This summer, I was able to participate in the project “Restoring Tribal Relations and Forests Knowledge” through my role as a documentarian for the Wabanaki Communities. This project, a collaboration between the Akwesasne Environmental Department and Wabanaki Youth in Science (WaYS), involved youth, researchers, leaders, and elders from both the Wabanaki and Haudenosaunee communities. The project’s purpose was multifold but really aimed on connecting Indigenous youth through a cultural knowledge exchange focused on the work of care for our forests and (re)building kinship relations and mobilizing knowledge across nations and generations. Each community traveled and hosted each other in their respective homelands where we shared stories, language, food, gifts, and met with community members engaged in cultural revitalization and conservation. Throughout these journeys and time shared with each other, youth forest interns from both communities were assigned to develop a 10-week community-based project about cultural and ecological stewardship, which they successfully presented at a workshop in New Hampshire. Whereas these recent connections around forest knowledge and adaptation to environmental changes between the Wabanaki and Haudenosaunee communities is tied to the work around Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) management that began in the 2010’s, our ancestral and kinship connections are rooted deeper in history. Whereas this story is very extensive, I hope to cover some key context of these relationships before sharing my reflections on our visits to each Akwesasne. If interested in more details about our historic relationship with each other beyond what I share here, I recommend the book Mohawk Warrior Society and Wapapi Akonutomakonol: The Wampum Records.

Our roots are traced back together through what is called the Kaianaerehko:wa in the Haudenosuanne language. Often referred to as “The Great Law of Peace” and symbolized by the great white pine tree, Kaianaerehko:wa is the constitution of the Rotinonhsion:ni Confederacy that was brought by Dekanawida, Hiawatha and Jigonhsassee to resolve issues between Nations. These visionaries wanted all people and sakom’s (chiefs) to be equal in power and walk together in peace with no “grand” leader, calling the nations to bury their weapons under the tree and become equal as one family sharing a long house. In the first five years, Dekanawida and Hiawatha created thirty wampums (can be understood as laws/articles) and gathered the first five nations into diplomacy. These early wampums included the organization of the confederacy and how new laws were made, condolence ceremonies for chiefs, the roles of clan mothers (which involved making decisions and caring for land), and other aspects of the confederacy. It would further involve the “Dish With one Spoon” principle which held nations responsible for communal land use through sharing and ensuring environmental sustainability for future generations.

Envisioning that all nations on turtle island would be involved in this kinship alliance, Dekanawida would travel to engage with other nations, but never return. It is said that he was killed be “evil people” in his travels. The message of peace and kinship, however, would walk on. The roots of the Tree of Peace would grow in the four directions, with the Mohawks carrying the responsibility of spreading the peace eastward with a lakutuwakon (treaty) referred to as the “invitation wampum”, beginning with Abenakis of Bécancour (Wôlinak) and making its way through the Dawnland to the Mi’kmaq. Accepting the invitation, each Wabanaki nation sent their putuwosin (wampum carrier) to travel to the Kci Sqot (Great Council Fire) at Kahnawà:ke where they came together in kinship diplomacy and weaved their laws and agreements into wampum belts. A Passamaquoddy account of these Great Council Firess, laws, and the formation of the Wabanaki Confederacy and our diplomacy together is told in Wapapi Akonutomakonol: The Wampum Records. However, it’s important to note that we as Wabanaki people had practiced kinship and diplomacy together as a distinct political group prior to our engagements with the Haudenosuanne peoples. The Great Council Fire would burn into the late 1800’s, with the Passamaquoddy sending their last delegates to Kahnawà:ke around the 1870’s. It didn’t take long for settler colonists to work to divide us an exploit these divisions for their own advantages and interest in territorial expansion, control over trade, and power in warfare and navigation. Whereas the Great Council Fire ceased to burn and we now find ourselves in a political system not of our own, we must remember the embers and work  together to (re)ignite the flame in place-based solidarity that will burn into future generations.

This was one of the major aspects of the “Restoring Tribal Relations and Forests Knowledge” project, where we (Wabanaki folk) first traveled to Akwesasne homelands, journeying through the mountainside twists and turns of what is now Western Maine in Abenaki homelands. As I was driving, I thought about all the ancestral paths and placenames that we were retracing and going by on our way, where wampum carriers and other Wabanaki people would travel by foot and canoe, undoubtedly knowing internally the best route for travel (and then there’s me using google maps in my Corolla). Whereas time and technology has changed, the Land still carries these memories and our senses of Place – as do we. Back in 2023, a group of paddlers made an 1,800-mile journey beginning at Penobscot Nation and returning there after nearly four months of following Indigenous routes, including the St. Lawrence River. I would come to find out that they stopped at the same boat landing that we would have lunch at during our visit, where their travels were still remembered by our Akwesasne relatives who greeted them with the same kindness and good food that we were offered.

