September 22, 2011
Johnson State College's Basement Medicine
Campus and Community
By Jordan Caldon
Frederick Matthew Wiseman's labor of love: a quest for recognition and respect
“There is an old saying,” said Fred Wiseman, professor and chair of the humanities department at Johnson State College: “If you work at what you love you’ll never work a day in your life.”
By that measure, Fred Wiseman has lived a life of leisure, although he teaches full-time, has been working with American Indians since 1993 and has helped tribes receive and start the process of receiving their recognition from the State of Vermont.
In 2010 a law was passed to have a protocol established for receiving tribal recognition from the state. After years of work Fred Wiseman helped two tribes become recognized and two are now under consideration. Fred Wiseman’s own tribe, the St. Francis-Sokoki hopes they are going to be recognized at the next legislative session.
Tribal recognition is important to American Indians because it allows them the right to self government and supports tribal sovereignty. “Recognition equals pride,” Fred Wiseman said. It also allows “the ability to sell crafts as an Indian.”
Frederick Matthew Wiseman’s devotion to American Indian culture and history is both longstanding and personal. As a child he was fascinated by America’s first settlers, and his grandmother was Abenaki.
“Ever since I was a little kid I was always interested in Indian lore,” Fred Wiseman said. “I went to the University of Arizona in Americans, interested and studying especially the Mayan civilization...I was internationally known for my work on studying the effects of Native American culture on the environment and how that can be discovered through geological themes.”
When Frederick Matthew Wiseman came to Vermont, he felt that he was drawn into the old Abenaki world because there were very few people who were advocating for the Abenakis and working with them.
“There were a lot of people who were studying them,” said Wiseman, “working on the Indians but they were never working with the Indians. So, my grandmother being Abenaki, I was able to join the St. Francis-Sokoki band of the Abenakis and they asked me to start using my expertise in service of Native Americans here. That became a much more interesting thing for me.”
His dedication to advancing understanding of American Indian culture and history is evident in Fred Wiseman’s work at the Johnson State College, where he has taught since 1987. Fred Wiseman teaches different Native American History and Culture courses, hoping to instill the knowledge in his students that they can also give back to tribal communities. “It teaches my students that they can also give back to the communities that they are learning about,” Wiseman said. “As far as I know this is now the only institution in the United States of higher learning that does this.”
Wiseman works with his students to create and participate in projects to help benefit tribes by making tribal wear and replicated tools such as wampum belts, Maliseet leggings, women’s hoods, sun-discs, rattles from cow horns and flags for the tribes to wear or use in ceremonies.
This year, his classes are preparing the crafts for the Vermont Indigenous Summit in November, which was possible due to a grant Fred Wiseman received through his work with Abenaki organizations.
“Indigenous Summit invites other tribes to Vermont to meet Abenakis ... Passamaquoddy Penobscot from Maine, Odanak Abenaki, Huron's, and Mohawks from Quebec, and Mohawks from New York,” he said. All of these tribes will attend the Indigenous Summit in November.
“This is a result of Abenaki recognition,” Wiseman said. “We are bringing tribal elders from all over the Eastern United States, and we are bringing them here to Vermont to meet our chiefs and to meet our elders, so that we can kind of come out of the closet, put ourselves on the map. Other tribes can get to know who we are and we can get to know who they are. We can start setting up tribe-to-tribe relationships.”
The ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Center in Burlington, Vt., has agreed to host the event and serve as the conference center for the delegates.
Frederick Matthew Wiseman’s students will also be participating during this event by helping the leaders with transportation and any other assistance they may need during their stay.
Frederick Matthew Wiseman has been working on many different projects over the past few years, including the Vermont Indigenous Ethnobotany Project, which was funded through the Lake Champlain Basin Program by the National Parks Service.
It is the study of the use of plants by indigenous Vermonters, which includes medicinal and non-medicinal plants, basket and home building materials. He also worked on the Lake Champlain Quadra Centennial, the 400th anniversary of the discovery of Lake Champlain.
As one of the commissioners working on the Quadra Centennial, Frederick Matthew Wiseman chaired the Native Advisory Panel, which involved research, presentations and film-making. “The Quadra Centennial occupied a huge block of my time as well as the Abenaki recognition,” Frederick Matthew Wiseman said.
Last year Vermont established a protocol for tribal recognition, which included recognition of the Nulhegan Abenakis, who held a ceremonial Powwow on August 27, 2011 to celebrate this milestone.
Tribal leaders and members from all over Vermont as well as Canada attended and some traveled from Massachusetts.
you go out there and you do the battle, you shoot the guns and you run around and then at the when you're done the other night you pack up go home have a few beers that's reenacting ..."
OK, so y'all have 'a Powwow', and then have a few beers afterwards eh ... what do you call that?
A 'tourist horse and pony show' of Wannabiiak, a con job of 'Abenaki' race shifters? Or an "Abenaki" reenactment?
February 07, 2012
3:31 PM
From: Roman Kokodyniak
To: Ralph Swett; Judy Dow; Charles Delaney-Megeso; Mark Mitchell; Jenny M'Sadoques-Benoit;
Kathryn Swett; April St. Francis Merrill; Brad Barratt; Peter Thomas; Joelen Mulvaney; Howard Knight; Don Stevens Jr.; Richard"Skip"Bernier; Christopher Roy;
Randy Smith; Nancy Doucet; Diane McInerney; Dave
- Berlin VT Skinas; Frederick Matthew Wiseman;
Douglas Lloyd Buchholz; Luke Willard; Roger Longtoe/Sogomo
Cc: Tim Ashe; Hinda
Miller; Peter Galbraith; Kesha Ram; Helen Head; Bob Bouchard; Bill Carris; Brian
Savage; Carolyn Branagan ; Didi Brush ; Helen
Head; Harvey
Smith ; John
Moran; Jean
O'Sullivan; Kate Webb; Peg Andrews; Michel Consejo; Michael Hoyt;
Peter Galbraith; Tim
Ashe; Thomas
Cheney; Tina Ruth; Tom Stevens; Vincent Illuzzi; William Doyle; Noelle
MacKay
Subject:
Announcement: Abenaki Recognition Bills - Hearing Weds. 2/15, 9:00 - 11:00,
State House
To All Interested Persons,
This announcement is to confirm there will be a joint hearing of the Senate Committee on
Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs and the House Committee on General, Housing and Military Affairs on
Wednesday, February 15th, 9:00 - 11:00, in the House Chamber pertaining to the
following proposed recognition bills:
(9:00) S. 128 -
Recognize the Missisquoi, St. Francis- Sokoki Band as a Native American Indian
Tribe
(10:00) S. 129 -
Recognize the Koasek Abenaki of the Koas as a Native American Indian Tribe
To date, the following individuals are scheduled to
testify at this hearing:
Luke Willard, Chairman, VT. Commission on Native American Affairs
Chief John Churchill, Abenaki Nation of Missisquoi, St. Francis-
Sokoki Band
Fred Wiseman, Johnson State College
David Skinas, Review Panelist, USDA
Peter Thomas, University of Vermont
Please let me know at your earliest convenience if you or
other persons want to testify on these bills. Please forward this announcement
to other interested parties.
Thank you.
Roman Kokodyniak
Legislative Council Staff
Senate Committee on Economic Development,
Housing & General Affairs
Vermont State House
February 11, 2012
8:05 PM
From: Douglas Lloyd Buchholz
To: Roman
Kokodyniak
“IF these people were a Native American Tribe, then the
question begs to be asked, where were these groups BEFORE they incorporated Mr.
Kokodyniak? But then even though the answer clearly and convincingly stares you
politicians in the face, you IGNORE the BIA Conclusions, and REINVENT the
"Abenaki" out of nothing to garner Federal Monies by claiming you
have X amt. of Native American Indians (self identified) and as far as 'tribes'
these people are not.
What they are, in reality, are Abenaki identity thieves!”
Douglas Lloyd
Buchholz
February 15, 2012
From: Roman Kokodyniak
9:00 - 11:00, in the House Chamber pertaining to the
following proposed recognition bills:
(9:00) S. 128 -
Recognize the Missisquoi, St. Francis-
Sokoki Band as a Native American
Indian Tribe
(10:00) S. 129 -
Recognize the Koasek Abenaki of the Koas
as a Native American Indian Tribe
To date, the following individuals are scheduled to
testify at this hearing:
Luke Willard,
Chairman, VT. Commission on Native American Affairs
Chief John
Churchill, Abenaki Nation of Missisquoi, St. Francis- Sokoki Band
Fred Wiseman,
Johnson State College
David Skinas,
Review Panelist, USDA
Peter Thomas,
University of Vermont
Please let me know at your earliest convenience if you or
other persons want to testify on these bills. Please forward this announcement
to other interested parties.
Thank you.
Roman Kokodyniak
February 26, 2012
Representative Helen Head, Chairwoman of the House
Committee on General, Housing and Military Affairs
Luke Willard –
Chairman of the Vermont Commission on Native American Affairs
158 Whiting Lane
Brownington, Vermont 05860
Dear Mr. Luke Willard:
Thank you for attending the joint meeting on the House
Committee on General, Housing and Military Affairs (House Committee) and the
Senate Committee on Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs held on February 15, 2012.
It was a pleasure to hear from the Vermont Commission on
Native American Affairs (Commission) regarding the applications of the Koasek Traditional Band of the Sovereign
Abenaki Nation and of the Abenaki
Nation at Missisquoi, St. Francis – Sokoki Band.
The testimony from you and the Commission
clearly indicated that the applications of the bands and the evidence supporting the
applications generally satisfied the criteria set forth in Act. No. 107 of the 2009 Adj. Session (2010) … (Act 107) for state recognition of Native American people.
Sincerely,
Representative Helen
Head, Chair
House Committee on General, Housing and Military Affairs
CC:
Senator Vincent Illuzzi
Senator John
Campbell
Speaker of the House, Shap Smith
Roman Kokodyniak
Didi Brush
A. Missisiquoi, St. Francis Sokoki Band
Testimony provided by the Vermont Commission on Native American Affairs (Commission) to the House Committee on General, Housing and Military Affairs on February 15, 2012 and the Commission’s decision regarding the application indicates that the information used to determine that 51 percent of the Missisquoi, St. Francis Sokoki Band’s members reside in a specific geographic area was not “up-to-date” and that there were differences of opinion with respect to how individuals or the band could “disenfranchise” or “renounce” their citizenship. The Commission’s report states that “this did not create a measure of confusion, [but] the Commission has no authority over the internal affairs of tribal policy.” The Commission’s testimony indicated that the Commission worked closely with the applicant to “clean up” the tribal rolls prior to the Commission’s final approval of the application.
