This family has been very specifically perpetuating an "oral history" as factual ... that they themselves have created, peddled and perpetuated to any listener/ believer, without any historical, genealogical or genetic evidence to support the merits of their claims of being Abenaki Indians. Making $$$$ throughout ... hand over fist. Going to Schools, Colleges, Pow-wow's, Speaking Engagements, and other events. And of course, through their Publishing Company, Greenfield Review Press, claiming they, the Bruchac's are Abenaki Indians ... or Abenaki descendants.
I have addressed some data and concerns on my blog previously (please review this blog post)
Over time, I have wondered WHO Lewis Henry Bowman Sr. was, where he'd actually come from, who were his parents, and relatives) and in the summer of 2015 I began the research study to determine and obtain the answers to that questioning.
Now, Joseph Bruchac III (the man in the red ribbon shirt in the above picture) has stated "that his grandfather, was an Abenaki".
Margaret "Marge" Bruchac - Kennick has stated in at least one book that allegedly "Jesse E. Bowman claimed he was Black" ... "because it was better to be a Black man rather than an Indian," so she says ...
Joseph Edward Bruchac III, (her brother) ... published, that "Jesse E. Bowman claimed he was French" and that it was Joe's own father Joseph Edward Bruchac II, the Taxidermist, who told him, while bird hunting with a shotgun, that "Jesse E. Bowman was an Abenaki."
Suffice it to say the stories generally have the same theme that"Jesse and his father Lewis were Abenakis" ... "Hiding in Plain Sight"
Over time, bits and pieces were added, to include "Lewis Bowman was born at St. Francis" and of Joe Jr.'s statements that 'St. Francis' meant specifically Odanak, the Abenaki Community adjacent to Pierreville, Quebec, Canada.
Was Lewis Henry Bowman Sr. and or his children actually Abenakis from and of the Abenaki Community of "St. Francis" later called Odanak?
So let us now drop down that "rabbit hole" to what has been SAID and IMPLIED and what is now known:
Was Lewis Henry Bowman Sr. and or his children actually Abenakis from and of the Abenaki Community of "St. Francis" later called Odanak?
So let us now drop down that "rabbit hole" to what has been SAID and IMPLIED and what is now known:
Bowman
Bruchac Time Line
Bruchac Time Line
Abt. 1810
Abt. 1810
8 Nov 1843
Charles "Joseph?"
Bowman died at the age of 33 yrs. allegedly
on the Kennebec River, Maine.
In the Province of
Quebec, in the County of Shefford on the 22nd day of July 1890, personally
appeared before a Notary Public, a Mrs. Bowman aged 80 years, and a resident of
West Shefford, Quebec, Canada.
She declared that
she was the widow of Charles Bowman,
and mother of Lewis Bowman who volunteered under the name of Lewis Bowman at
"N" on the __29th__ day of August
1864, as a private, who died of ... wounded in the knee and thigh, while in the
service on the __Mar.___ day of __25th___, A.D. 18__’65__,
… at Washington D.C.
That Charles
Bowman, aged _____, years, is dead, 8 November 1843, that she is still the widow of the aforesaid Charles
Bowman.
Sophie [her X]
Senecal, widow of Charles Bowman
20 Jul 1844
Age at physical birth from the time of father’s death date:
0 years 8 months 12 days
8 months 12 days
36 weeks 3 days
255 days
1859-
Lewis Bowman claimed that he was resident in Richmond, Chittenden County, Vermont.
1860-1861-
Lewis Bowman claimed that he was resident in St. Albans, Franklin County, Vermont.
1862-
Lewis Bowman claimed that he was resident in Albany, Albany County, New York.
August 29, 1864
Lewis Bowman enlisted into the Civil War from Troy, Rensselaer County, New York.
March 25, 1865
Lewis Bowman was shot, and received at least 4 bullet
wounds being wounded in the battle at Hatchers Run,
Va., having been struck by a Minnie Ball in left leg, thereafter having a left
foot paralytic and leg weakness which made him unfit for usage thereafter.
August 13, 1865
Hatcher’s Run, Virginia
Lewis Bowman was honorably discharged from the Civil War.
Declaration for Invalid Pension
District of Columbia
County of Washington
On this 14th day of
August, 1865, personally appeared before
me, a Deputy Clerk of a Court of Record, in the County and District aforesaid, Lewis Bowman, aged 21 years, a resident of St. Albans, County of
Franklin, in the State of Vermont swears that he is the identical Lewis Bowman who enlisted in the service of the United States at East
Troy in the State of New York on the 29th day of August 1864 as a Private in
Company E commanded by Capt. Sweeney in the 69th Regiment of New York
Volunteers in the war of 1861, and was honorably discharged on the 13 day of
August 1865. That while in the service aforesaid, and in the line of his
duty, on or about the 25th day of March in the year of our Lord 1865, he was
wounded in battle at Hatchers Run, Va., by Minnie Ball in left leg - left foot
paralytic leg weak unfit for use. He was treated and discharged from Stanton
Hospital, Washington D.C.
Signature of Claimant, Lewis [his X mark] Bowman
August 14, 1865 up to ca. 1867-
Lewis
Bowman has been residing in Cohose,
Albany County, New York for about two [2] years.
1867-
Lewis
Bowman has been residing in Potters
Corner, Saratoga County, New York.
July 04, 1870
Lewis Bowman married
Alice Marie Van Antwerp by Elder
Combs, in Greenfield, Saratoga County, New York.
21 Aug 1871
Louisa Bowman
was born in Greenfield, Saratoga County, New York.
26 Jul 1873
Forrest F. Bowman
was born Greenfield, Saratoga County, New York.
September 29, 1875
Clarence Bowman
was born on in Greenfield, Saratoga County, New York.
August 03, 1877
Myrtle Bowman
was born in Greenfield, Saratoga County, New York.
April 02, 1879
Myrtle Bowman
died at the age of 1 year old in Greenfield, Saratoga County, New York.
April 02, 1880
Sarah Ettie Etta
Bowman was born on 2 in Greenfield, Saratoga County, New York.
June 12, 1880
Greenfield, Saratoga County, N.Y. Federal Population
Census
184-193 Louis Bowman W M 40 Chopper Born Canada (both parents were born in Canada)
Alice Van Antwerp W F 25 Keeping House NY (Both parents
born in NY) Listed on same pg. 178-187
Louisa Bowman Age 09 W
Forest Bowman Age 07 W
Clarence Bowman Age 05 W
Sarah Bowman Age 2 months W
May 25, 1881
State of New York
County of Saratoga
On this 25th day May, 1881 appeared before me, a Deputy Clerk of the County Court,
aforesaid Lewis
Bowman, age 37 years, and a resident of the town of Greenfield, Saratoga
County, New York ... declares
that he is the identical Lewis Bowman who enrolled on the 29th day of August
1864, in Company E. of the '69 Regiment of the New York Volunteers commanded by
Peter Sweeney, and was honorably DISCHARGED at Washington D.C. on the 14th day of August, 1865; that his personal description is as follows:
Age: 37 years
Height: 5'
---feet 8 1/2 inches
Complexion: Dark
Hair: Dark
Eyes: Black
That while a member
of the organization aforesaid, in the service and in the line of his duty at
Near Petersburgh, Virginia on or about the 25th day of March, 1865, he was
wounded by Gunshot from the enemy in four different places. 1st in the left
knee. 2nd right thigh. 3rd (wound) in the left arm in muscles near shoulder.
4th (wound) in right hip and all the aforesaid wounds were received in one day
or battle.
That he was treated
in hospitals as follows: About one or two days at City Point Hospital and [he] was
then taken to Stanton Hospital [in] Washington D.C. where
he remained until discharged.
That he was not been
employed in the military or naval service otherwise than stated above. That
since leaving the services this applicant has resided in the town of Greenfield
in the State of New York, and his occupation has been that of a Farmer etc. He
was a Laborer. He is now totally disabled from obtaining his subsistence by
manual labor by reason of his injuries, above described.
Claimant's signature: Lewis [his X mark] Bowman
January 25, 1882
State of New York
County of Saratoga
In the matter of the
original invalid pension claim No. 88821 of Lewis Bowman of Co. E., 69th
Regt N.Y. State Volunteers, Lewis Bowman, age 37 years and a resident of Potters
Corners in the County of Saratoga County, New York, stated that for 5 years
immediately preceding his enlistment into the service of the United States on
the 29th day of August, 1864, that he had resided in the following
places:
Richmond, Vermont in
1859
In 1860 & 1862 at
St. Albans, Vermont
At Albany, NY in 1862
And at time of
enlistment at Troy, N.Y.
His occupation was
that of a Laborer
Since his discharge
from the service on the 14th day of August 1865, he has been
residing in Cohose, Albany County, New York for about two [2] years.
December 05, 1882
Eva May Bowman
born in Greenfield, Saratoga County, New York.
August 31, 1884
Lewis Henry Bowman
was born in Greenfield, Saratoga County, New York.
Aug 31, 1886
Jessie Elmer
Bowman in Greenfield, Saratoga County, New York
July 29, 1890
In the Province of
Quebec, in the County of Shefford on the 22nd day of July 1890, personally appeared before a Notary
Public, a Mrs. Bowman aged 80 years, and a resident of West Shefford, Quebec, Canada.
She declared that
she was the widow of Charles Bowman, and mother of Lewis
Bowman who volunteered under the name of Lewis Bowman at "N" on the ____ day of August
1884, as a private, who died of..... wounded in the knee and thigh, while in
the service on the _____ day of _____, A.D. 18 ___, at Washington D.C.
That Charles Bowman, aged
_____, years, is dead, 8 November 1843, that she is still the widow of the
aforesaid Charles Bowman.
Sophie [her X] Senecal, widow of Charles Bowman
April 19, 1891
Flossie Belle
Bowman was born Greenfield (or South Corinth), Saratoga County, New York.
February 16, 1892
Greenfield,
Saratoga County, N.Y. State Census, Page 01
Lewis Bowman Age
45 Born Canada Citizen Farmer
Alice Bowman Age 36
Louisa Bowman Age 20
Forest Bowman Age 19
Clarence Bowman Age 17
Ettie Bowman Age 12
Eva Bowman Age 10
Lewis H. Bowman Age 08
Jesse E. Bowman
Age 06
Flossie B. Bowman Age 01
Saratoga Springs,
Saratoga County, N.Y. State Census, Page 05
Lewis Bowman Male Age 51 Born Canada Liveryman
Amelia Bowman Female Age 47 Born Canada
William Bowman Male Age 24 Born U.S. Liveryman
September 21, 1893
John
"Jack" Bowman was born, Greenfield, Saratoga County, New York;
March 19, 1896
Warren Charles
Bowman was born on in Greenfield, Saratoga County, New York.
May 03, 1898
Helene May Bowman
was born on in Greenfield, Saratoga County, New York.
Nov 27, 1898
Helene May Bowman
died at the age of 0.
June 12-13, 1900
1900 Population Census Greenfield, Saratoga County, N.Y.
Name: Lewis Bowman
Age: 56
Birth Date: Jul 1843
Birthplace: Canada
[Canada French]
Home in 1900: Greenfield, Saratoga, New York
Race: White
Gender: Male
Immigration Year: 1860
Relation to Head of House: Head
Marital Status: Married
Spouse's Name:
Alice Bowman
Marriage Year: 1870
Years Married: 30
Father's
Birthplace: Canada
Mother's
Birthplace: Canada
September 03, 1901
Forest F. Bowman
died in Greenfield, Saratoga County, New York
March 09, 1902
Sarah Ettie Etta
Bowman died at the age of 21.
June 01, 1905
Greenfield, Saratoga County, N.Y. State Census
Lewis Bowman
(Head) Age 58 Born Canada (French) 42 yrs in the USA Farmer
Lewis H. Jr. and Jesse (Sons) age 20 & 18 are Day
Laborers
Household total were all identified as WHITE
June 04, 1905
Clarence Bowman
died at the age of 29.
May 1909
Lewis Bowman married
Mary E. Van Antwerp in Greenfield, Saratoga County, New York.
April 15, 1910
Greenfield, Saratoga County, N.Y. Federal Population
Census
Lewis Bowman
(Head) Male White Age 68 Widowed, Both he and parents born French Canada
Lewis Bowman speaks English, and was a Farmer
Lewis H. Bowman (Son) age 24 Born N.Y. Laborer on Home
Farm
Jesse E. Bowman (Son) age 22 Born N.Y. Laborer on Home
Farm
Eva Bowman (Daughter) age 27) Born N.Y. House keeper in
Home
Warren Bowman (Son) age 14
Before July 1910
John “Jack” Bowman
married to Catherine Gray probably in or around Cole Hill, South Corinth,
Warren County, New York.
July 04, 1911
Lillian G. Bowman
was born on Cole Hill, in Warren County, New York.
March 18, 1912
Joseph Edward
Bruchac II was born, to Joseph M. Bruchac and Pauline Hrdlicka.
April 03, 1913
General Affidavit
State of New York, County of Saratoga
In the matter of additional Pension Action march 11, 1912
By Lewis Bowman, Pvt. Co. E. 69th Regt NY Vol.
Infantry
Personally came before me, a Notary Public, in and for
the aforesaid County and State, and Lewis Bowman, aged 68 years past years,
citizen of the Town of P. O. Address RFD 1, Greenfield Centre, County of
Saratoga, State of New York, well known to me to be reputable and entitled to
credit, and who, being duly sworn, declare in relation to aforesaid case as
follows:
To the Honorable Commissioner of Pensions, the following
Statement Under Oath is made in answer to Enclosed call from your Honor, for
Deponent To State Under Oath my exact age and stating the reason why I know my
true age. Ctf. No. 208.738.
I therefore depose and say that I was 68 years of age on
the 20th Day of July 1912, as I was born on the 20th Day
of July 1844, at East Farnum, Canada.
The reason I know the Same is True is because my father
and mother always told me I was born On Said Date and the said record of Date
of my Birth is filed in my own family Bible And Same was placed in my family Bible record at least 40 years ago.
I also file Physicians
Affidavit Showing that I am now and have been all the time since the
filing of my Said Claim in Pension Office On or About July 29, 1912 Totally
Disabled from performing Manual Labor on Account of Gun Shot Wounds received in
Battle in the Civil War.
I further declare that I have no interest in said case
and ___ is not concerned in its prosecution.
A.J. Freeman
Notary Public
May 24, 1913
General Affidavit
State of New York, County of Saratoga, in the matter of
Lewis Bowman, Company E., 69th Regiment, New York Volunteer Infantry.
Personally came, a Notary Public in and for the aforesaid
County and State, A. J. Freeman, aged 69 years, citizen of the town of Milton,
P. O. address, in Ballston Spa, Saratoga County, New York, declares in relation
to aforesaid case, as follows;
Lewis Bowman the claimant above named, has this 24th
day of May, 1913, brought
before me what he claims is his family Bible record … this small family Bible
was printed in the year 1890 by the American
Bible Society on the Leaf in said Bible for the record of Births appears
the following record among 14 other records of Birth:
Lewis Bowman Born July 20, 1844
The writing appears
to have been written at least 10 or 15 years ago. Its appearance denotes it and
there are 14 records of Births written after Lewis Bowman record was written.
There is no marks of erasure or alteration in the said record and has the
appearance of having been written at least 10 or 15 years ago. The claimant
said they were written 20 years ago and it may be true.
I further declare that I have no interest in said case
and ___ is not concerned in its prosecution.
A.J. Freeman
Notary Public
May 24, 1913
General Affidavit
State of New York, County of Saratoga
In the matter of additional Pension Action march 11, 1912
By Lewis Bowman, Pvt. Co. E. 69th Regt NY Vol.
Infantry
Personally came before me, a Notary Public, in and for
the aforesaid County and State, and Lewis Bowman, aged 68 years past years,
citizen of the Town of P. O. Address RFD 1, Greenfield Centre, County of
Saratoga, State of New York, well known to me to be reputable and entitled to
credit, and who, being duly sworn, declare in relation to aforesaid case as
follows:
That he is the Claimant in the Above Entitled Claim and
my P. O. Box is as above stated and I further state in answer To Enclosed
Communication from Your Honor, wherein you Honor request Claimant To prove the
Date of my Birth By the Public or Church record or By the family Bible record
or other Evidence Tow which Deponent states under Oath as follows:
That is impossible
for me to prove the Date of my Birth by the Public record as there was no
Public record of Births filed in Farnum, Canada in the year 1844, and there is
no Church record of my said Birth known to Deponent.
But Claimant has a
family Bible record of my Birth wherein it is written as follows:
Lewis Bowman Born
July 20, 1844
The Said Bible I
have this Day Brought before A. J. Freeman, a Notary Public of Ballston Spa,
Saratoga County, New York, who will explain to your Honor it’s condition and
all things required by your Honor But Honorable Commissioner The record contained in my Said family
Bible was copied from an older family Bible at least 20 years ago. But the Old
family Bible has disappeared and where I do not know. But Honorable
Commissioner I am sure the Date of my Birth as having occurred on July 20, 1844
is True + Correct + ask your Honor to accept same as true.
I further declare that I have no interest in said case
and ___ is not concerned in its prosecution.
A.J. Freeman
Notary Public
Greenfield,
Saratoga County, N.Y. State Census
Edgar Sénécal (Head)
Age 43 Born U.S. Farm Laborer
Maggie (Wife) Age 34 Born
U.S. Housework
John (Son) Age 18 Born U.S.
Farm Laborer
Alitia (Daughter) Age 16
Edgar Jr. (Son) Age 15 School
Cashier (Son) Age 13 School
Harold (Son) Age 12 School
Richard (Son) Age 12 School
Sarah (Daughter) Age 07
School
Henry (Son) Age 05 No
Occupation
Viola (Daughter) Age 03 No
Occupation
Claudia (Daughter) Age 01 No
Occupation
David (Son) Age 80 days No
Occupation
On the SAME PAGE of the 1915 Census:
Lewis Bowman
(Head) White Male Age 79 Born French Canada 52 yrs in the USA Farmer
Warren Bowman (Son) White Male Age 19 Born U.S. 19 yrs in
the USA Farm Laborer
1917-
WWI Draft
Registration Card
Form 1 1760 – 1107 No. 18
Jesses E. Bowman,
Age 29
Greenfield Center, New York
Born August 31, 1887 Natural Born in Greenfield Center,
New York, U.S.
Laborer for 30 years at the Virginia Hot Springs Company
in Hot Springs Virginia
He has no dependents at the time. He was married. He stated his race was Caucasian (white)
Medium height, medium stature, Brown eyes, Black Hair.
Disabled by Hernia and Broken shoulder.
F. L. LaRue, Clerk
Circuit Court Bath Co., VA
September 10, 1918
January 18, 1920
Jessie Elmer
Bowman married Marion Edna Dunham.
1920 –
Federal Population
Census – Greenfield, District 0109, Saratoga County, New York
Fm – 184-188
Edward H. Dunham – Head of Household, Age 87 yrs. Born in NY
Parents: F in NY, M in VT Occupation: Lumberman
Flora M. (wife) Age 61 years. She and her parents born in Vermont.
Olga C. Dunham (granddaughter) 4 yrs. and 3 months
Jesse Bowman (Head) Owner White Age 32 yrs. Reads and Writes. Born
in NY F: Canada. M: NY. Father a French speaker. Able to speak English.
Occupation: Farmer on Home Farm.
Marion [Dunham] Bowman (wife)
Age 24 yrs. NY - NY - VT Lawyer Law Office
Household - Fm-185-189
John Bowman (Head) 26 yrs. NY - Canada - NY. Father a French speaker Common Laborer
Katherine [Gray] (wife) Age 26 NY NY NY
Lillian Bowman (daughter) Age 08
Earl Bowman (son) Age 3 yrs. and 5 months
Howard Bowman (son) Age 2 yrs. and 3 months
Myrtle Bowman (daughter) Age 8 months
January 14, 1921
Marion Flora
Bowman was born, the daughter of Jessie Elmer Bowman and Marion Edna
Dunham, in Greenfield, Saratoga County, New York.
May 19, 1922
Flossie Belle (Bowman)
Stone died of septic poisoning from throat, in Rutland, Rutland County,
Vermont at the Rutland Hospital. She was identified as WHITE, Age 31 years and
1 month of age.
June 01, 1925
Greenfield, Saratoga County, NY State Census
Jesse E. Bowman
(Head) W M Age 37 U.S. Citizen Farm Laborer
Marion Bowman (Wife) W F Age 29 U.S. Citizen Housework
Marion F. Bowman (daughter) W F Age 04 U.S. Citizen
After 1926
Warren Charles
Bowman died at the age of 30 [Missing since
1926]
January 31, 1940
Marion Flora
Bowman married to Joseph Edward Bruchac II.
October 16, 1942
Joseph Edward Bruchac
III was born in Saratoga Springs, NY
… the son of Joseph Edward Bruchac and Marion Flora Bowman.
December 02, 1942
Carol Worthen
was born to Albert Woolen Worth who was the son of Edmund Worthen and Isabel.
Her mother was Katherine Haberly.
Abt. 1944
Lewis H. Bowman
died at the age of 60.
May 08, 1944
Mary Ann Bruchac
was born to Joseph Edward Bruchac and Marion Flora Bowman.
Family of
Pauline Hrdlicka and Joseph Bruchac, around 1945
September 1944
Modern Taxidermist:
Adirondack Deer Head and Wood Duck Flying
Mounted by Joseph Bruchac in Greenfield, Saratoga County,
New York
February 23, 1945
The Norwalk Hour Newspaper, Page 03
Sister of Bruchac
in Army Nurse Corps
Second Lieut. Margaret E. Bruchac of the Army Nurse Corps
has followed her brother, Major Albert E. Bruchac, Infantry, into the fight for
freedom. They are daughter and son of Mr.
and Mrs. Joseph Bruchac of Greenfield Center, N.Y., and sister and brother
of E. Milton Bruchac of 34 Spring
Street in South Norwalk, CT.
Lt. Bruchac recently completed her basic training at the
Thomas M. England General Hospital at Atlantic City, New Jersey and at present
is stationed there. She is an honor graduate of Saratoga Springs, N.Y. High
School, Class of 1941, and of Vassar Brothers Hospital, in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.,
Class of 1944. She served at the Thomas M. England Hospital as a cadet nurse
and also as a civilian nurse prior to recently receiving her commission.
Major Bruchac is in a hospital receiving treatment on his
arms at present after combat action. He has been cited and awarded the Silver
Star for gallantry against the enemy in Germany.
December 08, 1953
Margaret Marie
Bruchac was born to Joseph Edward Bruchac and Marion Flora Bowman.
January 19, 1958
Marion Edna Dunham
(widow of Jessie Elmer Bowman) died in
Greenfield, Saratoga County, New York.
1960-
Joseph Edward Bruchac II graduated from Saratoga Springs High School in Saratoga Springs,
N.Y.
Fall of 1960-
Joseph Edward Bruchac III went to Cornell University.
February 03, 1963
The Schenectady Gazette Newspaper
Joseph Bruchac
turned in outstanding efforts on the Cornell
University athletic scene. Bruchac, Big Red heavyweight grappler, scored a
5-2 decision
1964-
Joseph Bruchac … Class
of 1964 … in Ithaca, New York
June 13, 1964
Joseph Edward Bruchac
III married to Carol Worthen, daughter of Edmund Worthen and Isabel.
1965-
Joseph Edward
Bruchac III gained his A.B. from Cornell
University, in Ithaca, New York, where he majored in English, with a minor
in zoology.
1965-
Joseph Edward
Bruchac III attended Syracuse University on a Creative Writing Fellowship. [Bowman’s Store, Page 304] Joseph Bruchac stated that he would ride an old Harley
Motorcycle out to the Onondaga Mohawk Indian Community and talk with elders,
beginning a friendship with that community. [Bowman’s Store, Page 305] Jesse Bowman always approved of them [Joe’s
poems and stories, many of them he says, were about his search for his Native
heritage] yet he [Grandfather, Jesse Elmer
Bowman] still never openly
acknowledged or talked about his own
Abenaki ancestry to me.
1966-
Joseph Edward
Bruchac III gained his M.A. [Master’s Degree] English Literature in Creative Writing from
Syracuse University in Syracuse, N.Y.
1966-
Joseph Edward Bruchac III and his wife Carol (nee:
Worthen) joined the Peace Corps, and lived in the West African country of
Ghana.
August 09, 1966
The Norwalk Hour Newspaper, Page 08
Miss Pamela
Bruchac to be Bride of Paul Vinson Tebo on August 27, 1966
The East Avenue Methodist Church will be the scene on
Saturday, August 27, 1966, for the nuptials of
Miss Pamela Sue Bruchac, daughter of
Mr. and Mrs. Emil Milton Bruchac of
15 St. John Street, and Paul Vinson Tebo,
son of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Tilden Tebo
of 95 Highland Avenue, in Rowayton.
The double-ring ceremony will take place at 11:00 o’clock
and will be performed by Reverend Edward L. Eastman, pastor of the Watertown
Methodist Church, formerly pastor of the East Avenue Methodist Church. The
church organist, Mrs. Eugene Webb, will provide music for the ceremony and will
accompany Miss Karen Nickerson, soloist.
