In a judicial continuance, Warren Bowman was a defendant in a term of the Supreme Court at Ballston Spa where he had been charged with a serious crime alleged to have been committed against a young girl (his sister’s daughter Lozella a.k.a. “Rozella” per the local newspaper articles). He was discharged by County Judge L. B. McKelvey because the complaining witness did not appear at that or previous court terms when the case had been scheduled for trial. (45)
The evidence against Warren Bowman as the culprit of the Dunham sawmill burning to the ground appeared to have been the finding of a jug in the mill pond, which contained gasoline and evidence that he had that same jug filled at a gas station on Church street the day before the blaze. (46)
In November of 1924, Warren Bowman, having been indicted for perjury, failed to appear when his judicial case was called, and Judge McKelvey instructed District Attorney Charles B. Andrus to send officers into the woods after him. He was said to be on a deer hunting trip. If he was not found, his bail of $2,500.00 would be forfeit. If Warren Bowman happened to be found by the officers, or returned voluntarily, he would have been tried before Judge Rogers, as County Judge McKelvey stated politically-speaking he had been disqualified from hearing the case, the latter Judge having held Warren for perjury during the trial of another case before him. (49)
In May of 1925, Warren Bowman was a fugitive from justice. (50) Michael Hayes, one of the accused, and his family, were in the business of ‘moon-shining’ during Prohibition. Apparently the Hayes family didn’t like the fact that Ed Dunham had reported them previously to the Sheriff; thereby upsetting the Hayes boys, causing a feud between the Dunham and Hayes families (much like the Hatfield’s and the McCoy’s … two rural families of the West Virginia–Kentucky area along the Tug Fork of the Big Sandy River in the years 1863–1891). (Michael Hayes died in 1938).
And the Bowman’s got caught up in association with the two families.
[Much like the Hatfield's and the McCoy's]
On June 15, 1925, the case of Warren Charles Bowman, having been indicted for perjury, having absconded “to go hunting” and thereby forfeiting the bail amount of $2,500.00, his case was held on the judicial calendar awaiting his eventual arrest. (51)
Warren Charles Bowman’ older brother Jesse Elmer Bowman and his second wife Flora Edna (Dunham), having sold their farm, began building another residence on the site that was made vacant by the burning of her parent’s home. (52)
Later, Lozella (Stone) Bowman married a second time, to a Charles Terry on January 18, 1927 in Niagara Falls, NY, and they subsequently had 6 children.
Warren Charles Bowman ‘disappeared’ the previous year (or was he murdered?). Or did he simply move away to parts unknown? Perhaps changing his name? Become incarcerated?
In the newspaper, Greenfield Recorder (Massachusetts), Pages 1-2, Marge Bruchac, an illustrator and designer in Northampton, MA, stated that she was raised to think of herself as a white child, and any
thought of being connected to ‘Indian’ bought a lot of pain for her and her family. She went on to state that her maternal grandfather, Jesse E. Bowman’s brother Warren was killed by the Klu Klux Klan, explaining that “the murder set a precedent of repressed identity for her family.”
Margaret Bruchac also stated that she was “trying to find a sense of herself” by participating in English dancing and Medieval reenactments.
Perhaps the feud between the Hayes folks, along with Warren’s “involvement” with Lozella, his niece, had convinced Flora Marion (Dunham) Bowman to ‘disallow’ any of her husband’s siblings of attending any social visits to her house. They weren’t welcome. It wasn’t about being connected to any alleged “Indian past”, as Joe Bruchac, the author, implies that his grandparents “tried to hide” their allegedly “Indian-ness”.
The Bowman’s Store author, subjectively states that his mother’s father, Jesse, would disappear for days at a time, never saying where he was off to, that “he would go to Vermont or Bacon Hill or Stoney Creek to visit those relatives who were ‘too Indian’ to come to the house where she ruled the roost.” (54)
If Jesse Bowman didn’t say where he was going, or why, then that question has to be asked: How does the author Joseph Bruchac know where his grandfather Jesse Bowman went to, for what reasons, or who Jesse was actually visiting, and whether those people that Jesse visited, were “too Indian” or not?