Testimony provided by the Vermont Commission on Native American Affairs (Commission) to the House Committee on General, Housing and Military Affairs on February 15, 2012 and the Commission’s decision regarding the application indicates that the information used to determine that 51 percent of the Missisquoi, St. Francis Sokoki Band’s members reside in a specific geographic area was not “up-to-date” and that there were differences of opinion with respect to how individuals or the band could “disenfranchise” or “renounce” their citizenship. The Commission’s report states that “this did not create a measure of confusion, [but] the Commission has no authority over the internal affairs of tribal policy.” The Commission’s testimony indicated that the Commission worked closely with the applicant to “clean up” the tribal rolls prior to the Commission’s final approval of the application.
The conclusion of the Commission is inconsistent with the conclusions reached by the expert scholar’s
panel used by the Commission to review the application of the Missisquoi, St. Francis Sokoki Band.
One of the experts, Mr. Kevin Dann, states that the “application clearly states that the majority (58% of
the tribal rolls)of members … live in Vermont, and that majority [sic]
of these reside in Franklin and Grand
Isle Counties.” (emphasis added)
Another expert, Mr. William A. Haviland, apparently did not
determine a mathematical percentage and referenced a book published in 1994,
stating only that “the largest Abenaki
Community is still located in the Swanton-Highgate-St. Albnas Area of Franklin
County. This of course is the ancient Missisquoi homeland. So, criterion
satisfied.” (emphasis added)
Later, in his discussion of Criterion 2, Mr. Haviland
states that he is satisfied that the Missisquoi Abenaki exercised due diligence
over who is an who is not eligible for citizenship, and that they satisfy this
criterion.
Finally, a third expert, Mr. Thomas, writes that there
are “1,964 adults and 284 children on the Tribal Roles [sic] with 58% of the tribe living in Vermont. The
greatest concentration of the applicant’s citizens reside in the Towns of
Swanton, St. Albans, Highgate and Alburg in Franklin and Grand Isle Counties,
Vermont … other Missisquoi citizens live in every county of Vermont and
in other states.” (emphasis added)
It is clear that the experts were working from earlier
information that the Commission – e.g., Mr. Thomas’s report is dated February
2011 – used in their final report. Also, references to Chittenden and Lamoille
Counties in the Commission report were made, by verbal testimony, in order to
reach the 51% percent threshold. While the House Committee on General, Housing
and Military Affairs has no reason to doubt the testimony of Professor Frederick
Matthew Wiseman and others with respect to the specific geographic
location of current members of the band, we have always understood this band’s
natural geographic location to be located in Franklin and Grand Isle Counties.
B. Koasek Traditional Band
The House Committee on General, Housing and Military
Affairs believes that the response provided by the Commission in the Koasek
Traditional Band’s application did not directly answer Criterion 1 of Act 107.
Given the limitations of the General Assembly legislative
authority, the state may only recognize bands whose members reside within the
Vermont borders as they were established and delineated in the 1700’s. The
Commission wrote that “58.33%” as listed in the application itself live within
the territory claimed as the homeland
of the band within the upper Connecticut River Valley. William Haviland’s point
is well taken, “kinship, rather than territoriality, was always the basis of
native society, and individuals as well as families could always move freely
from one local group to another based on kinship ties.” (emphasis
added)
This avoids the direct necessity that the majority of
members currently reside in a specific geographic location within Vermont.
We acknowledge verbal
testimony on February 15, 2012 was offered
to confirm 58.3 percent of the members
on the rolls lived in Vermont, but the written answers that were provided imply otherwiseThe reports by the
experts used mixed language in their support for the application. Ms. Eloise
Beil states that the majority of the
enrolled members “currently reside in communities of the Upper Connecticut River Valley .(emphasis added)
She does reference the towns in which they reside, as
presented in the application. We have not reviewed the tribal rolls in the
application (pages 3 and 4), and we have
relied upon the work of the Commission to determine the veracity of these
rolls. Verbal testimony of February 15 stated that the 58.33% of members cited
do, in fact, reside in Vermont.
Mr. William A. Haviland’s response to the
criterion states that the majority of the members reside in Vermont, but his confirmation is also couched with
the quotation used by the Commission in its report.
Mr. David Skinas writes, “The majority of the
applicant’s citizens (58.3%) reside “within
the Koasek ancestral homelands of Vermont based in Nebury and surrounding towns.”
(emphasis added).
This comment comes
close to confirming the required information for the criterion, but it too seems qualified.
May 08, 2012
The St. Albans Messenger Newspaper, Pages 1A-5A
By Jessie Forand and Michelle Monroe – Messenger Staff
Writers
ABENAKI
RECOGNITION: Members Celebrate a Historic Day
In 2010, the Vermont
legislature created the Vermont
Commission on Native American Affairs to examine applications for
recognition. The commission was charged with reviewing applications for
recognition based on criteria created by Judy (nee:
Fortin) Dow and later even more so by Frederick Matthew Wiseman, then set by the legislature and then making a
recommendation.
Those criteria are:
1. Geographic
location – the majority of members must reside in a specific location.
2. Kinship – within the tribe and genealogical history.
3. Connection with
tribes – that historically occupied Vermont.
4. History of the
organizational structure 501(c)3 – and
its influence over members.
5. An enduring
community presence – within Vermont.
6. Within the
tribe there are non-profit organizations
to preserve and promote its history and culture as well as the political,
economic and cultural needs of members.
7. Documentation
of traditions, customs and oral history.
8. The tribe is
not recognized in any other state.
August 30, 2012
Posted: Aug 30, 2012 3:50 PM EDT
Updated: Aug 30, 2012 4:57 PM EDT
By WCAX News
Johnson State
student suing over sexual harassment
JOHNSON, VT – A Johnson State College student is
preparing to sue the school for sexual harassment
Nicole Daigneault
filed a complaint against Professor Frederick
Mathew Wiseman, an archaeologist and Abenaki expert. An internal
investigation found that Frederick Matthew Wiseman did sexually harass
Daigneault and engaged in unprofessional conduct.
Now, Nicole Daigneault claims Johnson officials had prior
knowledge of Frederick Matthew Wiseman's actions, including harassment
complaints from other students, and Nicole Daigneault claims the college failed
to take adequate action against Wiseman.
Source:
Johnson State College. Vermont Non-Discrimination
Pollicy:
"Also, inappropriate sexual relationships between
staff and students, although they may not rise to the level of sexual harassment,
are prohibited."
"The above is taken from VSC Policy 311, which is
available online here. Any questions or complaints about potential or perceived
discrimination, harassment or related unprofessional conduct in violation of
any state or federal law or VSC Policy 311 should be directed to the Assistant
Academic Dean at 802-635-1243."
Further
Developments:
It has now been ascertained that WCAX.COM has redacted
the URL Link by "WCAX Censor’s", as of the following day, their
online WCAX Publication of this above article…
UPDATE:
WCAX.com yanked the article off their website, sometime
between yesterday and this morning, so the above URL is not working now
regarding the article source. I just telephoned WCAX for an explanation as to
why the sudden redaction of this article and they informed me that, "they
are working on updating the article, this evening" quote from WCAX
Newsroom. Stay Tuned....
JOHNSON, Vt. -
A sexual
harassment complaint at Johnson State College could end up in court.
Student Nicole Daigneault filed a complaint against
Professor Frederick Matthew Wiseman last
spring, after breaking off a personal relationship with him. An internal
investigation found that Wiseman sexually harassed her and engaged in
unprofessional conduct.
Now Daigneault is seeking depositions in support of a
lawsuit against the college, claiming school officials failed to take adequate
action against Wiseman.
In response, Johnson president Barbara Murphy said,
"Where allegations are substantiated, we take prompt and appropriate
action ..." But she says those actions," ... may not be readily
apparent for a variety of reasons, including confidentiality of student and
personnel matters.
From another
online website:
August 31, 2012
By Tyler Dumon@tyler_dumont
Updated: Friday, August 31, 2012
17:08
JOHNSON, VT. -- A student at Johnson State College has
accused a professor of sexually harassing her.
Nicole Daigneault, 32 years of age, of Saint Johnsbury told The Critic that she is accusing Professor Fred Wiseman, who allegedly
threatened to lock her in his car and tried to kiss her.
Nicole Daigneault said that she had been taking a class
with the professor when the alleged incidents occurred. She also said that the
professor wrote journal entries about her, writing that he had envisioned
“seeing her naked.”
David Sleigh, Nicole Daigneault's attorney and also a
part-time instructor at Lyndon State College, said that his client expects to
bring an action against Johnson State College, seeking damages for violations
of Vermont’s Public Accommodation Act.
"The college has had six months to provide some
remedy to Nicole, and there hasn't been one," he said.
Johnson State is one of the five Vermont State Colleges.
David Sleigh said that another female also filed complaint with the school regarding the same
professor. He also confirmed that Daigneault was still a student at
Johnson.
In a letter obtained by The Critic, Johnson State College
president Barbara Murphy wrote to Daigneault that she “accepted” the complaint
of sexual harassment.
The letter stated that, “Investigators determined there
was a ‘very inappropriate crossing of faculty/student boundaries, at the very
least.’”
The document also said that the professor had attempted
to kiss Daigneault on two separate occasions, in addition to kissing her wrist
while on school property - without Daigneault’s permission.
Another report stated that Johnson State College had
concluded that there is “ample evidence of related unprofessional conduct.”
In a statement, JSC President Barbara Murphy said, “We
take allegations of sexual harassment very seriously.”
“All the actions we may take in any particular case may
not be readily apparent for a variety of reasons,” she continued, “including
confidentiality of student and personnel matters.”
Despite Barbara Murphy's statements on Frederick Matthew Wiseman,
he is reportedly still an employee. His contact information on the Johnson
website lists him as chair and professor in the Humanities Department. Multiple
attempts to reach Frederick Matthew Wiseman were unsuccessful.
Johnson State
College FULL TIME Faculty:
Frederick Wiseman
Professor, Chair
Library and Learning Center, Room 306
Ph.D. Geosciences, University of Arizona
Specializations: Abenaki culture and history
February 21, 2013
The Burlington Free Press Newspaper
How to Serve Mammoth: Ice Age Hunting on Land and the Champlain Sea
6:30 p.m. at the Missisquoi National Wildlife Refuge, 29
Tabor Road, in Swanton, Vermont.
The first program in the Missisquoi Wildlife Series, 12,000 Years on the Missisquoi
Local scholar and educator Frederick Matthew Wiseman will discuss
the discovery of the Champlain Sea by Paleo-Indians,
the ancestors of Vermont’s modern
Abenakis, and what the lands and waters were like over 10,000 years ago. He
will then introduce some startling new archaeological discoveries regarding
their sea-faring prowess, including the fact that ancient Vermonters made the
longest known sea voyage of the Ice Age. 868-4781.
April 10, 2013
The Burlington Free Press
Newspaper
Let’s Eat
Everything 1: Ancient Forest Management
6:30 p.m. April 12, 2013
Missisquoi National Wildlife Refuge, 29 Tabor Road, Swanton,
Vermont
Discussion of Abenaki
forest management strategies in the
changing Missisquoi Valley over the last 8,000 years.
This presentation includes a discussion of various archaeological theories about Archaic Period hunting
and gathering activities that can apply to Vermont.