The bride-elect will be escorted by her father.
Miss Bruchac’s sister,
Mrs. Charles G. Weiss of Fairfield,
will attend her as matron of honor. Other attendants will be Mrs. Robert Hocken
of Corvalis, Oregon, sister of the prospective bridegroom; Miss Cecile
Dzielinski of Terryville, Miss Sheila Clarke of this city, and Mrs. Earl
LaChance of Wollaston, Massachusetts.
Edward Steinlauf of Norwalk will serve Mr. Tebo as best
man. Bruce Bruchac of Norwalk, brother of Miss Bruchac; John Leavitt and Peter
Blank, both of Norwalk, and Anthony Day of Arlington, Mass., will usher.
A reception will take place in the Silvermine Tavern.
Mr. and Mrs. Tebo, parents of Mr. Tebo, will give the
rehearsal dinner for the bridal party at their home.
Miss Bruchac is a graduate of the Norwalk High School in
the Class of 1961 and received her B. S. degree in therapeutic recreation from
Sargent College, Boston University. She is presently employed as a recreation
therapist at Newington, Hospital for Crippled Children in Newington. She is the
granddaughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Thomas of Norwalk and of Mrs. Joseph Bruchac of Greenfield Center, New
York, at the late Mr. Bruchac.
Mr. Tebo, a graduate of Norwalk High School in the Class
of 1961, received his B. S. degree, cum laude, from Tufts University in
Medford, Massachusetts. He is a member of Tau Beta Pi, honorary engineering
society, member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, and Delta Tau
Delta Fraternity. Recently he completed requirements for his master’s degree in
chemical engineering at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and will
awarded the former in October. At present, he is pursuing studies towards a Ph.D.
degree at Lehigh under the Nation Science Foundation Fellowship.
Feted At Showers
Miss Bruchac was feted recently at two showers.
A miscellaneous shower and buffet dinner were given by
the bridal attendants at the home of Mrs. Charles G. Weiss in Fairfield. A
large assemblage of friends and relatives were present to honor the bride-to-be.
A personal and linen shower and buffet dinner were given
by Miss Cecile Dzielinski and Mrs. William Adams at the former’s home in
Hilliard Street, Manchester. Fellow employees at the Newington Hospital for
Crippled Children were in attendance
June 24, 1968
James Edward
Bruchac was born to Joseph Edward Bruchac
III married to Carol Worthen.
1969-
Joseph Edward Bruchac III and his wife Carol return to
the United States.
January 22, 1970
‘Malcolm X’ Author
Speaks
On Black Heritage
Tonight
Alex Haley, author of the award-winning book, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, will speak on “Black Heritage” tonight in College Hall as an event in the annual Skidmore Lecture Series. The Malcolm X book, Mr. Haley’s first, remains a bestseller after four years and is being made into a motion picture. It has been translated into eight languages.
Alex Haley, author of the award-winning book, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, will speak on “Black Heritage” tonight in College Hall as an event in the annual Skidmore Lecture Series. The Malcolm X book, Mr. Haley’s first, remains a bestseller after four years and is being made into a motion picture. It has been translated into eight languages.
Before This Anger
Mr. Haley’s second book, currently titled ‘Before This Anger’, is to be published
in the fall. Columbia Pictures has made a commitment for film rights to this
book, too.
“Genealogical
Miracle”
Before This Anger is being hailed before publication as a “genealogical miracle”. It contains an unprecedented tracing and documenting of an unbroken nine generations of Mr. Haley’s maternal family’s history back to a tiny village in Gambia, Africa, and a Mandinka tribal family circa 1700. Mr. Haley doggedly pursued slender linguistic clues through seven years of research in North Africa, Europe and finally West African bush country. Mr. Haley, until recently writer-in-residence at Hamilton College, was born in 1921 in Ithaca, the son of a college professor. He attended North Carolina Teachers College until his enlistment in the Coast Guard, which subsequently created for him the rating of chief journalist. Free Lance Writer
Before This Anger is being hailed before publication as a “genealogical miracle”. It contains an unprecedented tracing and documenting of an unbroken nine generations of Mr. Haley’s maternal family’s history back to a tiny village in Gambia, Africa, and a Mandinka tribal family circa 1700. Mr. Haley doggedly pursued slender linguistic clues through seven years of research in North Africa, Europe and finally West African bush country. Mr. Haley, until recently writer-in-residence at Hamilton College, was born in 1921 in Ithaca, the son of a college professor. He attended North Carolina Teachers College until his enlistment in the Coast Guard, which subsequently created for him the rating of chief journalist. Free Lance Writer
In civilian life, Mr. Haley became
a free lance writer. Scores of his articles have been published in such
publications as Harper’s, Atlantic
Monthly, Cosmopolitan, Sports, True, This Week, and The New York Times Magazine.
He has been a regular writer for Reader’s
Digest and Saturday Evening Post,
and his interviews with the famous and controversial have been appearing in Playboy for several years. He has also
made hundreds of radio and TV appearances. The public is invited to hear Mr.
Haley tonight without admission charge.
Joseph Bruchac,
Poet and Faculty Member
Recognized by
“Syracuse Poems: 1963-1969
Joseph E. Bruchac III, Instructor in English at Skidmore College, is one of 26 poets whose work has been published in “Syracuse Poems: 1963-1969,” a special collection occasioned by the centennial observance of Syracuse University.
Joseph E. Bruchac III, Instructor in English at Skidmore College, is one of 26 poets whose work has been published in “Syracuse Poems: 1963-1969,” a special collection occasioned by the centennial observance of Syracuse University.
Previous Prizes
Mr. Bruchac received his M. A. degree in English literature in 1966 from Syracuse, where he received a university writing fellowship. Earlier, while studying for his A. B. degree at Cornell University, he received the Morrison Poetry Prize and won honorable mention from the Academy of American Poets. While an undergraduate, Mr. Bruchac studied with the aid of a Cornell University scholarship. He was editor of the Trojan Horse, student literary magazine, and associate editor of Epoch magazine at Cornell.
Mr. Bruchac received his M. A. degree in English literature in 1966 from Syracuse, where he received a university writing fellowship. Earlier, while studying for his A. B. degree at Cornell University, he received the Morrison Poetry Prize and won honorable mention from the Academy of American Poets. While an undergraduate, Mr. Bruchac studied with the aid of a Cornell University scholarship. He was editor of the Trojan Horse, student literary magazine, and associate editor of Epoch magazine at Cornell.
3 Years in Ghana
Mr. Bruchac joined the Skidmore faculty last fall after serving three years in the Teaching for West Africa Program in Ghana, where for a year he was national chairman of the Ghana Association of Teachers of English. “Syracuse Poems: 1963-69” was edited by George P. Elliott, professor of English at Syracuse, and published Jan. 13, 1970. Its contents are the work of faculty and students in the creative writing program at Syracuse since its inception in 1963.
Mr. Bruchac joined the Skidmore faculty last fall after serving three years in the Teaching for West Africa Program in Ghana, where for a year he was national chairman of the Ghana Association of Teachers of English. “Syracuse Poems: 1963-69” was edited by George P. Elliott, professor of English at Syracuse, and published Jan. 13, 1970. Its contents are the work of faculty and students in the creative writing program at Syracuse since its inception in 1963.
28 Jan 1970
Jesse Elmer
Bowman died in Greenfield, Saratoga County, New York.
July 17, 1971
Current
Entity Name: THE GREENFIELD REVIEW
LITERARY CENTER, INC.
DOS
ID #: 711852
Initial DOS Filing Date: JULY
17, 1971
County: SARATOGA
Jurisdiction:
NEW YORK
Entity
Type: DOMESTIC NOT-FOR-PROFIT
CORPORATION
1971-
Joseph Bruchac and
William Witherup (eds)
The Greenfield Review Press published its first book, a
collection of inmate poems smuggled out of Soledad Prison. Reproduces many
works from the surreptitious, inmate-produced anthology The 6:15 Unlock (of
which only ten copies were produced)
1971-
Indian Mountain
and Other Poems
By Joseph Bruchac
Ithaca, Ithaca House, (1971). The second book, and first
regularly published volume, by this writer. Warmly inscribed by the author to
his grandmother: "For Grandma … For her
birthday July 4, 1972 Love, Sonny." Joseph "Sonny" Bruchac was raised by his grandparents,
and his grandmother influenced his early love of reading. [“Grandma” being Pauline Apolena (nee: Hrdlicka) Bruchac]
June 24, 1971
Eva May Bowman
died.
January 14, 1972
Jesse Bowman
Bruchac was born to Joseph Edward Bruchac
III married to Carol Worthen.
1972-
The Buffalo in the
Syracuse Zoo: and Other Poems
By Joseph Bruchac
Published 1972 Paperback
By The Greenfield Review
1972-
Kalu Uka
Greenfield Center: Greenfield Review Press, 1972. 26p.
January 22, 1973
The Hour Newspaper (Norwalk, Connecticut), Page 06
Obituaries
Mrs. Joseph
Bruchac Sr.
Mrs. Joseph Bruchac Sr.82 years of age, wife of the late
Joseph Bruchac Sr., died on Sunday morning in the Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
Hospital after a short illness. She was a former resident of Norwalk, CT.
Survivors include three sons, E. Milton Bruchac of
Norwalk, CT., Albert E. Bruchac of Flushing, N.Y., and Joseph Bruchac Jr.
She is also survived by a daughter, Mrs. James A.
(Rosemary) Smith Jr. of Greenfield Center, N.Y.; 10 grandchildren and 10
great-grandchildren and several nieces and nephews.
Funeral services will be held on Wednesday morning at the
Burke Funeral Home, Saratoga Springs and at St. Joseph’s Church, in Greenfield
Center.
August 11, 1973
John “Jack” Bowman died in Glen Falls, Warren County, New York.
1973-
Joseph Edward Bruchac III was a graduate study at State University
of New York—Albany, 1971-73
1973-
Hopi Roadrunner Dancing
Wendy Rose (Chiron
Khanshendel)
New York: Greenfield Review Press, 1973.
First edition of the Native
American's first book, a collection of poems.
1973-
Taos Pueblo
Duane Niatum
(Greenfield Center, NY: Greenfield Review
Press, 1973)
1973-
Joseph Bruchac taught English at
Skidmore College up to 1973.
1974-
University without Walls,
coordinator of college program at Great Meadow Correctional Facility, until 1981.
1974-
Come To Power
Come To Power
Joseph
Bruchac
Crossing
Press, NY, (1974). Edited by Dick Lourie. Introduction
by Joseph Bruchac. The simultaneously issued softcover edition of a
collection featuring 11 contemporary American Indian poets. Includes Leslie
Silko, Duane Niatum, Norman Russell, Ray Young Bear, Joseph Bruchac, and others.
1975-
Joseph Edward Bruchac III gained
his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the Union
Institute & University of Cincinnati, Ohio. Class of 1975
1975-
‘The Manabozho Poems’ by Joseph
Bruchac
Blue
Cloud Quarterly, 1974 (Vol. XX, Number 3). Slim, stapled soft cover,
un-paginated (12 pages)
Turkey Brother and other tales: Iroquois folk stories. Illustrated by Ka-Hon-Hes. Sydney: Crossing Press.
1975-
Flow
Austin, TX: Cold Mountain, 1975. First edition / First
printing. #212 of 300 numbered copies out of a total edition of 1,000.
Illustrated stapled wrappers. iv, 23 pages. About fine. Brown end-papers (first
state) including the numbered colophon page.
ISBN: 0915496003
Inventory: 13400
Signed by Joseph Bruchac at the end of the text. Bruchac
has additionally inscribed the book on the title page: “Falling Leaf Moon 10/7/82 For
Sylvia, Peace, Joe”.
Bruchac has drawn Kokopelli, the humpbacked Indian flute
player, to the right of his signature.
1976-
Seven Sections
from the Dream of Jesse Bowman
By Joseph Bruchac
Cover Illustration done by the author
(Austin, TX): Cold Mountain Press, (1976).
Published for the first time as a preface to catalog
five from Cold Mountain Press.
Illustrations by
the author.
Fine in stapled, gray paper wraps with printed design in
black ink on the cover.
1976-
This Earth Is a Drum, Cold Mountain Press, 1976.
September 01, 1976
The road to Black Mountain: A
novel
By Joseph Bruchac
Paperback, 72 pages
Published by Thorp
Springs Press
February 04, 1977
The Lewiston Evening Journal Newspaper
Poet Bruchac
Lectures at the College
Joseph Bruchac, poet, novelist, critic, and teacher, will
present poetry ready reading Thursday, February 10, 1977 at 8:00 p.m. in the
Chase Hall Lounge at Bates College, the public invited to attend free of
charge.
Joseph Brachac, whose poems have appeared in four
anthologies and more than 100 magazines, also has published eight books of poetry,
including “Indian Mountain and Other Poems” and “The Manabozho Poems.”
Born in 1942, Joseph Bruchac holds the M.A. in English
from Syracuse University and the Ph.D. in Literature and Creative Writing from
Union Graduate School. Following studies at Syracuse, he spent three years in
Ghana, West Africa as a member of the Teachers for West Africa Program.
The founder and editor of the literary magazine “The
Greenfield Review,” Joseph Bruchac is also the editor of a series of pamphlets
which feature the work of a wide range of poets including Nigerian poets,
Native American writers, and prison writers. He is a song writer and has
produced an album with Peter Davis in 1972. WMHT, an ETV station, did a show of
Joseph Bruchac reading his poetry accompanied by music written by himself and Peter
Davis.
Joseph Bruchac currently teaches Creative Writing and
African Literature at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York, and
conducts (a) creative writing workshop(s) at Great Meadows Correctional Facility as part
of the Skidmore University Without Walls Program.
1978 –
According to the 2015 American Indian Festival of Words
Writers Award Recipient, by his own admission verbally, stated that he carries
around in his wallet, an old(er) St. Francis – Sokoki “Abenaki”
Membership Card #3312 issued by Homer Walter St. Francis Sr.’s
incorporation based in Swanton, Franklin County, Vermont, and that on it, there
is a photographic image of himself at 36
years old.
February 04, 1978
The Schenectady Gazette Newspaper, Page 08
Reading Set on
Poetry of Bruchac
TROY – A poetry
reading and dialogue with Joseph Bruchac, editor of the Greenfield Review, published at Greenfield Center, will be held at 8:00 p.m. tomorrow
at the Rensselaer Newman Chapel and
Cultural Center, on Burdett Avenue.
Joseph Bruchac, who is half
Abenaki Indian, brings a deep love of nature to his poetry and
his life’s work. Currently he is directing
the Skidmore College “University without Walls” program at the Great Meadow Correctional
Facility.
“Flow” … “This Earth is a Drum”
and “There
Are No Trees in the Prison” are title of some of his books of poetry.
“Turkey Brother and Other Iroquois Folk Tales”
is a book of his which retells nine stories of Iroquois origin and shows his
devotion to the American Indian tradition.
Joseph Bruchac has written several novels, including “The
Road to Black Mountain” and “The Dreams of Jesse Brown.”
He edited volumes of prison writings such as “Words
from the House of Dead: Prison Writings from Soledad,” and a collection
of poetry in English from Africa, Asia and the Caribbean called “Aftermath.”
An authority on African and Asian writing, he will be
prepared to discuss these literatures and his editing a magazine and teaching
in prison. His first concern will be to
present and discuss his own poetry.
The Chapel and Cultural Center and Poets and Writers are
co-sponsors of the fee event.
1978-
The Dreams of Jesse Brown: A
Novel
Bruchac,
Joseph
Austin:
Cold Mountain Press, 1978. 16mo, 202 pp.
ISBN:
0915496119
1978-
‘The Next World’ – Poems by
Third World Americans: Edited by Joseph Bruchac
Cover
Drawing is the Hopi People’s symbol of
emergence, cover & graphics by
Karl Wolff
This
is a collection of younger poets, Chinese-American, Chicano, Afro-American,
Puerto Rican, Filipino, Native American, Japanese-American men and women from
vastly different backgrounds who are fine poets, as much as any poet in any
anthology, Americans.
All
of the poets in this anthology have felt, usually first-hand, the prejudice
which is part of the American experience. All of them have risen above it by
making literature out of it, not “just protest literature,” but work which is
both lasting and original.
1978-
Entering Onondaga. Poems. Illustrations by Kahonhes.
By
Joseph Bruchac
Hardcover
Published
1978 by (Austin, TX): Cold Mountain Press, (1978)
1978-
Mu'ndu Wi 'Go: Mohegan Poems
Vol.
24, No. 3 of the Blue Cloud Quarterly.
By
Joseph Bruchac
Marvin,
Blue Cloud Quarterly, 1978. Poems
derived from Mohegan stories and from the diary of Flying Bird, the last
speaker of the Mohegan-Pequot language.
Stone Giants and
Flying Heads: Adventure Stories of the Iroquois
By Joseph Bruchac, Kahonhes Brascoupe (Illustrator)
Paperback,
79 pages
December 1978-
Alex Haley’s Roots: An Author’s Odyssey, Pages 46-47-48
By Adam Henig
Harold Courlander went
to U.S. Federal District Court and sued [in 1978] Alexander Murray
Palmer a.k.a. ‘Alex’ Haley for an undetermined amount of monies, alleging Copyright Infringement a Mr. Alex Haley who later eventually settled
the suit by paying Courlander the sum of $650,000.00 dollars (nearly triple
what his original offer was to settle the matter) and sign a release statement
that “Alex Haley acknowledges and regrets
that various materials from The African by Harold Courlander found their way
into his 1976 published book, “Roots: The Saga of an American Family.” …. Courlander was granted a sum of money larger than all his past
earnings from books combined. The 5-week trial was over and the racial repercussions
feared by Judge Robert J. Ward did
not materialize. And Alex Haley himself narrowly escaped a
reputation-destroying verdict; he didn’t even have to acknowledge authorship of
the disputed passages in future editions of the book.
With the Roots sequel scheduled to air in six
weeks, Alex Haley seemed to have regained his equilibrium. Privately, he
remained convinced that he was innocent of any wrong doing. The settlement was
not, to his way of thinking, a lucky break. On the contrary, the trial had been
unfair and he had been victimized.
Back out on the lecture circuit, determined to satisfy
his critics and redeem himself to his fans, Alex Haley presented an arsenal of
responses:
“The reason for the
settlement, at the last minute, was that a skilled lawyer that morning was
preparing to paint me as a villain.”
“How can you
explain every word that you write?”
“I don’t remember
where I got something at 3:00 a.m., eight years ago.”
“I became a sitting
duck for lawsuits.”
When asked to elaborate, he didn’t hesitate.
Since Roots was published in over twenty-five languages
and countries, Alex Haley explained, he was vulnerable to suits in each of
those jurisdictions. He had to settle.
Besides, he admitted, there was no way he could have
accounted for all the information he had accumulated. Out on the road, while
writing Roots, it wasn’t unusual for the author to be given stacks of material
by audience members that might be useful in his writing.
One of those people had been Native American writer
Joseph Bruchac.
On January 20, 1970, Alex
Haley had delivered a lecture at Skidmore College in upstate New York. [Skidmore College is private, independent liberal arts
college in Saratoga Springs] Joseph Bruchac, who was an Minority Ethnic Studies Instructor [in Black and
African history] at Skidmore College, swore in an affidavit that he had discussed with Haley in 1970 and
had found Alex Haley “to know so relatively little about” West African history
that he’d recommended the then-to-be-published historical novel, The African.
Surprised Alex Haley had not even heard of the book, Joseph Bruchac had driven
back to his home, a mere three miles away, to retrieve his “own personal copy.”
“Here, you can keep it,” Joseph Bruchac had said, handing
Alex Haley the book. Haley replied, “Thank you, I’ll read it on the plane.”
Joseph Bruchac was subsequently
stunned to read about Harold Courlander’s case. He knew his testimony could
make a difference. Unfortunately for Harold Courlander, by the time Joseph
Bruchac had decided to write to him an affidavit [December 15, 1978], the trail
was already over.
In the late 1970s, unaware of
the plagiarism rap, two leading genealogists, Gary Mills and Elizabeth Shown
Mills, decided to follow up on Haley’s work through the relevant archives in
Virginia, North Carolina, and Maryland. They found that Haley’s transgressions
went well beyond mere mistakes. “We expected ineptitude, but not subterfuge,”
observed Elizabeth, herself the editor of the National Genealogical Society
Quarterly.
In fact, as the Millses
discovered, the man that Haley identifies as Kunta Kinte, a slave by the name of Toby, could not have been Kunta Kinte or Haley’s ancestor. Toby was
in America as early as 1762, five years before
his ship was alleged to arrive. Worse for Haley, Toby died eight years before
his presumed daughter Kizzy was born.
In 1993,
a year after Haley’s death, writer Philip Nobile did his best to expose what he
calls “one of the great literary hoaxes of modern times.” In February of that
year, he published “Uncovering Roots” in the influential alternative
publication, The Village Voice. The article brought to a larger public the
story of the Courlander suit and the Mills’s genealogy work. Nobile also
revealed that Haley’s editor at Playboy magazine, the very white and Jewish
Murray Fisher did much of the book’s writing.
Haley’s unsuspecting archivists
had given Nobile access to the various letters, diaries, drafts, notes, and
audiotapes that Haley had kept. They were a veritable gold mine, theretofore
unexplored. In working his way through them, Nobile came to understand the
depths of Haley’s “elegant and complex make-it-up-as-you-go-along scam.”
1979-
The Ice-Hearts
By Joseph Bruchac
Austin, Cold Mountain Press, (1979). A single short
story, printed as a limited edition -- one of 300 copies signed by the author
and the book's designer and printer, David Holman.
1979-
Joseph
Bruchac
The Good Message of Handsome
Lake. Unicorn
keepsake series 9. Woodblock illustration by Rita Corbin. Greensboro, N. C.:
Unicorn
October 13, 1979
The
Schenectady Gazette Newspaper, Page 08
Bruchac Chairman of Taxidermists
SARATOGA
SPRINGS – Joseph E. Bruchac II, taxidermist and lifelong resident of Greenfield
Center, was elected chairman of the New York State Taxidermists Association at
a recent meeting at the Finger Lakes Community College and attended by over 100
taxidermists throughout the state.
Known
nationally as “The Adirondack Taxidermist,” also a Greenfield Town Councilman,
he has been at his profession for over 50 years and was the first licensed
taxidermist in New York State. He is also the editor and publisher of “Modern
Taxidermist Magazine” and of dozens of taxidermy and wildlife studies books. As
featured speaker at the Association meeting in Canandaigua, Joseph Bruchac II
discussed “Money Making Ideas for Taxidermists.”
Joseph
Bruchac II’s shop is located on the Middle Grove Road in Greenfield, where he
and his wife, the former Marion Bowman, also of Greenfield, manage their
Adirondack Taxidermy Studios.
December 01, 1980
Translator's Son
By
Joseph Bruchac, Stanley H. Barkan (Editor), Kahionhes (Illustrator)
Merrick,
Cross-Cultural Communications, 1980. Paperback, 40 pages
A
collection of poems, Cross-Cultural Review Chapbook 10, illustrated by
Kahionhes (John Fadden).
This
copy is inscribed by Bruchac to his parents: "Moon of Falling Leaves/
1980/ For Dad & Mom/ Peace/ Your Son," with his signature
Kokopelli drawing. According to the text, a "translator's son"
is a term used among certain of the Lakota people to refer to a person of mixed
Indian and white ancestry.
The Schenectady Gazette Newspaper, Page 11
Bruchac Writing
Aide at Saratoga Library
SARATOGA SPRINGS – The New York State Council on the Arts
has announced that Joseph Bruchac of Greenfield Center, New York, will be
writer-in-residence at the Saratoga Springs Public Library next year.
Joseph Bruchac will serve under the sponsorship of a
$5,000.00 dollar council grant designed to encourage the creation of new works
of literature by the writer-in-residence and to make the services of the writer
available to the community.
The services include the hosting of writing workshops, poetry readings, and acting as a consultant in contemporary poetry to the library.
The services include the hosting of writing workshops, poetry readings, and acting as a consultant in contemporary poetry to the library.
A graduate of Saratoga Springs High School, Joseph Bruchac
attended Cornell University, where he obtained his bachelor’s degree. He
received a master’s degree from Syracuse University on a creative writing
fellowship, and in 1974 he received a doctorate in comparative literature and creative
writing from Union College.
The author of more than 18 published collections of poetry,
folk tales and fiction, his poems, stories and articles have appeared in more
than 300 magazines over the past 15 years, including Adirondack Life, The
American Poetry Review, The Nation, The Ohio Review, Salmagundi and Poetry
Australia.
Past honors for his work include a National Endowment for
the Arts writing fellowship and the Cornell University Poetry Prize.
He and his wife, Carol, edit and publish the Greenfield
Review, a literary magazine now in its 12 year. From 1966-1969 Joseph Bruchac
was a volunteer teacher in West Africa and from 1969 to 1981 he worked for
Skidmore College, first as an English instructor and for the past seven years
as Coordinator of the University Without Walls College Program at Great Meadow
State Prison at Comstock.
