U & D

On Nov. 16, the Brunswick Times Record reprinted an address by Maliseet Chief Brenda Commander to President Obama and the Tribal Nations Conference. Click here to read “A Maliseet Chief’s Plea to President Obama.” These are stirring words, simply spoken, that go the heart of LD 291’s intention.  Plea is not the right word for this address. It is not a plea. It is call for accountability, one chief to another. The message is clear – nothing can be lost in translation.  All Maine teachers of LD 291 should download this speech and use it in class, all or part.

I quote my favorite lines from the speech:

“what the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians most need from you as the chief executive of the U.S. is for your government to cast off the political neglect we have experienced for the last 29 years since the signing of the Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act and instead become a concerned, dependable, and engaged ally as we face assaults on our sovereignty.”

“The United States has been conspicuously missing as we native people alone have struggled to have the state of Maine respect the intent of the Settlement Act. “

“I ask that you and this country act with honor through an engaged presence and participation in what the United States has committed itself to do. “

not to purchase Richard Peck’s new book, A Season of Gifts.  Why?  Read this review from American Indians in Children’s Literature.

I know that all over the country adults will buy the book because kids will love it. As I wrote to an upset director of a children’s game program last week, just because kids love it does not mean that it is not ripe with stereotype and prejudice (his topic was a certain game involving “Indians sneaking up on cowboys”). Often, prejudice is spread to children with the innocence of good intentions.  In the case of the game director, letters to him about the game caused a change in the game’s name and directions (good!).  In the case of award-winning authors like Richard Peck, only boycotting the book will carry a message.

So do your part – Tell your librarian not to purchase it.  And if you have not already done so, subscribe to Debbie Reese’s blog.

clip from Homeland

One of the media resources identified for middle and high school Native studies in Maine’s Wabanaki Studies – Suggested Curriculum Integration is a DVD (or video) called Homeland - Four Portraits of Native Action.  It was a new resource to me (how I did I miss it?), so I have checked it out – and purchased it.

First, purchase from Katahdin Productions – other distributors charge ridiculously more.

Second, download the free Study Guide, also from Katahdin Productions. Although the guide is directed at the 9-12 classroom, an 8th grade social studies or literacy class can use it effectively.  The general integration ideas are very good, but the teacher has to be a little creative in linking this to other “activism” topics in the curriculum.  Some ideas for grade 8 in Maine would be: Civil Rights Movement, Women’s Suffrage Movement, Gay Marriage (current issue in Maine),

There are four 20 minute segments in the video, each one highlighting, in narrative documentary form (great for student engagement) a contemporary Native ACTION campaign.  What a great model for our students!  Of interest to Maine teachers is the last segment, “Sacred River” (link will bring you  to a short from the DVD). It highlights Penobscot (former) Chief Barry Dana’s efforts to hold the Lincoln Pulp and Paper Company (name used in video) accountable for pollution of the Penobscot River (that is putting it very briefly – the story is much more complex).

What I like about the program is the embedded sense of both NOW and of ACTION.  Your students, after watching this short, will understand that the Penobscot nation is not just a name on a map and a bullet in the history book, but a culture (with sovereingty, continuity, economic issues, territory…) that continues to fight for all of the same. Teachers should access the resources made available online for Wabanaki Studies (see link above).

Students who which to take this topic on as an I-Search project could access tribal and other resources from the the Study Guide.

Of course, they would also want to access the Lincoln Paper and Tissue (note name change) Environmental Stewardship site (with connections to corporate representatives) and the archive of related newspaper articles available to Maine laptop students via MARVEL!’s access to Maine NewsStand archive of state newspaper articles.

The Internet is wonderful in its nowness – I would hope that teachers would use this topic and this video to integrate social/cultural/economic action study, Wabanaki study, communication literacy, and the research process.

From the MIBA site

“One way to remain an indigenous person within a rapidly changing world is to uphold the philosophy, or spirit, of the teachings of our elders and ancestors. The ancestors provided a moral code, a way of living, and ways of interpreting and relating to the rest of the universe. This philosophy was not just about human relations, but teachings were offered about spiritual relations, which were seen as similar and interrelated with human groups.

