BRAIDING SWEETGRASS: TRADITIONS AND LAND LOST AND RECOVERED IN MAINE

TRADITIONS AND LAND LOST AND RECOVERED IN MAINE

On June 1, Aaron and his brother Tim (Ike) placed half of their mother’s ashes on the rocks at Two Lights, Maine, in keeping with her final wishes.  They stood and watched as the tide came in and carried the ashes out to sea at a place where Mary Alice and their father, Allen (also Ike), had spent many happy times together.  Standing in that beautiful place, it was not difficult to imagine the first peoples who were drawn there, over 12,000 years ago.  They settled there, not only because of the beauty of the sea and the land, but also because of the wealth of natural resources in the area.  Their tribal names reflect the beauty and bounty of the entire region that is now Eastern Maine and Nova Scotia, a region that notably emcompasses Acadia National Park.

The tribe known today as the Maliseet referred to themselves as Wolastoqiyik in their own language, which means "people of the Beautiful River.” 

The tribe known today as the Passamaquoddy had the Indian name of Peskotomuhkat or "those of the place where pollock are plentiful.”

The tribe known today as the Penobscot had the Indian name of Pαnawάhpskewi, or "the people of where the white rocks extend out.”

The tribe known today as the Micmac called themselves L'nu'k, meaning "the people." They prefer the original Indian name Mi'kmaq which comes from their word nikmak, meaning "my kin-friends"

These four tribes are collectively called the Wabanaki (Wapaponiyik or “People of the Dawnland”).   They spoke separate dialects of a common Algonquian language and shared many cultural similarities.

The Wabanaki migrated between more inland winter camps and summer coastal camps.  They understood the seasons for fish spawning and descended to the coast in March for the running of the smelt, then the herring. They hunted geese and gathered their eggs.  They harvested shellfish like clams and mussels, hunted ocean mammals like seals and porpoise, and fished for cod and other fish abundant in the northern Atlantic waters. Throughout the summer they remained by the sea where the coastal breezes brought relief from the biting black flies, deer flies, midges and mosquitos that were a constant bother in their interior settlements during that season.  In September, when the American eels spawned, the Wabanaki knew that frost would soon kill off the insect pests.  In early fall, many Wabenaki returned to their interior encampments to hunt for plentiful wildlife, especially moose and caribou. In addition to these plentiful sources of nourishment, the Indians of this region gathered roots and wild grapes and made sugar from the abundant maple trees.  Among these tribes there was a shared spiritual awareness of the web of life and the inter-connectedness of all natural phenomena.

European explorers began to arrive in the region in the 1500s. Colonists followed, and since that time there have been many movements to both displace the indigenous population and erase the history and culture they developed over thousands of years. The Wabanaki people have remained resilient and continue to tell the history and shape the future of the region.

The Abbe Museum, in Bar Harbor, Maine, is a museum of Wabanaki art, history, and culture.  On the museum’s website, the following statement stands as a witness to the ongoing culture of the Native American tribes in Maine.

“We Welcome You”

Kulasihkulpon (Passamaquoddy/Maliseet)

Pjila’si (Mi’kmaq)

Kolάsihkawələpəna (Penobscot)

In historic times, we, the ckuwaponahkiyik, used this island as a central meeting place to trade, hunt, and fish with one another during the summers. We called the island Pesamkuk, and Bar Harbor itself was known as moneskatik—the Clam Digging Place. The central meeting place on the island was called astuwiku—“it comes together”—and located near modern day Northeast Harbor.

One summer, visitors arrived that would change our way of life forever. They brought with them different technologies and philosophies, and we were forced to make a choice: adapt and survive, or resist and perish. We chose to learn from our surroundings and incorporate these new teachings, in order to keep our traditions alive for future generations.

We succeeded. We are still here. Our cultures and languages are alive and well. This birchbark canoe represents thousands of years of traditional knowledge handed down from generation to generation. While it was constructed in 2013, this canoe is nearly identical to the ones used to greet French visitors to Pesamkuk over four-hundred years ago. Pesamkuk has undergone many changes since that time, as has the land now called Maine. But just as our ancestors did with Samuel Champlain in 1604, kulasihkulpon: we welcome you.

Recent negotiations between the Wabanaki peoples and the federal government have been helpful in recovering some of the traditions important to the earliest peoples who inhabited this land.  Because Acadia National Park is protected land, the United States government prohibited anyone, including the Wabanaki people, from harvesting plants within its boundaries.  In 2015, however, the National Park Service issued regulations for the gathering of certain plants or plant parts by federally recognized Indian tribes.  Among these plants is sweetgrass, considered sacred by the Wabanaki.  These new regulations enable them to once again use these plants in prayer, smudging, and purifying ceremonies important to their culture and spirituality.

In a different kind of development, the Passamaquoddy tribe, in 2021, purchased Pine Island, which was a spiritually important place for the tribe.  When settlers arrived in the area they brought with them European diseases, most notably smallpox, cholera and measles, that decimated the native population with no immunity to these diseases.  Kuwesuwi Monihq, or Pine Island, was the place where many of those who died in these epidemics were buried. In 1794, the island was officially given to the Passamaquoddy tribe in gratitude for their assistance during the revolutionary war.  But when Maine became its own state in 1820, the name of the island was changed and the treaty was voided.  By 1861, a census of the population showed no Passamaquoddy remaining as residents of the island.  The island eventually went to private ownership.  In 2021, chief William Nicholas, leader of the tribe’s Indian township reservation, spotted an ad posted on a bulletin board in a local business. The ad painted an idyllic picture of White’s Island. For $449,000 you could buy 143 acres of forests with sweeping views of the rugged shoreline of Big Lake in Maine, on the east coast of the United States. “[It’s] a unique property … steeped in history …” Nicholas knew that history well and saw this as an opportunity to recover land that was especially significant for his people, land they had not set foot on in 160 years.  With a grant from conservation charities, the tribe raised $355,000, and finally bought the island back.

These kinds of developments are happening in other places too, as the history and culture of those who lived here before us, and who in many places remain today, is being recovered and celebrated.