Joseph Bruchac’s residency at the library will run from
January 1982 through until June of 1982, and will begin with a public reading
from his work at the library.
Under the terms of the grant he will spend two days of the
week conducting workshops or other activities for the library and community.
Exact dates of the workshops, which will be free, will be
announced at a later date.
Further information on the residency and about the
availability of Joseph Bruchac may be obtained from David Schwartz, Head
Librarian at the Saratoga Springs Public Library.
April 28, 1982
The Schenectady Gazette
Newspaper, Page 43
By Eleanor Koblenz
Adirondacks Inspire Award-Winning Area Poet
A love of the Adirondacks had
proven the key to success for an area poet. When the CAPS (Creative Artists
Program Service) awards were announced this spring there was one familiar name
on the list of poetry project winners by the name of Joseph Bruchac, in the
small village of Greenfield Center outside of Saratoga Springs, New York, share
a desire to preserve the unique character of the northern New York wilderness.
Author and publisher Joseph
Bruchac III, is already fulfilling part of the community service portions of
his award as poet-in-residence at the Saratoga Springs Public Library and at
the library at Old Forge, New York. A former Skidmore professor and author of
18 books (both prose and poetry) and numerous magazine and scholarly articles,
Joseph Bruchac has won many awards, including a previous CAPS grant in 1973.
His current project is to work on poetry “which draws on the Adirondack area
and the American Indian heritage of New York.”
Joseph Bruchac’s roots in
upper New York State go way back. His interest in Indian lore is very
legitimate since his maternal grandfather, Jesse Elmer Bowman, in whose care he grew up, was
an American Indian of the Odanak Tribe.
“My Great
Grandfather Lewis Bowman sold ash wood baskets and was a member of one of the
thirteen [13] nations of the Abenaki Indians
from Maine. When my grandfather came to live in the Adirondack, he
denied he was an Indian. It was years before I knew I had Indian blood, but he
taught me a great many values that I now know are based on Indian ethics. He
was semi-literate when he married my Grandmother, a literary-minded Skidmore
graduate who also had gone to Albany Law School. She inspired me to read and
love literature.
This combined heritage, plus
the influence of his paternal grandfather, a Czechoslovakian immigrant who grew
to love the Adirondack area, his adopted home, shaped the life of Joseph
Bruchac. His father, a taxidermist, also has spent all of his life in northern
Saratoga County, New York and instilled in his sons a wonder and love of the
land.
Through the years Joseph
Bruchac searched for his Indian heritage in his writing. He studied the
Iroquois and Abenaki languages and has celebrated these nations in his poetry.
In the verse he hopes to write as a result of winning the CAPS award, he will
emphasize the influence of the American Indian culture and beliefs on the
Adirondack population.
When not lecturing, teaching
or tending to the publishing of his literary newspaper, Joseph Bruchac also
tours his beloved woods and in the spring can be found collecting maple sap,
tending a wood fire and “sugaring off” just as his ancestors did years and
years ago.
1983-
Magaret M. Bruchcac moved from the mid-west back to the Northeast,
to be closer to her family.
August 05, 1983
Page 343: Also in 1910, in Highgate, VT a Bouman (Obomsawin) and
Brisbois family appear in the records of Missisquoi. 1519. These two families hail from central Vermont and the Lake
George community. Their presence suggests
that migration back and forth to that area as well as Odanak was still
occurring in 1910. In fact, oral tradition from the Bowman Joseph Bruchac
family and the Maurice Denis Adirondack Abenaki family has confirmed the
existence of the Vermont Abenaki community in the 20th century. 1520.
Footnote 1519. See Household # 232 in 1910 Highgate,
Vermont Census in Appendix 11.
Footnote 1520. 2282, 8/5/83:
2283, 8/5/83: 1-4.
Page 344: In the Bouman Bowman present family members recall when
their grandfather Jesse E. (Elmer) Bowman would “disappear” for awhile to go
visit relatives “in Vermont” in this
century.
April 21, 1984
The Schenectady Gazette
Newspaper, Page 15
By Alan Ginsberg – Gazette
Reporter
Author Bruchac Tells Secrets of Writing
COBLESKILL – “Writing is one percent inspiration and 99
percent perspiration,” poet Joseph
Bruchac told students at Aker Elementary School recently.
… Joseph Bruchac, 42 years of
age, whose ancestors were Abenaki Indian, told a crowd of 4th and 5th
Graders, eager to learn the secrets of creative writing that American Indians
have long believed that everybody has a song to sing, “Which means that everyone has the ability to create.”
Joseph Bruchac, whose been
writing since he was a 2nd Grader, says his writing reflects stories
he’s heard from friends and relatives, some from books he’s read, and much from
personal experience.
He suggested to the youngsters
“Listen to the stories in your family,
every family has traditions, stories about things that have happened. Listen to
your grandparents, go to the elderly people and listen what to what they have
to say, because you’ll find they have a lot of memories which can be turned
into good stories. Have them tell you what it was like when they were your age.
You may find it very interesting.”
Joseph Bruchac, who majored in English and Wildlife Conservation at
Cornell University and holds a master’s degree in literature from Syracuse
University and a Doctorate in comparative literature from Union Graduate
School, says he’s been writing seriously since he was a junior in college.
Asked by one 4th
Grader if publishers rejected his works, he said “hundreds of them,” added, “but,
you just have to keep trying harder despite the rejections.”
Emphasizing his successes
however, he told the student’s that he’s paid $200.00 dollars each time one of
his poems has appeared in a magazine. “So
far it’s been published 12 times.” And he noted, “I was paid $500.00 dollars
for a short story year.”
He is currently working on a novel about Africa, where he taught
three years as a teacher. Titled “No Telephones in Heaven” and the
book will be published in the fall.
Joseph Bruchac’s appearance at
Aker Elementary School was part of the Cobleskill Elementary Teachers and
Parents organization’s “Meet the Author”
series. Co-Chairman of the program were5th Grade teachers Heather Johnson
and poet Susan Spivac.
January 30, 1986
Joseph Edward Bruchac II died,
in Greenfield, Saratoga County, New York, the son of Joseph M. Bruchac and
Pauline Hrdlicka (who were from Czechoslovakia). He was the husband of Marion
Flora Bowman, and the father of Joseph Bruchac III, Mary Ann Bruchac, and
Margaret Marie Bruchac.
September 26, 1986
The Schenectady Gazette
Newspaper, Page 11
Indian Stories Program will held Sunday
GLOVERSVILLE – A program of
American Indian storytelling will be presented at 12:15 p.m. Sunday at First
Congregational Church of Christ.
The first in a year-long
series of cultural programs to be offered by the church, Sunday’s program
features Joseph Bruchac, a poet of Abenaki Indian ancestry from
Greenfield Center whose stories were told to him
by his grandfather, Jesse Bowman.
Joseph Bruchac is the author
of several books including “Turkey Brothers and Other Iroquois Tales,”
“Stone Giants and Flying Heads,” and “Iroquois Stories, Heroes and
Heroines, Monsters and Magic.”
A light soup lunch will be
served. There is a small admission charge.
The program is funded by Poets
and Writers, Inc., which in turn is funded by the Literature Program of the New
York State Council on the Arts.
1988-
Juliette
M’Sadoques and Marion Flora (nee:
Bowman) Bruchac, the latter visiting Odanak, Quebec, Canada … the Abenaki
Community.
December 14, 1989
The
Schenectady Gazette Newspaper, Page 41
INDIAN TALES – Greenfield Center author and
storyteller Joseph Bruchac III, an Indian American of Abenaki descent,
enthralls Broadalbin Elementary School children with authentic Iroquois and
Abenaki stories yesterday in a program at Broadalbin-Perth Central School.
(Gazette Photo – Garry Brown)
By
Jim McGuire – Gazette Reporter
Students
Enthralled
Abenaki Indian Takes Heritage to
Schools
BRAODALBIN
– With 50,000 copies of his new book, “Keepers of the Earth,” in print and the
Public Broadcasting System planning a multi-part series on it, Native American
author Joseph Bruchac III yesterday told Iroquois and Abenaki stories to
Broadalbin-Perth Elementary students.
Joseph
Bruchac, a 47 year old Greenfield Center resident and former Skidmore College
English instructor, is Abenaki Indian on his maternal side, an ancestry that
has inspired must of his writing in a literary career that began nearly 20
years ago.
The
author of seven books of folk stories and poems, Joseph Bruchac has had his
work published in more than 400 magazines and literary journals including the “Paris
Review,” the “American Poetry Review,” “Chicago Review,” “Adirondack Life,” and
“Vermont Life.”
His
latest effort, “Keepers of the Earth: Native American Stories and Environmental
Activities for Children,” is a collaboration with Vermont free-lance writer
Michael Caduto and the first of a three-part series that is gaining acceptance
across the country. It is published by
Fulrum Press of Golden, Colorado.
A
graduate of Cornell University with a master’s degree in literature from
Syracuse University and Ph.D. in comparative literature from Union College,
Joseph Bruchac, with his wife , Carol, founded and operated the Greenfield
Review Press, which has specialized in publishing Native American literature.
The Greenfield Review Press has published 75 books to date, he said.
Joseph
Bruchac, a black belt in the martial arts who left Skidmore’s Campus Faculty in
1973 for an 8-year stint running that College’s University-Without-Walls
program at Great meadows Correctional Facility, brings a wide range of
experience and a unique viewpoint to the classroom.
In
great demand at schools across the nation and even in Europe, Joseph Bruchac – pronounced Brewschack – had been making
a living from his literary pursuits since 1981, and says that the age of 47 he
is enjoying success. His Broadalbin-Perth visit was arranged by Lee Goodspeed,
a parent in the district.
Schools
booking him can expect to wait three or four months for an appearance. He often
makes three or four school presentations a week, recently returning from a
California tour.
Offering
a participatory program to elementary level children, Joseph Bruchac tells
authentic Iroquois and Abenaki stories and legends, emphasizing environmental
awareness, self-respect, and respect for others. He tells the children as they
sit in a circle that “if each respects the person to the right and to the left
their circle will be strong.”
The
students were particularly interested in his explanation of the importance of
the clan animals, the bear and the turtle – the world was founded on the back
of a turtle in traditional Indian belief – and when he produced his hand-held
skin drum inscribed with a bear symbol, one boy could not restrain himself.
“Awesome,” the boy said.
Joseph
Bruchac sang and narrated his tales to the 5th Grades in the
Broadalbin Elementary School and then presented similar material to an assembly
program for grades three through five.
Encouraging
the children to learn about their own ancestries while many of their
grandparents are still alive, Joseph Bruchac told of his relationship with his Abenaki grandfather, Jesse Bowman,
in whose Greenfield Center house he has lived most of his life and now owns.
Learning about one’s family history develops self-respect as well as respect
for others, he said.
A
soft-spoken man with the measured, melodious voice one would expect from a
poet, Joseph Bruchac was affected by his grandfather’s values and attitudes,
particularly his kindness toward children, his trusting nature and generosity.
His
father, who operated “The Adirondack Taxidermist,” was of
Slovak descent, giving Joseph Bruchac an ancestral mix that has allowed him to
“walk a little bit in either world,” enabling him to see how the two American
cultures are alike and how they differ, he said.
His Abenaki ancestors, part of the Indian nation that
encompassed most of New England, parts of southeastern Canada and stretched
into the northern Adirondacks, is traceable to 1637 in Three Rivers, Quebec,
Canada, where Jesuit missionaries kept careful records in their quest, Joseph
Bruchac says, to account for all available candidates for conversion to
Christianity.
His maternal great-grandparents whose family name was originally
Obomsawin – which translates into “keeper of the council fire” – moved from
Canada to the Saratoga Springs area where they sold baskets to tourists.
Joseph
Bruchac said he has taken care to impart his ancestral knowledge and viewpoint
to his two sons and they have followed him in developing a keen interest in
their heritage.
December 16, 1990
The
Daily Gazette Newspaper, Page H3
By
Karen Bjornland – Gazette Reporter
Storyteller applies Native American
wisdom to today
Indian
artifacts surround Joseph Bruchac in his Greenfield Center home and literary
center.
The
land is cold, the trees are naked. It’s
time for Joseph Bruchac to tell his stories.
According
to Native American tradition, Joseph Bruchac cannot tell his stories in the
summer because the corn would stop to listen and forget to grow. Animals in the
woods would stop and incline their ears too.
An
author, poet, teacher and internationally known storyteller, Joseph Bruchac has
a profound respect for Native American ways. On his mother’s side, he is
Abenaki Indian, a tribe of New England and southeast Canada.
In
Greenfield Center, a few miles north of Saratoga Springs, Joseph Bruchac live
in the home where he was raised by his maternal grandparents.
Until
the 1970’s, the house was also a gas station and general store on Route 9N, a
pathway to the Adirondacks before the Northway hustle-bustle.
These
days, cars swing in to visit Joseph Bruchac’s literary center and Greenfield
Review Press, publisher of more than 75 books, which is run by Joseph Bruchac
and his wife, Carol.
One
of the latest books queued up on the center’s smooth pine book shelves is
Joseph Bruchac’s “Return of the Sun: Native American Tales from the Northeast
Woodlands,” ($8.95, Crossing Press).
Fourth collection
The
book is his fourth collection of Native American tales and gathers 27 stories
from many Northwest tribes, including Onondaga, Tuscarora, Penobscot, Seneca
and Oneida.
Each
tale emanates reverence for the Earth, and its creatures. Humans, animals,
rocks and mountains are intertwined with the spirit world. Clever moral lessons
are tucked inside the dreamy world where stones talk and crayfish sing.
Adding
to the effect are full-page drawings, by Gary Carpenter of Santa Cruz,
California, illustrating each story.
The
title “Return of the Sun” is taken from an Iroquois story from the Earth and
then reclaimed. The title also has a “larger sense,” Joseph Bruchac says.
“When
you return to the teachings of the stories, you are returning to a life-giving
light.”
Joseph
Bruchac says “Return of the Sun” is different from his earlier collections
because it includes the tales of many tribes, not just one, but his work is
definitely “part of the same circle, a continuance.”
“I’ve
always been interested been interested in native people and native stories,
even since childhood.”
Growing
up, he met many older people who told him stories.
“Contact
with living, native storytellers,” he says, “sharing,” is one source for his
stories. Many of his sources, however, do not consider themselves storytellers,
they are just part of their particular heritage, the stories that all families
have, Joseph Bruchac explains.
“The
other source is literary, academic research.”
For
each story in the book, Joseph Bruchac says, there are two to a dozen versions.
“Because
they’ve been written down, does not mean they’ve been written down correctly.”
Comparing versions
Joseph
Bruchac tries to see every written version of the story. He then compares it to
what he knows of the oral tradition and uses his “experience and understanding”
to relay it accurately.
“I
try to be true to the tradition and to the people themselves.”
He
then does the stories first as oral telling.
“I
try to get the rhythm, the inflection, the feeling of the spoken language in
the story.” Some knowledge of Abenaki and Mohawk languages helps, he says.
“I
think (my approach) is a little different from some other people because I
always do a combination of personal experience and what might be called
academic research.”
Joseph
Bruchac’s voice is serene, soothing. He stands straight and tall, with neat
dark hair, a small thatch of which is pulled back neatly at the nape.
“Certain
things in Native language can be reproduced to a degree in English. A great
deal of natural imagery, for example.”
“The
language … treats everything living with respect, as opposed to certain
patterns of language you find in English which are contemptuous of people, and
of other living things.”
Joseph
Bruchac believes his work as a collector of stories is uncommon because of this
upbringing, which allowed him insight into Native ways, an insight which he
himself is not always conscious of.
His
father, who operated “The Adirondack Taxidermist” in Greenfield, N.Y., was of
Slovak descent offering Joseph Bruchac yet another dimension with which to
compare cultures.
Child-rearing
differences
For
example, he says, he never realized until he was an adult that had never been
struck as a child.
During
his studies, he found that to be typical Native American child-rearing
behavior.
“Speak
kindly and slowly to children, show them respect and listen to their words. Do
not strike them. Tell them a story.”
That
is what is “codified” in Native American literature, Joseph Bruchac says.
He
also found a kinship with native peoples while living in Ghana from 1966-1969.
People
“native to the Earth relate to the Earth in an Earth-minded way,” Joseph
Bruchac says.
“They
came to their knowledge after many thousands of years … they came to an
“understanding with the land.”
“Today
we call this ecology or ecological awareness,” he muses.
Joseph
Bruchac is also amazed at how modern society’s new perceptions for age-old
troubles, i.e., “step programs” for recovering alcoholics, parallel Native
American wisdom.
“Sometimes
I think I’m listening to Indians, when I’m listening to some of these people
talking.”
“What
I’ve been taught from Native American elders is exactly the same.”
“I
don’t mean Native American people are perfect. They are suffering from the
problems of alcoholism, abuse and all kinds of difficulties that the modern
world visits on everyone.”
Joseph
Bruchac says the answer lies in the traditions, the morals passed down in
Native American literature.
“Central
to it all is the word ‘respect,’” he says.
Throughout
his career, Joseph Bruchac, 48, has spread the knowledge he has learned from
Native writings.
He’s
told his stories at correctional centers, at schools, in libraries. Joseph
Bruchac’s poems and stories have appeared in more than 400 magazines and have
been translated into 11 languages. He is the author of two published novels, 14
collections of poetry and two non-fiction books.
A
graduate of Cornell University, with a M.A. in literature from Syracuse University
and a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Union College, Joseph Bruchac is a
former English teacher at Skidmore College, a writer in residence at Hamilton
College and Columbia University.
He
has told his stories all over the world.
Not
long ago, an elder from the Onondaga
tribe gave him the name ‘Gahnehgohheyoh’,
which means “the good mind.”
Although
Joseph Bruchac firmly insists he lives only in the present, the events on his
calendar indicate full days ahead.
This
weekend he winds up a performance in “Christmas Revels” at Dartmouth College in
Hanover, New Hampshire, a production recreating
a 19th century New England village. In January 1991, he’ll be in
Rotterdam, Holland, for a storytelling festival; on February 06, 1991 he’ll give a workshop on Native American stories
and environmental awareness at the Nahani bookstore in Saratoga Springs; and in
May, he’ll be in Brighton, England for more storytelling.
Another
book, “Hoop Snakes, Hide Behinds and Side Hill Winders: Tall Tales of the
Adirondacks,” is due out early next summer from Crossing Press.
Joseph
Bruchac’s purpose – his guiding light – is revealed in the introduction to
“Return of the Sun.”
“Now
more than ever before, we need these teachings which lead us towards peace with
each other, respect for the earth, and understanding of the sacred nature of
the greatest gift … the gift of life itself.
February 01-02, 1991
April 1992
Dawnland Singers (James, Marge, Jesse, and
Joseph Bruchac) in Highgate, VT.
March 14, 1993
By Rebekah
Presson
New Letters on the Air, National
Public Radio Interview
The
writer Joseph Bruchac describes the
generation gap created by termination and Euro-American dominant education, a
gap that could not be bridged by the events on Alcatraz or the Red Power era
that followed:
“I found myself growing up with
two heritages that I knew very little about. I was curious about them … I began
to directly seek out more about my Native American heritage. I sought it from
books, I sought it from other people, and I sought it at the feet of elders,
listening to everything they would have to say. By the time I became an adult, my mother
… [Marion Flora Bowman – Bruchac] … referred to me a few years ago as “my son,
the Indian.”
Which I found very funny, and
she said, “Well you know what I mean, you know what I mean.” …
What she meant was that she had
never been allowed to think that about herself. So she didn’t think of herself
in that way. It was almost like it had skipped a generation. And I was finally
allowed to be proud of a heritage that had been a shame or something to be
covered up.”
September 19, 1993
The
Daily Gazette Newspaper, Pages 61-62
By
Jack Rightmyer – For the Sunday Gazette
Joseph
Bruchac, storyteller and preserver of Indian culture, kneels before the frame
for a sweat lodge on his land in Greenfield, N.Y. Joseph Bruchac is the author
of the recently published novel “Dawn Land.”
Storyteller Bruchac seeks to
preserve American Indian tradition
GREENFIELD
CENTER - 1992 seems to be the year Joseph Bruchac. Reporters, writers and
editors from around the country want a piece of him, but despite the
distraction of phones ringing in the background, he sits and patiently spins
his tale of how he became such a success American Indian storyteller and
writer.
“I
was always interested in writing, even as a small child,” he said during a
recent interview at his home. “I was raised in this house by my grandparents.
There weren’t a lot of kids around to play with so spent a great deal of time
reading and going into the woods. Because of that I saw things and read things
that inspired me to write.”
Joseph
Bruchac, who has recently published his first novel, “Dawn Land” (Fulcrum
Press; 317 pages; $19.95), has fond memories of his grandparents, and he
believes living with them was one reason he became a storyteller.
“Storytelling
was something I always heard as a child,” he said. “I still remember sitting
here in this room, which used to be a general store, and listening to my
grandfather and others tell stories. They would talk about walking in the woods
when they were young, and my grandfather would often reminisce about when he
used to work with horses and what it was like building the roads.”
In
his early 20’s [ca. 1963-4], Joseph Bruchac learned how to tell stories by
going out to American Indian elders and listening to them.
“Native
elders are the greatest storytellers in this culture,” he said, “and I was
prepared to listen to them because as a child I had listened to my grandfather
and his friends.”
A
few years ago after he began telling stories to his own children, “I was first
published as a poet,” he said, “but I became a storyteller when I would tell
stories to my children to help them understand things. I told them some
traditional Native American stories that I had heard from the elders. These
stories were entertaining on one hand and lesson-giving on the other.”
Some
people who ran The Crossing Press, a small Publishing House in California, and
who knew Joseph Bruchac as a poet, contacted him to see if he had any stories
for a children’s book they were putting together. He wrote down his versions of
the Iroquois and Abenaki stories he had been telling his kids, and this
resulted in his first published book of stories.
“Stories
are not like television,” said Joseph Bruchac. “They are more magical. You can
turn off a TV both literally and figuratively, but a storyteller is immediate.
That personal contact is very strong.”
Joseph Bruchac, whose relatives include members of the Abenaki tribe of
Vermont and New Hampshire, didn’t know he had any American Indian blood until
he was in his late teens.
“My grandfather was an Abenaki, but he would often tell
people he was French,” Joseph Bruchac said. It was kind of a family secret, and
this feeling was the result of racism during that time. It resulted from the
attitude that to be different was to be dangerous.”
He
believes there will always be places in the country where American Indian
culture will be embraced, but most non-Indians aren’t aware that the American
Indian culture stands for the exact opposite of what modern culture stands for.
“The
economy of the world is based in a large part on using the Earth, and decisions
in business often reflect the idea that money is worth more than people,” said
Joseph Bruchac. “A culture like the Native American culture, which values
humanity and the environment over wealth, is always going to face opposition.”
Proud of heritage
Joseph Bruchac is proud of his Abenaki heritage. His ancestors were part of an
Indian nation that once encompassed most of New England, part of southeastern
Canada and the northern Adirondacks.
“I’m
proud to be a member of the Native American community,” he said. “I’m extremely
impressed by the respect I’ve found in Native American communities everywhere
in North America for elders and for children. This is happening despite a
mainstream culture where elders and children are constantly being pushed aside,
manipulated or told not to make waves.”
He
is also impressed with the value that is placed on life and on the family.
“We’ve done a lot of talk in this country about family values,” said Joseph
Bruchac, “but true family values, such as equality between men and women, are
alive even today in the traditional Native American centers.
“Unfortunately,
many Native American families are suffering from alcoholism and child abuse,
but the ideas and the traditions that support native people are very much a
pro-life tradition in the truest sense.”
Showing
the essential humanity of American Indians was one of the main reasons he
wanted to write the novel “Dawn Land,” which takes place after
the last Ice Age, about 10,000 years ago, in an area we now know as
northeastern New York and New England.
“So much of what we read about Native
Americans presents them as cardboard characters and stereotypes,” he
said. “I wanted to show them in a situation in which they are not
influenced in any way by Europeans. I wanted to show the respect they
had for each other, for plants, for animals and for the world around us. The
people of Dawn Land have created a thriving community in balance with nature
and with each other.”
He
also attempts to show the central role that women played in the culture. “It
was important for me to show realistic woman characters who had minds of their
own, and who were acting out their lives in ways that were not dependent on the
whims of a male-dominated culture.”
He
never outlined the entire book, be he followed his main character, Young
Hunter, from one adventure to another.
“The
path my character follows and the situations he encounters are often based very
strongly, almost word for word translations from the Abenaki tradition
stories,” he said.
Process of writing
It
took him five years to write his first novel, and he is currently working on a
sequel to “Dawn Land.”
“I
never planned on writing a novel,” he said, “but I’ve worked many
years accumulating this knowledge of Native American people. I also
must credit contemporary technology, such as word processors and personal
computers, because they’ve allowed me to be as diligent with revision on prose
as I am on poetry. What used to stop me before about writing a novel was that I
was a relatively slow typist.”
Joseph
Bruchac is also the editor and publisher of the Greenfield Review Press, which
releases multicultural literature.
