Vermont Governor Phil Scott has renewed his annual Executive Proclamation of Abenaki Heritage & Recognition Week as of today, May 1, 2024. The week itself will run from May 5th through May 11th for this year of 2024, which is the 6th year in a row this action has been taken by the Governor.

First in the series. The Vermont Truth & Reconciliation Commission presents this series of discussions that speaks to the truth by examining history and present-day realities of the impacted communities outlined in Act 128.

Leading scholars of indigenous identity and belonging gathered at UVM on Thursday to examine contested claims of indigeneity in our region. Before the talk began, protestors were outside the Dudley H. Davis Center, proclaiming these discussions were the opposite of educational.

 "There is not one Abenaki past, but a complex, dynamic story, as their culture changed and adapted as much as that of any people," Goodby notes. Many areas most important to the Abenaki have been completely developed, like Bellows Falls, Vermont, which was once a major fishing site, village and burial ground. But Goodby says, "You can go there and look at the rivers and waterfalls that were — and are — so important to the Abenaki."

The College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Vermont hosted a panel discussion on April 16 in the Silver Maple Room of the Davis Center to highlight the collaborations between the university and the four Vermont Abenaki tribes and other indigenous people.

Members of Vermont's indigenous community gathered on Tuesday to issue a call for tolerance and wider discussion after members of the Abenaki nation in Canada have called into question the validity of state recognition in Vermont. "We're looking for connection. We're looking for restoration. We're looking for healing," said Rich Holschuh chair of the Vermont Commission on Native American Affairs. "We're not looking for divisiveness. We're not looking for power, and we're not looking for control."

…The press conference [began] with an appeal to the Abenakis of Odanak in Canada for a detente. "We're calling for discussion, an open and healing exchange among our own people," Holschuh said. "This is not a matter to be arbitrated by others, whether they are academic, the public or the media."

UVM faculty, staff, and students have established and maintain productive relationships with members of Vermont’s four State recognized Abenaki tribes and other indigenous people who live in Vermont or represent descendant communities with ancestral ties to the region. This panel will explore these relationships and highlight some of the knowledge developed and shared as they have and continue to work to address common goals.

Let me start off by saying two things. I am an enrolled member of the Nulhegan Abenaki Tribe, an Indigenous Tribal Nation that is legally recognized by the state of Vermont.

I am also an ally and a friend of Odanak First Nation, one of two small Abenaki Reserves in Quebec, Canada. My family and I have been so for many decades.

That should be all I need to say, but the unrelenting attacks on the legitimacy of the Vermont Abenaki Nations — and on my own reputation — have made it necessary for me to speak up.

A commentary letter by LEAG member David Mulholland to The Commons (Wednesday, January 31, 2024 — Issue 750) under the full title 'A mendable stitch to bolster our common fragile social fabric of a shared community'.

A wonderful film that acknowledges timeless connections between people and place... While a mountain can stand seemingly alone in the landscape, we know from the stories that these ones can also move through time and space with us.

Wliwni Sozap and Jezi for your sharing herein!

From an article in The Commons, Wednesday January 10, 2024 Vol XIX No 2 Issue 747 Written by Robert Smith, additional reporting by Jeff Potter.

Atowi note: These questions request context and thoughtful, responsive engagement. We will be providing this context and analysis in a more active manner, going forward.

An acoustic stone wall at a public amphitheater in Killington, a mural by a local Abenaki artist at the Retreat Farm in Brattleboro, and plans from the locally owned electric utility in the Town of Stowe to engage a stone mason to re-envision public access are among the projects recently awarded Animating Infrastructure grants from the Vermont Arts Council.

After taking on smaller, individual- and family-focused projects for the town during the anniversary celebration, Sunderland-based folklorists Michael and Carrie Kline are presenting their crown jewel of oral history with “New Lights in the Dawnland,” which features regional Indigenous voices and encompasses nearly 13,000 years of native history in a two-hour audio documentary.

We would like to once again offer our appreciation to Vermont Governor Phil Scott, who issued an Executive Proclamation this month on November 9, 2023, for Native American Heritage Month within the State of Vermont. The Proclamation can be seen at this link, and is shared in its entirety in this post.

In a letter to the editor, Jeff Benay examines a situation wherein the ‘…UVM campus is reduced to rigid ideological camps, where one side claims “purity,” and the other “silence” in fear of being ridiculed.’

From WaPo: The report provides the most detailed data we’ve ever had on America’s racial and ethnic origins, including stunningly exhaustive data on nearly 1,200 tribes, native villages and other entities. We hoped it would shed light on one of the biggest mysteries in the 2020 Census: Why did the Native American population skyrocket by 85 percent over the past decade?

Columbus Day seems to be fading as a widely observed holiday, having come under fire in recent decades from Native American advocates and others, who’ve argued that Christopher Columbus isn’t an appropriate person to celebrate.

The Fort at No. 4, a historic landmark and open-air museum in Charlestown, NH, was the location for a recent presentation of the National Park Service-funded Kchi Pontegok Petroglyph Project held Aug. 10.

A Vermont Abenaki poet is being honored by the American Academy of Poets. Joseph Bruchac, the Vermont Abenaki Artists Association master artist, received the organization’s Poet Laureate Fellowship Award.