Presenter is Dr. Frederick Matthew Wiseman.
Presenter is Dr. Frederick Matthew Wiseman.
April 28, 2013
250th Anniversary
of Swanton
Mini-Film
Festival: “1609 – The Other Side of History”
Dr. Fred Wiseman, local resident, historian
and author will screen the film: “1609, the Other Side of History,” a 45
minute documentary, concerning the
origins and development of the alliance
between the French and the Native Americans that was so critical to Swanton’s
early years, when Swanton was known as “Dawkwahoganizek” or “at the little
(French) mill”,
Professor Wiseman
will also share Abenaki and early antiques of New France that would have been
used at Missisquoi Village and “at the little (French) mill”
After the film screening, the Swanton 250th Committee
will provide a light meal over which Swanton’s unique and colorful history and
culture can be discussed.
May 8th, 2013
VCNAA Meeting
Minutes
VERMONT COMMISSION
ON NATIVE AMERICAN AFFAIRS
Carlton Bertrand
Jr., Vice-Chair
Charlene McManis,
Secretary
Andrew Beaupre
Jeffrey Benay
Lucy (nee: Pion) Cannon-Neel
Dave Van Deusen
Shiny Hook
Trudy Ann Parker
Members Present:
Carlton Bertrand,
Jr., Vice-Chair
Charlene McManis,
Secretary
Jeffrey Benay
Dave Van Deusen
Shirly Hook
Trudy Ann Parker
Members Absent: Andrew Beaupre and Lucy Cannon-Neel
Guests:
Fred Wiseman,
Swanton, VT
Auburn Watersong,
Montpelier, VT
Duncan Matthewson,
Middlebury, VT
Doug Bent,
Braintree, VT
Donald H. Parker,
Lunenburg, VT
Giovanna Peebles,
DHP
John Moody, Sharon,
VT
John Kessler,
ACCD
NEW BUSINESS:
Frederick M. Wiseman PhD asked Nathan
E. Pero if he [Pero] had the information
regarding the "very crooked
knife." The answer is no. Fred M. Wiseman will send the information to Nathan Elwin
Pero.
1. Frederick
Matthew Wiseman's Indigenous Center
Frederick Matthew
Wiseman, PhD gave a brief presentation on the proposal of the Indigenous Center. The project Haven started in 2006. Fred M. Wiseman has two unpublished
books, one named Reclaiming Wabanaki Ceremony. He gave a detail of this book. Fred M. Wiseman then demonstrated his virtual museum in Image Amanda. It has 20 rooms, voice overlay,
acute-weather, 27 books, etc. The goal is to finish the project and put it
on-line. Fred M. Wiseman showed the floor
plans of the physical building. Fred
M. Wiseman will send the floor plan to Charlene
McManis to send to the VCNAA Commission
members. The major partners in this
project are the Echo Center, Champlain Valley Maritime Museum, and Missisquoi
Wild Life Refuge. Fred M.
Wiseman will also be working with
UVM on educational follow-up. Discussion was held regarding the
resource data base. It will be online,
with the virtual museum.
June 28, 2014
Abenaki Heritage
Weekend
Lake Champlain
Maritime Museum
4472 Basin Harbor Rd.
Vergennes, VT
Phone: (802) 475-2022
This special weekend, hosted by Lake Champlain Maritime Museum and
presented in partnership with the
Vermont Commission on Native American Affairs, gives visitors an Abenaki
perspective on life in the Champlain Valley.
Members of the Elnu
and Missisquoi Abenaki tribes,
the Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk and Koasek Traditional Band of the Koas Abenaki
Nation, and the Vermont Abenaki
Artists Association work with Museum staff to plan and present the
event, with the advice and support of the Vermont Commission on Native American Affairs.
The Native people at this event
are experts in the living indigenous arts and traditions which they come
together to share with one another and with visitors. They have inherited, researched, reconstructed, or apprenticed
to learn the techniques with which they create outstanding beadwork,
quillwork, basketry, pottery, woodworking and other items for personal use or
for sale. Tribal members will also share songs, drumming, dancing, games, food
preparation, and other life skills. Recent work by Abenaki artists and artisans
will be featured in LCMM’s exhibit
Contact of Cultures, together with footage by Abenaki videographer Lina
Longtoe documenting artists, artisans, and performers, and recent Abenaki
Tribal Recognition.
Abenaki Heritage Weekend also
includes opportunities to share cultural heritage through illustrated talks and
Round Table discussions on topics such as efforts to preserve Abenaki as a
living language, and the cultivation, use and exchange of heirloom plants. “I have been amazed by the richness and
depth of the cultural and historical information brought out by the Vermont
Indigenous bands during their research for Vermont State Recognition,” says
Frederick M. Wiseman, PhD., Director of the Wobanakik Heritage Center in
Swanton. “This is a new stage with great potential in Vermont culture and
history – for Native people to work on their own history and culture and then
present the results.”
June 28-29, 2014
Abenaki Heritage
Weekend
This special weekend, hosted by Lake Champlain Maritime Museum and presented in partnership with the Vermont Commission on Native American Affairs,
gives visitors an Abenaki perspective on life in the Champlain Valley. Members of the Elnu and Missisquoi Abenaki
tribes, the Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk and Koasek Traditional Band of the Koas
Abenaki Nation, and the Vermont Abenaki Artists Association work with Museum
staff to plan and present the event, with the advice and support of the
Commission.
The Native people at this event are experts in the living
indigenous arts and traditions which they come together to share with one
another and with visitors. They have inherited, researched, reconstructed, or
apprenticed to learn the techniques with which they create outstanding beadwork,
quillwork, basketry, pottery, woodworking and other items for personal use or
for sale. Tribal members will also share songs, drumming, dancing, games, food
preparation, and other life skills. Abenaki
scholars Fred Wiseman and Melody Walker Brook will present wampum readings,
and an illustrated program “Seeds of Renewal,” describing the
search for and preservation of heirloom plants and associated ceremonies and
traditions.
Abenaki Heritage
Weekend also includes opportunities to share cultural heritage through
illustrated talks and Round Table discussions on topics such as efforts to
preserve Abenaki as a living language, and the cultivation, use and exchange of
heirloom plants. “I have been amazed by the richness and depth of the cultural
and historical information brought out by the Vermont Indigenous bands during
their research for Vermont State Recognition,” says Frederick M. Wiseman, Ph. D., and also Director of the Wobanakik Heritage Center in Swanton. “This is a
new stage with great potential in Vermont culture and history – for Native
people to work on their own history and culture and then present the results.” [Replica’s]
This year, work by members of Vermont Abenaki Artists
Association will be featured in LCMM’s permanent exhibit on the region’s Native
peoples, Contact of Cultures.
Inaugurated in 2009 to reflect the maritime skills and traditions of the
region’s Native people since the 1609 expedition of Samuel de Champlain, the
exhibit has been augmented each year by Abenaki artists and historians working
with LCMM staff. Lake Champlain’s first navigators are represented by a full
sized bark canoe constructed by Abenaki artist Aaron York in 2007. Abenaki
historian Frederick M. Wiseman, PhD. contributed miniature birch bark canoes,
an array of canoe paddles, and some of the tools his family used to make them. El-nu Abenaki Chief Roger Longtoe created
replicas of fishing lures, hooks, sinkers, and Vera Longtoe used the
ancient twining technique preserved by her family to produce a traditional fish
net and carrying bag. In 2011 and 2012, Abenaki videographer Lina Longtoe
provided documentaries of artists at work, singing, and Abenaki Tribal
Recognition events.
Ongoing Saturday
& Sunday
Special Exhibition: Traditional Sources, Contemporary
Visions
Artwork by members of the Vermont Abenaki Artists
Association
Native Arts Marketplace
Abenakis Helping Abenakis: Resource Table
Haven Project Display
Artists Development Resources with Nancy Jo Chabot
(Sunday only)
Fire-pit Cooking Demonstrations
Eighteenth Century Encampment
Storytelling & Community Dancing
June 28, 2014
10:15am: Welcome Song
10:30am–11:00am: Circle of Courage Dancers
11:00am-11:30am: Voices of the Koas, Songs & Sun
Dance
11:30am-12:30: Seeds of Renewal: Illustrated Presentation
11:30am-Noon: Chunky Game
Noon -12:30pm: Nulhegan Drum & Nulhegan Youth Drum
12:30pm-12:45pm: Introduction of Commissioners, Jim
Peterson Commemoration
12:45pm-1:30pm: The
Vermont Abenaki, A Struggle for Recognition:
Film by Brian
Francis, Bear Paw Productions
Discussion & Conversation
1:30pm- 2:00pm: Official Introduction of Vermont Abenaki
Artists Association – Arts Marketplace - Jeanne Morningstar Kent - Seven
Wobanaki Artists
2:15pm-2:45pm: Nulhegan Drum & Nulhegan Youth Drum
2:45pm-3:15pm: Circle of Courage Youth Dancers
3:15pm-4:00pm Wampum
Reading
4:15pm- 5:00pm: Joseph,
Jesse and Jacob Bruchac
Stories and Songs from the Land of the Dawn, a
three-generation program, bilingual in English and Abenaki
June 29, 2014
10:15am: Welcome Song
10:30am-11:00am: Conversations with Elnu Tribe and Guest
Artists
11:00am-11:30am: Chunky Game
11:00am-Noon: Meet the Vermont Abenaki Artists
Association
One Artist's Life: Jeanne Morningstar (nee: Lalime) Lincoln - Kent
12:30pm-1:00pm: The Vermont Abenaki, a Struggle for
Recognition:
Film by Brian Francis, Bear Paw Productions
Discussion &
Conversation
1:00pm-2:00pm: Abenaki Ceremonial Revitalization, Fred
Wiseman and Melody Walker Brook
Videos: The Sun Dance and Green Corn Ceremony
2:00pm-2:30pm Nulhegan
Drum
2:30pm-3:00pm: Storytelling & Community Dancing,
Chief Don Stevens
3:15pm-4:00pm:
Wampum Reading
4:15pm-5:00pm: The Vermont Abenaki, A Struggle for
Recognition:
Film by Brian Francis, Bear Paw Productions
Discussion &
Conversation
Special Discounted Admission for this event thanks to an anonymous donor.