He
holds a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University, a master’s degree in
literature from Syracuse University and a Ph.D. in comparative literature from
Union College.
Linda Stark, the Marketing Director of Fulcrum Publishing, is very pleased with how
well the book is selling. “We’ve sold our first two printings,” she said. “That
means over 15,000 copies have been sold since May.”
She
believes a big part of the book’s success is the author himself.
“It’s
Joe’s reputation as a writing that is propelling the book,” she said, “but he’s
also a great salesman,” she said. “We have him traveling around the
country promoting the book, and when you hear him talk you know that
you’re in the presence of a storyteller. He has this mystic quality about him
that makes you want to go out and buy his books.”
Linda
Stark also feels that “Dawn Land” has come out at a
perfect time.
“People
are very interested in reading historical-place novels, and this book is a
place novel for people in the Schenectady area,” she said.
“When
people read the book, not only will they be able to learn a little bit about
your area’s historical past, but they may discover something about their
future.”
Tom
Smith, Director of the New York Writer’s Institute, has found Joseph Bruchac to
be helpful in many different ways.
“We’ve
had him at Writer’s Institute as a storyteller,” he said. “Joe has such an
enchanting style that he appeals to a variety of audiences. His outlook is so
expansive that he makes a Native American story feel like it’s our story, too.”
Tom
Smith said Joseph Bruchac “helped us greatly a few years ago when we
did a series on Native American writers. He was instrumental in getting us such
writers as Linda Hogan, Louise Erdich and Michael Dorris.
Tom
Smith said he enjoyed reading “Dawn Land.”
“Joe
is a scholar, a poet and a storyteller all in one personality and this comes
across in his novel,” he said. “He’s enormously respected by all writers around
the writers around the country and especially by Native American writers. We’re
lucky to have him in this area.”
Advice
to writers
Joseph
Bruchac often tells beginning writers not to give up.
“There
were many places along the way when I was told that I didn’t have the ability
to do something. A professor once said, ‘You don’t know how to tell a story.’
Another professor told me, ‘You’ll never publish a poem.’ “
He
said it’s essential for writers to believe in themselves. “But as you believe
in yourself, also have your ears open for good criticism, for things that will
help you grow, because if you maintain a certain level of humility, you have
the space for growth. And writers need to realize that a good critic is
something to be valued.”
Joseph
Bruchac, who also has two children’s books coming out this fall, “The
First Strawberries” (Dial) and “Fox Song” (Philomel).
Joseph Bruchac will sign copies
of his novel “Dawn Land” from 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday at Barnes and
Noble Bookstore, on 20 Wolf Road in Albany, N.Y.
January 13, 1995
The
Sunday Gazette Newspaper, Page C4
By
Michael Hochanadel
Arts
& Entertainment Section
Dawnland Singers to present
Indian songs, tales at Café Lena
By
unraveling the family secret of his grandfather’s identity, Joe Bruchac
discovered his own.
And
in the stories and songs of the Abenaki tribe of American Indians, Bruchac
found both his life’s work and its meaning.
A
storyteller and writer, Joseph Bruchac works to preserve American Indian
culture through Greenfield Press
Publishing Company, the Good Mind
Record Label, and the Native
American Author’s Catalog. Last year, Fulcrum Press published “DawnLand”,
his first novel, and will release a sequel, “Long River,” next fall.
Last year Joseph Bruchac began to make
music / out of myth / to sing / his
stories.
Saturday
at Café Lena, Joseph Bruchac will perform with his DawnLand Singers: his sons, guitarist Jesse and percussionist Jim;
and his sister, singer Marge. They’ll sing and play both traditional Abenaki
songs and contemporary songs in Abenaki and English with flute accompaniment by
Powhatan Eagle, a Santo Domingo Pueblo Indian from New Mexico.
They’ll
sing some things Bruchac’s grandfather knew in his bones, but kept there,
secret inside himself.
“My grandfather, Jesse Bowman, was one
of those people who looked visibly Indian,” said Joseph
Bruchac, “But he always claimed he was French-Canadian. My grandfather being an
Abenaki was our family secret, something everybody knows but nobody wants to
talk about.”
Jesse
Bowman fled from school in fourth grade to escape prejudice, and then hid his
heritage ever after.
“There was such racism and
violence that hiding Indian identity was common practice,” said Joseph Bruchac sadly.
“But
as he raised me, he taught me some things I later learned are very
characteristic of Native Americans: great tolerance, patience and gentleness
toward children, and a love for and connection to the natural world.”
“As a teenager I sought out
Native people, trying to reconnect to other Abenaki,” he said. “They were
called Adirondacks by the Iroquois, and that means ‘porcupines or eaters of
bark.’
Joseph
Bruchac studied Wildlife Conservation at Cornell University, hoping to become a
naturalist or forest ranger, until a writing course persuaded him to become a
writer.
Beginning to write
He
went on to graduate school at Syracuse University for creative writing, then
taught English composition and literature for 3 years in Ghana, Africa,
learning to understand America from a distance and seeing in African tribal
life similarities to American Indian culture.
He
moved back in with his grandfather in Greenfield Center on returning to the
United States. “When he died on
January 28, 1970, I began to meet other Indians who acknowledged their
Native ancestry,” said Joseph Bruchac. “When I started meeting Native elders, I found their demeanor, their
appearance and way of speaking was like my grandfather; it was like coming home
for me.”
As
his author friend Simon Ortiz pointed out, “Indians
are everywhere,” and Joseph Bruchac tirelessly sought them out. “Many Native people in their 30’s, 40’s and
50’s now were not brought up with a good understanding of the (Native)
culture,” Joseph Bruchac lamented. “We
have to rediscover it as adults.”
He
wanted his sons Jesse Bowman Bruchac and James Edward Bruchac to know their heritage;
so as he learned Abenaki and Iroquois stories, Joseph Bruchac, their father,
told them as bedtime stories. He published a collection of them in 1973 as
“Turkey Brother and Other Iroquois Stories,” the first of his more than 30
books.
“I
have written poetry through High School and College,” he said, “But this took
me in another direction.” Joseph Bruchac began to tell Abenaki and Iroquois
stories in schools, then to travel nationally and internationally.
“I
believe in the larger truth of traditional stories,” he said.
He
acknowledge, “Some people have trouble accepting traditions as implicitly
true,” but he maintained, “they have deep meanings metaphorically or
literally,” and offered the “giant turtle” story as illustration.
“In
many Native traditions, the earth was placed on the back of a giant turtle,” he
explained. “Now, the earth is alive; many Native peoples call it Turtle Island.
And now we know that in plate tectonics, whole huge sections of the earth are
floating essentially, and it’s very dynamic and alive.” He said, “that’s a
contemporary scientific truth that’s expressed in ancient terms,
metaphorically.”
Joseph
Bruchac said the Abenaki language is “a
verb language of motion and changing, rather than a noun language about
things.” New words are made by combining known words: one of the few new
(less than 300 years old) Abenaki words describes a timepiece as “that thing
which is making much noise doing nothing useful.
Early
this year, CNN broadcast a special on “the
most endangered language in North America” – Abenaki – showed 86 year old Cecile Wawanolet teaching it. The
program also showed Jesse Bruchac singing an original song he’d composed in
Abenaki.
Jesse
Bowman Bruchac is lead singer and guitarist of the DawnLand Singers, the family musical group his father founded last
year to preserve Abenaki songs and to reflect on contemporary life in the
Abenaki language.
“When
I became more interested in learning Abenaki, I found a very good way to get
into it was through Native music,” said Jesse Bruchac. “Native literature prior
to 1900 was mostly sung or chanted,” he pointed out. “I was always attracted to
Native music; it has a lot of strength and a lot of poetry.”
Recording
songs
The DawnLand Singers have just released “Alnobak,”
a CD of songs in Abenaki and English. The title is Abenaki for “human beings.” The CD includes drumming
by Awassos Sigan, the Spring Bear Drummers from Odanak, the Abenaki Reserve in Canada where Joe Bruchac’s
grandfather Jesse Bowman was born.
As
on the CD, Joe Bruchac will tell stories and introduce the songs at Cafe Lena.
“We’ll open with music, a greeting song by Jesse accompanying himself on drum,”
said Joseph Bruchac.
“The
most important thing is that what I’m doing with the music and language is just
a very small part of a larger effort that my sons are carrying on and will
continue after I’m gone,” said Joseph Bruchac proudly. “They’ve already gone
beyond places I’ve been.”
Show time Saturday at Café Lena
is 8:00 p.m. Admission is $8.00; phone 583-0022 for reservations.
May 22, 1995
The
Bangor Daily Newspaper
Section
B
By
Nancy Garland – of the News Staff
Author discusses Native American
folklore
Storyteller Bruchac kicks off ’95 Maine
Libraries Conference in Orono, Maine
ORONO – Native Americans long have placed strong emphasis
on preserving the balance between nature and humanity. The stories they told to
their children can be translated across the centuries to teach earth
stewardship and social responsibility to youngsters in today’s world, according
to Joseph Bruchac, an author and storyteller who spoke at the University of Maine on Sunday.
The Iroquois Indians of New York live by a considerate
dictum that states “whatever we do must be done keeping seven generations in
mind,” according to Joseph Bruchac, who kicked off the three-day 1995 Maine Libraries Conference at the University of Maine
campus. About 500 school, college and state librarians attended.
1995-
Jesse Bruchac (Abenaki). The son of Joseph Bruchac and founder of Bowman Web
Design, Jesse is a self-taught website design specialist who is presently
pursuing a Masters Degree in Computer Science. Jesse has created some of the
best websites around for native research, including nativesearch.com,
nativeauthors.com, greenfieldreview.org, and ndakinna.com.
Jesse studied anthropology at Ithaca College and has a
Bachelors degree in Linguistic Anthropology from Goddard College, where he created the first Western Abenaki
Language Syllabus as his senior thesis. Jesse has released several musical
recordings alone and with the Bruchac family and he toured with the Odanak
Drum, Awasos Sigwan, in
Belgium in 1995.
He
currently lives in Williamsville, NY.
“Roots
of Survival, Native American Storytelling and the Sacred” by
Joseph Bruchac © 1996. Pages 179
to194 … Pay close attention to [Page 185] …“Bomazeen: The
name comes from Obum-sawin. It means “Keepers of the Ceremonial Fire.” It is a
name which has been spelled many ways by Abenaki people, some of whom still
carry variations of that name. Joseph Obowmaswine was a veteran of the War of
1812, fighting on the Canadian side. Today, at Odanak (the Abenaki reserve on
the St. Francis River in Quebec Province), the Obomsawin family still
lives. And the name Cowin, which was that of a family of Indians in
Vermont in the late 1880s, probably came from Obomsawin. Names are changed
frequently from father to son among the Abenaki. Sometimes … [Page 186] …
an Abenaki name has been Gallicized, then re-Abenaki-ized, and then Anglicized.
Sabbatist. Saint Jean-Baptiste. Sabbatist. St. Pierre. Sa Bial. Sabael.
Obum-sawin. Bomazeen. Bowman. The
name of my mother’s father – Jesse Bowman.
January 21, 1996
The Daily Gazette Newspaper, Page G6 Books
Books and Authors
Bruchac
honored for juvenile literature
Storyteller and author Joseph Bruchac has been
named the winner of the Knickerbocker Award for Juvenile Literature from the
School Library Media Section of the New York Library Association.
The award honors a New York author whose work has
assisted the educational needs of the state’s elementary and secondary
students.
Bruchac’s “Keepers of the Earth” series ties Native
American legends to activities.
Joseph
Bruchac is of Abenaki Indian, English and Slovak ancestry … draws on his American Native heritage for his
storytelling and writing. He has written four books and 14 collections of
poetry.
He lives in Greenfield, New York.
“Bowman’s Store, A Journey to Myself” by Joseph Bruchac ©1997. Pages 10 & 11, 153 & 154.
“There was hardly any mention of Indians at all when the old men
gathered around the potbellied stove in my grandfather’s general store … like
the dark tanned skinned and features that hinted at something more than the
Scotch-Irish or French ancestry that most of them claimed, they were careful
about how they mentioned Indians. One never knew who might be listening.
But I think of this story as one of his stories too. I learned
it two decades ago from my friend and teacher Maurice Dennis, as he stood
behind his house in the Adirondack village of Old Forge, carving into a cedar
pole the shapes of Bear and Turtle – the two main clan animals of our Abenaki
people.
Maurice’s parents had come down from Odanak, the Abenaki reserve
in Quebec, when he was a small child. Like my great-grandparents, they were
basket makers. A number of Abenaki families made their way from that town of
refuge in the far north to return to upstate New York or Vermont or New
Hampshire – new European names grafted onto the land their ancestors once
called simply Ndakinna, “Our Land.” They came now as either “French Canadian”
loggers or as “Canadian” Indians, playing the role of fishing and hunting
guides and makers of souvenirs for tourists.”
“The Heart of a Chief” by Joseph Bruchac ©1998. Author’s Note (In Part) “I decided, however, not to
set this novel on a real reservation. Some of the issues in the book, such as
casino gambling, leadership, and alcohol abuse, are too sensitive for me to do
that. Instead, I have imagined a reservation where none currently exist,
although they should: in New Hampshire. The Penacook are one of the nations of
my own Western Abenaki people; but there is, at present, no state or federally
recognized Penacook community.” man. The name of
mother’s father -- Jesse Bowman.”
March 28, 1996
The Press – Republican
Newspaper (Plattsburgh, N.Y.), Page A-6
The Arts Section
By Jeff Meyers – Staff Writer
To Indian writer
and speaker, life is a long story
PLATTSBURG – Joe Bruchac will never forget his roots. In
fact, he’s always more than willing to share his Abenaki heritage with anyone.
Joseph Bruchac, 53 years of age, was raised by his
grandparents (his grandfather was an Abenaki Indian), and still lives in the
house he called “home” as a youth.
Although he grew up in the midst of Native American
tradition, the knack of telling stories about his heritage came much later in
life.
“My grandfather owned a general store, and I’d go over to
listen to the ‘potbelly’ stories,” Joseph Bruchac said from his Greenfield
Center home recently. “The stories being told were Adirondack tall tales. The
area had a rich folk tradition.
“When I grew up, my grandparents were living in a white
community, and there was still a lot of prejudice,” he added. “My grandfather didn’t want to talk about his heritage. It’s
something I didn’t hear a lot about.”
As a child, Joseph Bruchac enjoyed reading. He was also
interested in animals and the outdoors and began to write children’s poems and
stories.
“I think one of the seeds that developed into an interest
in storytelling was my fondness of books,” he said. “I always loved to listen
to stories, to be read aloud. Growing up with a grandfather who loved to tell
stories encourages you to talk as well.”
Joseph Bruchac left Greenfield Center in 1960 to attend
college at Cornell University. At first, he majored in wildlife conservation
but changed majors to English. He later received a Master’s Degree in Creative
Writing from Syracuse University.
He then became a teacher and administrator at Skidmore
College in Saratoga, New York.
But the creative muses continued to pull at him. He left
his job in 1981 and returned to Greenfield Center with his wife and two young
children.
Joseph Bruchac began to have more and more success with
his creative writing, selling poems and stories to national publications.
It was also during that time
that he began to search out his Native American roots, combining the
stories he picked up through research with his natural knack for storytelling.
“My storytelling career began entirely by accident,” he
said. “I had written a book of Iroquois stories, and I was invited by a Grade
School to come in and read as a visiting author.
“But I stood up in from of the group and said ‘I don’t
want to read the stories to you. Let me tell you the stories.’ I knew them just
as well by memory.”
When writing, an inner voice speaks to an author, giving
advice on what direction a story should go. But when telling stories, an
audience is listening, and the storyteller has to share the words with that
audience.
“The stories come alive. It becomes a communal
experience. It can be very exciting.”
Joseph Bruchac has also incorporated his storytelling
skills into a singing career. With his two sons, Jesse and James Bruchac, he
formed the Dawnland Singers, which performs contemporary music and traditional
Abenaki songs. In fact, the Dawnland Singers opened for Bob Dylan and the
Grateful Dead in Highgate, Vermont last summer.
Performing with his children is important to Joseph
Bruchac. It’s a perfet way to perfect the ancient art of storytelling.
“Storytelling is a gift parents can give to their
children,” he said. “Parents don’t know what they’re missing when they tell
their kids to go watch TV instead of reading them a story.
“Just talking to your kids is so important. It’s
something that helps the family grow both physically and emotionally. It’s a
way to share the community of the family.”
October 06, 1998
The
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Newspaper, Page
By
Paul Grondahl – Albany Times Union
Exploring an American Indian
past
Albany,
N.Y. – Joseph Bruchac has taken the source
of a shameful childhood secret and re-imagined it as the
stuff of literature, laying the
foundation for a family [history/genealogy] industry
along the way.
In
his memoir, “Bowman’s Store: A Journey to Myself” (Dial Books, 1997,
$16.77), Joseph Bruchac reveals his family’s unspoken pact never to prod his
grandfather about his dark skin or to discuss what he much later learned was Grandpa’s hidden Abenaki blood.
There
were other mysteries for Joseph Bruchac growing up with his grandparents at
their general store and gas station in Greenfield Center, N.Y. Why didn’t
Joseph Bruchac live with his parents, whose house was just down the road? And
why was his family so divided and ashamed about its American Indian heritage?
“There
were a lot of family secrets and divisions that took a long time to understand
and to heal,” Joseph Bruchac said.
Joseph Bruchac, 55, began to ponder his family’s troubled past in his poetry and prose as he explored his Abenaki roots. In 1971,
Joseph Bruchac published his first poetry collection, “Indian Mountain,” and
his latest book of poems, “No Borders,” due out this fall,
continues to interpret the terrain of American Indian ways. In between, Joseph
Bruchac has published dozens of books, ranging from children’s stories to
novels to anthologies of Indian tales.
Joseph
Bruchac’s new novel, “The Waters Between,” is set in an Abenaki community on Lake Champlain and completes a trilogy that
consists of “DawnLand” (1993) and “Long River” (1995).
Joseph
Bruchac also will trace how American Indian storytelling and literature has
become a family affair. The Bruchac’s live in a farmhouse and work the attached
gas station and general store, which has since been converted into an office,
where Joseph Bruchac was raised by his grandparents in the 1940’s and 1950’s.
Joseph
Bruchac and his wife of 34 years, Carol Bruchac, are co-editors and
co-publishers of The Greenfield Review Press, which
specializes in books on American Indian themes. Their sons, Jim, 30, and Jesse,
26, work with the family publishing company and are professional storytellers
like their father.
Joseph
Bruchac’s mother, Marion Bowman Bruchac,
78, confined to a wheelchair, lives just down the road, and the Bruchac’s share
the responsibility of taking care of her needs.
The
entire family assists with a program Joseph Bruchac’s sons established, Ndakinna Project, a series of workshops
on American Indian philosophy, animal tracking, shelter-building and other
ancient skills held on a 100-acre wildlife preserve in Greenfield Center that
the Bruchac’s own. Ndakinna means “our land” in the Abenaki language.
Joseph
Bruchac’s literary journey began, in a sense, with travel. In the late 1960’s
Joseph Bruchac and his wife Carol spent three years as teachers in the
wilderness of Ghana in West Africa. The isolation spurred Joseph Bruchac’s
writing and he mailed poems to literary journals back in the States, where his
first work was published.
The
couple then started their own literary magazine in Ghana, The Greenfield
Review.
October 23, 1998
The
Daily Gazette Newspaper, Page C2
By Karen Bjornland – Gazette
Reporter
Arts
& Entertainment Section
Storyteller
of Missisquoi Abenaki Indian ancestry.
Talented Adirondack Women set
day of performances, talks
An
evening performance begins at 8:00 p.m. in the United Methodist Church, with
performers including George and Vaughn Ward, Marge Bruchac, a Missisquoi Abenaki Indian storyteller. Vaughn
Ward, Director of Black Crow Network, an educational and cultural organization
for the Eastern Adirondacks and Mohawk Champlain region, says Saturday’s
celebration is “more grassroots,” with “more space.”
December 01, 1998
The Hour Newspaper Page B7:
On December 06, 1998, which is a special shopping day
for members, Margaret Bruchac, a historical
interpreter, singer and story teller of Missisquoi and Abenaki
ancestry, will tell stories and sing at noon, 1 p.m. and 2 p.m.
There is no admission fee.
February 15, 1999
Marion Flora (nee: Bowman)
Bruchac died in
Greenfield, Saratoga County, New York.
April 16, 1999
Smith College to
Present "Molly Has Her Say"
Smith College senior Marge Bruchac will present her play,
"Molly
Has Her Say," at 7 p.m. on Friday, May 7, and Saturday, May 8, at
Smith's Mendenhall Center for the Performing Arts, Green St., Northampton.
Bruchac's work-in-progress focuses on the "hidden
histories" of northeastern Algonkian Indians and the conflict between
Anglo-American written histories of disappearance and Native American oral
histories of persistence. In the play, two "Mollys"--Molly Ockett and
Old Mali--emerge from the past to speak to young Molly Marie, a Native American
graduate student who denies her own Indian identity, even as she researches the
details of Abenaki history.
Molly Ockett: "Some a' these young ones git ta
thinkin' th' stories don' mean nothin. Jes words on a page, jes sounds spoken
inta' th' air . . . Them scratches got power, girl! Talkin'
leaves-akwighigan-we calls 'em....They can write ya out, same's they kin write
ya in!"
The voices of these Abenaki Indian women speak to the
systematic displacement and disruption of Abenaki communities from the colonial
period to the present and their tenacious hold on "Ndakinna," their
homeland, through personal anecdotes, historical texts, and traditional stories.
Molly Ockett, a late 18th-century Pequawket Indian doctress, is trying to reach
Molly Marie through her research, asking her to re-examine the texts and myths
of extinction and remember her own family history. Old Mali, the voice of the
ancestors, is trying to "sing the world into being," offering
strength and connection to a timeless place where the songs and stories live.
Molly Marie is just trying to get through her studies with a cynicism and
disconnectedness that protects her from having to take any responsibility for
these histories or her own "Indianness."
Molly Marie: "What if I'm not Indian enough? ...What
if nobody believes me...who's gonna claim me then? Get off me--go find another
Indian to kick around! I don't want your stories!"
Old Mali: "Old Mali has somethin' she's been
wantin' ta say to ya: The ancestors did the choosin,' girl...ain't your
responsibility nohow...it's jes that now yer the one holdin' pen an'
paper..."
Playwright and
director Marge Bruchac, who portrays Molly Ockett, is herself of Missisquoi
Abenaki descent. She is a traditional storyteller, an interpretive
consultant for Old Sturbridge Village museum, and a Smith College Sophia Smith
Scholar pursuing independent study in theater and history. Shelly LaVallee, who
portrays Molly Marie, is of French, Iroquois and Blackfoot descent. She is
currently pursuing a degree in events and conference management.
This production, which is supported in part by a grant
from the Five College Multicultural Theater Committee, is free, open to the
public and wheelchair accessible.
For more information, call Marge Bruchac at
(413)584-2195.
News
Release Directory // News Office Home Page // Smith
College Home Page
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Page maintained by the Office of College Relations. Last update: 4/21/99.
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Page maintained by the Office of College Relations. Last update: 4/21/99.
May 27, 1999
Indian tales told
Native American storyteller and musician Marge Bruchac and her husband Justin
Kennick perform tales and songs from Abenaki and other northeastern Indian
cultures from noon to 2:00 p.m. Sunday in the Gathering Space of the Pequot Museum.
There is no admission fee for this event. For more
information, call 1-800-411-9671 or visit the Website www.mashantucket.com
July 31, 1999
From: Marge Bruchac
Subject:
REPLY: "Last of the Indians . . ."
Margaret Bruchac
Missisquoi Abenaki Indian
Historical
Interpreter and Consultant
Member
of the Board of Trustees, Historic Northampton
Smith
College // Northampton, Massachusetts 01063 // (413)
585-2700
© 1999 Smith College // Please send
comments to the Office
of College Relations
Page maintained by the Office of College Relations. // Last update: 12/10/99.
Page maintained by the Office of College Relations. // Last update: 12/10/99.
Margaret Bruchac is a
museum consultant, historical interpreter, and traditional storyteller of
Missisquoi Abenaki Indian ancestry. She serves as an adviser to the Wampanoag Indian
Program at Plimoth Plantation, a trustee for Historic Northampton and a
consulting interpreter for Old Sturbridge Village. A 1999 graduate of Smith
College, where she was an Ada Comstock/Smith Scholar, she is currently enrolled
in an M.A. program in anthropology at the University of Massachusetts.
Marge
Bruchac will be September 14 Song & Story Swap guest
Please come share in an evening of music and stories at the September Pioneer Valley Folklore Society SONG &
STORY SWAP.
October 6, 1999
In a telephone interview with Joseph Bruchac (Abenaki), by Eliza T. Dressang, to accompany the discussion
of Native American literature for children and teenagers, on CCBC-Net, Mr.
Joseph Bruchac (in part) has this to say:
”I belong
to the Abenaki Nation which is a non-recognized nation in the United
States. My
great-grandfather [Louis Bowman] came
from the little village of Odanak in Canada. I do not have a
card from a federally recognized Native American nation.”