In the Censuses of 1900, 1910, 1915, 1920, 1925, 1930, and 1940 Jesse Elmer Bowman and all of his siblings who lived up to those census years, both state and federal, were identified as being (or identifying as) White; not as Indians, Native Americans, or the like. (55)
Joseph E. Bruchac (II) and his wife Marion Flora (Bowman) married in January 31, 1940 and on October 16, 1942 they had their first child, a son, named Joseph Edward Bruchac (III), the author of Bowman’s Store, ©1997. (56)
One can discern that there was ‘a sort of mysticism’ when Jesse E. Bowman and later his grandson ‘Sonny’ (Joe) were thinking of, or speaking about, or concerning Native Peoples, especially Mohawks.
Finding a stone arrowhead in Jesse Bowman’s garden, Native People’s were the ‘exotic other’ in the minds of both Jesse and his youthful grandson ‘Sonny’. Joe Bruchac mentions that his grandfather Jesse spoke of Indians as both in a reverent way and his elder grandfather being amused about Indians.
Jesse Elmer (1886-1970) Bowman never spoke of being Indian or Abenaki at all.
Nowhere in the book Bowman’s Store is there any indication that Jesse interacted or visited with Abenaki people. It’s implied by Joe mentioning his granddad Jesse going off (allegedly) to Vermont to visit someone or going to another Bowman’s place, to “do Indian things” (57) but those alleged activities are never articulated or objectively validated. It’s merely subjective narrative by Joe, and his sister Marge Bruchac.
To the author, Joseph E. Bruchac III, everything pointed to the Abenaki or at least being Indian (in hiding).
Yet, what if such “evidence” is simply based on the author’s bias, beliefs and perceptions, from the dark-skinned grandfather, to “fitting the ground” to climbing the ladder to the peak of his house, to not striking a child, and that his grandparents did not lock their doors at night, etc?
In the author Joe’s mind, these were all attributes, traits and behaviors that he (Joe) himself concluded was “proofs” or “evidence” that Grandpa Jesse was an Indian who had been “hiding-in-plain-sight” throughout his lifetime. “Jesse E. Bowman was an Abenaki” became a mental and vocal mantra. Therefore, Jesse’s father, Louis “Bowman,” must have been an “Abenaki” too. And thereby Bruchac’s as well. But it was all pseudo-evidence, of a subjective nature.
Yet, Jesse E. Bowman in 4th grade, took as an insult, being called an “Indian” subsequently getting into a physical altercation with the grade school name-caller, and jumping out of a schoolhouse window, never to go back to any formal educational pursuits. (58)
When Jesse and Marion (Dunham) Bowman brought into their home a new Philco brand television when ‘Sonny’ (Joseph Bruchac II, the author) was about 6 years of age, not only did Grandpa Jesse watch Gun Smoke, but that his grandson was spellbound by Hollywood actors dressed up as Indians, and or the Africans on Tarzan etc. (59) While going on weekend road trips with his mother and father (and his sisters alongside), Joe Jr. went to see the exotic animals that he manages to get close to, pet, and study.
As he got older, he was fascinated by the Pueblo Indian named ‘Swift Eagle’ and his wife who worked at Frontier Town. Joe Jr. wanted to be an Indian even at that young age. Apparently it was somewhat routine on the summer weekends for Joseph Bruchac Sr., with his wife Marion, and their two daughters, along with their son ‘Sonny’, to make a tour of multiple Adirondack-based tourist attractions such as Frontier Town, Animal Land and or the Enchanted Forest, etc.
But it was the ones with the created-Indian Villages, attended by Mohawks and/or Abénakis, that caught 'Sonny' Joe Bruchac's attention the most. These tourist attractions employing 'Indians' ...
