Rebuilding the Wabanaki Confederacy

[IndigeNews]

Issue: 85 Section: Original Peoples Geography: Atlantic Wabanaki
Territory
Topics: Abenaki, Maliseet, Mi'kmaq, Passamaquoddy, Penobscot, Treaties,
Wabanaki Confederacy
September 5, 2012

Rebuilding the Wabanaki Confederacy
Non-Indigenous participate in Confederacy Gathering for first time in
centuries

by Miles Howe

The Dominion - http://www.dominionpaper.ca

[photo at link] gkisedtanamoogk of the Wampanoag—The Wabanaki
Confederacy Council's fire keeper.
Photo: Miles Howe

"The greatest contribution that I appreciate from the Dominion is that
one feels the energies, the focus of a new generation of Canadians
taking stock of Canadian reality as it is." --Jooneed Khan

ST MARY'S FIRST NATION, UNCEDED WABANAKI TERRITORY (NB)—For the first
time in several hundred years, non-Indigenous peoples were invited to
participate in the last two days of the week-long Wabanaki Confederacy
Gathering this September 1 and 2.

The Wabanaki (translated roughly as "People of the First Light")
Confederacy's current incarnation comprises five principal nations—the
Mik'maq, Maliseet, Passamaquoddy, Abenaki and Penobscot—and stretches
from the colonial borders of Newfoundland in the North, mid-Maine in
the South, and parts of Quebec in the West.

At its zenith, the Confederacy consisted of close to 50 nations, went
South to the mid-Carolinas, included most of the interior of the United
States, and reached into Ontario.

Approximately 150 people attended the final two days of the almost
week-long meeting, held on the shores of the Wulustuk (Staint John)
river.

The open portion of the gathering, from the perspective of a
non-Indigenous participant, can perhaps be described as a meeting
between Indigenous and non-Indigenous environmental activists, placed
into a paradigm in which environmental activism is no longer a
lifestyle choice, or "something one does."

Invitation to participate in ceremony, and patient explanation on the
part of the Indigenous hosts, brought about the notion of
inter-connection between self and the natural world—so that the notion
of 'activism' was simply replaced by the reality of "being."

"When we talk about Wabanaki people, we're also talking about Wabanaki
people being the land, being the trees, being the animals, because in
that cultural perspective, we're all related," says gkisedtanamoogk,
the Gathering's fire keeper. "We're everything. We're not just a
species standing apart from everything else."

The notion of special inter-dependence was also co-joined with the
necessity of placing oneself into an historical narrative that is not
static, but developing.

Portions of sacred bundles, which included ancient Wampum belts —
themselves a recorded, as well as symbolic, history in bead work — and
the box gifted from the French to the original Wabanaki Confederacy in
1701 upon their acceptance to participate in the Confederacy were
brought out and explained, and allowed those in attendance to see
themselves as part of something continuous, historic and challenging.

"Within the Wabanaki territory we're looking for allies that are going
to stand against the total annihilation of our land and water and air,"
says jeaba-weay-quay (roughly translated from Obijway to 'The woman
whose voice pierces'). "We're looking for allies who will help us to
put our nation back together and put it back in order. And we're asking
our allies to help us empower that. And in the process of doing that,
they will be decolonizing us and they will be decolonizing themselves."

The notion of a fluid historical narrative also extends to the treaties
that exist between the Wabanaki and those who have subsequently
colonized their territories. The treaties that do exist are of peace
and friendship, not of subservience of self and ceding of land.

The Wabanaki thus provide not only a paradigm alternative on the
metaphysical sphere, but also a legal umbrella under which the real
concerns to the natural environment, and thus all of us, can find
sanctuary and process.

Many in attendance over the two-day period spoke of the environmental
perils that are now at the doorsteps of their respective Maritime-area
backyards.

To observe effort and concern on any number of particular environmental
issues come together and begin to form a cohesive whole, under the
watch and fostering of the Wabanaki, was as if watching pieces of a
puzzle come together in an already-existent frame.

To be invited into this process, as partners with equal concern, has
the potential to be extremely empowering on many fronts.

"The Wabanaki are in a far better position to defend the land," says
gkisedtanamoogk. "No land was ever ceded, and that's acknowledged by
both the province and the federal government. So on the basis of the
treaties, what we're suggesting is that you and I have a common
responsibility to the land under those treaties.

"You and I, we also have a common responsibility to each other, as
holder and keepers of those treaties. Those treaties are as important
to Wabanaki people as they ought to be important to you. Those are your
treaties too. And under those treaties we are also invoking on
international protocol, so we have a social potential of being
responsible to each other's needs, but in an entirely different
context. And that presents immense implications, both legal
implications as well as social implications and economic implications
that are more just."

Harry LaPorte, grand chief of the Maliseet First Nation, agrees.

"We're going to rebuild the Wabanaki Confederacy," says LaPorte. "We
also invited some non-Natives...to come and be with us and to help us
build an alliance, so that when we...come into conflict with the
government and some of their decisions and policies...to have them
stand beside us and to let their government know that it's not only
Native people who are worried about the water, the land, the air. But
it's also people from their nation that are concerned."

While some at the Gathering were eager for quick pacts and commitments,
due in no small part to the urgency of the environmental issues—such as
'fracking'—that are affecting the area, this was to be sure among the
first steps.

Gaps in culture, in no way limited to the most obvious identifiers of
language and religion, are real, and will require concerted effort and
patience to overcome. Judging by those in attendance however, the
willingness to make this alliance work is both urgent and real, not
only in terms of ideas shared, but also willingness to participate in
ceremonies not necessarily completely understood, but partaken of in a
spirit of peace and friendship.

As for the next steps of this alliance, that will be up to the
grandmothers.

"The grandmothers are going to be meeting in the meantime to make sure
that we keep cohesion of this alliance together and to provide that
communication, and to put that wise, white hair together to sit down
and talk about what needs to be done," says jeaba-weay-quay. "That's
who's going to point the way...the women. The grandmothers. And then
we're going to turn around and tell the men 'This is what we need to
do. This is what we want. So we need you to help us.'"

"This is a preliminary investigation of what that relationship looks
like," says gkisedtanamoogk. "What are the expectations? What are the
long-term implications? What are some of the things we can do in the
immediate? I'm really excited about this. I sense that something of
this magnitude is a paradigm shift of global proportions."

This article was originally published on the Halifax Media Co-op. Miles
Howe is the Halifax-based editor of The Dominion and is a contributing
member of the Halifax Media Co-op.

http://www.dominionpaper.ca/articles/4600
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