In case you missed this live event last week, here's the archived YouTube video of "#Abenaki Storytellers of Ndakinna", from South Hero Land Trust.

Recently, on a ski near my home, it hit me: There is a history that stretches far beyond the relatively recent colonial settlement of Vermont, and I know little to nothing about it. Around that same day, I noticed a friend on Facebook was tagging her own ski outings with the location marker “ancestral lands of the Wabanaki Confederacy.” I wanted to know more and began looking around for a history lesson.

An in-depth examination of Vermont's Eugenic Survey and its lasting effects, in the series from VTDigger - an official apology for which is being considered by the legislature, in the form of JRH2

A eugenics survey in Vermont sought to “breed a better Vermonter” by sterilizing and institutionalizing Indigenous people, French-Canadians, and people who were mixed-race, poor or disabled. Ninety years after the 1931 survey got underway, lawmakers are proposing an official apology for the state-supported program that tore families apart. Abenaki people in Vermont say the ripple effects of the eugenics movement are still felt today and an apology from the state is an important step in repairing the relationship.

Like many notable historical figures, Atiatoharongwen was cited as having a sharp mind. At eight, he learned the customs and history of Kahnawake, and took up religion and politics. He was fluent in Mohawk, Abenaki, as well as English and French, which helped him in diplomacy with notable figures like George Washington, Louis-Joseph Montcalm, Pontiac, and Richard Montgomery.

The listener-sourced investigative podcast series known as Brave Little State, a regular feature on Vermont Public radio, carried a well-received episode this week. In answer to a listener who wondered “how to do their place-name pronunciation homework” preparatory to moving to the state, the hosts compiled audio files contributed by other listeners explaining the “proper, local” enunciations of familiar toponyms. In a welcome inclusion, traditional Abenaki referents were included alongside more familiar contemporary labels.

Rutland High School has a new mascot. The city’s Board of School Commissioners voted 6-4 on Tuesday to approve the “Rutland Ravens,” a name that a group of Rutland High School students selected after seeking suggestions from city residents and other students in the district.

A partnership between Abenaki tribal members and the Endangered Alphabets Project has created an illustrated Abenaki dictionary for schools, the Endangered Alphabets Project announced last week.

According to their announcement, the Burlington-based Endangered Alphabets Project partnered in 2019 with the Abenaki Circle of Courage, a youth group associated with the Missisquoi Abenaki Nation, to publish N’Dakinna: An Illustrated Abenaki Dictionary for Schools.

The Indigenous Abenaki people of the Northeast have, for generations, been subjected to both genocidal attacks (killing of people) and ethnocidal attacks (killing of culture) by colonial settlers and their descendants. In the colonial era, these threats took the form of murderous attacks on families and villages in war-time. In the modern era, these threats have included eugenic sterilization, forced separations of children and families, misrepresentations of history, and other attacks that the United Nations classifies as “ethnocide.”

modern maps hold no memory of what the land was before. Few of us have thought to ask what truths a map may be concealing, or have paused to consider that maps do not tell us where we are from or who we are. Many of us do not know the stories of the land in the places where we live; we have not thought to look for the topography of a myth in the surrounding rivers and hills. Perhaps this is because we have forgotten how to listen to the land around us.

This online panel will look at the cultural, social, and environmental issues surrounding ice fishing, what it means to those who participate in it, and how it may continue to evolve and change in the future. This event is presented in connection with BMAC’s ICE SHANTIES: FISHING, PEOPLE & CULTURE, and ERIK HOFFNER: ICE VISIONS.

This past summer, REACH invited me to participate in the development of its new Decolonizing Conservation Communities program. As former staff of a Maine land trust organization, I was excited to offer my first-hand knowledge and experience to shape the program. Truth be told, I was also grappling with how, as a member of the conservation community, I had come to see myself as a perpetuator of colonization, and I wanted to take an active role in disrupting patterns of continuing colonization endemic to land trust work while also supporting a conversation about how land trusts can shift their work to become agents of decolonization.

At today’s online convening of the Vermont House of Representatives, Rep. Brian Cina offered the session’s devotional by singing the Mi’kmaw Honor Song by George Paul, as translated into Western Abenaki by Jesse Bruchac. This is a powerful moment in a renewal of Indigenous voice in the homelands. Kchi wliwni Brian.

Perhaps we need to join the growing movement called the “Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature (GARN)” that’s taking hold in countries around the world and in various communities here in the U.S., a movement that recognizes that our ecosystems — including animals, forests, oceans, rivers, mountains, etc. — have god-given rights just as human beings have god-given rights.

Elnu Abenaki are happy to join in this supportive local opportunity, recognizing that we share common challenges with other area advocacy groups. This program will enable Elnu to better support both the well-being of our own People and that of the larger community of which we are a part. Kchi wliwni — with great thanks!

A scholar in Canada has been attacking Abenaki people in the U.S. Here are some thoughts about that…

As Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy. How, she asks, can we learn from Indigenous wisdom and ecological systems to reimagine currencies of exchange?

With all of us searching for ways to escape the screen during the pandemic, podcasts are the perfect way to do that. Here are ten of our favorite podcasts featuring Indigenous content. Cozy up and enjoy some great listening.

“I suggested that there was a need to look at all of the people who were here before this became Brattleboro because that period of time is significant,” he said. “We’re talking thousands of years.”

This poem considers the plight of a language, how it — like the child Moses in the biblical story of the Exodus — is vulnerable, and might be in need of someone like the Pharaoh’s daughter to nurture it. In considering the precarious situation of many lesser-spoken languages, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill casts a story of language preservation through the archetype of women helping women in ancient texts.