Such as Ray Fadden and Maurice Denis (Jules Louis ‘Maurice’ Denis (1908-1987)’ mother was Marie Cléophée O’Bomsawin dite Robert (1877-1934). His father was Jules Paul dit Denis; both parents and their children being Abénakis from Odanak.) (60)
The Bowman’s Store author’s parents didn’t approve of their young son playing with Indian weaponry; such as Maurice Dennis showing their son Joe Jr. how to throw a hatchet (tomahawk) or Ray Fadden’s showing him how to aim and shoot a bow & arrow. (61)
Was it really because his parents didn’t want their young son to be associating with ‘those’ Indians, while visiting these Adirondack-based tourist attractions?
Psychologically and physically, the author’s father was obviously an occasionally angry, temperamental, volatile abuser who had frequently lost control of his emotions, not only towards his wife Marion, but also towards his son ‘Sonny’ and daughters, Mary and Margie. Instead of realizing the abusive nature in the father himself, Joe (II) would blame his son in the back seat of their car for any altercations in the back seat between the estranged sibling sisters. In essence, the author, by “becoming-an-Indian”, and looking to his grandfather “as-an-Indian”, he began recreating ‘a safe, nurturing parentage’ that he didn’t have in his childhood from his own father, i.e. because “Abenaki Indians didn’t strike their children,” (62) contrary to what his own father had done to his young son.
Joseph “Sonny” Edward Bruchac III wasn’t just fascinated by Indians, but in watching Tarzan shows, it was African people, along with the exotic animals, that first fascinated him as a young person.
Margaret Bruchac (the author’s youngest sister) also said, “My grandfather and mother denied they were Indians. One of my grandfather’s brothers [Warren Charles Bowman] was killed by [KKK] vigilantes. Her grandfather was dark-skinned and he said that he was black.” (63)
Was this also known to her brother Joe and that was why he was so keen on that particular ‘exotic other’ … African peoples and their folklore in the late 1960’s?
The author as he grew to adulthood began mentally creating ‘an alternate reality’ of his own ancestors, contrary to the reality of his Bowman mother (Marion), grandfather (Jesse) and great-grandfather (Louis Bowman Sr.)’s actual histories, it would seem. As the book Bowman’s Store shows, by the author’s own words, as he was growing up, he stated that he was imaginative.
Joseph Bruchac III, as a child, gained most of his knowledge about the Indian encampment on Congress Park and the Indian history of the area by reading from books and old documents he’d read while in the Saratoga Springs Public Library; not from his Bowman grandfather Jesse etc. The author says “one could see the Indian in Jesse’s face, but never would one hear it from Jesse Bowman’s own lips.” (64)
One day (according to Joseph Bruchac) his father Joe Sr., told his then-16-19 year old son, “Jesse E. Bowman was an Abénaki Indian,” while getting into the car to go pheasant hunting in the nearby cornfields. (65)
This was mentioned only once by the author’s father
But that was enough for Sonny’s imagination.
In August of 1961 (per the newspaper article), Jesse E. Bowman, owner and operator of the gas service station at Splinterville in Greenfield, reported $9.00 dollars had been taken from the cash register while he was servicing a car. After investigation, James Harrington, 16, of Middle Grove, was charged with taking the money, whereupon he pleaded not guilty and a hearing was scheduled a week later before Greenfield Justice Frank Wells. The boy was placed into the custody of his father. Two other boys admitted to taking part in the theft and also admitted to taking a quantity of cigarettes. Their case was referred to Children’s Court. (66)
In the book Bowman’s Store, the author stated that after graduating from Saratoga Springs High School, he wanted to go to college and become a naturalist; that he would like to live outdoors and to write about animals. Much as Archibald Stansfeld Belaney (September 18, 1888 – April 13, 1938), commonly known as Grey Owl, who was a popular Canadian writer, public speaker and conservationist, had done? Joseph Bruchac envisioned that he would travel to places like far away ‘exotic’ Africa. (67) Joe later did go on to Cornell College on a Regents Scholarship. (68) As the Bowman’s Store author wrote, he came to the realization that, even more than becoming a naturalist, he wanted to become a writer about the natural world, and the more that he wrote, the more that writing led him on a quest for his own Native ancestry. He took out a student loan to cover the costs of his educational tuition. (69)
Joseph, the author married in June of 1964 to Carol (Worthen), daughter of Albert Woolman Worthen and Kathleen June (Haberly) (70).