“I try
to be absolutely straightforward about who I am, where I've been and where I
hope to go. I don't want people to conclude that I'm trying to fool them.”
Joseph Bruchac’s younger sister, Margaret Bruchac,
repeatedly in publications claims to be a Missisqoui Abenaki woman.
December 02, 1999
From: "H-AMINDIAN (Jeff Shepherd, J. Wendel
Cox)"
Author's Subject: CFP: Reinterpreting New England Indian
History, Sturbridge MA
CALL FOR PAPERS
REINTERPRETING NEW
ENGLAND INDIAN HISTORY AND THE COLONIAL EXPERIENCE
The Colonial Society of Massachusetts announces a conference to be held
in Sturbridge, Massachusetts on April 21 and 22, 2001,
focusing on the impact of Euro-American colonization on the New England Indian
experience in the indigenous homelands from earliest times to the present, as well
as the Diaspora of Native peoples into Canada, New York, and elsewhere.
It is our hope to elicit presentations which will represent
the best new scholarship and the new
activism of American Native communities that have begun to reshape
understandings of the region. We encourage presenters to reexamine Eurocentric
definitions of what constitutes the "colonial
period" and the forms of colonization experienced by Native peoples.
We invite conventional papers as well as audio, visual, theatrical, or mixed media
presentations from Native American and non-Native scholars and presenters.
Because the Society intends to
print a volume of selected proceedings drawn from the conference, papers should
not have been previously published elsewhere. The organizers hope the conference
will promote a rich dialogue among
members of the Native and scholarly communities on the meaning of Indian
culture in New England, past and present, and the continuing impact of
colonialism.
A brief description of proposals
should be sent to the members of the program committee (Marge Bruchac, Colin Calloway,
Barry O'Connell, Jean O'Brien, Russell Peters, and Neal Salisbury) care of John
W. Tyler, Editor of Publications, Colonial Society of Massachusetts, 87 Mount
Vernon Street, Boston, MA 02108. Proposals should arrive no later than October 1, 2000.
2000-
By
Cynthia Gomez, Standard-Times staff writer
Historical Society to hold
native music program
WAREHAM -- Hot fudge sundaes is what the
Wareham Historical Society's third annual ice cream social is all about.
But
there's also music to complement the confection.
Scheduled
to take place at 7 p.m. at the Methodist Meeting House on Main Street on
Monday, the sundaes will follow a special performance of traditional Algonkian
summer songs and stories by Missisquoi Abenaki Indian singer
and storyteller Marge Bruchac.
"We thought it would be good to host a
family event, and this is something both children and adults can enjoy,"
said Historical Society President Carolyn McMorrow.
The program will include greeting and
gathering songs, and stories of plants, animals, and tricksters, such as, "Green
Corn Woman," "How Cow Lost His Voice," and
"Gluskabe
and Wind Eagle."
Ms. Bruchac brings alive indigenous rhythms,
old melodies, the sound of the language, and the wisdom of the stories through
the use of vocals, rattles, and hand drums.
"I have seen her perform myself before,
and she's just wonderful," said Ms. McMorrow.
She has performed both traditional and
contemporary presentations at Old Sturbridge Village, Plimoth Plantation, Old
Songs Festival, Sagakwa Native American
Festival, and numerous museums and schools she visits throughout the year.
Ms. Bruchac performs "The Dawnland Singers"
with her brother, Joe Bruchac, and her nephews, Jim and Jesse. She and her
husband toured the Netherlands in January performing "Hand In Hand."
Ms. Bruchac can also be found at powwows dancing with the W'Abenaki Dancers.
Her recordings include "The Dawnland Singers,"
"Alnobak," and "Hand In Hand." Her play, "Molly
Has Her Say," is currently making the rounds of the area theaters.
In addition to her performing, Ms. Bruchac
works as a historical consultant and lecturer for museums, schools, and
colleges across New England, focusing on the hidden history and survival of the
Algonkian Indians. She serves on the Board of Trustees for Historic Northampton
and the Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter School and is a member of the
Five College Native American Indian Studies Curriculum Committee. She is also an
adviser to the Wampanoag Indian Program at the Plimoth Plantation.
Admission to the event is $2 for children,
members, and seniors, and $4 for adults.
Those who are unable to attend the event but
would like more information or would like to book a performance, Ms. Bruchac is
now booking for spring and summer 2000, and can be contacted at 413-584-2195.
May 21, 2000
The Daily Gazette Newspaper, Page G6
‘Witch of Mad Dog Hill’ recounts eerie tales
of the Sacandaga Valley
By Don Bowman,
edited by Vaughn Ward, Bowman Books, Greenfield Review Press, 230 Pages, $14.95
By John Bowman – For the Sunday Gazette
In “The Witch of Mad Dog Hill,” Don Bowman
offers a well-written collection of Sacandaga Valley stories that are
unsettling but insightful sketches of upstate rural life.
Don Bowman, a former Corinth resident who now lives in
South Carolina, working with Vaughn Ward, an editor and folklorist from
Rexford, had written and intriguing selection of stories about appearances by
the devil and his demons, ghosts, good and back witches, medicine men,
dangerous swamps, monsters and spells.
Don Bowman heard the stories in this collection in the
1920’s while working on Sacandaga reservoir construction and demolition crews.
He helped build the dam near Conklingville and prepare the 42-square mile
reservoir basin with crews that burned trees and buildings and reburied 2,000
graves.
While at work, Don Bowman heard stories about Sacandaga
valley life from his co-workers and from valley residents. One of Don Bowman’s
foremen, Clayton Yates, had an Aunt Wilma who was a witch lady. Seven stories
near the end of the book concern Aunt Wilma’s use of magic.
About 50 years after the Sacandaga project was finished,
Don Bowman began corresponding and sharing his stories with Joe Bruchac, a
Greenfield Center storyteller and author. Don Bowman, Joseph Bruchac and Vaughn
Ward assembled some of these stories, about American Indian traditions in the
Sacandaga valley, in the collection, “Go Seek the Pow-Wow On The Mountain,”
published in 1993 and still in print.
The foreword by Joseph Bruchac explains how he came to
meet Don Bowman, and connects him with the great tradition of American
storytellers from remote and mountainous regions.
Joseph Bruchac, by the way, has recently written two more
young adult books. “Sacajawea,” a biography of Lewis and Clark’s guide, and
“Pushing up the Sky: Seven Native American Plays for Children.”
2000-
Margaret (Marge) Bruchac traveled to the Netherlands. She
took up residence in the town of Haulerwijk, Freisland, in a little cottage
surrounded by fresh herbs and flowers. Her kind hosts, folk musicians Marian
Nesse and Marita Kruswijk, along with their neighbors, embraced her as their
resident Indian.
Unable to “hide in plain sight,” Marge Bruchac
- Kennick quickly became a minor celebrity, as local newspapers, television
reporters, and radio stations clamored to interview the exotic Indian
anthropologist. This notoriety enabled her to collect colleagues and informants
with relative ease; total strangers insisted on inviting Marge into their homes
to record a dizzying array of scientific theories, historical accounts,
fantastical myths, family traditions, songs, and more.
… One sunny afternoon, during lunch with Ita Prins
(mother of Marge’s dear friend, Dutch anthropologist Dr. Harald Prins, well
known for his studies of Wabanaki peoples) …
…So it is that Marge was thinking about other peoples’
relatives on the day that archaeologist Willem
Deetman brought her to the Drents Museum in the nearby town of Assen.
European Studies Grant for Field Research European
Studies Program, Anthropology Department, University of Massachusetts, Amherst,
MA. Marge Bruchac - Kennick conducted field research in the northern
Netherlands for project, “Mounded Earth and Ancient Memory:
Interpreting the Past in the Northern Netherlands.” She was awarded $3,500.00 dollars.
Marge (nee:
Bruchac) and Justin Kennick in Europe:
"Abenaki Indiaanse Verhalen en
Liederen/Abenaki Indian Songs & Stories.”
Booking Agents: Stichting Hjertaster, Haulerwijk,
Netherlands and Bremer Konzertbüro, Bremen, Germany (partial list out of 40
venues)
Germany:
Burgerhaus, Bremen.
Festival Ulmenhofscule, Kellinghusen.
Irish Pub Feuchte Ecke, Thüringen.
Seefelder Mühle, Seefeld.
Netherlands:
Café Averechts, Utrecht.
Cafe Eigenart, Visselhövede.
Cultureel Centum de X, Leiden.
De Roos, Amsterdam.
USVA-theater, Groningen.
Razmatazz, Oost-Souberg.
Rijksmuseum vvor Volkenkunde, Leiden.
Theater Romein, Leeuwarden.
May 17, 2000
Humanities and Social Sciences.net Online
Editor's Subject: QUERY: Responding to Benedict's
_Without Reservation?_
Author's Subject: Re: [Fwd: Pequot Recognition
Investigation]
Jeff Benedict's book, "Without Reservation: The Making of
America's Most Powerful Indian Tribe and Foxwoods, the World's Largest
Casino," purports to be an expose of the genealogy and history,
entitlements and wealth of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe. Although Benedict
claims to have surveyed an impressive array of records, it appears that he
spoke to no members of the tribe, no other regional tribes or tribal offices,
no regional anthropologists, ethnologists, or other recognized experts on the
tribe in question or on the Algonkian tribes of New England in general, and has
apparently ignored and dismissed oral regional and family histories. He also seems
to be unaware of the significant body of interpretive work and comprehensive
studies done in the last few decades by regional scholars to disperse the myths
of "The
Last of the Mohicans" genre and illuminate the complex histories
of survival and accommodation on the part of Native peoples in New England.
It also appears that Benedict's
motives are not to illuminate history, but to eliminate what he perceives as
special privilege. The book is receiving national attention in the media, and
focusing on some hot intercultural and political issues - Indian identity,
entitlements, casino wealth, and influence. But Benedict's political agenda
glosses over not only the libelous nature of his claims, but the real danger
such attitudes and suggestions pose to indigenous populations across the
country, who are still struggling for survival, despite public perceptions of
wealth.
We are not as far away as we
should be from the days when Native people had to hide their identity, change
their names, and identify as "white" in public records to escape
relocation, sterilization, and extermination. There is a potential backlash
growing, in the media and American public, that questions Indian entitlements.
There is a similar backlash growing among neo-Nazis in Europe that questions reparations
to survivors of the Holocaust. Press releases for Benedict's book call for a
federal investigation into Pequot entitlements. Before we launch a 21st century
attack on the Pequot fort, I suggest we begin with an investigation into how the
English and Dutch conspired to eliminate the Pequot Nation in the 1600s, and
then render an accounting of just how much financial gain and political influence
the descendants of European colonists have realized in the intervening years.
In the interests of responsible
scholarship, I would hope that scholars of New England history and American
Indian nations past and present would publicly address the issues that have
been raised, not only in the research and publication of this book, but in the
colonialist attitudes, racism, and political motives that surface in media
promotions of the book and public questioning of the rights and resurgence of
formerly colonized indigenous peoples, in America or elsewhere.
Marge Bruchac
May 20, 2001
The Daily Gazette Newspaper
Focus On History Section
By Bob Cudmore
Stories from a
vanished place
Worker-writer collected tales from Sacandaga
Valley’s people
Don Bowman was a member of the Boneyard Gang when the
Sacandaga Valley was cleared for the flooding the created Sacandaga Lake in
1930.
“We carefully removed, tagged the remains (in the
cemeteries) and reburied them,” Don Bowman wrote. He and his fellow workers
moved “2,000 bodies” to higher ground.
Sacandaga Lake was designed to provide a place for water
to collect to prevent flooding along the Hudson River. Paper and power
companies also benefited from the massive project.
While working on the Boneyard Gang or as a “barn buster”
demolishing buildings, Don Bowman “listened and learned” stories from Sacandaga
Valley natives. He wrote down the stories in notebooks, including tales of
witches called “Granny Women” and male Native American healers called
“Pow-Wows."
Fifty years later, Don Bowman sent his handwritten
stories to writer and publisher Joseph Bruchac in Greenfield Center. To edit
the stories, Joseph Bruchac enlisted folklorist Vaughn Ward of Rexford, who has
compiled tow books from Don Bowman’s stories, “Go Seek the Pow-Wow on the
Mountain” and “The Witch of mad Dog Hill.” Don Bowman died shortly after the 2nd
book appeared in 2000.
“The stories combine European and Indian traditions,”
Vaugh Ward said.
European settlers from Scotland, Ireland and Palatine
Germany intermarried with Abenakis and Mohawks in Sacandaga Valley.
The Granny Women and Po Wows learned from one another,
according to Vaughn Ward, practicing midwifery, healing, fortune-telling and
spell casting.
“Rather like contemporary specialists, each called on the
other in a pinch,” said Vaughn Ward.
Many of Don Bowman’s stories are cautionary tales. Vaughn
Ward said, “If you don’t follow the rules, you’ll disappear in the swamp or the
beautiful girl you can’t resist will be transformed to a tormenting hag.”
In today’s climate of environmental review and “not in my
backyard” protest groups, it’s hard to imagin how such a disruptive project
came to be.
Vaughn Ward wrote, “The reservoir inundated cranberry
bogs, covered bridges, factories, schools, blacksmith shops, picnic spots,
barbershops – 27,000 acres were annihilated, including the elaborate Sacanadaga
Park with its dance pavilion, amusement park and theater.
Three Indian villages were flooded, along with the
villages of “Conklingville, Day Center, Batchellerville, West Day, Beecher’s
Hollow, Fish House, Osborn Bridge” and several others.
None of those “with a vested interest in creating the
Sacandaga Reservoir,” Vaughn Ward said, was a resident of the valley.
Don Bowman was a Long Island native who went to work on
the Sacandaga Valley demolition crew in 1927.
“In retrospect, Don Bowman knew that he had helped
demolish a world, a way of life,” Vaughn Ward said, adding that Don Bowman was
“the Sacandaga Valley’s own ancient mariner.”
“The Witch of Mad Dog Hill,” by Don Bowman, edited by Vaughn Ward and illustrated by Deborah Delaney, is published by The Greenfield Review Press in Greenfield Center.
May 24, 2001
The Sun Journal
Newspaper
By Cora C.
Briggs – Special to the Sun Journal
Washburn Humanities Seminar Scheduled for
June 7-9
LIVERMORE – At
the Northlands Living History Center,
this year’s focus is “Finding Sustenance in a Challenging
Environment: Food, Drink, Family, Community and Spirituality.”
Friday
presentation will be a performance in costume by Marge Bruchac, Anthropology
Professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
She
will impersonate a Native American doctor, Molly Brant
September
14, 2001
Friday, 7:30-9:30 p.m. at the Black Sheep
Café, 79 Main St., Amherst, Mass.
September's guest artist is storyteller ,
Marge performs greeting and dancing songs in both Abenaki and English,
historical anecdotes of colonial contact with northeastern Native peoples, and
seasonal stories of plants,
animals, and tricksters. With rattles, hand drum, and eloquent words and gestures, she brings alive
indigenous melodies and the wisdom of lesson
stories.
Marge has appeared at numerous festivals and museums, including
Plimoth Plantation, the Old Songs Festival, Odanak, Mystic Seaport, Sagakwa
Festival, and Old Sturbridge Village, where she portrays "Molly Geet, the Indian
Doctress." Last year she was
honored as Storyteller of the
Year by the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and
Storytellers.
June 03, 2001
HUNTING AND GATHERING
HUNTING AND GATHERING
WRITER
BUNNY MCBRIDE HELPS
MAINE'S
NATIVE AMERICAN WOMEN
UNEARTH
THEIR LOST HISTORY.
Author:
By Edgar Allen Beem Date: Page: 16
Boston Globe
Sunday Magazine
Even
in the shifting ground of Native American-white relations, Mc Bride
manages to keep her footing. "What's remarkable about Bunny,"
says Marge Bruchac,
a Missisquoi Abenaki singer/storyteller from
Northampton, Massachusetts, and a consultant on "The
Four Molly’s" exhibition, "is that she is able
to put
flesh and bones on history. She really gets inside these women. For an
ordinary non-Indian writer to do that could come off as invasive, but a
lot of native women turn to Bunny's work for an understanding of their own
history and culture."
October
13, 2001
The 11th Annual Women's Studies Conference
Friday, October 12 - Saturday
is an historical consultant for museums and schools
throughout the northeast, including Old Sturbridge Village, the Pocumtuck
Valley Memorial Association, and many others. She serves on the Five Colleges
Native Studies Committee and the University of Massachusetts Repatriation
Committee. As an advisor to the Wampanoag Indian Program at Plimoth Plantation,
Marge has just published a new book titled 1621: A New Look at Thanksgiving.
Marge was selected "Storyteller of the Year for Public Speaking" in
2000 by the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers.
December 20, 2001
Date:
Thu, 18:51:33 -0500
From:
Margaret Bruchac
Subject:
REPLY: Native Women Drumming
Marge Bruchac
Missisquoi Abenaki
University
of Massachusetts
“The
Winter People” by
Joseph Bruchac ©2002. Pages 160 to 168. Pay close attention
to Page 163: “For many years I thought of writing about the events of
Roger’s Raid. It was, in part, a personal thing. My own
great-grandfather Louis Bowman was born in St. Francis.”
How many "St.
Francis" locations are there in the Province of Quebec, Canada that Lewis
Bowman ALLEGEDLY came from, to Saratoga County, New York?
Let's see how many St. Francis there really is:
1. Saint-François, Laval, Quebec, a district of
Laval, Quebec that was an independent city before 1965.
2. Saint-François-de-l'Île-d'Orléans, Quebec, known simply as Saint-François until December 2003.
3. Saint-François-de-Beauce, Quebec, now part of Beauceville, Quebec, Canada.
4. Saint-François-du-Lac, Quebec, Canada.
5. Saint-François-de-Sales, Quebec in Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean region.
(Confusingly, some of the other Saint-François were also known historically as Saint-François-de-Sales parishes)
6. Saint-François-de-la-Rivière-du-Sud, Quebec, Canada.
7. Saint-François-d'Assise, Quebec, Canada
8. Saint-François-Xavier-de-Brompton, Quebec, Canada
9. Saint-François-Xavier-de-Viger, Quebec, Canada.
So, why did Joseph Bruchac jump to the conclusion that it automatically just had to be Odanak and or #4. Saint-François-du-Lac, Quebec, on page 293 of his book entitled "March toward the Thunder"? There are at least 9 (and probably MANY MORE "St. Francis" locations in both Ontario and Quebec, Canada) that I found just using Google.com Search engine, so why immediately pick Odanak's Abenaki Community? There was another known Abenaki Community or enclave situated around or near #3 back in the day, called "Sartigan" And some of the Native residents of Sartigan did in fact relocate to Odanak.
2. Saint-François-de-l'Île-d'Orléans, Quebec, known simply as Saint-François until December 2003.
3. Saint-François-de-Beauce, Quebec, now part of Beauceville, Quebec, Canada.
4. Saint-François-du-Lac, Quebec, Canada.
5. Saint-François-de-Sales, Quebec in Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean region.
(Confusingly, some of the other Saint-François were also known historically as Saint-François-de-Sales parishes)
6. Saint-François-de-la-Rivière-du-Sud, Quebec, Canada.
7. Saint-François-d'Assise, Quebec, Canada
8. Saint-François-Xavier-de-Brompton, Quebec, Canada
9. Saint-François-Xavier-de-Viger, Quebec, Canada.
So, why did Joseph Bruchac jump to the conclusion that it automatically just had to be Odanak and or #4. Saint-François-du-Lac, Quebec, on page 293 of his book entitled "March toward the Thunder"? There are at least 9 (and probably MANY MORE "St. Francis" locations in both Ontario and Quebec, Canada) that I found just using Google.com Search engine, so why immediately pick Odanak's Abenaki Community? There was another known Abenaki Community or enclave situated around or near #3 back in the day, called "Sartigan" And some of the Native residents of Sartigan did in fact relocate to Odanak.
March 31, 2001
Rotenburger – Rundschau Newspaper
http://www.rotenburger-rundschau.de
Bruchac and Kennick in nature Visselhövede
Native American songs, stories
The cultural and handicraft center character in Visselhövede is on Friday 31 March from
20.30 clock devoted to Indian tradition. Marge
Bruchac and Justin Kennick offer Abenaki Songs and Stories.
Marge Bruchac
part of the North American tribe of the Abenaki Indians. For about seven years,
they are more songs and stories that for years living in the woods tribe.
Together with her husband Justin Kennick, a lumberjack Scottish origin, she
says proudly stories that are familiar from their tradition or has heard of
animals and nature. Kennick accompanies them on Indian instruments. Their
stories take turns on stage with songs and dances. Tickets for the evening in
the Indian character is available at telephone 04262/4414.
August 25, 2002
The
Daily Gazette Newspaper, Pages H1-H2
By
Lee Coleman – Gazette Reporter
Greenfield wilderness project
gets national TV attention
GREENFIELD
CENTER – A wilderness project in Greenfield that incorporates Indian survival
skills with more modern methods has gained national attention.
The
Ndakinna Wilderness Project will be the subject of a “National Geographic Today” television show on National Geographic cable channel this fall.
The
film crew, led by producer David Felsen,
is scheduled to come to the nearly 100-acre Marion Bowman – Bruchac Memorial
Nature Preserve off Middle Grove Road in Greenfield Center today to start
filming.
Last
month, Ivan Erchak of Saratoga
Springs, head instructor for the project, won the “Survival Race” on the
Premiere episode of “The Worst Case
Scenario” on Turner Broadcasting Systems.
Ivan
Erchack, 28, raced another survival expert during the 15-hour event in the
Rocky Mountains with rock climbing, river crossings, wilderness navigation,
fire making, and mountain biking part of the game.
The Ndakinna Wilderness Project, which
offers programs for both young people and adults, was founded by Greenfield
native James Edward Bruchac in the early 1990’s.
Jim
Bruchac, an Indian wilderness expert, storyteller and licensed guide, is the
author of a new National Geographic book titled “A Survival Guide for Kids”
that will be released next spring. He has written seven other books.
The
wildness program has expanded, with new programs being held locally at the
nature preserve and at sites across the country.
“The
wilderness project goes everywhere,” Jim Bruchac said, “We travel to places
throughout the northeast, to Colorado, to Illinois.”
The
project offers pre-orientation programs for college freshman, Wilderness
experiences are conducted for Skidmore College in Vermont and Miami of Ohio,
among others.
Jim Bruchac, 34, has a staff of 10
full-and-part time instructors and assistants, including his wife Jean Bruchac,
who grew up in Africa and is a 4th Grade teacher in the Ballston Spa
Central School District. She recently started a survival course for women.
In
mid-August, the project was busy teaching a dozen teenage boys survival skills
at the nature preserve in Greenfield Center.
Incorporated
in the training are skills Jim Bruchac learned from his father, Joseph Bruchac
III of Greenfield, a noted Abenaki Indian storyteller and author. Jim Bruchac
is of Abenaki, Slovak and English descent. Ndakinna is the Abenaki word for
northeast.
The
woodland skills of the Algonquian-speaking tribes include fire-making and rope-making
as well as animal tracking.
The
week-long camping adventure is not cheap - $495.00 per boy – but the project
offers partial and full scholarships to needy but worthy applicants, Jim
Bruchac said.
Jim
Bruchac has spent time in Africa and other countries as well as wilderness
areas in the United States. He has a College degree in American studies from
Skidmore’s University Without Walls program.
Jim
Bruchac also studied English and Exercise Science at Ithaca College and was a
member Ithaca College’s 1988 National Championship football team. He was
drafted by the former Albany Firebirds Arena Football team in 1992 but never
played a game and went back to get his college degree.
The Ndakinna Wilderness Project,
which has an annual budget of more than $100,000.00 dollars plans to expand the
facilities to include a re-creation of a full Abenaki village.
March 06, 2003
The
Monument Newspaper
Auditions:
Maine Renaissance Faire is holding open auditions on March 08, 2003.
"The Indian Doctor Meets the Yankee
Physician" Marge Bruchac, a
Missisquoi Abenaki Indian and interpretive consultant for Old Sturbridge
Village Museum, will be at USM to discuss the philosophical and
practical differences between Yankee physicians and traditional Native American
healers in 19th century New England. Her performance and slide show, "The
Indian Doctor Meets the Yankee Physician" will take place at 7 p.m.,
Thursday, March 13, in Rooms ABC of USM's Woodbury Campus Center, Portland.
Bruchac's lecture is free and open to the public. She was named Storyteller of
the Year in 2000 by the Wordcraft Circle
of Native American Writers and Storytellers. Her new book, "1621: A
New Look at Thanksgiving," was co-authored with Catherine O'Neill Grace
and was released in 2001 by Plimoth Plantation and National Geographic. For
more information on this lecture, and for access inquiries, please call
780-4920/TTY 780-5646.
April 10, 2003
Peterborough
Transcript Newspaper
Algonkian stories shared
PETERBOROUGH
– RiverMead Retirement Community invites you to attend “Earthshapers and Placemakers:
Algonkian Indian Stories and the Landscape” on Thursday, April 17, 2003,
at 11 a.m.