$5 Adults (usually $10); $3 Youth (usually $6); Free to
Members & Kids 5 & Under
Special Related
Programs:
Seeds of Renewal: Presentation on Wednesday June 28, 2014, 6:30-8:30pm
Paddle to Prehistory: Workshop on June 29, 2014
Abenaki Heritage
Weekend 2014 Participating Artists
Presenters, Performers & Artists
Shirly Hook – rawhide rattles
Jeanne Morningstar Kent – gourd art http://www.morningstarstudio9.com/
Jessee Lawyer –Vermont Abenaki Artists Association
https://www.facebook.com/flintrivertraditions
Linda Longtoe Sheehan – wampum jewelry http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHSV7hhkGxA
Vera Longtoe Sheehan – twining http://twined.tripod.com/
Roger Longtoe Sheehan – talks, history & culture,
singing, storytelling http://abenakiart.org/abenaki_art_directory/roger_longtoe_sheehan
Jim Taylor – shell wampum http://abenakiart.org/abenaki_art_directory/jim_taylor
Paul-Rene Tamburro - silversmith
http://abenakiart.org/abenaki_art_directory/paul_ren%C3%A9_tamburro
Bernie Mortz – drum making, snow snakes, dance sticks,
friendship bows, war clubs http://abenakiart.org/abenaki_art_directory/bernie_mortz
Vermont Abenaki Artists Association Display Table http://abenakiart.org/
Haven Project Display Table, Melody Walker Brook
Didier Colucci, Snapper Petta, & Suzanne Vernette -
eighteenth century skills
White Pine Association Display Table http://www.whitepineassociation.org/
Joseph Bruchac,
Author and storyteller
Jesse Bruchac,
Musician, linguist
Trudy Ann Parker,
Author
Circle of Courage Dancers, Brenda Gagne, http://title7.abenakination.com/circle-of-courage
Firepit Cooking Demonstration, Doug Bent, Shirly Hook,
Dave Bent, Raven Wood
Nulhegan Drum http://abenakiart.org/abenaki_art_directory/nulhegan_abenaki_drum
Don Stevens – drumming, storytelling, dance leader http://abenakiart.org/abenaki_art_directory/don_stevens
Voices of the Koasek, Women’s Singing Group http://abenakiart.org/abenaki_art_directory/voices_of_the_koas
Fred Wiseman and Melody Walker Brook: Wampum Readings
Fred Wiseman and Melody Walker Brook: The Haven Project http://abenakiart.org/abenaki_art_directory/frederick_m_wiseman
Nancy Jo Chabot, Curator, Mt. Kearsage Indian Museum
Rose Hartwell, quillwork
Consultations:
Melody Walker Brook – Conversations on Spirituality http://abenakiart.org/abenaki_art_directory/melody_walker_brook
Artists’ Development Sessions – speak to Arts
organization representatives about presenting your art: portfolio review,
artists’ statements, researching opportunities, use of social media, etc.
July 06, 2014
The Burlington Free Press Newspaper
Franklin County, Vermont
Lifetime
achievement honors for Swanton man
Frederick Matthew Wiseman of Swanton, Franklin County,
Vermont was honored on June 29, 2014 by the Vermont Abenaki Artists Association
with a lifetime achievement award for his efforts to gain state of Vermont
recognition for indigenous peoples and their artistic heritage.
Fred M. Wiseman, a Humanities professor who is retiring
this year from Johnson State College, received the award during a ceremony for
Abenaki artists at the Lake Champlain
Maritime Museum in Vergennes, Vermont.
“It was an amazing event, to see Dr. Wiseman with some of
his oldest friends and former students sharing their joy in the fruits of his
more than thirty years of supporting Abenaki culture and history,” said Cheryl O’Neil, Koasek Abenaki Tribe citizen in a statement released by the LCMM.
“It was a well-deserved treat for all of us at the Lake Champlain Maritime
Museum.”
The award was followed by the unveiling of a new exhibit
of work by the Vermont Abenaki Artists Association titled “Traditional Sources,
Contemporary Visions.” The exhibit will be available for public viewing
at the museum through October 12, 2014.
Frederick Matthew
Wiseman, an Abenaki, has served
as director of the Abenaki Tribal Museum
and Cultural Center in Swanton,
Vermont as a member of the Abenaki
Tribal Council.
Dr. Frederick
Matthew Wiseman receives a lifetime achievement award on June 29, 2014.
July 09, 2014
The Burlington Free Press Newspaper
Frederick Matthew
Wiseman receives lifetime achievement award
At the first Vermont
Abenaki Artists Association Awards ceremony at the Lake Champlain Maritime
Museum June 29, 2014, Professor Frederick
Matthew Wiseman was surprised during his filming of the event by being asked to
come to the stage from behind the camera.
Dr. Fred M. Wiseman, of Swanton, Franklin County,
Vermont, who is retiring from Johnson State College at the end of July, was
surprised with a certificate of Lifetime achievement and the VAAA T-shirt that
he had been trying to buy for two days with no success.
The award was presented by his protégé and VAAA board
member Jessee lawyer of Burlington,
with other board members Vera Longtoe
Sheehan of Westminister and Jeanne
Antoinette (nee: Lalime) 1m. Lincoln – 2m. Kent of Winstead, CT, looking on.
The award was not specifically for his achievement in
promoting the decorative and performing arts, such as fashion design, wampum
(shell bead) art, Indigenous song, dance and oratory, but in his advocacy for
recognition by the state of Vermont that its indigenous peoples and their
artistic heritage has always been here and needed to be recognized by the
state. It was this state recognition that
permitted Abenaki artists, for the first time to legally sell their creations
as Indian art under the Federal Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990.
The Board members of the Vermont Abenaki Artist
Association and Dr. Frederick Matthew Wiseman shared some memories of working
together as long as the mid 1990’s, and their continuing efforts to assure that
Vermont’s Indigenous arts heritage will never disappear.
Koasek Abenaki Tribe citizen Cheryl O’Neil, who was at the ceremony, said, “It was an amazing
event to see Dr. Wiseman with some of his oldest friends and former students
sharing their joy in the fruits of his more than 30 years of supporting Abenaki
culture and history. It was a well-deserved treat for all of us at the Maritime
Museum.”
The award ceremony was followed by a gallery tour of a
new exhibit of work by members of the Vermont Abenaki Artists Association.
The exhibit, titled “Traditional Sources, Contemporary Visions,”
is on view at Lake Champlain Maritime Museum through October
12, 2014.
July 14, 2014
Frederick Matthew Wiseman: "About 40% percent of French surnamed people in Vermont have enough indigenous blood in them to qualify to be able to join Don's Nulhegan band, or July 14, 2014
PAY ATTENTION to 27:00 of this video to Fred M. Wiseman's and Don Stevens Jr.'s statements.
Donald Warren Stevens Jr.: "One of the things I want to mention too, is our territory up in the Northeast Kingdom ... uh ... we have one the only land grants in Vermont called (Chief) Philips Grant. It goes back, way back when, in the 1700's and then it went to ... you know, Eastman
Interesting, the way they talk about the old seeds connecting them to preset crop. Nancy said she found 800 year old seed, which could not produce nothing ... we know this. BUT, Don Stevens of the Nulhegan (ex-St. Francis-Sokoki member) explains it as keeping seed from each crop through the years so that now they have original crop seeds ... the narrative doesn't match reality. The Kosek corn was allegedly lost by these wannabiiak some 300 years ago, saved by a white settler family, and how convenient, that the Calley family gave it to Nancy in the fall of 2006, right after the initial blanket recognition from VT Gov. Jim Douglas. Well, they also lost their Abenaki drum for 300 years too, so what a miracle eh. But I get what BS narrative they are trying to put forward, to legitimize themselves. BTW, that "Koasek" corn seed was given to Homer's years BEFORE Nancy ever got hold of it. But why isn't there these particular seeds in midden and burial sites and the genome tested against other known indigenous corn varieties? That was my specific question to Professor Wiseman back then, and of course, he arrogantly took that as an 'attack' on his work.
September 06-07, 2014
The Caledonian-Record Newspaper
By Gordon Alexander – News Correspondent
Abenaki Rendezvous
Encampment at Island Pond
The Nulhegan 2014
Heritage Celebration of Abenaki culture encampment took place at Brighton State Park on Saturday and
Sunday.
Professor Frederick Matthew Wiseman, director of the Wobanaki Heritage Center in Swanton, Vermont, seated on a blanket in the center of the encampment, gave Wampum readings and instruction, a history of Abenaki alliances, a discussion on Vermont State Recognition and what it means for the Abenaki.
October 07, 2014
The Union Leader Newspaper, Page C1-C2
By Melanie Plenda – Special to the Union Leader
Efforts to track
down Abenaki seeds opens a door to ancient food customs
A braid of Koasek (Cowasuck)
corn, a variety commonly grown by the Abenakis.
If you walk by a field in Piermont, New Hampshire and you
hear singing, it’s likely Peggy
Fullerton. It’s not that it makes the plants grow faster or better,
although who knows, it might. It’s just more of a happy coincidence that the Voices of the Cowsass can practice their
native songs while planting their traditional crops — think of it as a sort of
multitasking of preservation.
“Well, it’s to preserve our culture,” said Peggy Fullerton, who along with the
rest of her Abenaki tribe, have been collecting what remains of the seeds of
their ancestors. “To have these seeds is just so exciting.”After all, these
seeds open a door to the past: Masala squash, Rose corn, Cowasuck corn,
Jerusalem artichokes. The same crops sown, harvested and cooked for generations
are now able to be enjoyed by a new generation of Abenaki.
A sampling of traditional Abenaki fare including
strawberry fry-bread, buffalo, Indian Tacos and Rez-steak sandwiches, will be
on hand this weekend (October 11-12, 2014) at
the 18th annual Abenaki Nation of N.H.
Heritage Weekend at Mi-Te-Jo Campground Milton, New Hampshire.
“You’re eating your own history,” said Frederick Matthew Wiseman, a retired Native American Studies professor
at Johnson College in Vermont and citizen
of the Missisquoi Abenaki tribe. He’s been active in tracking down and collecting
the Abenaki heirloom seeds. “A lot of Indian people believe that food is
medicine. If you’re eating your own crops ... you’re connecting with the
ancestors, and so this gives a lot more pride to the people.”
Frederick Matthew
Wiseman said another benefit to the project is changing the way Abenaki
people eat by getting them back to the natural foods of their ancestors.“People
are eating junk,” he said. Traditionally, the Abenaki diet was fueled by what
the men could hunt and the women could gather, according to the tribe’s food
history on the Paul Wilson Pouliot concocted Cowasuck Band of the
Penacook Abenaki website, www.cowasuck.org. The women spent their days
picking a variety of berries and nuts, gathering lily roots, wild rice, onions,
chives, wild garlic, mushrooms, mint and swamp —also known as skunk cabbage—
among many other wild plants, according to the Cowasuck band. They would also gather herbs for medicines and
garnishes, such as yarrow, burdock, foxglove, catnip, licorice and many others,
they said.
The women were also responsible for planting the tribe’s
crops, which included snow peas, cucumbers, and gourds along with the “Three
Sister” crops.
“They used a method called ‘companion farming,’”
according to the Cowasuck Band website.
“The Three Sister crops were planted together on a big mound. The corn grew
upwards and provided natural poles for the beans. The squash or pumpkins spread
all around the base of the mound providing a cover to keep in the moisture. All
three were harvested at the same time. They were also dried to be used during
the winter.”
Meanwhile, the men went into the woods to trap wild game
like moose, deer, rabbit, and turkey—all of which were used for food as well as
clothing—and to the water for fresh- and salt-water fish.