The next year Bruchac gained his A.B. from Cornell, where he had majored in English, with a minor in Zoology. (71)
He began to ride his Harley Davidson motorcycle out to the Onondaga Mohawk Community often and talk with elders (72) Jesse Bowman always approved of Joe’s poems and stories, many of them Joe has said, were about his search for his Native heritage, yet his Grandpa Jesse still never openly acknowledged or talked about his own alleged Abénaki ancestry to Joe (73), always saying “I’m French.” (74)
Jesse Elmer Bowman insisted that he was of French descent, up to his death in late January 1970.
Joseph E. Bruchac III got his M.A. in English Literature in Creative Writing in 1966 from Syracuse University, where he received a University Writing fellowship.
While in college, Joe “Sonny” Bruchac would spend every spare moment in gathering (and extracting) information about Native American traditions. (75)
Thereafter, Joe and Carol Bruchac joined the Peace Corps and went to the West African country of Ghana, for three years (1966-1969), where he taught in the Keta Secondary School in Ghana, and in the latter part of those 3 years he served as a liaison officer for the Teachers for West Africa Program. He was also a volunteer teacher and for a year he was national chairman of the Ghana Association of Teachers of English. (76) They also had their first child, a son, James Edward Bruchac on June 24, 1968. In 1969, the trio of Bruchac’s returned to New York State. (77)
On January 22, 1970, Alex Haley had delivered a lecture at Skidmore College in upstate New York. Skidmore College is private, independent liberal arts college in Saratoga Springs and Joseph Bruchac, who was an Minority Ethnic Studies Instructor in Black and African history at Skidmore College, was also had a notable article on that same front page. (78)
Bruchac swore (in an affidavit seven years later) that he had discussed with author Alex Haley and that Bruchac had found author Haley “to know so relatively little about” West African history that Bruchac recommended the then-to-be-published historical novel, The African.
Surprised Alex Haley had not even heard of the book, Joseph Bruchac had driven back to his home, a mere three miles away, to retrieve his “own personal copy of 'The African'.”
“Here, you can keep it,” Joseph Bruchac had said, handing Alex Haley the book. Haley replied, “Thank you, I’ll read it on the plane.” (79)
Jesse Elmer Bowman died January 28, 1970 at the Saratoga Hospital at the age of 83 years of age, a veteran of WW1 and he was a lifelong resident of the town of Greenfield. (80)
The Bruchac’s began the Greenfield Literary Review Center, Inc. on July 17, 1970 starting with a monetarily saved amount of $2,000.00 of which came from selling an old ‘VW’ in Ghana retrospectively.
Later they received grant money from the N.Y. State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts, for example – to help pay for the costs. In 1971 they published their first book, authored by Joe Bruchac and William Witherup, entitled “Words from the House of the Dead,” a collection of inmate poems smuggled out of Soledad Prison.
In 1971: Indian Mountain and Other Poems. The cover of the booklet of poetry is Kokopelli, a drawing of which Joseph Bruchac, used from then, often at book signings.
In June of 1971, Jesse E. Bowman’s sister Eva May Bowman died.
The following January 14, 1972, Joe and Carol’s son Jesse Bowman Bruchac was born (81), named (of course) after his great-grandfather, that had raised his father "Joe" / "Sonny"/ Joseph up to adulthood.
It was in this year, that increasingly, the Greenfield Review poetry books had Native Indian artistic drawings on the covers and or in the interior.