Presented by Marge Bruchac, a Missisquoi Abenaki Indian singer and
storyteller,
this program combines the performance with commentary and insight into how
those traditions have been recorded and transmitted from ancient times to the
present. Bruchac shares insight into how northeastern Algonkian Indian people
demonstrated their relationship to the land through stories. The mountains,
rivers, and forest of what we now call New England still resound with stories
of giant tricksters and transformers who shaped the landscape, carved the
rivers and moved the mountains. This event is free and open to the public.
Light refreshments will be served. Reservations are required. Call Dawn at
924-8611 to make your reservation.
'Old Man' Collapses over
the Weekend
Tribute to "Old Man of the Mountain"
Tribute to "Old Man of the Mountain"
Guest column by Margaret
Bruchac
NAIIP News Path ~ Thursday
NAIIP News Path ~ Thursday
Marge Bruchac, Missisquoi
Abenaki University of
Massachusetts, Amherst
Native
American Culture in Vermont
VAAS Fall Conference
Sponsors: Vermont Academy of Arts and Sciences,
Saint Michael’s Academic Program, and the Edmundite Center for Peace and
Justice
October 4, 2003
McCarthy Arts Center
9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Judy Dow Abenaki. Founder of SABA (“Tomorrow” in Abenaki) and nationally
known educator of native Indian Culture.
Marge Bruchac Abenaki. Scholar, consultant,
historical interpreter, traditional storyteller of Missisquoi Abenaki Indian
ancestry.
Rick Pouliot Abenaki. Works with at-risk students, and to preserve Abenaki culture.
Rick Pouliot Abenaki. Works with at-risk students, and to preserve Abenaki culture.
Doug
Frink UVM Archeologist
Tom Cady Abenaki basket maker. VT Forests, Parks &
Recreation Department
Jeanne Brink
Indian basketry expert and consultant to schools, libraries, organizations,
etc.
Greg
Sharrow VT Folklore Ctr. Dir. of Educ. and Folklorist. Author of “Many
Cultures. One People.”
Lynn Murphy Abenaki. Science teacher at Waits River Valley Union High
School.
9:15 Recital Hall, MAC Marge Bruchac “Constructing Abenaki
Invisibility.”
3:45 Closing: Marge Bruchac “Abenaki Presence and
Persistence: Where are the Abenaki Today?”
October 14, 2003
Gourvernement Abenakis d’Odanak
From: Chief Gillis O’Bomsawin
Mr. Joseph Bruchac
23 Middlegrove Rd.
Greenfield Center, N.Y. 12833, U.S.A.
Dear Mr. Bruchac,
I have seen a document on a website (Ne-Do-Ba) that your
family name of BOWMAN may be related to the O’Bomsawin family.
Please send your genealogy at your earliest convenience
to me so that our Registrar may review it to see if there is an Abenaki tie.
Yours truly,
Gilles O’Bomsawin
Chief of Odanak First Nation
c.c.: State of New
York Historical Society
St. Lawrence
College
State of Vermont
University of
Vermont
October 14, 2003
Gourvernement Abenakis d’Odanak
From: Chief Gillis O’Bomsawin
Ms. Marge Bruchac
63
Franklin Street
Northampton,
Ma. 01060 U.S.A.
Dear
Ms. Bruchac,
Although
we did not get a chance to speak with each other when you were here in Odanak
for our July Gathering, I have heard that you may be related to me. I have
heard from people in Maine that your BOWMAN name is said to be tied to my
O’Bomsawin family.
Please
send your genealogy at your earliest convenience to me, so that our Registrar
may review it to see if there is an Abenaki tie.
Yours
truly,
Gilles
O’Bomsawin,
Chief of Odanak First Nation
Chief of Odanak First Nation
November 22, 2003
Lecture tells stories of
region's early residents
By
NADIA CANNON
The
lecture series planned as part of Northampton's 350th celebration opened last
Sunday with a look at the history of Native Americans in the region, long
before the arrival of English settlers.Addressing the audience of 100 in
Smith's Wright Hall were Marge M. Bruchac, a Missisquoi Abenaki Indian and Neal Salisbury, professor of
history at Smith College. Both are authors of books about the native people of
the Northeast.
During
the program, ''From Beaver Hill to Bark Wigwams: The Native American
Presence,'' the speakers explained the history of native peoples in the area
and their relationships to the white settlers.
PLYMOUTH, Mass., Aug. 3, 2004 /PRNewswire/ -- Plimoth Plantation, the non-profit living-history museum that recreates the
17th- century life of the indigenous Wampanoag and the European colonists
(Pilgrims), today announced that it has received a Landmarks of American
History: Workshops for Teachers grant from the National Endowment for the
Humanities (NEH). The program, which concludes its third session this week,
brings together more than 150 elementary and secondary teachers from around the
country, with eminent professors, authors and Native American scholars as well
as Pulitzer Prize-winning historians such as Bernard Bailyn, Adams University Professor; James Duncan Phillips, Professor of Early American History,
Emeritus, at Harvard University; and Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, also of Harvard, author and historian, well-known for her
books A Midwife's Tale and Good Wives.
The Workshops, entitled Encounters and
Change: Expanding Perspectives on Natives and Colonists in 17th-Century
Plymouth offer intensive study about the Wampanoag People, the 17th-century new
world colonists and the groups' co- existence then and now.
Other
renowned professors, authors, scientists and historians who are leading
presentations during the week-long workshops are:
-- Marge Bruchac, Missisquoi Abenaki, scholar,
performer, writer, and museum consultant; doctoral candidate, University of
Massachusetts, Amherst.
“Hidden
Roots” by Joseph Bruchac©2004. Pages 130 to 136.Pay close attention to Pages 31 to 44; and
134 of the Author’s Notes. “Sophie” wife to “Uncle Louis” in the book is in
reference to Sophie Senecal; and “Uncle Louis” is in reference to Louis Bowman
(Sophie nee: Senecal’s son).
August 30, 2004
Saving stories of those
erased from history
Monday,
Thanks for contacting me
- I was prepared to talk about local Native history, but if you insist, I can
also talk a bit about myself. My name is Marge Bruchac. I'm 50 years old and
have lived in Northampton 17 years now. My husband is Justin Kennick. I was
born in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., spent some time in the Midwest, and I moved back East in 1983, to be closer to my family.
I didn't realize when I came here how much work had to be done on Native histories in the Valley, and that that would become my life's mission.
I knew that it was called the Pioneer Valley because of the early colonization that had taken place here, I knew about the events of King Philip's War (1675-76) and the massacre at Turners Falls (May 19, 1676), but I didn't know at that time how closely the tribes that resided here were related to the people I came from. Given what I've learned about the diaspora of the Pocumtuck and Nonotuck peoples into Sokoki and Missisquoi families in Vermont, I wouldn't be at all surprised if I had ancestry that connects to the Valley. Many of the things that I have chosen to research in history and anthropology help me to make sense of old family stories.
My mother's family is Abenaki Indian and Mayflower English. My father's side, the Bruchacs, are Czechoslovak. His parents joined a small community of Slavs in Greenfield Center, north of Saratoga Springs, N.Y. It was a catch-all place, with mixed African, Irish, Indian, poor whites and immigrants - people on the outside of white society. Areas in the Northeast that became tourist meccas, where the great hotels were, the little towns on the outside are where you find people of mixed ancestry.
I didn't realize when I came here how much work had to be done on Native histories in the Valley, and that that would become my life's mission.
I knew that it was called the Pioneer Valley because of the early colonization that had taken place here, I knew about the events of King Philip's War (1675-76) and the massacre at Turners Falls (May 19, 1676), but I didn't know at that time how closely the tribes that resided here were related to the people I came from. Given what I've learned about the diaspora of the Pocumtuck and Nonotuck peoples into Sokoki and Missisquoi families in Vermont, I wouldn't be at all surprised if I had ancestry that connects to the Valley. Many of the things that I have chosen to research in history and anthropology help me to make sense of old family stories.
My mother's family is Abenaki Indian and Mayflower English. My father's side, the Bruchacs, are Czechoslovak. His parents joined a small community of Slavs in Greenfield Center, north of Saratoga Springs, N.Y. It was a catch-all place, with mixed African, Irish, Indian, poor whites and immigrants - people on the outside of white society. Areas in the Northeast that became tourist meccas, where the great hotels were, the little towns on the outside are where you find people of mixed ancestry.
You told me that
''bruchak'' in Czech could mean ''one who growls like a bear,'' which is
interesting, because my Indian side is bear clan. My
mother's people, the Bowman’s, were Abenaki Indian basketmakers who came down
from Canada and upper Vermont to sell baskets. Louis Bowman got his farm
in Porter's Corners with pension money from being wounded in the Civil War -
many folks don't realize that some Northeastern Indians joined the Union Army.
After the Civil War, Indians were making so much money selling baskets that
some Yankees turned it into an industry. And the Dunham’s, the English side of
my family, hired Indians to teach young women from Saratoga how to make the baskets
and started manufacturing them in the place that came to be called
Splinterville.
This house in Northampton is filled with stuff: research, photos, baskets, my father's mounts, my brother's books. My father, Joe Bruchac, was a hunter, trapper, fisherman and taxidermist. He learned early on that the best way to get access to the best hunting territories was to have access to Native people, because much of the Adirondacks in the 1930s and '40s was still pretty wild, so he started forming friendships with Native people who were guides. The man who taught him taxidermy, Leon Pray, was an Ottawa Indian who worked for the Chicago Field Museum of Natural History. I'm certain that my father married my mother, Flora Marion Bowman, in part because of her Native ancestry, thinking that would be an opening. What he didn't know was that my mother was somebody who hated being in the woods!
What she had always dreamed of was having fine clothes and a fine house and being indoors because she grew up in such poverty. My grandmother, Marion Dunham, a [Daughters of the American Revolution] member, came from wealth and had thrown much of it away when she married an Indian. My grandfather, Jesse Bowman, was a logger, teamster and laborer building Route 9N through Splinterville Hill when they met. The Dunham’s sent her away, but she and Jesse married anyway and inherited the family place. My brother, Joe Bruchac, and his wife, Carol, live there now, and Bowman's store is now the Native Authors Book Distribution Project. I own part of the farm I grew up on, just down the road. It's now the Ndakinna Education Center, run by my nephew, Jim Bruchac, and the forest is now the Marion F. Bowman Bruchac Nature Preserve.
My husband, Justin, is a logger, like my grandfather. He's Scottish and English, but all my Native relatives have taken quite a liking to him. We both dance with the W'Abenaki Dancers, and have performed for festivals across the northeast and in northern Europe.
I often wondered as a child why I knew so little about my mother's family. It was this deep, dark secret that we were Indian. I was taught from the time I was very young never to talk to the neighbors about it. And I thought, ''Why? Indians are cool!'' What I didn't learn until years later was that my mother's parents were of the eugenics generation, when people were being sterilized, and that people were afraid.
All those immigrants coming into the Northeast sparked concern about social order and social disorder. The idea of controlling breeding was a fairly new concept in America, because most people tended to marry within their own socioeconomic strata. People did marry across race or class lines, but it wasn't common. In Massachusetts there were laws against intermarrying with blacks or Indians until 1869. The study of racial differences - it was believed to be a science - included the idea that anthropometry and craniometry could measure intelligence and social fitness. The assumption was that Anglo-Saxon whites were ideal populations, and everybody else was less civilized.
Margaret Sanger, President Neilson and Harris Hawthorne Wilder at Smith College, Edward Hitchcock Sr. and Edward Hitchcock Jr. at Amherst College - all of these people were at one time or another members of eugenics societies across the nation. Their goal was to control society by controlling how people would breed, and taking these decisions out of the hands of people who were ''unfit'' - anyone who was poor or mixed-blood or institutionalized or incarcerated.
Vermont was a testing ground. Through the University of Vermont people were sent into the field to identify families that shouldn't be allowed to breed. Between about 1910 and 1950, a whole generation of northern Native American communities just started to vanish. Two of my great aunts were sent to the institution at Utica and sterilized. One of my great uncles was murdered. Nobody talked about any of this when I was a child, but as an adult I look back and it explains why people were so afraid, why they went running from state to state, or sent women of childbearing age away.
People of my generation are trying to reconnect those links that were so forcibly broken in our parents' generation. A lot of people think that the dark times in the Northeast were during the colonization era. But as a historian I see that throughout the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, Native American Indian people held on to their traditions; even if they seemed on the surface to have assimilated, they really didn't. They may have been wearing European dress or using European tools, but they were still very Indian, and traditions and life ways hadn't disappeared.
There was a diaspora of Native people out of the Connecticut River valley, roughly between 1676 and the late 1700s. It did not empty the valley of Native people, but it left in its wake this impression that all the Native people here had disappeared. When histories of the Valley were being written, between the 1840s and the early 1900s, men like George Sheldon and Josiah Temple and others assumed that the only Indians left were just a few remnants who were basket makers or hunters or fishermen.
The town histories focused at great length on King Philip's War, on the founding era of the towns, and often just stopped talking about Indians altogether after a set date.
Part of why I work as a storyteller and public speaker is because I feel that what I'm doing is finding missing pieces and locating the communities that those missing pieces belong to and trying to put them back in communication with one another. I've been doing a lot of work for Historic Deerfield and the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association on the 1704 events. In other years it might have been enough just to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the 1704 raid. But the museums are finally coming to realize that Native history doesn't stop with that one event, just as Northampton's history doesn't stop with the commemoration of the 350th. Each of these communities has some obligation to understand how their way of crafting the history has been complicit in erasing other histories. Erasure is not always conscious, but it's very powerful.
Sometimes Native peoples chose to be out of view for their protection, but the fact that they were out of the public view is now used as a weapon against them, saying that if the dominant society couldn't see you, you didn't exist. For example, two tribes in Massachusetts just lost their bid for federal recognition, on the grounds that they couldn't prove on paper that they had persisted as a community through the early part of the 20th century. But many Native people can't document on paper that they are.
Most families don't have
historians and genealogists, so what you carry with you in the present is the
bits and pieces people choose to pass on, and if you pass through a time when
it's dangerous to talk about the past, then less is spoken. And if you're at a
time when you're just trying to be assimilated into the modern world and move
forward somehow, you're not interested in those things. And maybe children
don't spend time with their grandparents, or maybe they don't listen, so all
you have is these fragments.
How do you record what wasn't written down? You can document oral histories. Even when oral histories are not linear and are not specific, there are still truths within them. A lot of the mission of my life is to find ways for people philosophically and emotionally and spiritually to understand how those pieces fit together. And then, in the process, learn to be more kind to people they encounter who are not like them, who have their own very distinctive ways of telling their stories and histories that we have to acknowledge as outsiders we can't understand.
So it's not just about Indians, it's about trying to establish a level of respect for any of those people and histories that are not dominant in the public eye.
For example, there's a family name, Wawanowanolewat, which literally means, ''he turns around in his track,'' and that was Greylock's name. Greylock was a Woronoco chief who led many raids against the Valley in the 1740s. The assumption is that Greylock left the area, and then just came back to raid it out of spite. But you have to understand that Native people raided the Valley because it was still their homeland. They moved their families to safe zones, then came back to fight. The entire history of the French and Indian wars was scripted as though these were foreign Indians from Canada coming to attack only because the French drove them to it. But in fact these are Native people from Woronoco (Westfield), Agawam (Springfield), Nonotuck (Northampton), Pocumtuck (Deerfield), Sokoki (Northfield), and not just lone individuals. All of these people are part of extended families.
Individuals like Sally Maminash [of the Nonotuck people] do surface in the histories if they're remarkable in some way - perhaps they're doctors or basketmakers or laborers with unique skills - employed by or living with prominent white families, or maybe they do something wrong, if they're involved in some criminal offense. If they are just living ordinary lives, they are rarely recorded in the history.
The historical erasure is so profound that most people are not interested in preserving any of the Native history that might still exist here because they don't see it as being relevant. The archaeologists aren't interested in the Maminash [family] burial site on Hospital Hill because the graves have been desecrated. They place priority on known Native gravesites where there is an extant Native community, or on archaeological sites that have been previously undisturbed.
The Nonotuck people in this region didn't disappear but they folded in with other Native communities. So you can track some of those personal names, some of those stories, you can track some of those movements of people, but you have to cut through the mythology in order to do it accurately and ethically. I don't want anyone to ever say that I've reconstructed a lost tribe out of nothing; that's not my job. My job is to determine what happened, how it happened, why it happened, and what traces are left behind.
If you can conduct your life in such a way that pieces come together, I think that's a life well lived. I don't think it matters what you do, but biologically and ethically and ecologically, the essence of living is a connective and restorative process. Things are always going to be breaking down, but there's always a move to connect and restore and to rebuild.
Ironically, some of the knowledge I picked up from my father in taxidermy is helpful in the repatriation work I do for the colleges. Harris Hawthorne Wilder and Edward Hitchcock Jr. were both collecting Native bodies out of gravesites throughout the Valley for the museums at Smith and Amherst colleges in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and they knew that Native people were living in the Valley at the time they were doing it. They even went so far as to suggest that live Indians were such deformed remnants of the past that they couldn't offer as useful information as archaeologists could get from digging up someone who died in the 17th century. When Wilder and Hitchcock were looking for ways to preserve the bodies, they started using shellac, the very technique that Leon Pray developed for taxidermy and taught my father. So now the shellac on some bones helps identify which collections are which for repatriation.
There's something my father taught me about hunting that I use in doing research as well. And it is that the best way to track is not a straight line. It's not to find and follow and eyeball whatever it is that you're looking for, but to start by learning the lay of the land and everything you possibly can about what you're looking for. What do they eat? Where do they live? Where do they go? When do they sleep? It may take years to travel the land and become part of it, but once you know what they know, feel what they feel, and then when you set foot on that track, they'll be right there in front of you.
How do you record what wasn't written down? You can document oral histories. Even when oral histories are not linear and are not specific, there are still truths within them. A lot of the mission of my life is to find ways for people philosophically and emotionally and spiritually to understand how those pieces fit together. And then, in the process, learn to be more kind to people they encounter who are not like them, who have their own very distinctive ways of telling their stories and histories that we have to acknowledge as outsiders we can't understand.
So it's not just about Indians, it's about trying to establish a level of respect for any of those people and histories that are not dominant in the public eye.
For example, there's a family name, Wawanowanolewat, which literally means, ''he turns around in his track,'' and that was Greylock's name. Greylock was a Woronoco chief who led many raids against the Valley in the 1740s. The assumption is that Greylock left the area, and then just came back to raid it out of spite. But you have to understand that Native people raided the Valley because it was still their homeland. They moved their families to safe zones, then came back to fight. The entire history of the French and Indian wars was scripted as though these were foreign Indians from Canada coming to attack only because the French drove them to it. But in fact these are Native people from Woronoco (Westfield), Agawam (Springfield), Nonotuck (Northampton), Pocumtuck (Deerfield), Sokoki (Northfield), and not just lone individuals. All of these people are part of extended families.
Individuals like Sally Maminash [of the Nonotuck people] do surface in the histories if they're remarkable in some way - perhaps they're doctors or basketmakers or laborers with unique skills - employed by or living with prominent white families, or maybe they do something wrong, if they're involved in some criminal offense. If they are just living ordinary lives, they are rarely recorded in the history.
The historical erasure is so profound that most people are not interested in preserving any of the Native history that might still exist here because they don't see it as being relevant. The archaeologists aren't interested in the Maminash [family] burial site on Hospital Hill because the graves have been desecrated. They place priority on known Native gravesites where there is an extant Native community, or on archaeological sites that have been previously undisturbed.
The Nonotuck people in this region didn't disappear but they folded in with other Native communities. So you can track some of those personal names, some of those stories, you can track some of those movements of people, but you have to cut through the mythology in order to do it accurately and ethically. I don't want anyone to ever say that I've reconstructed a lost tribe out of nothing; that's not my job. My job is to determine what happened, how it happened, why it happened, and what traces are left behind.
If you can conduct your life in such a way that pieces come together, I think that's a life well lived. I don't think it matters what you do, but biologically and ethically and ecologically, the essence of living is a connective and restorative process. Things are always going to be breaking down, but there's always a move to connect and restore and to rebuild.
Ironically, some of the knowledge I picked up from my father in taxidermy is helpful in the repatriation work I do for the colleges. Harris Hawthorne Wilder and Edward Hitchcock Jr. were both collecting Native bodies out of gravesites throughout the Valley for the museums at Smith and Amherst colleges in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and they knew that Native people were living in the Valley at the time they were doing it. They even went so far as to suggest that live Indians were such deformed remnants of the past that they couldn't offer as useful information as archaeologists could get from digging up someone who died in the 17th century. When Wilder and Hitchcock were looking for ways to preserve the bodies, they started using shellac, the very technique that Leon Pray developed for taxidermy and taught my father. So now the shellac on some bones helps identify which collections are which for repatriation.
There's something my father taught me about hunting that I use in doing research as well. And it is that the best way to track is not a straight line. It's not to find and follow and eyeball whatever it is that you're looking for, but to start by learning the lay of the land and everything you possibly can about what you're looking for. What do they eat? Where do they live? Where do they go? When do they sleep? It may take years to travel the land and become part of it, but once you know what they know, feel what they feel, and then when you set foot on that track, they'll be right there in front of you.
Marge Bruchac spoke with Revan Schendler.
March 9th, 2005
7:30 pm Mar 9th: Native American
Science and Western Science: Powerful Collaboration Native American Science and
Western Science: Powerful Collaboration
Native American Science and
Western Science: Powerful Collaboration
Lecture/Reading
Free
and open to the public
AC
Trans-disciplinary Fund
Trans-disciplinary Fund of Amherst College.
Leroy
Little Bear, a member of the Blackfoot Confederacy and former director of one
of the Harvard Native American Programs, will speak theme: "Native
American Science and Western Science: Possibilities for a Powerful Collaboration."
He will offer two events. The first is a panel discussion on the theme with
Frederique Apffel-Marglin (Smith, Anthropology), Margaret Bruchac
(Five College Fellow, Missisquoi Abenaki) and Arthur Zajonc
(Physics, Amherst College). See March 10 for second event.
For more information:
www.amherst.edu/~pubaff/news/news_releases/04/littlebear04.html
March 23, 2005 - March 29, 2005
From:
Margaret Bruchac maligeet@earthlink.net
List
Editor: "H-AmIndian (Joyce Ann Kievit)"
amindian@MAIL.H-NET.MSU.EDU
Editor's
Subject: Query: Political Interference with Native American Indian Recognition
Author's Subject: Political
Interference with Native American Indian Recognition
Date
Written: Wed, 11:15:27 -0500
Date
Posted: Wed, 23:07:35 -0500
Greetings,
all
Is
anyone in academia studying the political and social dynamics of media, state,
and other attempts to disrupt efforts to establish state and federal
recognition for Native American Indian communities?
(Apart
from James Clifford and Jack Campisi's investigations of the infamous Mashpee
trial.)
I've
been tracking a disturbing trend in New England of increasing political
interference and biased popular discourse that is drawing on a host of dusty stereotypes,
not the least of which is the "vanishing Indian" trope so popular in
New England's town histories. Political leaders, including state governors and
legislators, have tried to sway public opinion against pending state and
federal recognition decisions, using these stereotypes combined with biased
assessments of racial identity to make contemporary Native communities
disappear, while evoking fears of symbolic "Indian uprisings" with
modern-day warnings about casinos and land claims, real and imagined.
This
often, paradoxically, exists side by side with public and state support for
Native cultural activities that are perceived as contributing to the ethnic
diversity of the state. Some of the same politicians who oppose recognition
have supported, in public discourse and legislation, Native cultural events,
publications, museums, educational programs, etc. In other words, in New
England at least, American Indians are more likely to be recognized as distinct
cultural communities (when it benefits the state), than they are to gain
recognition as distinct political communities (when it is perceived as a threat
to the state).
In
theory, both state and federal recognition were designed to be acknowledgements
of the continuance of political relationships between the agencies of the US
government and pre-existing tribal governments. Without delving into the
machinations of the Bureau of Indian Affairs Branch of Acknowledgment and
Recognition, it can be said that efforts to gain recognition are tedious, requiring
the submission of reams of paper documentation, much of it composed of
observations of Indians by biased white town historians and other non-Natives,
and exhaustive genealogies. As a broad generalization, the ease with which
western tribes have gained federal recognition may have more to do with the
nature of governmental records, the reservation system, and the style of Indian
scholarship then in vogue, than it has to do with the reality of any Native
community in question. During the late 19th century when Native people were
being counted in the census and removed to reservations, it was easy to
generate evidence of their presence. In the northeast, it is downright
illogical to expect 18th century white settlers and 19th century
white historians (who were busily scripting heroic narratives of their
forefather's wars with the Indians) to have accurately identified the Indians
they were actively trying to eliminate.
