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Vermont’s four Abenaki bands face ongoing pushback as they work to assert their Native American identity. With state recognition, the tribes enjoy certain hunting and fishing rights and the ability to list artwork as Native made. The Odanak First Nation in Canada is speaking out on social media and at press conferences, public events, and even at the United Nations, saying the people in Vermont claiming Abenaki blood have no connection to the Abenaki name and are only exploiting a legitimate and respected culture. It’s one of the remaining battlegrounds in the often-contentious discussions over identity.
GUESTS
Chief Rick O’Bomsawin (Odanak First Nation), Chief of the Abenaki Council of Odanak
Chief Don Stevens (Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk Abenaki Nation)
Margaret Bruchac (Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk Abenaki Nation), professor emerita of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania
Break 1 Music: Seeing Two (song) Deerlady (band) Greatest Hits (album)
Break 2 Music: Only A Whisper (song) Joe H Henry (artist) Real Things (album)
These are white people of colonial descent. Their ancestors all came from somewhere else (aka Europe). I am so disappointed that you all are giving these pretendians a platform to spill their lies. No one in the northeastern Indigenous community supports these frauds..
Why are you giving them validity? Shame!
Well as a Non Native you clearly do not know that nations who are our friends and accept us as who we claim to be and are staying out of this issue because that is not how these matters traditionally should be handled.
While I don’t know you, and would like to give you the benefit of the doubt, I believe it’s time you get your head out of your rear so you can get a fresh perspective and see the light of day. The amount of disingenuous “proof” that Odanak continues to put out is beyond the pale. On numerous occasions the people of VT have agreed to meet with representatives from Odanak. Unfortunately, each time the VT tribes have extended an invitation to meet, their invitation has been met with silence. So much for wanting to sit at the table…
In their own newspaper one of their councilmen asked for volunteers to form a cultural committee to “decide what our culture is so we can teach it”. They constantly say we are stealing their culture. How does one steal what they do not have?
DNA cannot disappear. We have it always. His glass of milk is crazy. Odanak chief knows nothing about this. We tried many times to reach out to them and got no response.
For anyone who knows Chief Rick he really knows when the heat is on him he will distance himself from any possible blame or responsibility of any wrongdoing. The Fact is, he is a chief of a Tribe and is directly responsible for any report that is paid for by his tribe/tribes which in fact is only 783 pages long and omits one of the 4 tribes from scrutiny in the report. He clearly tried putting blame and responsibility on a few of his counselors claiming he had his files and they had theirs which is laughable. He says he keeps asking to sit down to which we have all agreed too, but only if it is held in Odanak. We agreed and have stated we would like the meeting to be held in a mutually agreeable neutral location,………we hear crickets from Chief Rick. He was disingenuous in his assertions that they do not want land claims, his counselor Daniel Nolette stated on video at a table Chief Rick was at that it was Odanaks stated goal to attain land Claims in VT. The Report was paid for By Odanak and signed by both Chief Rick O’Bomsawin and Chief Michel Bernard of Wolinak, a report that was fabricated by a Convicted pedophile from the VT Abenaki Community along with Prof. Daryll Leroux who used students do genealogical work for him and claim that someone in the VT Abenaki community is 96% European when less than 5% of there genealogy was was looked at to claim such a percentage. Sorry folks that is not how you do math, 2+2=4 not it could be be 6. Also, they travelled to the UN to proclaim that they are the sole protectors of everything Abenaki and that VT are not Abenaki, News Flash, No one is Pure Abenaki, we are all mixed with a litany of other Algonquian tribes pushed and pulled from our lands in the course of 350 years of mixing. They did this in the same UN that stated in Article 31 of the UN’s Declaration of Indigenous Rights, “Article 2
Indigenous peoples and individuals are free and
equal to all other peoples and individuals and
have the right to be free from any kind of discrimination, in the exercise of their rights, in particular
that based on their indigenous origin or identity.
Article 3
Indigenous peoples have the right to self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their
economic, social and cultural development.
Article 4
Indigenous peoples, in exercising their right to
self-determination, have the right to autonomy or
self-government in matters relating to their internal and local affairs, as well as ways and means for
financing their autonomous functions.” That is all we ask, we want to live in peace on our side of the Border, and we accept and urge anyone who is from Odanak/Wolinak to come and visit with us, be in ceremony with us as, eat with us and lets make our Ancestors happy to see us mutually happy again. Jim Taylor Elnu Abenaki Tribal Councilman, Elnu Abenaki Tribe of VT
Because 350+ years ago, you had a French or English ancestor or two who married Native/First Nations women, does not allow you to claim to be Native American. You cant shift your race due to two or three ancestors who were Native American
You’re French (or English) with distant NA ancestry, not NA with a ton of French/English ancestors.
If the ship carrying these same ancestors made a pit stop in the French West Indies on the way to New France and these same men had married freed Black women, would you identify as Black/African ? I rather tend to think not.
My lineage on my father’s side my 2nd Great Grandfather and after are listed as colored,negro & mullato. Being they were Removal People that fled into the hills of KY. But with the one drop rule established at one time I would have been……I embrace all of my ancestors.
Pitta wlitôgwat. Nd’achowi minawitam io wanaskôwadimek adoji kezôwadok. Kaloldimek, ni ôwdi lagwiwi k’kigakawôgannawal, ni waji alamikamolakw nijiak; Sôgmô Rick Obomsawin, Sôgmô Donald Stevens, ta nokem Marge Bruchac. Kchi wliwni.
Kchi wliwni Nijia!
For 500 years, it wasn’t safe for Indigenous people to openly claim their identity; doing so invited hatred, vitriol and physical violence. Only in the past 30 years has it become even somewhat acceptable to openly claim Indigenous heritage. Census records were biased and deliberately obscured Indigenous identities, which is why so many ancestors can’t be found.
People like Marge Bruchac and Chief Don Stevens are brave for publicly asserting who they are, something no other cultural group is forced to prove. Seeking recognition requires exposing a community’s most painful family histories to the government while the whole community watches. No one would willingly subject themselves to this process because you gain NOTHING from doing so. The only thing you gain is the ability to LEGALLY state that you are citizen of your nation and to be drug through the mud in public forums such as this.