The teachings emphasized that humans are not the center of the universe, as in the Western tradition, and the sacred extends beyond heaven and human souls, to include all animate forces in the universe. The objective of humans is not to dominate and control the powers of the universe, since if they are disturbed, they will retaliate against humans and cause sickness, death, accidents, defeat in war and other harmful actions. The best policy is to maintain respectful relations with the spirits of the universe.” (Indian Country Today, Oct. 2, 2009)

Although this editorial is not addressed to non-Native Maine teachers, its message is relevant to us. Understanding this aspect of Native culture is the hardest stuff. Over and over I have heard from Native educators (and I now find in the Maine Wabanaki curriculum integration materials) that the best messages come from Micmac, Maliseet, Penobscot and Passamaquoddy speakers themselves. Finding speakers is not easy, however. Teachers can travel to excellent learning experiences and workshops (find these in Wabanaki Connections), but their students are not getting the same valuable contact.

I have promoted for several years the development of a library of video interviews with Elders on essential topics – those same topics are highlighted in the State curriculum.  Watching a “real” person speak on an important topic, on video, is not as good as the real thing – but in a classroom, with today’s kids, it is pretty powerful. I know that when I show excerpts from the Passamaquoddy kit (politics), from Invisible, or  edited shorts of Wayne Newell speaking to the camera, there is silence in the room.  This editorial is correct about the power of Elder voices. No matter what you call it, theirs is a message that our students should be receiving.  Students can discuss it, debate it, place it within their own belief systems and worldviews.  Through this process, they will gain understanding. But first they need to hear the message.

Without an understanding of this message, our students will not grow up to have Respectful Relations with Maine Native peoples, tribes and nations.

I felt, therefore, that I had found treasure when I opened the link (from Wabanaki Connections, Oct.) to the new Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance video interviews.  I have viewed most of these short interviews. Taken individually or as a whole, they speak to non-Natives about the difference between Western and Maine Native worldview. They also capture the talented, lively, funny, wise and thoughtful natures of 18 individuals from the Native community in Maine.  “The Elders Speak” can be used to introduce any middle school/high school Wabanaki studies lesson. In fact, I would show it first.

Of course, students have to listen.  And it is a message that I believe our students need  – how to really “sit still and listen.”

There is also the message of learning in these videos. Listen to it.  Ask you students about the phrase “our culture” and the difference between “homes” and “houses.”  Ask them how these adults could have lost “learning” about their culture and why it is important to them to regain or rectify this.  Ask them what they expect/need/want to learn.

Tie-ins?  LA (media, vocabulary, visualization or listening literacy), arts, social studies (Native studies, generational studies, Maine studies), Advisory (what are “respectful relations?”), science (respectful relations with our environment).  My own brain is whirling.

Moreover, the quality of the site and of the videos is admirable – the site is a model!  Make sure that this is noted in your classrooms.

Thank you, MIBA.  I would like to support projects like this.  We live in one of the most digitally equipped states in the USA.  There is work that we can do to support LD 291 digitally.

It’s time to remind Maine’s teachers, at all levels, of Joseph Carnley’s invaluable resource, Wabanaki Connections.

You will find here announcements of upcoming events that support LD291 implementation and Native Studies.  But you can also use the archive of postings to create your own network of digital and face-to-face resources.

We are lucky to have Joseph. Support his efforts, and the efforts of the Native Studies Committee, by visiting and using his blog!

If you are like me, your knowledge of Henry VII and John Cabot’s charter to explore and claim New World lands is a little fuzzy. Thanks to John Dieffenbacher-Krall (Executive Director of MITSC) for sharing this history we all should know. Quotes are from John’s email to me of 7-30-2009 and a sermon he preached on 7-12-09:

What gave Europeans the legal and moral cover to conquer peoples in Africa, Asia, and the Western Hemisphere? The Christian Doctrine of Discovery. The Episcopal Church passed a resolution earlier this month denouncing the Christian Doctrine of Discovery…Penobscot elder and spirtual leader Butch Phillips recently remarked to me that the Doctrine of Discovery is an intergral part of world history. We shouldn’t graduate high school and college students who don’t understand how this doctrine facilatated European conquest of non-Christian lands. (email)

Pope Nicholas V first articulated the Doctrine of Discovery in the papal bull Dum Diversas in 1452. The Doctrine of Discovery consists of the idea that Christians have a right sanctioned by God to take non-Christian lands and property and assert political control over the indigenous inhabitants. For example, the papal bull Dum Diversas grants the king of Portugal the Pope’s blessing to go to the western coast of Africa, and to … “’capture, vanquish and subdue the Saracens, pagans and other enemies of Christ, and put them into perpetual slavery and to take all their possessions and their property.’”

