Abenaki (?)
Really?
I was fortunate to grow up with two parents who were storytellers and so I heard family stories. My father had gone back into the military after World War 2 because the job market was hard right after people got home from fighting, and so he went to school for a little while and then he went back into the military.
So, I grew up being an Air Force brat and moving as we were called in the service, “brats” moving all over the world
So here I am the child of New England parents, and was born in Wichita, Kansas.
My sister was born there too; and we lived in the Philippines and in Germany and France.
And Ohio and Maryland; we lived all over the place but they my parents grounded us in our families and in New England with the stories they told.
But they were stories generational stories of our family of course.
They also took us camping all the time and so I learned how to, you know, live and balance what to do what to do in nature, how to be in touch with nature.
Because even when we lived in big cities my father and my mother always took us camping everywhere
So that we would have a sense of what, you know, what we needed to know what the earth, you know, really was … which not the big cities and the cars and the towering buildings.
But I didn't know the traditional stories the way you know Louise had such the bounty of being able to hear those and learn them from her grandmother and from other elders.
So, for me, I became a storyteller myself when I became a parent, when I became a mother.
I really, you know, I think we all do, you know.
We think about, what kind of parent do we want to be and what information, you know, what do we want our children to really know that's important to us and for me, you know, I have English Scottish Irish Welsh …
I'm told German and one Swedish great- great-great-great-grandmother who somehow moved to Maine and got into the family tree ...
But here is where I live, and our Abenaki heritage is / was very important to me.
I always knew about it because my mother would tell me and what her grandfather had taught her.
It seemed very close to me because I knew him until I was about 10 years old.
His mother was Abenaki ...
Here is where we live ...
I live here in the Northeast ...
I live in New England and here's where I’m raising my children ...
Not in Europe ...
And so, I knew they would hear all those stories I wanted them to learn the stories of the Abenaki people.
And also, the Mohawk people.
My husband has mohawk heritage.
I started looking around, you know, where was I going to get this information and here I have to give great thanks, you know, kchi wliwini to Joseph Edward Bruchac III, who is an amazing Abenaki storyteller.
Just about the time I was trying to learn how to tell these stories in the early 1990’s
he began to publish a series of books with his partner Michael Caduto and the two of them were Keepers of the Earth and Keepers of the Animals and Keepers of Life and Keepers of the Night.
His voice as a storyteller was so touching to me even just written that I then I had to go seek him out and then I found every storyteller I could find and went and listened. I apprenticed myself to go hear the stories because it's hearing the stories that you can become you can internalize them and start to become a storyteller and every storyteller I've ever met is gracious and wants to pass the stories on, you know, the stories are living entities and they need the breath of life in them they need to be shared they need to be passed on and this is one of the things that I learned from hearing other storytellers; and I was so grateful to be able to share that with my daughters and have one of my, you know, my daughters are in their 30’s now.
I have granddaughters who love to tell those stories, you know, with my younger granddaughter in kindergarten, you know, they were giving everybody their best this award and best that award and little Marilyn came home with the best storyteller award I didn’t even know they had a storyteller award. It was delightful to see that going on my younger daughter Amanda she did some time at Montezuma's Castle, out in Arizona as a park ranger and what she did was tell stories, you know, instead of just giving statistics she had gone with me and she had apprenticed herself to me when I was going out telling stories when she was growing up, and she found that rhythm and that cadence and so when she was in Arizona she found, you know, the people there, the indigenous people, and asked if there were stories that she could share, you know, so it's something that you learn from other storytellers and then it becomes stronger the more stories you hear.
I also remember hearing 'Wolf Song' a.k.a. Rickie Douglass Provencher (1953-2000), who was a wonderful Abenaki storyteller from Maine Vermont who passed on, too young, too early, but he gave that gift of stories and that lives, he lives with them, you know, through them, through us sharing and remembering. I want to thank the two storytellers so much, kchi wliwini, and thank all of you for coming. Please visit the Center for the Humanities website, that will be posted in the chat and the recording for tonight's event will also be available soon at that same website.
Thank you thank you it's been an honor.
(Rickie Douglass Provencher had legally changed his name to 'Wolf Song' in the 1990's ...)
URL Link: Anne Jennison Documentation
Where is her ancestors ever identified as "Abenaki"
Oh that's right... they were all 'hiding-in-plain-sight'
URL Link: Anne Jennison's Narrative Mapping
URL Link: Anne Jennison's Chart Mapping
Anne Richardson (nee: Sylvester) Jennison, an "Abenaki"? Really? When? Where? How?
Perhaps someone could ASK her, and provide my person the objective answer. I doubt she would provide me the answers.
Or she'd reply with the Go_To_Answer ... that her ancestors were all "hiding in plain sight" and there is NO OBJECTIVE evidence to her "Abenaki" ancestry.
OK so trying to ascertain the alleged "Abenaki" ancestor in this one was like TRYING to find "Waldo" in the red and white knit hat in NY City, NY.
Anne's mother Barbara always knew about it (the Abenaki) because Babarba would tell her daughter and what Barbara's grandfather had taught her. It seemes very close to Anne because she knew him until she was about 10 years old. His mother was Abenaki" ...
That alleged "Abenaki" being Alice M. Turner, or Mary Esther Boyden.
Find Waldo.
(It will be easier to find than the alleged "Abenaki" I assure you!)
In all of her storytelling, Anne Sylvester - Jennison NEVER mentions specifically WHO that "Abenaki" was in her ancestry. NEVER the Living Relations or COMMUNITY, in which her ancestor lived. WHY not? I surmise it's because she's using a remote ancestor SHE HERSELF CLAIMS was "Abenaki" in which to promote herself.
As for her husband Charles Jennison being of "Mohawk" "heritage" again, it's very likely so remote of an ancestor, if at all ever existed in the first place. AGAIN, what COMMUNITY? CLAN? Mohawk names? I found NOTHING ...
Just more storytelling and self-promotion by her, a white woman Playing "Abenaki" in New Hampshire (?) like so many others in VT/NH.
I did like the "My husband is of Mohawk heritage" comment in her presentation. That was what, 15 years of genealogy to "discover" before that was announced by her? Or was it some storytelling going on from one of his parents too, about some 9th generation "Mohawk" alleged ancestor, due to the 'romantic' notions, much like Joe Bruchac claiming he too was an Iroquoian Indian, legitimizing his Iroquoian storytelling for $$$$$?
URL Link: Charles Douglas Jennison Chart Mapping
Find the Mohawk. It might not be as easily found as finding Waldo in a book.
Anne Jennison is listed on the N.H. Traditional Artists Roster as a traditional Abenaki Storyteller & craftsman.
Anne Jennsion is also a member of both the N.H. Commission on Native American Affair of New Hampshire and Indigenous N.H. Collaborative Collective. Additionally, Jennison is an affiliate faculty member for the UNH Native American and Indigenous Studies (NAIS) Minor and a co-creator of the “People of the Dawnland” interpretative exhibit about the Abenaki/Wabanaki people at Strawberry Banke Museum in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, For more information about Anne R. (nee: Sylvester) Jennison, go to www.annejennison.com
URL Link: IT PAYS TO BECOME "ABENAKI"!
