such cultural traits by having appropriated what was shared with them, beneficially, by members of the Odanak, Quebec Canadian Abenaki Community.
It most certainly didn't come from within families from and of Vermont!
So the only dynamic I agree with, within this retrospect Letter to the Editor written by an "Ojibway" of Highgate Springs, Vermont ... is the very first thing she wrote:
"They are not true Abenaki"
SO who are the real Abenakis?