… In 1496, King Henry VII [Anglican king of Britain] granted a patent to John Cabot and his sons to possess all lands in the New World not previously discovered by Portugal or Spain. It reads in part:

And that the before-mentioned John and his sons or their heirs and deputies may conquer, occupy and possess whatsoever such towns, castles, cities and islands by them thus discovered that they may be able to conquer, occupy and possess, as our vassals and governors lieutenants and deputies therein, acquiring for us the dominion, title and jurisdiction of the same towns, castles, cities, islands and mainlands so discovered (sermon).

In its annual meeting this year, the Episcopal Church passed a resolution repudiating the Doctrine of Discovery – and calling upon the global Church to do the same. Maine was the first state to take on this issue, backing the Wabanaki nations with its own resolution in 2007. Will this turn back the clock and restore lands to the Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, Micmac, Maliseet and other Native tribes and nations? No. But it will and does once again bring the concept of Sovereignty to the forefront of discussion.

The Doctrine and surrounding issues are discussed at some length in the article called Saving Maine for the Indians; The Legacy of Joseph Nicolar’s The Life and Traditions of the Red Man (available to Maine’s teachers and students through MARVEL! Academic Search Premier – do a title search – or download by clicking this link: 2009 Summer MELUS Kolodny Saving Maine for the Indian). The article is suitable for high school students (selections can be read in the middle school).

You might also share with students Micmac historian, activist and author Daniel Paul’s web page quoting from his We Were Not the Savages (about the impact of Cabot’s “discovery”). The drawing at the top of the page is itself worth of class discussion. Paul’s site also provides an essay on the Doctrine of Discovery.

As Maine teachers, we sometimes struggles to find powerful ways to lead students to an understanding of the place of the Wabanakis in recent and contemporary Maine history and culture. Yet another opportunity has just appeared.

If we are really teaching Argument and Persuasion in language arts and history, why not tackle this:

In case you missed today’s NPR story or any one of the multiple news reports (NY Times, Boston Globe, and more because the story was carried on the AP network), the Penobscot athletes Louis and Andrew Sockalexis have been formally recognized and honored by the Maine Legislature in separate joint resolutions:

• HP1046
• HP1045

Moreover, the Penobscot Nation has brought the stereotyping embedded in the Cleveland Indians’ “mascot” (the offensive Chief Wahoo, so popular that he has a MySpace page) to the nations attention yet again. And they have asked that Sports Illustrated revisit its published list of Maine’s all-time top athletes with an eye toward correcting the exclusion of the Sockalexis brothers.

This is an opportunity for Maine’s teachers to jump aboard a good campaign and educate at the same time. This is something our students can be involved in – letters, digital posters sent en masse, Twitter messages, online polls, e-mails to thank legislators are all standard action steps in a persuasive campaign.

But first, you will need to educate the students about Louis and Andrew Sockalexis. There is some good information online via a Google; even Wikipedia has a pretty good article. I will have my students read the above resolutions and Penobscot commentaries, and also these non-native/non-Maine blog posts: DuetsBlog and its follow up.

Any investigation into the Sockalexis brothers will have to tackle the thorny issues of anti-Native racism and the rationales for it that continue to exist (read through this discussion of Wahoosim, for example). This would be a good time to introduce readings about reservation life in the 1st half of the 20th century, including racism, from An Upriver Passamaquoddy and The Wabanakis of Maine and the Maritimes. I have a short clip of Wayne Newell speaking frankly about stereotyping – good stuff. If I taught high school, I would have students read Blue Corn Comics on Chief Wahoo and watch Invisible. And don’t overlook Maine’s own “native” team logos (Husson Braves, and 7 high schools – which might change finally due to consolidation – read a middle level article here).  Read and discuss the text of the American Indians are not Mascots petition and the comments of some of the signers – use Web 2.0 to advantage by engaging some of those signers in further dialogue.

I am sure that even more resources will turn up as I hunt. Know any? Help would be welcome.

What the Indians ate is the title of an article in the current (June, 2009) issue of Down East magazine. The first page was slipped mysteriously into my mailbox today and, luckily, I had the perseverance to track that gift down. The article is taken from a new book, Notes on a Lost Flute: A Field Guide to the Wabanaki, by Kerry Hardy, which is also being published by Down East Publications. The quality and authority of the article can therefore not be validated by its publication in this journal – this is publicity. But, OK – in these days I respect the steps taken by any organization to keep itself and its workers afloat. The only information I could find out about this author is this speech he made to Maine’s legislature, quoted in a blog by a (possible) native author whom I could also learn no more about. Hardy seems to be a respected authority on water and waterlife preservation issues.