With the hard labor done, the Abenaki would put together
a sumptuous and varied menu that included everything from venison, wild turkey,
salmon and trout to clam chowder—made with sunflower oil and nut butters— and
corn on the cob. Then there was the corn bread, corn fritters, squash,
succotash, mushroom or turtle soups and even maple candy lollipops, according
to the Cowasuck Band. And as was
their tradition, “Whenever the hunter or fisherman returned from a successful
expedition, his children were sent forth to distribute the catch to people in
the village. The bounty was shared by all. The hunter kept only a basic supply
for his family,” according to the website.
These days, the modern Abenaki are practicing many of the
same traditions. In fact, many of the seeds salvaged from across the country
are grown out. The seeds from those plants are then distributed to the members
of the tribe to be grown in their own gardens and passed down.
Peggy Fullerton
said they also regularly host dinners replete with traditional Abenaki dishes.
Among the highlights is the Three Sisters Soup, made with beans, corn and
squash.
“The beans soak overnight and cook for eight or 10
hours,” Peggy Fullerton said. “So it’s very hearty. The beans are cooked in the
ground. You dig a hole in the ground, line the ground with rocks, add your
fire, the pot goes in there and the beans cook all day.”
She said she likes to use the Algonquin and Masala squash
they grow and a little Connecticut Valley pumpkin for good measure. “They were
raised in that valley,” she said. “They should go in the soup.”
January 25, 2015
The Burlington Free Press Newspaper
ANCIENT CROPS IN
THE SPOTLIGHT
Join Frederick
Matthew Wiseman at 6:30 p.m. Friday at the Missisquoi Wildlife Refuge in Swanton for his presentation, “The
Seven Sisters: The discovery and restoration of ancient Wabanaki crops.”
In the talk Fred M. Wiseman,
director of the Seeds of Renewal Project,
will discuss the ancient plants that were adapted to Northern New England’s
soil and climate through centuries of cultivation. The Seeds of Renewal Project has worked to develop a strategy to
recover produce raised and consumed by Vermont Abenakis and their relatives in
Maine, Quebec, and the Canadian Maritimes. Learn about the crops’ history and
the ongoing work. Free. www.fws.gov/refugee/missisquoi
February 08, 2015
The Press Republican – Online Article
By Robin Caudell – Press-Republican
Saving ancient
seeds: Retired professor discovers, preserves Abenaki botanical heritage
Fred Wiseman picks ground cherries, also known as husk tomatoes are the same genus as tomatillos. They are about the size of a regular cherry and have a "Chinese lantern" like papery covering. They are sweet, some say, kind of citrusy. They are indigenous to the Champlain Valley and are the only "condiment" other than salt and maple syrup.
BARRE, VT — Dr. Frederick
Wiseman tracks through centuries old historical records and oral histories
to identify and preserve ancient Abenaki seeds that could be lost forever.
“About 20 years ago, I moved to Vermont and discovered
that I had Abenaki ancestry and I started working with the Abenaki,” said
Wiseman, who presents “Chasing Seeds: The discovery and
restoration of ancient Wabanaki crops” 5:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Vermont Archaeology Heritage Center in
Barre, Vt.
“My PhD is a sub discipline, ethno-botany, the study of
people and plants. My specialty until recently was working with the Maya
civilization in Guatemala and Mexico.”
The retired Johnson State College professor's PARTIAL family
origins are in Swanton, Franklin County, Vermont. He is the third Frederick Wiseman after his grandfather
and father, and he lives in the home his grandfather built in 1909.
“There was an ammunition's plant here in the first part of
the 20th century, and he was a foreman. It was the Robin Hood Ammunition
Company. I came back to Vermont when my father passed away. In Vermont, it
wasn't cool to be Indian in the 20th century.”
He applied and received citizenship by the Missisquoi
Abenaki Tribal Council. He started researching the Abenaki history and has published
two academic and three popular books on the subject.
The Missisquoi have state but not federal recognition.
The state recognition allows them to sell traditional crafts and arts as Native
Americans, and it gives them a legal, minority status.
As part of this recognition process, Frederick Matthew Wiseman conducted a
lot of historical research throughout Vermont and the Connecticut River Valley.
“There was a huge wellspring of unrecorded agricultural
information,” Wiseman said. “The tribes were doing all types of agriculture
that was recorded by early explorers in the Northeast. Some people were raising
crops that were basically unknown to science.”
There were varieties of the indigenous staples, the Three
Sisters – corns, beans and squash.
Koas corn is a short corn with five-inch ears. The plant
grows approximately 4 ft. high.
“The thing that interested me is most of the corn we got
here as well as the Mohawk corn is what we call eight-row flint, a standard
type of indigenous corn in the Northeast,” he said. “This corn is not a flint
corn. Flint corn is like popcorn. It has a very hard covering on it.”
When Koas corn dries, it shrivels up.
“Ornamental dry, the kernels don't shrivel up,” Wiseman
said. “It shows it (Koas) doesn't have that hard, flinty covering on the seed
called seed coat. This is really a strange corn.”
The Koas corn grows faster and has a lot of oil in it.
The corn was found in the hills of New Hampshire.
“They were given it in the 1700's by the Koas Abenaki,” he
said. “It's a village that existed forever. There was a French mission there.
It still has an Abenaki community living there. They raised this corn and gave
it to these farmers that kept it uncross-pollinated up until 2006 when they
gave the corn to the Koas Abenaki tribe. I was at the ceremony. We planted the
first ones in 2007, and it was amazing.”
Frederick M. Wiseman has traced 26 different varieties including corn,
beans, squash, Jerusalem artichoke, ground cherries and tobacco.
The Norridgewock bean comes from an Abenaki village that
was destroyed by a British attack in 1724.
“Some Mohawks came from New York to warn Norridgewock the
attack was imminent,” Wiseman said. “It's an Abenaki village in Maine. There is
a lot of oral history that is conflicting. One of the stories that make the
most sense to me, it was found growing wild on the banks of the Kennebec River
in Maine. It was growing wild near the ruins of the old village and fort. That
was also a mission village, too, in the early 19th century.”
The Norridgewock bean was cultivated by European American
families in the region. Some of the beans were given to a high-school agronomy
teacher, whom Wiseman found online.
“He sent me some seeds. It is a white bean with a red
blotch along the hilum, the white spot on the bean where it connects to the bean
pod.
It looks like a Maine yellow eye. Instead of yellow, it
has red. It may be a variety of the Maine yellow eye.”
Frederick M. Wiseman has been so busy collecting the seeds; he hasn't
had a chance to study them.
“It's an emerging science,” he said. “It's pretty raw and
undigested.”
A friend alerted him to the rare East Montpelier squash.
“She had a squash she got from an Abenaki gentleman in
East Montpelier,” Wiseman said.
“The oral history that came with that it's an Abenaki
squash so huge that a field of these could feed a village. It was a great, big
squash.”
His source only had a few seeds, and she shared some with
him. Wiseman had no room to grow them, and gave the East Montpelier seeds to
another friend.
“The seeds grew but did not at all look like the picture she
sent,” he said. “We were completely devastated. She gave some other seeds to
friends of hers in Orange, Vt. They grew it out, and it looked exactly what we
were expecting. The bad news was the couple who was raising them didn't
realized how valuable it was and grew it in it a field with blue Hubbard
squash, which is the same species.”
The squash was big and beautiful and the best-tasting
squash ever.
“The bad news is the squash is cross-pollinated with blue
Hubbard. We were down to one seed. I have 350 seeds from this one plant. I'm
giving these seeds to as many people as I can to plant them by themselves.”
The goal is to weed out the blue Hubbard
cross-pollination and save the East Montpeliers.
“It's over the edge of extinction right now, and we're
going to try to pull it back.
February 09, 2015
By Liz Leafloor
Quest to find
Ancient Seeds and bring them to Life before they are lost to History
The drive to
bring extinct animal species back from the dead, such as the wooly mammoth or
saber-toothed tiger, is picking up speed as genetics and biotechnology science
advances. But animals are not the only life in danger of disappearing forever.
Botanists, historians, and plant genetics experts now work to restore and
retain endangered plants and seeds which may be lost forever.
Dr. Frederick Wiseman, retired professor and expert on
ethno-botany, spent years researching and working with the Maya civilization in
Guatemala and Mexico. But for the past two decades he’s turned his attention to
the plight of plants native to his homeland - Vermont, in the United States.
According to
daily newspaper Press Republican, Wiseman now works to identify and preserve
ancient seeds which were vital to the Abenaki Native Americans of northeastern
North America. The history of the indigenous plants reveals a wealth of
information which would otherwise have been lost in time. He has reportedly
“traced 26 different varieties including corn, beans, squash, Jerusalem
artichoke, ground cherries and tobacco.”
“There was a huge
wellspring of unrecorded agricultural information. The tribes were doing all
types of agriculture that was recorded by early explorers in the Northeast.
Some people were raising crops that were basically unknown to science,” Wiseman
tells Press Republican.
Wiseman, of
Abenaki ancestry himself, gives presentations on his work, “Chasing Seeds: The
discovery and restoration of Ancient Wabanaki crops” at the Vermont Archaeology Heritage Center.
The Vermont Archaeology
Heritage Center writes of their “Seeds of Renewal” project, reporting it
has “developed a complex strategy to recover the produce raised and consumed by
the Vermont Abenakis and their relatives in Maine, Quebec and the Canadian
Maritimes. In addition to multiple cultivated varieties of the so called ‘three
sisters’ of corn, beans and squash, [the project] recovered more unusual
ancient crops such as husk tomatoes, sunflowers, gourds and tobacco.”
The struggle to
locate and preserve specimens, and especially to repopulate an endangered
plant, has successes and failures, Wiseman notes.
In his search for
the Norridgewock bean, a bean from an Abenaki village in Maine destroyed in
1724 by a British attack, Wiseman connected online with an agronomy teacher who
had a few seeds. But seed collection takes up so many resources that it leaves
little time for studying the samples, and the beans haven’t yet been planted.
In another case
of seed rescue, Wiseman sourced a few samples of the rare East Montpelier
squash. He tells the Press Republican, “The seeds grew but did not at all look
like the picture she sent. We were completely devastated. She gave some other
seeds to friends of hers in Orange, Vt. They grew it out, and it looked exactly
what we were expecting. The bad news was the couple who was raising them didn't
realized how valuable it was and grew it in it a field with blue Hubbard
squash, which is the same species.”
The blue Hubbard
had cross pollinated with the rare East Montpelier, and the produce were
hybrids, leaving fewer original uncrossed seeds.
“It’s over the
edge of extinction right now, and we’re going to try to pull it back,” Wiseman
says.
Fred Wiseman is
not alone in his quest to preserve ancient seeds. Botanical researcher Elaine
Solowey has nurtured more than 100 rare or near-extinct species back to life as
part of a 10-year project to study plants and herbs used as ancient cures. She
has grown plants and herbs used in Tibetan, Chinese and biblical medicine, as
well as traditional folk remedies from other cultures to see whether their
effectiveness can be scientifically proved.