The
scarcity of ethnographic observations of northeastern Native peoples between
the 1800s and the early 1900s, so often cited as cause for a negative finding,
should be no surprise, given that the practice and science of ethnography was
in its infancy, and that men like Franz Boas were training their focus on
exotic Indians in faraway places, not on Native peoples living or working next
door. Researchers have barely begun to tap into the depth of prejudice against
Native peoples when weighing the fact - not just the possibility - that
non-reservation Native community’s had developed sophisticated strategies for
maintaining traditional kinship networks and cultural behaviors that enabled
them to selectively adapt to white society on their own terms while keeping their
head down politically. Although such behaviors clearly demonstrate indigenous
political structures in operation, they cannot be legally "proven"
with recourse to Euro-American generated documents. It is also rarely noted
that New Englanders, in particular, for most of the 19th century, were far more
keenly focused on collecting and exhibiting the remains of dead Indians than
they were in observing live Indians. Given these conscious and unconscious
forms of erasure, I find it unnerving to realize, in the modern era, that
public discourse and public acceptance for tribal recognition is increasingly
based, not on the factual history, the existence of extensive kin networks, the
continuance of traditional forms of Native governance, Native cultural
behaviors, or other merits of the case, but on the degree to which Native
communities limited their communities to an enumerated population in a
geographically limited space, while adopting Euro-American forms of governance
and record-keeping. Tolerance for Native nations is also influenced by the
degree to which local politicians are willing to support or interfere with
pending recognition cases.
As
just a few examples, the St. Francis-Sokoki Band of Missisquoi (Abenaki Nation
of Vermont) was actually granted state recognition back in 1976 by Governor
Salmon. It was then rescinded by incoming Governor Snelling in 1977. Howard
Dean later staunchly opposed Abenaki state
recognition
during his tenure as governor of Vermont, even though he supported cultural
events (including personal appearances at the Missisquoi Powwow), establishing
May as Native American month, approved funding for the Abenaki Tribal Museum,
approved purchase of land for burial protection, and oversaw the Governor's
Commission on Indian Affairs, which secured numerous grants for housing and
educational assistance for Abenaki elders and children.
In
Connecticut, Joseph Lieberman has often spoken of the need for acceptance of
cultural minorities within the state, but he has also been very outspoken in
trying to overturn the recent federal recognition of the Schaghticoke and
combined Eastern Pequot/Paucatuck Pequot tribal nations. Jeff Benedict, a
would-be politician, has made a career out of his attempts to discredit the
Mashantucket Pequot.
In
Massachusetts, at the close of the Clinton administration, the BIA/BAR granted
a positive finding in a pending Nipmuc case for federal recognition, but
incoming President George Bush withheld publication of the Federal Register to
prevent this and other legislation from entering into print. Massachusetts has
several other pending federal recognition cases, particularly the Mashpee
Wampanoag, who have taken the BIA to court to protest the delays in
consideration. Massachusetts does have a state Commission on Indian Affairs
that, while it cannot confer formal "recognition," is empowered to
grant waivers for tuition expenses, and "assist Native American
individuals, tribes and organizations in their relationship with state and
local government agencies and to advise the Commonwealth in matters pertaining
to Native Americans"
State-sponsored
advocacy and social support, or even state recognition for a tribal nation, are
not, however, consistently considered by the federal government to be
sufficient evidence of Native existence.
Back in Vermont, Senator Diane Snelling, daughter
of former Governor Snelling, is now attempting to set things right by
proposing, once again, that the state recognize the Abenaki, following the lead
of the late Senator Julius Canns,
who was himself of Cherokee descent. Snelling and her colleagues, however, are facing an uphill
battle from the Attorney General, who has spent the last decade trying to
discredit, publicly and personally, the Abenaki people that Snelling and her colleagues
plan to recognize. Rumors suggest that the Vermont Commission on Indian Affairs
may be in danger for having advocated for recognition.
These
and other cases call into question the construction of evidence in the
political arena as an odd shadow of constructions of Native identity in
academic venues, and even the ways in which academically interpreted evidence
can be used for or against indigenous communities.
As
another broad generalization, it is common wisdom that no tribe can succeed in
a federal recognition case without a bevy of historians, anthropologists, and
genealogists on their side.
I am
particularly interested to know if anyone is considering how these activities
compare with ethnocidal attempts in other
parts of the world. David Maybury Lewis, Linda Tuhiwai Smith, and others have written
at length about how paper erasures and political dispossessions of ethnic
history and cultural patrimony equate with ethnocide when used by states
against indigenous peoples elsewhere in the world.
Although
there has been much writing about US attempts at genocide in the colonial era,
there seems to have been relatively little consideration of the continuing
legacy of state attempts to erase, on paper and in the public venue, the people
who have not yet disappeared, and who have continued to resist the state.
Marge Bruchac
Five College Fellow, Amherst
College
PhD Candidate, University of
Massachusetts Amherst
April 13, 2005
Humanities and Social Sciences.net Online
During the 1930s, the Vermont
Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services was colluding with the
University of Vermont in sterilizing
Abenaki people (and others deemed socially unfit) and removing Abenaki children from their homes to place them in orphanages
and foster care. That paradigm of social service changed dramatically in 1993, when UVM and the Vermont Department for
Children and Families (formerly Social and Rehabilitation Services) initiated a
program to provide "cultural competency" training for foster and
adoptive parents with Abenaki children in their care.
In 2003,
Abenaki trainers replaced Euro-American trainers, and the program has
dramatically improved family relations, reduced drop-out rates, lowered risky
behaviors, and led many of these children into higher education and back into
their families of origin. It has been heralded as a model of success by social
workers across the country.
Just a few weeks ago, however,
when the contract came up for renewal, Chief Assistant Attorney General William Griffin deleted all mention of "Abenaki"
from the contract, even though ALL of the training provided is specifically for
Abenaki children at risk. Why? Griffin claims that the 12 year old contract
might provide evidence that the state actually believes in the existence of the
Abenaki. It's now called the "Indian Education Program,"
a title that, ironically, mirrors the boarding schools that stole Abenaki
children a century ago. Smells like ethnocide
to me.
Marge Bruchac
PhD Candidate, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Five College Fellow, Amherst College
May 2005-
(Abstract)
Collecting Indians
for the Colleges: Historical Erasure and Cultural Recovery in the CT River
Valley
Margaret M. Bruchac, B.A., Smith College
M.A. University of MA-Amherst
Ph.D., University of MA-Amherst
Directed b H. Martin Wobst
September 14, 2006
The Peterborough N.H. Transcript
Newspaper
Abenaki Indian
Program September 25, 2006
KEENE – Popular histories of Abenaki Indians typically
focus on events from the long-distant past. Many town historical societies have
small assemblages of Native artifacts, tidbits of Indian folklore, place names
with forgotten meanings, and stories of violent encounters during the French
and Indian Wars. Very few memories of 19th century Abenaki people
have been preserved in New Hampshire’s town histories, leading many to imagine
that the Indians mostly disappeared.
Abenaki families did not disappear, however. Their deep
attachment to Ndakinna, meaning “our homeland,” was poorly understood by most
white Americans. They employed a myriad of strategies to adapt after the
arrival of Europeans. For generations, they used their old familiarity with a
broad range of territory and resources to survive. The M’Sadoques
family of Keene is one example.
Marge Bruchac, Abenaki Indian,
teacher, historical consultant, and performer, and Lynn Keating
Murphy, Abenaki Indian, master educator, and granddaughter of
Elizabeth Sadoques of Keene, N.H., will shed some light on this supposed “dark
age” in New Hampshire’s history at the Historical Society of Cheshire County’s
membership meeting on Monday, September 25, 2006 starting at 7:30 p.m.
Their talk will reveal how, and why, Abenaki people could literally “hide in plain sight.” Historians have only recently begun exposing the degree to which white town historians adopted stereotypical, racial-ized narratives of “vanishing Indians” that distorted the historical record.
Their talk will reveal how, and why, Abenaki people could literally “hide in plain sight.” Historians have only recently begun exposing the degree to which white town historians adopted stereotypical, racial-ized narratives of “vanishing Indians” that distorted the historical record.
Some people imagine that many of the Abenakis in New
Hampshire today are imports from Maine or Canada. Using surviving documents and
oral traditions, Marge Bruchac and Lynn Murphy have a far more complex story to
tell by tracing just one extended Abenaki family before they settled in Keene,
N.H. during the 1880’s. Marge Bruchac will also be joined by Joyce Heywood, a descendant of the Sadoques and Watso families
who has some interesting histories of her own to share.
Co-sponsored by the Keene State College Diversity
Commission and Commission on the Status of Women, the Historical Society’s
September membership meeting is free and open to the public. HSCC is located at
246 Main Street in Keene. For further, please contact HSCC at 352-1895 or hscc@hsccnh.org.
CLARIFICATION:
"Towards the end, Joyce Heywood was mentioned as having been a part of the September, 2006 event at the Historical Society of Cheshire County in Keene, NH in the September 14, 2006 article.
Joyce Heywood was not in fact part of that event.
It included only Marge Bruchac and Joyce's cousin, Lynn Murphy.
The sentence that mentions Joyce Heywood came from a different talk that Marge Bruchac gave at the Hopkinton, NH historical society on July 23, 2011."
Here’s a link to that event: http://ssenier.indigenousnewengland.com/tag/margaret-bruchac
"Joyce Heywood was indeed a part of that and the line the Peterborough N.H. Transcript Newspaper had included was part of the promo that was written for the talk. The subject matter of both talks were roughly the same, a look at the Sadoques family from Keene, from which both Lynn Murphy and Joyce Heywood descend."
CLARIFICATION:
"Towards the end, Joyce Heywood was mentioned as having been a part of the September, 2006 event at the Historical Society of Cheshire County in Keene, NH in the September 14, 2006 article.
Joyce Heywood was not in fact part of that event.
It included only Marge Bruchac and Joyce's cousin, Lynn Murphy.
The sentence that mentions Joyce Heywood came from a different talk that Marge Bruchac gave at the Hopkinton, NH historical society on July 23, 2011."
Here’s a link to that event: http://ssenier.indigenousnewengland.com/tag/margaret-bruchac
"Joyce Heywood was indeed a part of that and the line the Peterborough N.H. Transcript Newspaper had included was part of the promo that was written for the talk. The subject matter of both talks were roughly the same, a look at the Sadoques family from Keene, from which both Lynn Murphy and Joyce Heywood descend."
December 26, 2006
Joseph Bruchac
P.O. Box 308
Greenfield Center, New York 12833
Phone: (508) 584-1728
Email: nudatlog@earthlink.net
Gourvernement Abenakis D’Odanak
102, Rue Siobsis
Odanak (Quebec)
JOG 1HO
Dear Friends,
Thank you for your letter of December 14th.
I do, indeed, often state that I am of Abenaki descent.
But I do not claim to be a
member of the Odanak Band. I have no documented proof for such membership and I have never
claimed tribal enrollment. (In fact, I freely acknowledge that I am a person
of mixed white and Indian
ancestry).
However, I have often made
mention of the fact that my
great-grandfather, Lewis (or Louis) Bowman recorded
on such documents as his marriage certificate and his military
enlistment in the Union Army indicate that
he came from “St. Francis.” He settled in Greenfield Center, New
York where he and his wife, Anna Van Antwerp (or Van Antwert) had thirteen
children, among them my grandfather, Jesse Bowman.
My great-grandfather’s mother,
Sophie Senecal, remained in Canada was a resident of East Farnum according to
documents in the United States War Department. My great-grandfather never
returned to Quebec, but remained in Greenfield Center where there was a
sizeable community of others of Native descent, primarily Abenaki, Mohawk and
Mohican.
I am a lifelong resident of Greenfield Center, New York
where I live in the same house where I was raised by my grandfather, Jesse
Bowman.
It was and remains well-known
and widely accepted in our part of upstate New York that the Bowman family –
like many other local families—were American Indian and that their tribal
background was Abenaki. My grandfather was constantly referred to as a “dirty
Indian.” There was no privilege attached to being Indian in our part of New
York State during those years and his Abenaki ancestry often caused my
grandfather hardships. Because of his own brown skin he was said by some to be
“black as an Abenaki.” To be honest, it caused some members of my family great
concern due to the prejudice they had experienced when I began as a young man
to speak publicly about my Native ancestry over forty years ago.
While I am not a member of your
community, I have often visited Odanak. I have enjoyed friendships with several
of your elders and other tribal members. I am very grateful for all that I have
learned from my friends at Odanak. My son Jesse, was received with warmth and
great courtesy during the extensive periods he spent in your community trying
to learn the Abenaki language. Other members of my family and I have been
invited on several occasions to perform during your community celebrations.
I’ve also given, without charge or hesitation, whatever help I can whenever
I’ve been asked by the Musee D’Abenakis for assistance.
As a scholar, with a background
in university teaching and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature, I have done a
great deal of research for not only Abenaki history and culture but also for
many other Native peoples. I have tried as best I can to project the image and
history of the Abenaki and other Native peoples in an honest, dignified, and
positive ways in my scholarship, my creative writing and my storytelling for
over four decades. I am one of the founders of the Native Writer’s Circle of
the Americas and the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers, internationally known
organizations that have worked to recognize, encourage, and support Native
writers and storytellers throughout the Americas. I have spoken out and acted
for Native rights and Native sovereignty throughout the world.
I have a very long and
well-documented history of giving back to Native communities – both financially
and in terms of work I have done and continue to do.
I sincerely believe that nothing
I have done has either been fraudulent or tarnished the image of the Abenakis
or any other Native nations. I am proud of my ancestry.
I wish you all the best in the holiday season and in all
the seasons to come.
Peace,
Dr. Joseph Bruchac
December 30, 2006
Margaret M. Bruchac
63 Franklin Street
Northampton, MA 01060
Phone: (413) 584-2195
Email: maligeet@earthlink.net
To:
Gilles O’Bomsawin, chief
Claire O’Bomsawin, councillor
Clément Sadoques, councillor
Alain O’Bomsawin, councilor
Jacques T. Watso, councilor
Gouvernement Abénakis D’Odanak
102 rue Sibosis, Odanak, Québec, J0G 1110
Greetings,
This
letter comes to you in response to your letter of December 14, 2006. Please
allow me to clarify some of the confusion, and address your concern.
I
have never represented myself as a member of the Odanak Band. I do not claim to
belong to the Odanak Band. I do not wish to become a member of the Odanak Band.
These so-called claims that you speak of appear to be due to some
misunderstanding. The reports that you are receiving about me from members of
your First Nation residing in the United States do not accurately represent
anything I have said. I am surprised to hear that you have received requests to
verify something that is not true to begin with.
I
have Abenaki ancestry through my mother, Marion Flora Bowman Bruchac (1921 –
1999). Her father, Jesse Elmer Bowman (1887 – 1970), was the son of Lewis H.
Bowman (1844 – 1918) (his first name was also spelled as Louis), an Abenaki
Indian born in Canada, and Alice van Antwerp (1855 – 1909), an Indian from New
York state whose family was apparently mixed-blood, with Abenaki, Mohawk,
Mohican, Dutch, and/or other ancestry. Family tradition suggests that “Bowman”
could be a variant of the family name OBomsawin. Although some of Lewis
Bowman’s Civil War service records and other documents identify him as a “Saint
Francis” Indian, we do not know if he was ever listed as a member of the Odanak
Band. We do know that he lived in various places from the 1840’s – 1880’s,
including Durham and Farnum (also spelled Farnham) in Quebec, St. Albans in
Vermont, and also in Troy and Saratoga Springs, before buying farmland in
Porters Corners in the town of Greenfield, in New York state.
My
mother’s parents, my mother, my siblings, and I were all born in New York
State, and we are all American citizens. I identify myself as an American
Abenaki Indian with mixed white ancestry. My siblings, my parents,
and my grandparents did not ask to be members of the Odanak Band due to our
Abenaki ancestry, and I am not asking for member now. There is thus no cause for
you to be concerned about the potential of my making any fraudulent claims that
might “tarnish your image,” as suggested in your letter. I do not claim to
belong to your band. Anyone who says otherwise is mistaken.
On
the many occasions that I have been invited to Odanak, to perform at the July
homecoming events, consult with curators at the Musée de Abénakis, or just to
visit with friends, I have been warmly received as an Abenaki singer,
storyteller, and historian. I am unclear, therefore, about the cause of your
concern, since my friendship with members of your band does not give me any
special privileges or rights in your country. It is possible that we may share some
ancestors, since so many Abenaki people have moved back and forth for so many
generations across the territory that is now divided by the United
States-Canadian border. I do not, however, receive any special privileges from
the United States or Canada by virtue of being Abenaki. I do not receive any of
the health care, housing support, trust funds, food assistance, educational
grants, casino profits, or other monetary payments that are typically given out
to Canadian First Nations and to U. S. Federally-recognized tribes.
I am
led to wonder if there is some historical explanation for this apparent
confusion between us? There are many Abenaki Indian families still living in
Abenaki territory in the northeastern United States who are not members of the
Odanak Band. As you know, during the French War Indian Wars (1670’s to 1760’s),
a large number of Western Abenaki people from such tribal bands as Sokoki,
Missisquoi, Pennacook, Pequawket, Cowass, etc. passed through Saint Francis/
Odanak, when it offered refuge for New England Indians fleeing from English
settlers. Some families from those bands chose to stay at Odanak permanently.
Others stayed for a few generations before returning to New England. Others
never left their original homelands in New England or New York. When I invited
Chief Obomsawin to come to Deerfield in 2004 to witness commemorative events
that dealt with this history, he spoke quite eloquently, in the First Church of
Deerfield, about historical Abenaki relationships. Perhaps this complex history
contributes to the confusion, since there are so many Abenaki people living in
the United States who do not identify themselves as members of your band.
Since
your letter raises the question of financial interest, please let me clarify
that I have never asked for, nor do I intend to ask for, any special benefits
or money from band. I do greatly appreciate your past generosities in reimbursing
my travel expenses and feeding me when I have been invited to perform at
Odanak. If that is the cause for concern, I am more than happy to pay for all
of my own expenses when visiting in the future.
Although
my Abenaki ancestry is a source of pride and inspiration, it does not, on its
own, offer me any special rights or income. Please be reassured when I tell you
that I pay for my own health care, my own housing, my own transportation, and
my own education. For twelve years, my college education has been funded, not
by any grants dedicated to Abenaki Indians, but by more than $45,000.00 in
student loans borrowed from the United States government, and by 8 years of my
hard work as a teaching assistant and visiting professor. My income derives
from the teaching, consulting, research, and performance work I do for New
England colleges and museums, based on my own hard-earned and carefully
developed skills as a teacher, archival researcher, writer, colonial historian,
musician, and performer, my professional expertise as a museum consultant, and
my advanced Master’s and Doctoral degrees as an ethno-historian and
anthropologist. With homes that this sharing of information helps to offer some
clarity between us, I wish you well.
Sincerely, in
peace and friendship,
Margaret Bruchac
March 22, 2007
Ancestry.com Message Board
From: Cjr1974
Subject: Re: Mary
and Alice Vanantwerp, Bowman, Saratoga Co. NY
My married name is
Barrows. I’m Carly Russell – Barrows, the Great Great Great Granddaughter
of Lewis (Louis) Bowman.
March 23, 2007
Ancestry.com Message Board
From: Cjr1974
Subject: Re: Mary
and Alice Vanantwerp, Bowman, Saratoga Co. NY
I’ll get in touch with my Gram Hilda Bowman – Barton. She
is Berlin and Hazel Bowman’s only child, to find out where in Vermont they came
down from Canada as farmers and loggers, temporarily living in Vermont. I want
to say Rutland or Swanton area, the latter of which would make sense due to the
Abenaki heritage. My goal is to trace as far back as possible to not only share
with other relatives but to pass on to my identical twin boys and my daughter,
so it may be a short while before I have a definitve answer, as I am happily
busy with my three young children.
March 23, 2007
Ancestry.com ‘Abenaki – Bomwan’ Message Board
From: Cjr1974
Subject: Bowman -
Obomsawin
I’m trying to continue my Abenaki Bowman lineage and I’ve hit a brick wall. I am looking for
my Great-Great-Great-Great Grandfather Lewis/Louis
Bowman. Census states that he was born in Canada. The Abenaki Bowman line I believe is Obomsawin and other variations. Can anyone help me?
I know my Great-Great-Great
Grandfather, Forest Bowman did live a short time in Vermont. My line of
Bowman’s settled in Greenfield Center, Saratoga County, New York. They were
Abenaki but it was kept a family secret due to the “racism” of Native American
Indians. They just didn’t let society know. Any information you could share
will be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time.
March 25, 2007
Ancestry.com ‘Abenaki – Bomwan’ Message Board
From: tedburton
Subject: Bowman -
Obomsawin
The
Bowman name is familiar, with your Forrest
Bowman being a brother of Jesse
Bowman who is the grandfather of
Joseph Bruchac, an author of some fame. The father of Jesse and of Forrest Bowman
was indeed Lewis Bowman and the
connection to Obomsawin’ is also known. Who Lewis Bowman' parents were I have no idea, but your inquiry
should be shared with the Bruchac’s. I do not have good contact info for them,
but they are well known in academia.
[How can they KNOW how Lewis Bowman [AS T HE BRUCHAC’s CLAIM]
connects to the O’Bomsawin family, WITHOUT first KNOWING WHO HIS PARENTS WERE?]
March 29, 2007
Ancestry.com Message Board
From: Cjr1974 [Carly Russell
– Barrows]
Subject: Re: Mary
and Alice Vanantwerp, Bowman, Saratoga Co. NY
KWAI, KWAI!! My Bowman family was Abenaki,
their Indian surname was Obomsawin,
if you visit our Abenaki website Ne-Do-Ba
you will find an old Indian Abenaki
Census in Canada and also you can see what the Indian surnames were changed
to, I have relatives, actually cousins who are Native
American Authors whom I will be setting up a get together with as they have traced our Great-Great-Great-Great Grandfather's descendants
back to Odanak-TROIS-Rivieres, Canada, proof that my descendants were truly
Abenaki. I am now trying to trace my Russell-SENECA and
Robbins-Mahegan Indian Ancestors, when I find out where to look in Canada I'll
post the info for you. What surnames/lineage are you investigating? [See June 13,
2012 Reply from Jack Lynch]
April 16, 2007
Ancestry.com ‘Abenaki – Bomwan’ Message Board
From: Patricia A. Bowman
Subject: Bowman -
Obomsawin
My husband Earl J.
Bowman, Jr. (E.J.) is the Great-Grandson
of Jack Bowman and thus the brother
of Jesse Elmer Bowman (mentioned
in the book ‘Bowman's Store’).
His Grandfather
was Earl K. Bowman ... and his Great-Great
Grandfather was Lewis Bowman, so I believe that you are related.
Jack Bowman lived in Queensbury off of Jenkinsville Road.
I believe that some of the Bowman's are buried in Glens
Falls off of Bay Street.
April 16, 2007
Ancestry.com ‘Abenaki – Bomwan’ Message Board
From: Patricia A. Bowman
Subject: Bowman -
Obomsawin
My name is EJ, (Earl J. Bowman, Jr.) ej_bowman@roadrunner.com.
We are probably related in some way. My wife Patricia sent you information
about my Great Grandfather Jack Bowman, son of Lewis Bowman. I only recently learned about my connection with
the Obomsawin's.
I learned this
from my cousin Margaret Karides, daugher of Alegra (nee: Bowman) Karides.
I have emailed
Joseph Bruchac several times, and have a copy of his book ‘Bowman's
Store’.
Do you have any information on a possible Bowman Family
reunion?
It would be cool to learn of more family in the area. We
now live in Queensbury, south of Lake George.
April 17, 2007
Ancestry.com ‘Abenaki – Bomwan’ Message Board
From: Cjr1974
Subject: Bowman -
Obomsawin
Jack is a nickname for John Bowman? If so John “Jack”
Bowman is my Great-Great Uncle and a brother to my Great-Great Grandpa
For(r)est Bowman … whose father was Lewis/Louis Bowman of Greenfield Center,
Saratoga County, New York. In regards to the book ‘Bowman’s Store’ by Joe
Bruchac, open the book up to page 50 and the bottom paragraph. Look for the
name Berlin, and Jesse taking off to his nephew Berlin Bowman’s to do Indian
things for the weekend. Well, Berlin Seneca Bowman is my Great-Grandpa. His
parents were For(r)est Bowman and Hazel Hitchcock.
April 17, 2007
Ancestry.com ‘Abenaki – Bomwan’ Message Board
From: Patricia A. Bowman
Subject: Bowman -
Obomsawin
Yes, Jack is the nickname for John Bowman (my
great-grandfather). He was indeed the brother of Forrest and the son of Lewis.
Therefore, we are related. While I did not know my grandfather (Earl K. Bowman)
that well (he had a problem with alcohol and never saw the family) I did know
my Great-Grandfather well having spent weekends with him in my youth. My father
and his 3 sisters were raised by Jack/John and his wife Catherine after their
mother died in a car accident at a very young age. That is when Earl K. Bowman
picked up and left their lives as well. I guess that he was somewhat the
"black sheep" of the family as he is not even mentioned in Joseph
Bruchac’s book. Are you related to the Bowman's through your mother or fathers
side? It would be great to track down the entire Bowman’s' and have a family
reunion. I have been in touch with several cousins of mine since moving back to
the area in November. I had been away for 30 years. You can e-mail me direct
through ejandpat@roadrunner.com. Hope all this info helps.