For teacher reasons, I pre-ordered the book from Amazon.com. My reasons relate to the usefulness of this article for “layered” teaching of Wabanaki studies content. In my case, the layering will be onto the language arts, grade 7, class I will teach next year. For the first time in three years, I will be able to use my curriculum to complement the social studies curriculum – I plan to use Micmac and other stories in the fall trimester, along with our reading of folktales and mythology from other times and culture. When the social studies teacher begins his Wabanaki studies unit – which I hope can be also in the fall – I will read this article and do a shortened version of my Native plants curriculum, which is really about Worldview and Land Use.

Why this article? It meets nicely several of the Maine standards for informational text, making it a great teaching tool. There are headings and subheadings, illustrations, captions, great transitional language, native terms, and even an interesting chart! The facts in the article seem to me to be accurate, or at least well-aligned to other resources (e.g. Passamaquoddy Kit Lesson 5 and my own Penobscot seasonal migration lesson which is based on a primary source account). And the author does know his fish. Does it get better than that?

Yes. There are flaws in this text, which make using it the Maine classroom problematic. The teacher has got to address these flaws:

• The “Indians” in this case are, of course, the five federally recognized nations know as “The Wabanakis,” plus the many bands and nations that flourished pre-Contact and no longer do. The article’s title would be better as anything but what it is (suggestions?). And while we are at it, did ALL of Maine’s native peoples do ALL of these activities? That is a question the alert teacher should put on the table. Peoples living far inland, away from an “eel run river” might elect to seek a different primary diet.
• Ate is a problem. The use of the past tense inevitably suggests that the population studied is gone – a done deal. That is, course, not the case. I understand why the past was used (this is a historical study of food sources, or part of one), but the allusion to a dead Indian civilization is there – and it has to be clarified for students. Throughout the text the past tense is used: “the Indians started catching eels in September.” Teachers today should make sure that students know that the Penobscot nation has been a key player in movements to protect the migratory eel (and other food fish) populations threatened by river dam turbines.
• “primal” is a word used in the first sentence, again suggesting that the Indians being studied are somehow less than civilized (savage). This is not the author’s intent, but the students will make inferences – and not let go of these unless the teacher points out the word. I suggest reading the first paragraph aloud – as a think-aloud.
• And while you are at it, see if you can’t find what Native language is used in this text – my guess is that skua-higan is Penobscot/Abenaki, because of references made in the blog post to Kerry’s knowledge of Penobscot place names. Students should know that there are other Native languages in Maine, and, if possible, compare words.
• The Wabanaki Food Year is a pretty cool chart – but why is it not based on Native moon calendar? It would have been a no-brainer for the author to use a native calendar to create this piece – his showpiece. A little research would have given him many accurate options.
• “Migratory” is itself a term contested by many of the Passamaquoddy and Penobscot educators. Following food sources is not the same migration. And, in fact, some tribal groups did migrate by moving permanent homesites (not camps) so as not to overchallenge resources.

Actually, I don’t want to go further. Unless you feel comfortable addressing the points made above, please do not use this as a middle school reading text out of it larger context. I am curious to get the larger book, which may address the points made above.

Think for a moment about governments in distress, globally. There are contested elections, civil wars, usurpations of power, repressed and unrepresented populations, revolutions, invasions, rampant fraud, tyrannical leaders, cartels and pirates.  Within Maine itself, tribal-state relations have, over the last year, come unraveled, a situation  documented in MITSC’s archive of News.

The turmoil of nationhood and nation-building is not lost on the Micmacs of Maine. Federally recognized on November 26, 1991, the Aroostook Band has recently scored what should be a significant legal victory.

An April 13 decision in the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a trend that was tying the hands of tribal governments in resisting state encroachments. The ruling in the case Aroostook Band of Micmacs v. Patricia Ryan, executive director, Maine Human Rights Commission; [et al.]preserves the right of the northern Maine tribe to defend its sovereignty before a federal judge instead of a possibly biased state judiciary. (Micmac win sovereignty case)

The case was argued by the Micmac tribal lawyer, Douglas J. Lukerman, who is also arguing sovereignty cases for the Narragansett and Wampanoag tribes. The root of the cases, as indicated in the quotation above, is the ability of a federally recognized Nation to challenge the actions of a State that limit tribal sovereignty. Given the growth of tribal involvement in environmental, energy-generation/transmission, and gaming issues, for example, this may prove to be an important step forward for Maine’s tribes. It is certainly an example of a tribal government taking an action – all the way to a top court – that will benefit its people as a whole.