Most notably, Solowey resurrected an extinct date palm from 2,000-year-old seeds found in an archaeological dig at Masada, in
the southern district of Israel. The Judean date palm had been purposefully
eradicated in ancient Judea in 70 A.D. by the invading Roman Empire.
In 2005, Solowey
planted and nurtured the seeds, producing a sapling no one had seen in
centuries and becoming the oldest known tree seed to germinate. The plant
was nicknamed "Methuselah," after the longest-lived person in the
Bible.
For now, Wiseman and others will continue their search to
restore ancient seeds with an aim to preserve not only the plants themselves,
but the history and the cultures which relied on such natural wealth. The
struggle to do so continues, aided in part by more open communication and
advancing technologies.
“It's an emerging science,” Wiseman tells
PressRepublican. “It's pretty raw and undigested.”
February 09, 2015
The Press Republican [Online]
By Robin Caudell, Press-Republican Email:
rcaudell@pressrepublican.com Twitter@RobinCaudell
Saving ancient
seeds
Retired prof discovers, preserves Abenaki
botanical heritage
BARRE, VT
[SAME ARTICLE … See February 09, 2015 article entitled, “Quest to find Ancient Seeds and bring
them to Life before they are lost to History”]
Spring 2015
[Written on February 12, 2015
by Frederick Mathew Wiseman, PhD]
Issue thirty-two
The Seeds of
Renewal Project
RENEWING ABENAKI
AGRICULTURE, ONE SEED AT A TIME
The Koasek Abenaki
Sun Dancer at the 2014 Harvest Celebration, Piermont, New Hampshire.
Back in the 1950’s and 1960’s, I (Frederick Matthew Wiseman PhD.) often visited my
grandparents in northwestern Vermont during the summers. I remember children
and teenagers enthusiastically riding their bikes with bucket and spinning rod,
heading down to the Missisquoi River to fish. I remember Abenaki families, who
were often very poor, living off the waters and lands by hunting and fishing. I
remember children and adults gathering edible plants: marsh marigolds, wild
onions, and fiddleheads in the spring, wild herbs, roots, and nuts in the
summer and fall.
Today I live in Swanton, and it’s clear that this
rigorous but ultimately healthy outdoor lifestyle has largely been replaced by
the intake of commodity food, which is heavily reliant on refined
carbohydrates, fats, and processed items. This fundamental change from a
land-based to an industrial food system is most certainly contributing to our
region’s childhood obesity problem, and I have found that Vermont’s indigenous
Abenaki communities have been particularly hard hit by this cultural
transformation.
This is in large part why, after more than 30 years of
getting to know Vermont’s Abenaki tribes from Lake Champlain to the Connecticut
River Valley I launched a new project, called Seeds of Renewal. Its mission is
to assist and encourage the Abenaki tradition of seed saving and indigenous
gardening by helping to track down rare or long-lost seeds native to northern
New England. I am proud to share the story of this project with the greater
Vermont local food community, which may not be aware of all that is taking place
within Abenaki agriculture.
Seeds of Renewal took root while I was working with
Vermont’s Native American communities in 2006 to record their cultural,
geographic, and historical information in preparation for their applications
for Vermont state recognition. Success was finally achieved in 2011 to 2012, when
four bands were acknowledged by the Vermont Legislature. As part of this work,
I discovered that agricultural engineering and horticultural techniques
recorded by early explorers such as Samuel de Champlain were still being
practiced by Abenaki farmers in Franklin County, the Northeast Kingdom, and the
Connecticut River Valley. When I visited these farmers, I found rare and
supposedly “lost” aboriginal crops still growing on hill farms or escaped and spreading
along valley river banks.
I quickly discovered, in talking to Abenaki farmers, that
there were a few distinctive native-origin crop varieties still being grown
locally, some of which were extremely endangered. Also, discussions with
indigenous food activists such as Steve McComber of
Kahnawake (a Native American reserve outside Montréal) led me to other ancient
crops used by Vermont’s indigenous people. So in 2011,
I began an intellectual quest: to gather these rare seeds and other
agricultural information and deposit them in one place.
At first, it seemed impossible to track down the crops
that I had learned had ancient roots in Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire.
People had heard of this bean or that squash, but by the summer of 2012, it seemed there was little hope of obtaining
acknowledged aboriginal seed, except for one variety of corn and a couple of
minor crops.
But after talking with indigenous seed savers and food
activists in late 2012, I eventually tracked
down Native American sources for some crops as far away as Manitoba and
Colorado, while others were fortuitously discovered in rural farm stands and
food co-ops, or discovered growing wild in their original habitats. The seed
hunt, with its extraordinary cast of characters and the exotic places that
served as refuges for the crops, was as captivating to me as the seeds and data
themselves. I was also able to re-locate the seed of crops that had been
collected by a defunct Native American organization in central Vermont that had
had a seed-saving program in the 1990’s. By the 2013
spring planting season, I had tracked down 14 crop varieties that had a
possibility of ancient Native origin in northern New England and adjacent
Canada, and had leads to many more.
Of course this labor could not be merely an academic
exercise: the seeds had to be planted or properly conserved, or else their
genetic lineage would be lost forever. But I did not have a large enough garden
to even experiment with the crops, so I had to find partners with both land and
the appropriate knowledge and commitment to care for the precious germ plasm.
From my work in ethnobotany years ago, I knew that many of the seeds in my
care, especially those of corn and the cucurbits (squash, pumpkins, and gourds)
had to be planted in such ways that they could be properly pollinated by plants
of the same cultivated variety, but not by others. This botanical mandate would
require a lot of land, and I had to find a solution to this challenge quickly.
I first went to the four Vermont state-recognized Abenaki
bands in the fall of 2012 and offered them the
seeds in my care, with the caveat that they needed to be planted in such a way
as to preserve their genetic purity. The tribal response was varied, ranging
from eager to nonexistent, so I realized I needed additional collaboration.
Shelburne Farms in Shelburne and the Abenaki
Heritage Garden at the Intervale Center in Burlington offered to “grow out”
the seeds. However, I soon learned that the seeds could not be grown in
conditions that would preclude cross-pollination a major problem for the
preservation of genetically uncontaminated corn and squash varieties. But the
organizations helped immensely with growing out the seed of self-pollinated or
single-cultivar types, and this yielded large stock of usable sunflower, ground
cherry, Jerusalem artichoke, and several bean varieties in the 2013 harvest.
Eventually, one of the original state-recognized Native
American tribes slowly became the focus of the Seeds of Renewal revitalization
program. The Koas (or Koasek) community is relatively small and is still
located in its old homeland in the Connecticut River Valley, in the Newbury,
Vermont/ Haverhill, New Hampshire area. In 2006,
the community had been given an ancient strain of Abenaki corn that was
originally given by their ancestors to Anglo farmers in the 1700’s. This
seminal cultural event led the Koasek community to focus on agriculture and to
rally around “their” corn as an integral component of their native identity.
When I offered the Koaseks the seeds that I had collected
in early 2013, they eagerly accepted all but
one variety of corn (which they could not grow, because of the cross
pollination problems alluded to above). One farmer, Peggy Fullerton of Piermont, New Hampshire, planted the crops in
gardens heavily fertilized with manure from her cattle, and they grew
extraordinarily well in the New Hampshire summer sun, producing huge
sunflowers, squash, and pumpkins an exciting sight to behold! A community
harvest supper organized for the fall equinox of 2013
saw the first fruits of the Seeds of Renewal project prepared as three-sisters
soup, Koasek corn-on-the-cob, squash muffins, and a host of other special
heirloom recipes using these ancient crops. The meal, held at a church in
Piermont, New Hampshire, was attended by numerous of members of the Koas
community.
Of course, most of the seed crops, such as sunflower,
beans, and corn, did not yet produce enough for anything more than display or
experimental dishes. That fall, the Koaseks indicated they wanted to create a
specialized field, away from other gardens, specifically to grow the Seeds of
Renewal crops. They needed a little financial help, which I provided, and they
were able to open a large garden in a former hayfield, ready to plow in early 2014. The saved seed, augmented by 10 new varieties
that I had tracked down over the summer and fall of 2013,
was planted, and once again the crops grew luxuriantly. The September 2014 Harvest Supper finally had enough
indigenous produce to put on a spectacular feast. Once again, neglected recipes
that had faded over the years were being dusted off, ready to influence the
re-emergence of an Abenaki cuisine.
For me, one of the highlights of the dinner was a
performance of the songs, ritual, and dance of Green Corn Ceremony, rites that
had languished or become mere theater for paying Euro-American audiences. This
re-emergence of agricultural ceremony was the last piece of the puzzle for the
Seeds of Renewal project, for out of 30 or so Native American seed-saving
programs in the United States, none seems to have interest in reviving
agricultural ceremony and the ritual calendar that organizes it. In talking
with tribal elders, I quickly came to the conclusion that an agricultural
calendar integrating ritual with agricultural technology was the keystone to
the whole program.
So the Seeds of Renewal project began working with
historical documents, archival film, and the memory of tribal elders to develop
appropriate music, protocol, and choreography for the reviving of the dances
and rituals. Historically appropriate ceremonial clothing and ceremonial objects
were also made available. Few bands were interested in the hard work of
learning and perfecting the musical and dance performance required for the
proper execution of revived ceremony, but the Koaseks were interested in the
whole system and considered a ritual calendar important for the community. By 2013 they had begun to re-arrange their ceremonies
away from a typical summer powwow format to performing the proper agricultural
ceremonies at the appropriate times of the year. So today, seeds, cropping
technique, and ceremony are once again functioning together in the upper
Connecticut River Valley, as they were centuries ago.
I am amazed by how far Vermont’s and New Hampshire’s
Native American community has come in the last four years in re-invigorating
its food system. They are doing it in their own way, not by relying on any
fashionable outside food trends. They treat the indigenous food system
holistically from seed, to gardening technique, to ceremony, to cuisine. This
is unique in North America and has become a prototype for other native
communities in New England.
Last October, some Koaseks journeyed to the Maine towns
of Pleasant Point and Princeton to give the Passamaquoddy Indians the Seeds of
Renewal seed. In addition, the two Passamaquoddy museums sponsored Seeds of
Renewal training seminars on proper planting, ceremony, and cuisine. Other
Native American nations have asked to be included in 2015,
and so the program is moving out of its cradle and has a bright future.
