Who Are the Wabanaki?

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WHO ARE THE WABANAKI? Wabanaki means People of the Dawn. As the first people to greet the sunrise, they are said to be responsible for “holding up the sky” and are the first to see the sun when it rises. The Wabanaki people are a group of five First Nations that are geographically located in the Eastern part of North America. The Wabanaki are united through an organization known as the Wabanaki Confederacy which is a traditional alliance formed to protect each other and an agreement of safe trade and travel. This cultural and spiritual bond grew from respecting one another as family. Five Nations of the Wabanaki Confederacy Nation Name Meaning Mi’kmaq (L’nuk) Family/Friends/My Brothers (the People) Wolastoqey People of the Beautiful, Bountiful River Peskotomuhkatiyik People of the Pollock Penobscot Place where the rocks open out (of the Penobscot River) Abenaki Dawn Land The Confederacy formed between the mid and late 1600’s in response to raids from the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy - specifically the Mohawks). The Confederacy fell dormant in the late 1800s after colonization displaced Indigenous governance systems. Survival became the primary focus for the Wabanaki, who faced foreign diseases and forced expulsion from their traditional lands and routes of travel. In 1993, the Penobscots, initiated a resurgence of collaboration around protecting Mother Earth and Aboriginal title. They lit the council fire and elected a Grand Chief. This fire has been burning ever since! (https://nbcc.ca/indigenous/did-you-know/wabanaki-confederacy) A DEEPER LOOK – check out these resources for more information: News Articles Websites • Wabanaki Confederacy: ‘We’re not https://www.wabanakicollection.com/ dead, our fires are still burning strong’ (APTN) https://www.cbu.ca/indigenous- affairs/mikmaq-resource-centre/the-mikmaq/ • Sacred fire lights the Wabanaki Confederacy (Indian Country Today) .

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Wabanaki Studies Commission Sample Curriculum, 2004
Questions ami ....nslNors about Wabana ld People Q 1. "Who are the Wabanaki people?" A. The Wabanakl people have lived along the northeastem shores of the Atlantic Ocean for 12,000 years. The Wabanakl Confederacy is made up of four unique individual tribes of Maine ana the Maritimes, Indudlng the Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, Maliseet, and the Micmac. The Indian peoples of the Maine and Maritimes fomned the Confederacy as an alliance with the Mohawks, who had been their enemies. Q 2. "Whyare the tribes ofMaine known bymore than one name?' A. Many of the names previously used to refer to a particular group were not the names they called themselves, rather they were names used by others to refer to them. Many commonly used names for the tribes were given to them by other tribes or by Europeans to refer to the place where they lived, that they spoke a different language, or had a distinctlve trait. For example, Wabanaki is a name for the "Land of the Dawn" - that is, the Maine and Maritime Provinces, for they were the first to receive the light of dawn each day. Q 3. ''Do the tribes within the Wabanaki Confederacy speak the same languager A. No. Prior to the Confederacy, each tribe was independent of the other and had formed its own distinctlve form of communication and word usage. Q 4. "WhatIs the presentpopulation ofthe Wabanakl community?N A. The 1990 United States census placed the population of American Indians and Alaska Natives at nearly two million. Of the nearly two million, *** American Indians reside In Maine.
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The Uncommon Enemy: First Nations and Empires in King William's War
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1 Encounters: Allies and Adversaries the Historical
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by University of Maine Maine History Volume 37 Number 3 Frank T. Siebert, Jr. (1912-1998) Article 13 12-1-1998 The Wabanaki Confederacy Willard Walker Weslyan University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mainehistoryjournal Part of the Indigenous Studies Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Walker, Willard. "The Wabanaki Confederacy." Maine History 37, 3 (1998): 110-139. https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mainehistoryjournal/vol37/iss3/13 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@UMaine. It has been accepted for inclusion in Maine History by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@UMaine. For more information, please contact [email protected]. WILLARD WALKER THE WABANAKI CONFEDERACY Willard Walker is a Professor of Anthropol ogy, Emeritus, at Wesleyan University who lives in Canaan, Maine. He did field work with the Great Whale River Crees in the 1950s and the Passamaquoddies in the 1960s. He wrote “The Proto-Algonquians ” in LINGUISTICS AND AN THROPOLOGY: IN HONOR OF C. F. VOEGELIN; “A Chronological Account of the Wabanaki Confederacy, nwithR. Conklingand G. Buesing in POLITICAL ORGANIZATION OF NATIVE NORTH AMERICANS; “Gabriel Tomah’sJournal, ” MAN IN THE NORTHEAST (1981); “Literacy, Wampums, the gudebuk, and How Indians in the Far Northeast Read, ” AN THROPOLOGICAL LINGUISTICS (1984); and “Wabanaki Wampum Protocol, ” PAPERS OF THE 15TH ALGONQUIAN CONFERENCE (1984). In a convincing assessment of Frank Speck’s Penobscot scholarship, Frank Siebert (1982) argues that its flaws can be attributed to Speck’s neglect of early documentary sources, his uncritical acceptance of informants’ assertions, his over-reliance on Newell Lyon, and his failure to consult more knowledgeable Penobscots.
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AVAILABLE from DOCUMENT RESUME RC 020 490 the Wabanakis of Maine and the Maritimes: a Resource Book About Penobscot, Passamaquod
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