In January of 1973, Joe’s paternal grandmother Pauline Apolena (Hrdlicka) Bruchac died, and the following August, John “Jack” Bowman died in Glens Falls, NY. (82)
Jesse Bowman's younger brother John used to deliver the Coca-Cola soft drinks to the grocery and gas station that his brother Jesse operated (but he was never allowed to step over the threshold of her ... Marion (Dunham)'s doorstep.
By 1973, Joe had graduated from State University of NY in Albany. Again, another Greenfield Review Press book of collected poems was entitled “Hopi Roadrunner Dancing” by Wendy Rose (Chiron Khanshendel), along with some books published in 1974.
By 1975, Joe had gained his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature of the Union Institute & University of Cincinnati, Ohio, graduating in the Class of 1975. That same year, he had books The Manabozho Poems’, Turkey Brother and other tales: Iroquois folk stories. The latter book Signed by Joseph Bruchac at the end of the text. Bruchac has additionally inscribed the book on the title page: “Falling Leaf Moon 10/7/82 For Sylvia, Peace, Joe”.
Joe Bruchac had drawn Kokopelli, the humpbacked Indian flute player, to the right of his signature. Clearly his created persona as an Abenaki author and self-identity were solidified by this time.
In the Ithaca Journal Newspaper, dated December 13, 1975, he was identifying as a poet storyteller and claiming to be part-Indian himself, who enjoyed telling his two sons about Turtle and his friends, so much so, that he wrote a book of Indian folk tales. Thus he began telling these stories to other children. Much of what he began doing seemed stepped in Indian tradition. He told the children how "Indian parents never spanked or hit their children", but had other ways to discipline them.
Bruchac started dressing "the part" for "the act" and wore a bear’s tooth necklace. He also put an Indian symbol on his guitar case. He told classrooms, other audiences and media reporters that he was part, Abénaki, flaunting his Indian heritage, claiming that some of his ancestors were full-blooded Indians. He began promoting his deceased grandfather Jesse Bowman as Abénaki Indian through “Seven Sections from the Dream of Jesse Bowman.”
According to the Schenectady Gazette Newspaper, Page 08, dated February 04, 1978 book author and presenter Joseph Bruchac claimed to be half-Indian. And it is within this year, that Bruchac published many books of Native poets: ‘The Next World’ – Poems by Third World Americans: Edited by Joseph Bruchac; Entering Onondaga (Poems) Illustrations by Kahonhes; Mu'ndu Wi 'Go: Mohegan Poems; and Stone Giants and Flying Heads: Adventure Stories of the Iroquois.
According, (by his own admission verbally) Joseph Bruchac III stated that he carried around in his wallet, a 1978 created and obtained St. Francis – Sokoki “Abenaki” Membership Card #3312 issued by Homer Walter St. Francis Sr. This created incorporation that had been merely created in May of 1975, retrospectively, that is today, based in Swanton, Franklin County, Vermont. Joseph Bruchac III was 36 years old at this time.
In 1979, the Greenfield Review Press, with Carol (Worthen) Bruchac received a grant of $3,000.00 dollars given by the NY State Council on the Arts, to support the publication of at least three books of poetry. The Greenfield Review Press, and the poetry magazine which the Bruchac’s edited, The Greenfield Review, had received numerous grants of monies in the previous years from such organizations as the National Endowment for the Arts, the Coordinating Council of Literary Magazines and in 1977, an earlier grant from the state Arts Council.
Joseph Bruchac, the editor of the Greenfield Review Press, was a winner of both a National Endowment for the Arts Grant and a state CAPS Grant for his poetry.
In September 1980, the Joe and Carol Bruchac received $5,000.00 dollar fellowship, awarded by the Coordinating Council of Literary Magazines.