Seeds of Renewal
cultivars as of Spring 2015
(year) = Year of first planting of noncommercial
varieties
(C) = Commonly available commercial varieties
Calais Corn (C)
Koas Corn (2007)
Gaspé Corn (2013)
Abenaki Rose Corn (2014)
Tom Thumb Popcorn (seed in hand)
Jacob’s Cattle Bean (C)
Vermont Cranberry Bean (2013)
Skunk Bean (2012)
True Cranberry Bean (2013)
Dolloff Bean (2014)
Marfax Bean (2014)
Low’s Champion Bean (2014)
Norridgewock Bean (2014)
Connecticut field pumpkin (C)
White Scallop Squash(C)
Curtis/Penobscot Pumpkin (2013)
Algonquin Squash (2013)
East Montpelier Squash (2014)
East Montpelier Turk’s Cap Squash (2014)
Boston Marrow Squash (seed in hand)
Worcester Pumpkin (seed in hand)
Cambridge Jerusalem Artichoke (2012)
Hardwick Ground Cherry (2012)
Morrisville Sunflower (2013)
Note: Some
semi-commercial cultivars such as Vermont Cranberry and Marfax Beans are sold
in farmers’ markets or by specialist seed companies. When possible, we selected
varieties preserved by Indigenous or Métis people.
Fred Wiseman, a retired professor and former department
chair of Humanities at Johnson State College, is a paleo-ethnobotanist who has
studied the Maya people of Mexico and Central America and the modern
ethnobiology of the Sonoran Desert. His interest in the Abenakis
began in 1985, after he learned that he had Abenaki ancestry.
April 24, 2015
The North Country News Newspaper, Page A8
Abenaki Ethnocide
in the Green Mountains: Program to be held at the Bradford Academy Building
Program to be held at the Bradford Academy Building, 172
Main Street, Bradford, Vermont from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. on Saturday, April 25, 2015.
Presentation Sponsors: White Pine Association, Inc. and Koasek Traditional Band of the Koas Abenaki Nation.
Presenter: Frederick Matthew Wiseman, Ph.D. – Tribal
Historian
Professor Frederick Matthew Wiseman of Swanton, Franklin
County, Vermont has pursued a decades-long quest to understand historic
Wabanaki culture, ecology and history.
This presentation
is a report on the four hundred year war between the indigenous Peoples of Vermont and European settler
governments, and more recently other
indigenous governments.
The presentation has been gleaned from Wiseman’s
exhaustive research in historic documents as well as participating in the
resolute defense of the Vermont Abenakis against the State of Vermont’s 1995-2006 attempted ethnic erasure of the “Abenakis” in
Vermont.
Join Professor Wiseman as he shares the results of his
study of ethnic erasure in a state that considers itself one of the most
tolerant in the United States.
Frederick Matthew Wiseman begins his history of Native
American oppression with the idea of
personal and community identity; and proceeds to the reasons why Native
Americans are treated entirely unlike the “Classic” American minorities.
Rhoda (nee:
Daigle) Breed (from Odanak?)
The presentation will be illustrated with slides,
discussion and performance by the “Voices of the Koas” Abenaki singers and
dancers.
Food and discussion will follow. Donations to support the
Koasek educational series will be gladly accepted.
May 26, 2015
The Local Banquet Periodical Magazine, Pages 12, 13, 21
Written By Frederick Matthew Wiseman
Sun Dance Season:
An Abenaki Summer
Every culture has a different take on summer. The northern
Europeans considered the summer solstice “Midsummer’s Day,” while in the United
States we treat the solstice as the beginning of that season. For the Abenaki,
summer officially begins during the hoeing and planting times, what we consider
late spring, and lasts up to the Green Corn Festival, the official “kick-off”
of the harvest.
I would like to share with you what I have recently
learned about how the First Vermonters till the soil and plant and nurture
their crops in ways that may be quite distinct from what we are used to.
Late May and June usher in the agricultural season.
Ancient signs are sought by Abenaki farmers as a signal that it is time to
begin tilling and planting. The disappearance of snow from a distant, beautiful
mountain is the sign for the Upper Connecticut River Valley Abenaki Community
of Koas to begin planting. The indigenous gardening technique of choice is what
I call the “truncated conical mound,” a small flat-topped hill from three to
five feet in diameter at the base. Koasek elder Peggy Fullerton puts it this
way: “The mounds are weeded by the children, and we always make sure that their
little hands can make it to the middle of the mound to pull out the weeds,
without disturbing the soil.” So the weeders set the parameters of mound size.
Former Koasek Chief Nancy Millette says that when she was
a child, she and her little friends went to the Connecticut River and its
tributaries in the spring to catch the sucker fish that ran in huge schools so
thick “that you could almost walk upon them.” She says the fish were not for
eating, but for the gardens. This was a revelation to me, because I had known
that the Abenaki word for sucker fish was “kikômkwa,” and the first syllable
was hauntingly similar to “kikôn,” the Abenaki word for field. I had dismissed
the connection, but after Chief Nancy’s information sunk in, I discovered from
18th-century Abenaki dictionaries that the word originally meant “the garden
fish.” So linguistics from years ago explains an obscure cultural connection between
spring fish runs and the gardens that were being prepared at the same time.
Today, it is traditional to insert one or more fish or parts of fish “about the
size of your open hand” 8 to 18 inches deep in the mound.
The arrangement of the Wabanaki mound plantings varies
with the crops selected. Modern corn, bean, and squash varieties are usually
companion-planted with corn in the center, pole beans to the side, and squash
on the edge of the mound—the standard “three sisters” system. However, the
three sisters companion-planting schema does not work with the newly (re)
discovered indigenous Wabanaki cultivars (Local Banquet, Spring 2015), because
Wabanaki corn is too short, the bean vines are too long for the corn, and the
squash plants are too tall, shading out all else and allowing mold and pest
infestation. An old system has been resurrected in the Upper Connecticut River
Valley to allow the three local species to perform better together. In the
center of each mound a “bean tipi” of saplings is erected and the vines trained
up the framework. The corn is planted around the beans with the squash planted
as usual on the periphery and allowed to trail down into the inter-mound areas.
The seeds are laid on top of the mounds, then “punched in” with the index finger,
its joints the measuring stick determining the appropriate planting depth. The
beans are planted some time after the corn and squash. Jerusalem artichoke
roots and sunflower seeds are planted to the side of the mound areas because of
the sunflowers’ height and the artichokes’ invasive character. Recently, one
Indigenous farmer discovered that ground cherries discourage Japanese beetles
and are companion planted with crops such as “Norridgewock” beans that are
especially susceptible.
Field preparation and planting, like all parts of the
agricultural cycle, is a social and religious event. Planting ceremony may be
relatively simple, just a quiet moment of prayer in the Northeast Kingdom;
there are more elaborate ceremonies in the Connecticut River Basin. The first
part of the more complex planting ceremony involves a recognition of the four
directions by one or more elders. I suspect that it may be a descendant of the
various recorded historic Wabanaki “calling in” songs that are supposed to
alert the ancestors and spirits that a ceremony is about to take place. I
especially like the (unnamed) Koasek Ceremony where children take cornmeal from
small wooden boxes and spread it on the fields. It’s a wonderful sight to see
the kids marching solemnly around the field’s perimeter giving a blessing to
the fields for a good summer and harvest. There is always a fire pit lending
its fragrance to the event, usually with last year’s beans or other goodies
baking, and coolers of frosty beverages—ready for a meal following the ceremony
and planting!
This is the time when Wabanaki ceremony also turns to
asking the sky beings, especially the Sun and the Rain, to bless the growing
crops. The first rite is the Sun Dance, a directional-based ceremony where the
cardinal directions and the people living in those directions come together to
honor the Sun. The dance consists of the sun dancer and eight dancers, arranged
in pairs (usually a man and a woman) who execute a graceful choreography of
circling the sun dancer and then approaching and retreating as a sign of
respect. This is still performed during the planting season, often as an
expression of identity and culture, as well as to seek nurture of the crops.
After planting, and checking for proper germination, the
fields more or less fend for themselves during June through early August. When
possible, gardeners fence in their plots from deer and other pests. Most
gardeners just use inexpensive chicken-wire fencing from the local hardware
store. However, the Abenaki Heritage Garden in the Burlington Intervale has
built more traditional willow “living fences.” They are made by cutting live
willow branches in the early spring and planting them in the cool, saturated
soil. A significant number take root and flourish. Those that do not can be
replaced with freshly cut stock. The flexible branches are woven together to
keep the four-footed herbivores out, but do not seem to deter rabbits and
raccoons. I worry that willows are horrific water users and may deplete the
fields’ moisture, making them not a useful horticultural tool. Maybe if the
fences are kept small, more distant from the mounds or root pruned, they could
be used, so I am unsure about their efficiency—pest management vs. water loss.
After the summer solstice, the Rain Dance is added to the
Sun Dance, to make a combined ceremony of asking for nurture of the crops by
the sky beings. It is interesting that the Rain Dance is the only agricultural
ceremony that we have a written record of, in a Highgate, Vermont oral history
that recalled an early 20th-century man who performed the dance. The Rain Dance
also has the Sun Dancer, but adds the Moon Dancer and a group of at least four
women who portray a passing thunderstorm, with their carved and befeathered
staffs representing lightning and thunder. Between representations of storms,
the Sun and Moon Dancers dance together to symbolize their influence over the
growing crops and other life on earth. And so with hand tending, song, and
dance, the gardens grow strong.
By August, the waiting is over, the corn and beans are
rapidly approaching ripeness, and the squash and pumpkins are obviously going
to succeed, so it is time to take a breath. Ripe summer squash can be harvested
and made into delicious summer stews, and the skunk beans can be cooked, as are
lima beans—a mere harbinger of the harvest that awaits, offering new
opportunities for ceremony and new cuisine to the mix. But that is another
story!
June 28, 2015
The Union Leader Sunday News Newspaper, Pages F3-F5
By Melanie Plenda – Special to the Sunday News
Native People’s music and manner forced underground for generations
Eyes closed, the room falls away leaving a clearing in
the woods. The air carries the smell of pine boughs and wood smoke and the
sound of a woman’s voice, tender and soft.
“Gailoh nee oot
kwassin …”
A drum quietly thumps in time to the night noises and the
breathing of the woman’s baby, eyes ready to close. Another voice is heard in
the clearing, low and slow, “Oo-ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo,”
as a second drum picks out more sounds. One by one, more voices join in and the
village is quietly alive with the hum of mothers sending their babies off to
sleep with a last word of love before they go.
“We had a gentleman [WHOM IS HE?] who heard this song and he remembered his mother singing it to him
when he was a child,” said Rebecca Bailey of
Piermont, N.H., director of the Voices
of the Koas Abenaki Women’s Choir. “He was in his 90’s … This music has
some real historical significance.”
Its history is particularly important, since up until a
year or two ago, the music of the native people hadn’t been heard in this
region since the early 1900’s. That was when a fear of the
Eugenics craze – the concept of improving a human population by
controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable
characteristics – in Vermont and New Hampshire, caused many
Abenaki to flee and quieted the voices of those who stayed.
But for the past two years, with the help of an Abenaki
historian Frederick
Matthew Wiseman, Rebecca Bailey and a group of determined women
and children have worked to bring back the music of their ancestors back to
life. To that end, the Voices of the
Koas women’s choir has released its first CD filled with recordings of
traditional Abenaki music, such as the Wabanaki
Lullaby, described above.