On the other hand, this same government is in some disarray. For the last two years, there has been a dirth of information about Micmac internal issues relating to government, even though the existence of distress is well known. This tribal privacy has to be respected.  I was surprised, therefore, to run across two recent articles in Indian Country Today.

The first, dated April 27, is called Report: BIA official supported unelected Micmac chief and council for two years. The article is a summary of a BIA report that has not been publically released, but which was obtained by ICT.  What we have here is a reporter’s summary of a report giving the background of the inter-tribal political issues of the last two or so years.

The 2nd article, dated May 1, is called BIA will encourage new Micmac elections.  Although it is interesting that the attitude and role of BIA and its officials, RE Micmac sovereignty, flip-flops between the two articles (more than once), the more interesting things to me are:

• The text of the interview with Victoria Higgins “Seated chief”, which is in the 2nd article.
• The Comments that follow both articles.

The interview is frank – I wonder if Chief Higgins saw it before publication. It is too bad that ICT did not show a tribal leader more respect. On the other hand, I do not know the history of the author, Gale Courey Toensing, but (he/she) also can be found writing about Maine issues in the MITSC archive. It may be that the interviewer has a less than objective point of view.

The Comments are really amazing, far out-numbering those for any other ICT article I have read recently; far outnumbering comments to articles in the Bangor Daily News or the Portland Press Herald. They demonstrate a deep and passionate response by the tribal community to the interview and to the issues embraced by the Report. Personalities and names aside, the  “outsider” reading these exchanges recognizes the depth of the concern of the tribal members for their sovereignty, their tribal health, and their future growth and welfare.  There are clearly disparate opinions and hyperbolic passions, but there are also voices of reason. These comment strings are a lesson in “civics,” it seems to me.

Would I use them in a classroom? No – from my point of view, these are private, inner-tribal conversations. But I would certainly not shy away from referring to the  political unrest in the  Aroostook Band of Micmacs – this is a validation of the sovereign and active nature of their government – and I would remind students that this government was able to achieve the legal victory that I noted at the top of this article.

Questions arise about the role and charge of the BIA.  Students can be referred to the Bureau of Indian Affairs Division of Tribal Government Services, which will at least provide a non-Indian frame of reference for reading the two articles above. But the relationship, in theory and in fact, between the BIA and the Micmacs seems to be complex and a bit smokey.  Some of the publications of the BIA that relate to “Self-Governance” seem to be more concerned with dotting tribal i’s and crossing tribal t’s than with facilitating self-determination and self-governance.

It is tempting to side with the Micmac Commenters who say, “Leave us alone to solve our problems – for we can.”

I like the phrase “original free and independent existence.” It comes from a lucid essay by Steven Newcomb, appearing in the May 1, 2009, Indian Country Today (On Non-Indian, Anti-Indian Law).

Newcomb does not discuss specific laws, such as the one I looked at in my last post. He does not propose new laws or suggest ways to redress specific wrongs. What he does for the Maine Studies educator and student in make clear and understandable the roots of the European attitudes that denied, and continue to deny, Sovereignty to Indian nations. Every student should read (or hear) this short essay – as a “kick off” to any discussion of injustices done, sovereignty, or history.

Read it, for example, along with Dean Suagee’s Tribal Sovereignty and the Green Revolution. Suagee’s call for state and federal governments to make sovereign partnerships with the Indian nations, on energy growth policies, is important; but when read through the lens of Newcomb’s essay, with open eyes so to speak, the reader better understands how difficult the road to such partnerships is going to be.

Follow Newcomb’s essay with a reading of the newly introduced (again) S. J. Res 14 (Apology Resolution), which begins:

To acknowledge a long history of official depredations and ill-conceived policies by the Federal Government regarding Indian tribes and offer an apology to all Native Peoples on behalf of the United States.

Whereas the ancestors of today’s Native Peoples inhabited the land of the present-day United States since time immemorial and for thousands of years before the arrival of people of European descent;

Follow this Resolution, and its partner Resolution introduced in the House (find links in Indianz.com). Write letters to your Senators and Representatives. Debate the points made in the Resolution. If it goes nowhere (again), you might say that Newcomb has a point. If it passes, you might say that perhaps the non-Indians and anti-Indians are turning a corner. You might.