On December 01, 1980 published was Translator's Son, by Joseph Bruchac, Stanley H. Barkan (Editor), Kahionhes (John Fadden), Illustrator) which was book of a collection of poems. This copy was inscribed by Bruchac to his parents Joseph II and Marion (Bowman) Bruchac: "Moon of Falling Leaves/ 1980/ For Dad & Mom/ Peace/ Your Son," and his signature Kokopelli drawing. According to the text, a "translator's son" is a term used among certain of the Lakota people to refer to a person of mixed Indian and white ancestry.
The New York State Council on the Arts had announced on December 12, 1981, that Joseph Bruchac of Greenfield Center, New York, served under the sponsorship of a $5,000.00 dollar council grant designed to encourage the creation of new works of literature by the writer-in-residence and made the services of himself to the community. The services included the hosting of writing workshops, poetry readings, and acting as a consultant in contemporary poetry to the Saratoga Springs Public Library as the writer-in-residence, from January through until June of 1982. Under the terms of the grant Bruchac spent two days out of each week conducting workshops or other activities for the library and community. The workshops were free to those who attended.
Bruchac had by this point more than 18 published collections of poetry, folk tales and fiction, his poems, stories and articles have appeared in more than 300 magazines over the past 15 years, including Adirondack Life, The American Poetry Review, The Nation, The Ohio Review, Salmagundi and Poetry Australia. Past honors for his work include a National Endowment for the Arts writing fellowship and the Cornell University Poetry Prize.
In late April 1982, in the Schenectady Gazette Newspaper, Page 43 by Eleanor Koblenz, it was written that Joseph E. Bruchac III’s interest in Indian Lore was very legitimate, "because, since his maternal grandfather, the late Jesse Elmer Bowman, was an American Indian of the Odanak Tribe, in whose care Joe was raised in".
Joseph himself claimed that Jesse Bowman’s father, Lewis sold ash wood baskets and "was a member of the thirteen nations of the Abenakis Indians from Maine".
When Joe’s grandfather came to live in the Adirondacks, Jesse Bowman himself had denied he was an Indian. It was years before Joe knew had Indian blood, but that Jesse Bowman had taught his grandson a great many values that Joe discovered were are based on "Indian ethics". Jesse was semi-literate when he married Joe’s Grandmother, a literary-minded Skidmore graduate who also had gone to Albany Law School. She had inspired ‘Sonny’ to read and love literature. Through the years Joseph Bruchac searched for his Indian heritage in his writing. He studied the Iroquois and Abenaki languages and had celebrated these nations in his poetry. In the verse he hoped to write as a result of winning the CAPS award, he emphasized the influence of the American Indian culture and beliefs on the Adirondack population.
By 1983, Joseph Bruchac’s sister Margaret Bruchac moved back to the northeast from the mid-west, “to be closer to her family.” By August of that year, having been interviewed by the “Abenaki expert” John Scott Moody. Jim Medor, of the Swanton-based St. Francis-Sokoki Group that which the Bruchac’s became card-holding members of in 1978, (working with John S. Moody) began to perpetuate the subjective narrative, that Bruchac’s great-grandfather came from “a Bouman (Obomsawin) family. Their presence suggests that migration back and forth to that area as well as Odanak was still occurring in 1910. In fact, oral tradition from the Bowman descendant Joseph Bruchac family and the Maurice Denis Adirondack Abénaki family had allegedly confirmed the existence of the Vermont Abenaki community in the 20th century.”
Yet, this “Bouman” in the 1910 Census in Highgate, Vermont was actually a Roman/ Raymon(d) Family in Franklin County, Vermont that was NEVER derived of the Odanak-based O’Bomsawin family of Abénakis; nor is this a Bowman family, as had been alleged by Jim Medor in the Petition (dated later on January 10, 1986).
In 1984, Bruchac was still claiming his ancestors were Abenaki Indians to a crowd of 4th and 5th grader children at the Aker Elementary School part of the Cobleskill Elementary Teachers and Parents organization’s “Meet the Author” series. The children all believed him, when he said he was Abénaki Indian, right along with the teachers Johnson and Spivac.