“It was overwhelming,” Rebecca Bailey,
who is also Abenaki, said about the songs for the first time. “It
was also saddening. Music is an incredible thing. Whether it’s in the language
that you speak or not, it speaks to you. And to think that somehow things had
gone so far awry, that this music had stopped was pretty saddening.”
Early recording
About three years ago, Abenaki historian Frederick Matthew Wiseman was visiting
the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum
in Ferrisburgh, Vermont, when a
colleague shared with him a CD of some recordings that a citizen in the
colleague’s tribe had obtained.
One of them was Abenaki songs from the early 20th century
that, nearest they could tell, was recorded on wax cylinder or an early form of
vinyl. The first recording was from the Abenaki village of Odanak, one of the
two Abenaki communities in Quebec, Canada. The other recording featured Théophile Panadis, an Odanak Abenaki singer, playing the
drum and singing the lyrics to these songs.
“These were just rough recordings,” Frederick M. Wiseman
said. “And the recordings weren’t separated. They were all together. In other
words, it was just one big mish mash.”
Since the CD has passed through several hands before
reaching the museum, it wasn’t clear how old the recording were. But Frederick
Matthew Wiseman said Théophile Panadis,
who died in 1960, sounded elderly in the recording and so placed it sometime in
the 1950’s.
Frederick Matthew
Wiseman understood not only the historical significance of these finds, but
the cultural impact they were going to have as well. He took the CD’s home and
with a computer program, cleaned them up as best he could. His wife, Anna (nee: Roy) Wiseman, then listened
to them over and over again to get the words down on paper. Then, she and her
husband put together a CD that had both the original recording and Anna (nee: Roy) Wiseman singing a
clearer version.
Once it was finished, he shared it with the Koasek of the Koas, one of the four state recognized tribes in Vermont with members
hailing from both New Hampshire and Vermont. When Rebecca Bailey heard the
recordings she knew she had to do something with them. She and a few
like-minded women joined forces to form the Voices of the Koas women’s choir
group with the intent of sharing the songs with members of their tribe and
using them to educate others.
While it is not exactly clear why this music fell out of
use, there are many Abenaki point to the Eugenics Survey of
Vermont as a major reason.
“That’s one of the forces that drove Abenakis
underground,” Frederick Matthew Wiseman said. “So if you were singing the Abenaki
songs or anything like that, you could
be targeted by the Vermont Eugenics Survey of
Vermont.”
Government work
According to the University of Vermont, Henry Farnham Perkins, then a professor of zoology at the
University of Vermont, put together the Eugenics Survey of Vermont in 1925. The
goals of the survey were to further eugenics research, educate the public about
eugenics and reduce populations of those who were considered social problems – including people such as the Abenaki.
This eventually led to atrocities such as Vermont’s
sterilization law in 1931, which asked members of these populations to agree to
voluntary sterilizations. While the majority of these efforts – in this region
anyway – were concentrated in Vermont, New Hampshire also participated.
“The government of both states did this, but more so in
Vermont,” Rebecca Bailey said. “It was a time when being Native American was a
bad thing. A lot of them went into hiding,
some of them up into the mountains, some to Canada, and some were hiding in plain sight. They stopped doing anything that was
the cultural norm for Abenakis. They started changing their names, they weren’t
singing the songs because if someone heard them, they would be pinpointed as
Abenaki and there was sterilization and all sorts of nastiness going on. We have older people to this day that we know are Native Americans and they will not admit it because there is
still the stigma of being Abenaki.”
It makes bringing the culture back even harder, she said,
but that’s not stopping the Voices of the Koasek Women’s Choir group. In
addition to making this recording, the group has traveled to schools, nursing
homes, senior citizen centers, historical societies and festivals all over New
Hampshire and Vermont to share the discovery. At each stop, they sing the songs
and do the dances of their ancestors.
“Our hope all along has been that we remind people that
the Abenaki are still here,” Rebecca Bailey said. “And my own personal hope is
that somebody is going to hear this and they’re going to go, ‘my grandmother
sang that,’ or ‘I remember this,’ or ‘I know of these other songs that were sung
to me,’ and then maybe we can gather more of our lost culture, more of our lost
history by putting this stuff out there.”
The CD’s cost $10.00 dollars and can be purchased on the
Voices of the Koas website voicesofthekoas.com
July 02, 2015
I introduced myself as
Douglas Lloyd Buchholz, that I am researching the “Abenaki” dynamic within VT and NH, as well as mentioning my blog The
Reinvention of the VT and NH “Abenaki.” I inquired about the Medor / Caijias family allegedly being
in the Akwesasne area, allegedly being baptized within the Parish there at
Hogansburg or directly within the Mohawk community of Akwesasne. Janeth Lazore Murphy stated in reply to
my posted inquiry that NO, the Parish Records do not have Abenaki names
therein, ONLY Christian names, and that the ONLY Abenakis she’d ever came
across within the Parish Records of Akwesasne that are extant, were from St.
Francis (Odanak), such as the Benedict’s, Laughing Family.
I also made mention of Frederick Mathew Wiseman PhD, the Bruchac’s, and the “Nulhegan” group having
visited Akwesasne, a brief mention of what I thought of both Wiseman and the
Bruchac’s, and also that Homer St. Francis, Wayne Hoague, and Tom Dostou had
come to their community of Akwesasne in years past, per my research.
Subsequent posts were in
relation to Steven Seagal to Rene Gar and his claims to being a
Mohawk descendant. I shared those genealogical files, one photograph, and a
newspaper article from Aug. 1980 regarding his mother Patricia, with the First Families of Akwesasne.
Also mentioned by my
person, was Doris (Cheney) Decair -
Minkler of Swanton, Franklin County, Vermont. She was known as ‘Grandmother
Doris’ with the Indian name of ‘Morning Dove.’
I made an inquiry or
question to the effect that I had been sensing that a ‘vacuum’ had been created
when the Abenakis, such as the Panadis / Benedict Family had relocated outside
the northwest Franklin County, Vermont area ca. 1790-1830 time frame, that
perhaps MAYBE some “Abenaki” families from Akwesasne had ‘filled’ that vacuum
by moving eastward out of the Hogansburg – Keeseville, New York? And that I
saw Doris Minkler genealogically, descended from the Rice family from MA to
Kahnawake (formerly Caughnawaga) descendant-wise, coming down into Franklin
County, Vermont through the Pierre Dicair (DeCarr)/ Cecile ‘Anenharisonnise’
Rice family ca. 1723-1793 time frame. This couples ancestors having moved from
Kahnawake, to Oka, down into New York
I also made mention in the
postings that Frederick M. Wiseman PhD attempted to ‘steal’ 4 Mohawk men’s
identities, Bero, Loran, Laughing/Laughlin and Squires ... as well as two Chiefs
of the Abenakis, that being Nicolas Panadis/Benedict of Odanak, as well as the
northern NH Upper Coos 1796 Chief named Philipp that had connection with Luie
Metallic of the same time frame. And that Antoine Philips of Franklin County
claimed to be a sibling to Luie Metallic, and implied to both be the sons of
Philipp, the Upper Coos Chief ... that the Vermont Phelps/Philips yDNA qas B-M181 and Metallic’s yDNA
was C-M216. Thereby Antoine Phillips Sr. and Chief Philipp could not be related whatsoever to one another.
Also stated, was that the
Bruchac family, in particular Joseph and Marge Bruchac (siblings) have not shown any
evidence other than their purported “oral history” to imply connection(s) to
the Abenakis, whether at Odanak or Vermont, etc.
I went back onto Face Book and was checking my groups, and noticed that I
was no longer able to access or even see the group ‘First Families of Akwesasne’
while in my Face Book account. I subsequently emailed Darren Bonnaparte of
Akwesasne inquiring if I had posted anything/ or something that perhaps was 'inappropriate' within the group.
July 12, 2015
The Press-Republican
Newspaper [online article] Plattsburgh, NY
By Robin Caudell -
Press-Republican
Home and Garden Section
Retired Professor
tracks ancient seeds: Fred Wiseman to share tales of his hunt for
ancient produce on July 19, 2015
SEEDS OF RENEWAL PROGRAM
This graphic provided by the Seeds of Renewal Project shows
rare heirloom varieties of squashes and pumpkins indigenous to the territory of
the Wabanaki Native American tribe. At the Rokeby Museum in Ferrisburgh,
Vt., on July 19, 2015 Project Director Fred Wiseman will discuss his search
for the seeds of rare and ancient varieties of corn, bean and squash.
FERRISBURGH — Learn about ancient varieties of corn, bean
and squash from Fred Wiseman,
director of the “Seeds of Renewal Project”
at the Rokeby Museum in Ferrisburgh,
Vt.
At 3:00 p.m., July 19, 2015 Wiseman
will give a 10 minute overview of ancient seeds and share his challenges in
locating and obtaining crops that are extinct in Vermont.
“I started in 2011 and talked to a Mohawk ethno-botanist (Steve McComber) friend of mine,” said Wiseman, who is a Johnston State College emeritus
professor (Footnote 1) of anthropology and ethno-botany and member of the Sovereign Abenaki Nation.
“His name is Steve
McComber. He’s from Kahnawake.
He gave me a beginning list of corn, bean and squash varieties he suspected
were Abenaki. That’s how the seed search began.”
Fred Wiseman tried to track seeds in Vermont but only
discovered the cranberry bean.
“People have heard of them but no one had them,” Wiseman
said.
“But people knew people who knew people, and I went
online. Thank goodness for the Internet. By the end of 2012, I tracked down
about 15.”
He pinged on Roy’s Calais, a variety of corn.
“I found it at an organic seed producer in Vermont,”
Wiseman said. “That was one of the earliest ones. I found another source for a
Vermont bean that started in Chester, Vt. called the skunk bean.”
He found a woman in Colorado that raised the bean.
“Steve McComber put me in touch with some seed savers all
the way in Manitoba,” Wiseman said.
“I got a tiny, little variety of corn called Gaspé. I
also got Algonquin squash that is supposed to be growing in this area.”
He chatted with cantankerous farmers, who remembered some
of the lost varieties.
“By 2014, I was able to track some Vermont varieties of
corn, bean and squash being grown in little hill farms,” Wiseman said.
He netted the Dolloff bean.
“That’s a really weird bean grown over in the Northeast
Kingdom.”
Wiseman is working with the Koas, who live in the
Connecticut River Valley around Haverhill, New Hampshire.
“I found rumors of Lancaster bean only 15 miles from
there,” he said. “I know people who know people who know the person that is
supposed to have it. I really want to get that particular variety back to
them.”
In his quest to resurrect a new indigenous cuisine,
Wiseman is hot on the trail of a Tene bean that originates with the
Passamaquoddy on an island off Maine’s coast.The Fortin bean leads him across
Vermont’s border into Quebec.
“Some of these people don’t have the Internet, so I have
to write them,” Wiseman said.
Footnote 1.
In the Vermont State College system, Emeritus status is
granted by special vote of the Board of Trustees, and goes after retirement to
outstanding, long-time professors who have a record of outstanding teaching and
professional achievement and have provided a high level of service to the
college.