Earl J. Bowman, Jr.
April 25, 2007
Ancestry.com ‘Abenaki – Bomwan’ Message Board
From: Ibgen1 [out of
Queensbury, New York, USA]
Subject: Bowman -
Obomsawin
I am not sure what line of Bowman's you are looking at,
but in the early 1800's brothers Levi
and Lewis Baum arrived in Canada via
French ship and started out in the trapping trade. After only two years, they
moved into the US to the Warrensburg area of New York State and in the process their surnames were changed to Bowman.
They were loggers and trappers. Each had several children, some of which stayed
in the area. Berlin and Lewis later moved to Ohio and changed their names back
to Baum. I am not sure if the New York children changed their names or not. My Great-Great-Great-Great Grandfather was
Berlin Baum, (brother to Levi and Lewis), who had stayed in Germany. My grandfather, William Baum moved to
the U.S. and settled in Ohio.
I do not know much more about the Levi and Lewis New York
lineages.
May 04, 2007
Ancestry.com ‘Abenaki – Bomwan’ Message Board
From: Ibgen1
Subject: Bowman -
Obomsawin
I am presently looking for more information too. I am
related to the Bowman's via the Van Antwerps. I have found Louis/Lewis -
spelled both ways and his parents in Canada - and their name is Bowman. Lewis
Bowman's grandfather was also a Bowman, but only have his initial as of now.
Back to the 1780's they are all Bowman’s and no visible Native American blood yet. Not from the women either.
Actually, the Bowman's have a better chance of being
German or French. If their name changed, it could have been Bauman or Beaumont
and these names were popular in the area of Canada where they were from. So, I
have taken a couple more steps deeper into the mystery and it looks less and less like anybody is going to find an Abenaki line.
I am going to Canada in a month to try to get back even
one more generation. Louis Bowman's Great Grandfather should finally show from
what direction this family came.
I'll post again when I have definitive information.
May 04, 2007
Ancestry.com ‘Abenaki – Bomwan’ Message Board
From: Cjr1974
Subject: Bowman -
Obomsawin
Sounds great! And will you share names of Lewis Bowman’s
parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents?
I too am beginning to believe that Bowman was only French
and or German; and I am also not finding any Native American Indian descent
other than in the Van Antwerp line, that Carollee shared with me from the
1600’s, which is Mohawk. It’s quite interesting how many branches of Lewis
Bowman have all been told of Abenaki descent … and it has been carried on, or
passed on for years, but as of now, it seems there is no factual proof to back
this up.
May 04, 2007
Ancestry.com ‘Abenaki – Bomwan’ Message Board
From: tedburton
Subject: Bowman –
Obomsawin
I believe "Bowman" is an
anglicization of Obamsawin/Obomsawin, for which there is much
Abenaki heritage. Changing the spelling of names away from French and away from
Abenaki was an economic necessity for those who were trying to work in the
dominant culture's economy.
Being Indian or French-Canadian in New England/Upstate NY
could mean unemployment or worse.
May 06, 2007
Ancestry.com ‘Abenaki – Bomwan’ Message Board
From: Ibgen1
Subject: Bowman -
Obomsawin
I am with the Lewis Bowman's back to the 1780's and they
are still Bowman’s and not yet showing up as Native American. There is no record of a name change to
Obomsawin or anything like that. I would classify such a name change as unfounded speculation and its continual
introduction as "semi-fact"
as only clouding the truth.
In addition, we can stop with the "they changed their names because of embarrassment or economic
pressures by the dominant culture" speculation too. Remember, we are
talking about the 1700s, not the 1940's or 50's. Let's focus on facts.
May 07, 2007
Ancestry.com ‘Abenaki – Bomwan’ Message Board
From: Cjr1974
Subject: Bowman -
Obomsawin
I agree we should focus on the facts when I have proof
that is indeed factual and documented that my Bowman Grandfathers' are-were Abenaki.
May 08, 2007
Ancestry.com ‘Abenaki – Bomwan’ Message Board
From: Ibgen1
Subject: Bowman -
Obomsawin
The Louis Bowman wives were sisters, Alice and Mary Van Antwert(p).
They are daughters of John who was of the Baker's Mills/ Warrensburg area of New
York. I am looking at John Van Antwerp's movement.
May 09, 2007
Ancestry.com ‘Abenaki – Bomwan’ Message Board
From: Ibgen1
Subject: Bowman -
Obomsawin
The Bowman Indian line (Seneca or whatever) comes from
one of Lewis's sons John Bowman who married Etta?
Etta was maybe Seneca and their Bowman kids were the only
Native American I have found in the Bowman lineage; not from Lewis Bowman, Not
from VanAntwerp’s.
Bessie Remington was my source of information, who I
believe is Native from this line. So, I believe Etta (?) is the line to follow,
that being John Bowman’s wife. John is buried in Baker's Mills I believe.
2007-
ARTSEDGE: The Kennedy Center
Author and
storyteller Joseph Bruchac explaining the origin and significance of the flute
and the drum to Native American culture
Commentary on Youtube.com
Bnsaints:
“The biggest phony
Indian in the world. What are you Joe, about 1/100th Indian? I
remember your son from school, who was a blond haired – blue eyed football
player, who now wears a neck choker and tells “Indian Stories” you f’n
phonies!!”
2008-
ARTSEDGE: The Kennedy Center
Author and
storyteller Joseph Bruchac explaining the origin and significance of the flute
and the drum to Native American culture
Commentary on Youtube.com
Bnsaints:
“I don’t know anything about his success in war, but I do
know from living on an Indian reservation and counting some of the most
prominent people in the Native American community as my friends, I can tell you
without reservation, that his books are popular because it is the new chic
thing for white people , and people who try to pass themselves off as cultured
academics, to get “Native American stuff” and books.
Mr. Bruchac is at BEST 1/10th to 1.25th
Native American by his own admission. The bullshit he tries to pass off, for
example, that his some sachem as if he was standing there with Russell Means at
Alcatraz or something is pathetic. His sons are phonies as well. I’m sure James
Bruchac knows his stuff in tracking and outdoor craft but he and his brother
Jesse are phony Indians and it is actually insulting the shtick they try to
pass off as a family.
March 24, 2008
10:14 PM
From: Fred Wiseman wisem@vtlink.net
Hi Vince,
Mr. Dan Brush told me to send you a few very brief facts,
since you have received too many long-winded letters and demands. I hope these
five are short and clear. I will be at the State House tomorrow at the VT
Champlain Quadricentennial display at the Card Room.
1. You
asked me to get everyone on board for the compromise. I did so. Missisquoi,
Nulhegan, Koasek (including EL-nu as a sub-group) are self-governing tribal
political entities with historical presence in Vermont. They represent ALL of
the entities that, in my opinion as a scholar of the Abenaki experience, would
meet the “tribal” qualifications set forth by the Federal Government’s
requirements under the “state-recognized tribes” section of the Arts and Crafts
Act. They represent over 3,000 Vermont Abenakis – a large constituency.
Missisquoi is focused in Northwestern Vermont, Nulhegan is in your district,
Koasek is in Eastern Vermont, and El-nu is Southern Vermont – complete state
coverage. They now work together in unity.
2. There
is no anthropologically or historically detectable Moccasin village/ Winooski
Band. Clan of the Hawk is (by their own admission on their website) an
educational/cultural, not political organization, and so cannot be recognized
as presently constituted. Skip Bernier’s group is recognized in Canada, derives
its political authority from there, and has no dependent Vermont
political/corporate basis. Paul Pouliot’s group is not form Vermont.
3. There
are only a few scattered unorganized families not included #1 or #2. They have
no formal corporate political structure. Charlie Delaney represents one. As you
saw, he was at the press conference on Thursday to support us. Louise and
Lester Lampman represent another family, perhaps 10-15 people maximum.
“Professional Abenakis,” such as Judy Dow have no known genealogical, cultural
or political ties to any known Vermont corporate Abenaki groups.
4. Members
of the Vermont Commission on Native American Affairs threatened individual
Abenakis as we as tribal officials to stifle competing proposals to your
committee. Nancy Millette sent you the compiled evidence. These data, combined
with other information no particularly germane to your legislative process,
have caused all of the corporate Native groups listed above (#1) to reject any
possibility of applying for recognition through the Commission as it is
presently constituted.
5. Heretofore
un-documented groups may arise in the future, but they will not be large, nor
will they have the corporate structure require by the Federal Government – they
must handled on a case by case basis by a reconstituted Native Commission.
March 25, 2008
6:29 AM
From: villuzzi@leg.state.vt.us
To: Susanne Young Susanne.Young@state.vt.us
See March 24, 2008 10:14 PM from
Frederick M. Wiseman. What do you think? Can we back off on
some of the items which the applicants must submit to obtain state recognition
for Arts and Crafts purposes?
Vince
March 25, 2008
8:47 AM
From: Susanne Young Susanne.Young@state.vt.us
I suggest this be sent to Mark Mitchell for consideration
by the Vermont Commission on Native American Affairs – they are meeting on
Thursday afternoon.
March 25, 2008
1:35 PM
From: villuzzi@leg.state.vt.us
To: vcnaa@earthlink.net
[Mark Mitchell]
Subject: Fwd. Information
Please consider.
March 26, 2008
7:47 PM
From: Mark Mitchell, VCNAA Chairman vcnaa@earthlink.net
To: jdowbasket@aol.com,
azoniz@aol.com, Hilary.casillas@cancer.org, Donald_Stevens@verizon.net, tdela67@gmail.com, crwillingmcmanis@aol.com
Subject: Fw: Fwd:
Information [March 24, 2008 10:14 PM from
Frederick M. Wiseman]
March 28, 2008
7:47 AM
From: Margaret Bruchac maligeet@earthlink.net
Subject: Re:
Traditional Abenaki Family Band Structure
Greetings, Vince
Mark Mitchell
forwarded me the following letter, and on reading it, I am concerned at the
casual manner in which the presumed legitimacy of specific Abenaki families,
bands, and tribes is discussed.
The
traditional structure of Abenaki governance, as the primary Scholars of
Wabanaki history have long observed (e.g. Frank Speck, Irving Hallowell, Colin
Calloway, David Steward-Smith, etc. etc.) is the family band, a grouping that,
among Algonkian peoples, can range in size from small extended family (5-10
individuals) to a cluster of families forming a larger band (30-300 or more
individuals). There is no firm consensus among anthropologists, federal
agencies, or Native Americans about the precise distinction between a “band”
and a “tribe,” nor is there any general agreement about the size of a Native
American group must be to be considered a “tribe.” There is, in fact,
considerable debate about the degree to which the use of the term “tribe” may
represent a somewhat modern (post-colonial) reconstruction of a historic group.
This
debate over what constitutes a legitimate American Indian entity emerges, in
part, from the Federal Recognition protocols that require a Native group to be
tied to a fixed locations and highly visible, and to have a demographically
structured system of governance, in order to be considered a “tribe.” For an
example of the absurd extremes to which such observations may reach, one need
only study the evidence from the 1975 Mashpee trial, wherein a well-documented
group of Mashpee Wampanoag people were vetted, in the court system, as being
“real” or “false” based solely on the biased perceptions of their racist white
neighbors (see James Clifford. 1988 Identity in Mashpee,” pp. 277-346 in The
Predicament of Culture; Twentieth Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).
That
being said, there is no question whatsoever in my mind, or in the Vermont
documentation, that the St. Francis Sokoki Band of Missisquoi Abenaki
constitutes a tribe. If the original legislation we drafted in 1005-2006 had
passed, as written, and not been altered by the governor at the last minute,
this question would already have been put to rest, since one of the explicit
intents of that legislation was to acknowledge Missisquoi as the
longest-standing, best-documented, Abenaki group in the state of Vermont. The
Nulhegan and Koasek bands represent Native families with deep roots in Vermont,
but they have not been actively engaged with the Vermont government in seeking
State Recognition for as long as Missisquoi has. El-nu included a number of
individuals who, until quite recently, identified themselves as Woodland Indian
re-enactors rather than as Abenakis, but it is not my place to judge their
ancestry.
If
these bands have reached a compromise that works for their common interests,
that is, indeed, a great accomplishment. But such a compromise should not be
allowed to undermine the efforts and goals of the Vermont Commission on Native
American Affairs. Nor should any participants be resourting to character
assassination to make their voices heard.
I do
wish to note that Dr. Frederick Wiseman’s letter to you contains several
historical inaccuracies.
First,
there is an “historically detectable Moccasin Village/ Winooski Band,” in
the form of a small cluster families identified as “Winooski” in 17th and
18th century documents, and identified “gypsies” and other
derogatory terms when living in “Moccasin village” and other parts
of Burlington close to the interval. Dr. Wiseman himself briefly discussed the
presence of this historic band in his article “The Abenaki and the Winooski”
(in Laura Krawitt, ed. The Mills at Winooski Falls, Winooski, VT: Onion River
Press 2000.) Frederick Wiseman wrote “There are Winoskik families on Burlington’s
Old North End bluffs overlooking the interval, just as they have for thousands
of years … Winoskik has always been here and it will continue to be.” Thus,
I am puzzled at Frederick M. Wiseman’s attempt to now discredit Judy Dow, and
by extension, Nancy Gallagher, since these two have done exhaustive scholarly
work to document the very families that he wrote about. I can only imagine that
there must be some personal rather than scholarly issues clouding relations at
this juncture.
Second,
no one individual, Abenaki or not, has sufficient information or knowledge to
presume to be in a position to judge the ancestry of what are (somewhat
unfortunately) described as “scattered unorganized families.” Louise Lampman’s
family, for example, is connected to a band of approximately 300 individuals
that have long and deep roots at Missisquoi, even though they have separated
from the St. Francis Sokoki group over old family issues. At other points in
time, the various bands at Missisquoi have been tightly allied and they may
well be at some unknown point in the future, that none of us can predict.
My conclusion is this:
Any individual who presumes to
judge the legitimacy of these various families and bands may only,
inadvertently, cause further stress and division. In a curious
sense, speaking as an anthropologist, this is natural, since the ancient family
band model of governance (which is colloquially called “voting with your feet”)
allowed various families to come together and split apart, as necessary, to cope
with climate change or outside threats. In the modern work, these patterns
persist, but to outside observers, they are a source of considerable confusion,
since families often refuse to stay put, or refuse to take firm sides in an
argument among kin. We must also be aware of this interpersonal dynamics of
Native groups living, for years, under the hostile intent, colonizing policies,
and racism of their non-Native people to engage in “lateral violence,” where
people turn against one another when they feel powerless to overcome a dominant
enemy any other way.
Although
I could offer further opinions, let me apologize for my own unfamiliarity with
all of the details of this dispute, which I have only followed at a distance.
It is my opinion that the legislature created a group – the Vermont Commission
on Native American Affairs – which was charged with the task of resolving this
issue. That group has deliberated on this issue for a full year and a half, and
it was my understanding that they had drafted a fair and equitable process for
recognizing Abenaki tribes, bands and families in the state. To my mind, as I
stated earlier, I believe that the Missisquoi bands should be recognized
without delay, as they should been years ago. From my reading, the VCNAA proposal
seems workable, and it might be unnecessarily hasty and divisive to toss it
aside at this juncture, or to encourage any more in-fighting among Abenaki
groups. Since so many Abenaki families in the future will be affected by
whatever actions are taken at this time, the wisest course might be to delay
the vote, and to seek more peaceful and equitable resolution, in a way that
builds a broader consensus among all of the Abenaki families and bands in
Vermont, no matter how large or small they might seem to be.
Wli nanawalmezi, be well,
Dr. Margaret
Bruchac
Adjunct Faculty,
Tufts University
April 03, 2008
Dr. Margaret Bruchac - Visiting Faculty, Tufts University
Abenaki Indian
families, tribes, bands, and legislation
In 2006, the state of Vermont
adopted legislation to formally “recognize” Abenaki people and establish the
Vermont Commission on Native American Affairs (VCNAA). The Legislature
entrusted VCNAA with the task of devising a process for recognizing Abenaki
artisans, but the efforts to legislate Indian identity have not met with
widespread acceptance. My personal opinion is that the current impasse stems,
in part, from widespread confusion about the roles that the state of Vermont,
the Attorney General, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), Vermont legislators,
the VCNAA, or any state agency should play in “recognizing” Indian tribes.
Traditional Native American
Indian tribes are not, in essence, entities created by non-Native states and
nations. One does not become an “Indian” by simply joining a hobbyist or
fraternal group. One cannot be legislatively transformed into ethnic
“Indian-ness.” Nor does one cease being “Indian” after being denied recognition
by a state or federal agency. Native people are “Indian” by virtue of their
kinship with Native families, bands, or tribes with distinctive oral
traditions, cultural practices, links to particular landscapes or homelands,
and systems of governance. These cultural and political markers are not always
clearly visible to outsiders.
The traditional structure of
Abenaki governance, as scholars of Algonkian history have long observed (e.g.
Frank Speck, Irving Hallowell, Colin Calloway, David Stewart Smith, John Moody,
etc. etc.), is the family band, a grouping that, among Algonkian peoples, can
range in size from a small extended family (5-10 individuals) to a cluster of
families forming a larger band (30-300 or more individuals). Some Abenaki
families have been in the location now known as “Vermont” for generations. Some
have shifted back and forth across international and state borders over time,
or bonded together after colonial displacements. There is no firm consensus
among anthropologists, federal agencies, or Native Americans about the precise
distinction between a “band” and a “tribe,” or the exact size of a “tribe.” Nor
is there a single tribal genealogist who can document the precise history and
ancestry of every single Abenaki family.
The BIA federal recognition
protocols expect a Native “tribe” to be associated with a fixed location, to
have a recognizably democratically system of governance, and to be documented
for decades (by their white neighbors) as having been visibly authentic
“Indians.” This federal model of the “tribe” tends to privilege highly visible
post-colonial groups that live on reservations. That being said, there is no
question in my mind that the St. Francis Sokoki Band of the Abenaki Nation at
Missisquoi is an “Indian tribe.” Nor is there any question in my mind that the
Lampman, St. Francis, and other Abenaki families in the state fit the model of
“family bands.” Why, then, is the current picture so confusing?
For generations, Abenaki
families and tribes have been gathering together and splitting apart, making
alliances to benefit their own needs and purposes at different times. In a
curious sense, speaking as an anthropologist, this shifting and recombining is
natural, since Algonkian models of governance (colloquially called “voting with
your feet”) allowed family bands to combine or separate, as necessary, to cope
with seasonal changes or outside threats. In the modern world, these patterns
of autonomy and negotiated dependence persist, but they are bewildering to
outside observers. Abenaki individuals and families may seem to be taking
contradictory stances while claiming similar goals, based on their own
perceptions of the best course for survival.
Situations like these call for
compassion and sensitivity to the interpersonal dynamics of Native people who
have been forced to live for generations under the hostile intent, colonizing
policies, and racism of their non-Native neighbors. When there is too much
pressure from outside forces, it is (sadly) not at all unusual for Native
people to engage in “lateral violence,” where people turn against one another
when they feel powerless to overcome a dominant enemy. In this struggle,
Vermont state officials are not neutral parties.
In retrospect, the current
problem would not be with us if Gov. Thomas Salmon’s 1976 Executive Order
recognizing the Abenaki in Vermont had not been overturned by Gov. Richard
Snelling. For a comparative example of how this might have worked, one need
only look to the state of Massachusetts. In 1976, Gov. Michael Dukakis’s
Executive Order recognized the historic Nipmuc and Wampanoag people and
established the Massachusetts Commission on Indian Affairs. The MCIA has been
extremely effective in working with Native families, bands, and tribes,
assisting them with education, housing, arts, and burial protection, and they
are now developing a new Native American Institute for education at UMass
Boston. Vermont, however, is stuck in the past, still fighting its old Indian
wars.
Since so many Abenaki families
will be affected by whatever actions are taken at this time, it breaks my heart
to see so much public arguing and divisiveness. It is my sincere hope that,
eventually, somebody in the state of Vermont will be able to craft a peaceful
and equitable solution to serve all of the state’s resident Abenaki families,
bands, and tribes, no matter how large or small they might seem to be. It is
also my hope that the family kin networks will continue functioning as they
have for centuries, in healing ways that will protect and preserve our homeland
- Ndakinna - for those who come after us.
Wli nanawalmezi, be well,
Dr. Margaret Bruchac
Visiting Faculty, Tufts University
April 2008-
By Louise Lampman – Larivee
Committee on Economic Development:
Senator Vincent Illuzzi, Senator Hinda Miller, Senator
Carris, Senator Condos, and Senator Racine
Senator Illuzzi
and Committee Members:
I am appalled by what is going
on within Native communities. I have received many phone calls and emails from
all over in regards with all the stuff that is being said on how this amendment
is affecting everyone’s lives.
In 2005, I was sent a letter
from the Native American Federal Arts and Crafts Board informing us that unless
there was State Recognition as a tribe, we could not sell our crafts. In turn,
my brother Lester Lampman had set up an appointment with Susanne Young about
this topic.
I, and my brother Lester
Lampman, Larry Lapan Sr, and Connie Brow attended this meeting which was held
in Montpelier. We are unsure if anything was said to anyone else about this
meeting. I asked myself why didn’t Jeff Benay, the ex-Chairman of the
Governor’s Commission on Native American Affairs (of which I sat on for two
terms with him) didn’t ask me to speak? I had seen him on a regular basis for
our offices were just down the hall from each other. He was and is aware of the
different factions within the Abenaki Nation and he has known about for many
years.
In 2006, I testified for State
Recognition, after being asked by Senator Carolyn Branagan to do so.
When I finished my testimony
that went for about 45 minutes, if not longer, I was subsequently complimented on
how professional I was, and someone had inquired as to why I had not been the
first one to testify, for my testimony would have answered a lot of questions
about who these other bands were.
When the new Commission was set
up, My brother Lester Lampman and I did approach the Commission with this
letter about the Arts and Crafts law. Chairman Mark Mitchell and Jeanne Brink
along with Judy Dow were concerned enough to start conversations about the
matter.
My family being one of the
oldest family bands from the Missisquoi tribe that has been in contact with
this Commission on Native American Affairs, we have given input to the effects
of this amendment. Most of my family members are working (employed) people who
cannot take time away from their jobs, to testify at hearings.
I guess one question would be:
Has any one from the Committee ever listened to my testimony, considering that this
amendment is to rectify a bill?
I would like to correct some
information that Mr. Wiseman has been passing around, especially when it
concerns my reputation and family. For his information, I represent my family
band, of which there are 250 members therein. This would include siblings,
their children and fist cousins and 2nd cousins. This does not
include a few out there that I did not add into this.
If he had such a connection
within the larger Abenaki community of Franklin County, Vermont, he would have
known this, and he does not mention the LaPan family band or the other family
bands of which it has always been the way of the head of a family spokesperson
for the family, but the one who is willing and able to speak. Why didn’t he
contact all of the heads of these family bands?
I find it insulting that he
claims to be the tribal historian of the Abenaki people, when he does not know
who the people are. What knowledge could he possibly hold, if he has never
spoken to me or any other member of my family? Does he not realize that I have
been involved in tribal affairs for over 30 years; long before he or Jeff Benay
were ever in the picture?
I remember when Jane Beck did
the interviews with my father. We still have the transcribed copies along with
many tapes of my grandmother who said on the tape that she was born in a cave
(not the Fortin one … just to correct a rumor going around). These interviews
were done before the St. Francis/ Sokoki bands existed.
I also feel it is important to
remember that the St. Francis/Sokoki Band are those that lived on the St.
Francis river, not the family name (St. Francis) which after doing seven years
of cultural competency trainings, that this issue always comes up.
The tribe they all belonged to
now should be the Missisquoi Tribe. This amendment is wrong for an aboriginal
people. To acknowledge more than one Tribe within Vermont takes the rights away
from those of us who know who we are.
There is no simple answer to
this and by far, means to rush something that is so important is unfair to all
of us. It is the responsibility for the State of Vermont’s government to make a
right of a bill that was done wrong but not the right of a State government to
decide who the Indians are, by listening to a few people.’
This amendment has turned Native
against Native and allowed some to think they have the Abenaki scholar
experience about tribal qualifications. Some have gone to length as to ridicule
people who have passed on. This, in my book, is one of the lowest things for
someone to do.
It should also be known that the
Nulhegan, the Koasek and the El-nu as they call themselves, being bands or
groups, are not Tribes. They may be bands that belong to the Missisquoi Tribe.
In closing, I hope everyone
remembers what the Native American Commission was set up for. A commission made
up of Native people, to make choices for the Native people. It is unfair for
all of us, to bad mouth a group of volunteers who gave up many hours of their
time to put people in a position where discussions are today , amending a bill
that was set up for minorities, not the Aboriginal people.
For Bennington County was sold
by the Mahigan; or have we forgotten this?
Sincerely,
Louise Lampman –
Larivee
Daughter of the
Late Chief, Leonard Lampman, whose family was recognized by his Tribe (the
Missisquoi)