Two years later, in January 1986, Joe’s father Joseph II had passed away, in Greenfield, Saratoga County, New York, the son of Jozef Michael Bruchac and Pauline Hrdlicka (both of whom were from Czechoslovakia). The following September (1986), Bruchac, the author and poet continued to claim he was of Abénaki Indian ancestry, and implied that Native/Indian/ Abénaki stories were told to him by his late grandfather, Jesse E. Bowman. The program, held at the First Congregational Church of Christ was funded by Poets and Writers, Inc., which in turn is funded by the Literature Program of the New York State Council on the Arts.
As of May 1988, Joseph Bruchac’s younger son Jesse began performing, and continuing in the Bruchac family tradition, also believed and claimed that he was of partial Abénaki descent. Jesse Bruchac began studying Abénaki music, language and folklore with elders in the Odanak, Quebec, Canada Reserve Mission community; and from those also claiming to be "Abenakis" in Swanton, Franklin County, Vermont community.
Both sons of Joseph Bruchac III, growing up, witnessed and realized that it was profitable to be American Indian, just as their father had realized in the early to mid-1970s. Jesse Bowman Bruchac’s appearance, free and open to the public, was part of the second annual state-wide Horizons series of cultural events sponsored by CCV. The Horizons series is supported in part by the Vermont State College Richard E. Bjork Fund.
Of course, taking a photograph at Odanak Abénaki community in 1988 of Juliette M’Sadoques standing next to Jesse E. Bruchac’s grandmother, Marion Flora (nee: Bowman) Bruchac, helped in solidifying the Bruchac self-identity dynamics of allegedly being “Abenakis” to the naïve public.
In this same month, five “Abenaki” experts came together for a program “to explain the Indians’ history and culture and that Vermont’s Abenakis had been “invisible through 200 years of white history.” This program was sponsored by the Swanton Historical Society, the Center for Research on Vermont and the Plainfield Meeting of the Society of Friends. These “experts” were William Haviland, Marjory Powers, Colin G. Calloway, Joelen Mulvaney, and of course, Joseph Edward Bruchac III, the later presenter who wore a bear tooth necklace and a medicine pouch on his belt, claiming he was a quarter- Abénaki; and he claimed that he grew up with his grandparents who had reared him in the traditional Abénaki ways, where storytelling had replaced spanking, lacing his storytelling presentation with Abénaki words and phrases he’d picked up along the way.
In December of 1989, Bruchac claimed that his Canadian-based Abénaki ancestors, part of the Indian nation that encompassed most of New England, parts of southeastern Canada and that stretched into the northern Adirondacks, had been traced to 1637 in Three Rivers, Quebec, Canada, where Jesuit missionaries kept careful records in their quest; and that his maternal great-grandparents, whose family surname (Bowman), was originally Obomsawin – which translates into “keeper of the council fire” – moved from Canada to the Saratoga Springs area where "they sold baskets to tourists".
Joseph Bruchac III said he had taken care to impart his ancestral knowledge and viewpoint to his two sons and that his two sons had followed him in developing a keen interest in their Abénaki heritage. Of course they did, because it has been profitable for them to do so.
Such has been the Bruchac popularity with the naïve public audiences they attract and perform for, that the genealogical “I’m-an-Abénaki-too” ruse, that no one bothered to objectively validate the Bruchac narrative about the Bowman great-grandfather, Louis (1844-1918) and grandfather Jesse (1886-1970) being who Joe subjectively SAID they were.
Wearing the stereotypical Ribbon shirt, moccasins, with a braid of sweetgrass, painted hand drum, carried in a Kokopelli decorated carrying bag, pondering on the living room floor, sits Joseph Edward Bruchac III, with longer hair, and ponders in December of 1990 …
Claiming in mid-December 1990 that he had suddenly realized that until he was an adult, he’d never been struck as a child by an adult, he found that not striking a child to be a “typical Native American child-rearing behavior.” Throughout his career, Joseph Bruchac, 48, has spread the knowledge that he has learned from Native writings.
He’s told his stories at countless correctional centers, at schools, in libraries. Joseph Bruchac’s poems and stories have appeared in more than 400 magazines and have been translated into 11 languages. He is the author of two published novels, 14 collections of poetry and two non-fiction books.
He went to the Netherlands and England to perform his storytelling as well.
In early February of 1991, Bruchac put out a cassette tape, again perpetuating his “Abénaki ancestry” and that he had been a storyteller-in-residence at the Onondaga Indian School and the Akwesasne Mohawk School, including authoring a book, Abénaki Legends in French with the illustrator being Eddy R. Obomsawin.
"Forever Wild"
The Bruchac's and Marion (Bowman) Bruchac
shortly after October 06, 1991
A very interesting and revealing read
By Mary A. (Bruchac) Lynch
In April 1992, as the ‘Dawnland Singers,’ the Bruchac’s (James, Marge, Jesse, and Joseph E. Bruchac) were performing as a group at the Highgate, Vermont-based Airport “as Abénakis” ...
Jim, Marge, Jesse and Joe Bruchac
The following year in March of 1993, Joe stated in an interview with NPR:
“I found myself growing up with two heritages that I knew very little about. I was curious about them … I began to directly seek out more about my Native American heritage. I sought it from books, I sought it from other people, and I sought it at the feet of elders, listening to everything they would have to say. By the time I became an adult, my mother (Marion Flora Bowman – Bruchac) referred to me a few years ago as “my son, the Indian.”
It is interesting that she seemed to be perplexed by her son’s actions and performances, and his persona as an “Indian” yet complicit in her silence of the Bowman familial narrative. Marion Flora Bowman perhaps knew little about her paternal family ancestors, and thus remained silent and somewhat curiously charmed to her son developing his Abenaki Indian persona. It was popular and profitable.
Joseph Bruchac, in September of 1993, implied he had relatives that included members of the Abenaki tribe of Vermont and New Hampshire, but that he didn’t know he had any American Indian blood until he was in his late teenage years. “My grandfather was an Abénaki, but he would often tell people he was French,” Joseph Bruchac said, “It was kind of a family secret.” Joe stated he was proud of his Abénaki heritage. His Abénaki ancestors were part of an Indian nation that once encompassed most of New England, part of southeastern Canada and the northern Adirondacks.
“So much of what we read about Native Americans presents them as cardboard characters and stereotypes,” he said. “I wanted to show them in a situation in which they are not influenced in any way by Europeans. I wanted to show the respect they had for each other, for plants, for animals and for the world around us. The people of Dawn Land have created a thriving community in balance with nature and with each other.” “I’ve worked many years accumulating this knowledge of Native American people.”
December 31, 1998
"Dawnland Singers share living Abenaki culture"
In February 1994, Musician Jesse B. Bruchac (son of Joseph E. Bruchac III) explained how his Abénaki ancestors – he is Abénaki, English, and Slovak – had adopted and embraced parts of Christianity that suited their culture. Jesse B. Bruchac lived (temporarily) on the Odanak Abénaki Reservation in Quebec, and worked for the Abenaki Tribal Council in Swanton, Vermont.
His aunt and musical partner Margaret “Marge” Marie Bruchac is an illustrator and designer in Northampton, Massachusetts. During one of Marge Bruchac’s songs, about history’s treatment of her Odanak Abénaki ancestors, her eyes welled up with tears. When asked about it later, she admitted that the song deals with some of the most painful parts of her past.
“I was raised to think of myself as a white child and any thought of being connected to ‘Indian’ brought a lot of pain for me and my family,” she said. “My grandfather (Jesse Elmer Bowman)’s brother (Warren Charles Bowman) was killed by the Klu-Klux-Klan,” she said, explaining that “the murder set a precedent of repressed identity for her family.”
END of Part 1