Whereas we weren’t in canoes for this trip, we did decide to take the longer route to dodge crossing over the imperial line that is the US and Canadian border. During times of increased ICE presence and racist treatment from border patrol, and the fact that we had a van full of Wabanaki youth and elders in our group, we figured it was for the best. However, as a technology and ideology that has been used as an attempt to confine, define, and control us through military force and other aspects of colonialism, these imperial borders must be dismantled and worked through to (re)build our connections as Indigenous peoples in pursuit of our liberation. I again thought about the Great Council and how we had our own protocols for visiting each other’s homelands based on kinship and the idea of sharing land and what it offered us. Not through the ideas of territory and militant systems of control. A resurgence and restoration of our relations with each other as Indigenous peoples calls for the rebuilding of these social relations, where imperial borders no longer define and cross our homelands.

When we arrived to Akwesasne, we were kindly greeted by Les Benedict, the assistant director of the environmental department for St. Regis Mohawk Tribe and a major force in organizing and supporting the gathering. Stiff and exhausted from a long drive, we shared a meal together and were eager to get some rest for the full week ahead. We were housed in one of their hotels that was associated with their casino, which I found to be ironic, but that is another topic I am not trying to place any bets on here (pun intended). We were just thankful for a bed and a safe arrival for everyone and looking forward to the week ahead. The next day, we were greeted by the rest of the environmental department and the forest interns from both communitas met and greeted each other. Before introductions started, they shared their Thanksgiving address, which is offered in their language at the start and ending of every gathering to give thanks to the Land and all forms of life and creation. We all appreciated the gathering starting off like this as it was a simple yet powerful reminder in the language of things we often take for granted in our time together.

The next three days in their homelands was generously full of getting to know each other and their homelands, where we got to listen and learn from cultural knowledge sharers from their communities. Highlights included a boat ride and interpretation of the St. Lawrence River, a visit to their tribal farm and plant nursery, a medicine walk with a traditional healer, ash pounding, corn washing, and a visit to their forest and tree nursery where they are working with numerous partners in emerald ash borer (EAB) management. Throughout these activities, traveling to the sites in a van, we shared many jokes, reflections, vulnerability, and songs with each other. Not only were we strengthening our relationships with our Haudenosaunee relatives, but amongst ourselves as Wabanaki youth as we made meaning together of our experiences. Simultaneously, we were sharing stories, knowledge, history with our hosts as we reciprocated with active listening and respect. The similarities, and differences, in our languages, stories, and ways of knowing always amazes me. It comforts me through the narratives that white and non-native historians construct through writing us off as enemies in. When our ancestors gathered with each other, it wasn’t for the purpose of violence or conflict. It was for the same exact purpose that we were engaging in today as skicinuwok (Passamaquoddy word for Indigenous people); to share and create knowledge with other through the love and care that we carry for our distinct homelands, which was strengthened through our relationships with each other. Conflict was brought the colonial intent of dividing us for easier access and control over our homelands.

One day that significantly stood out to me during our visit was when we were in their tree nursery, where they were undergoing scientific studies and experiments of EAB, a non-indigenous relative (also referred to as invasive species – a term I choose not to use), management. Wikpi (brown/black ash) is a culturally significant tree species for both Wabanaki and Haudenosaunee people for numerous reasons. For the Wabanaki communities, its significance lies in our creation stories and identity, where we as human beings emerged out of the ash tree with the responsibility to be in a relation of care with our homelands and each other. This relationship to the tree is recognized through the knowledge that basket makers create and share through their work, as well as the sustenance it provided through the ability to store food and other items throughout history. Being forced into a cash-based economy, income from selling baskets also provide food and other necessities for families. In other words, we are spiritually, socially, and materially connected to the brown ash tree. Therefore, the health and condition of the trees and how we care for them have a direct impact on us.

I would really come to understand this during our visit into their ash nursery while we were looking at a tree that, in an attempt of survival from EAB impacts, was producing “off shoots” (smaller branches/roots) up and down its trunk. This made me recognize our shared survival tactic as Wabanaki people in the presence of non-indigenous relatives (settlers - the actual invasive species) and impacts of colonization. To survive colonial pressure, genocide, and dispossession, we were forced to produce “off shoots” of ourselves to survive. Whereas change is needed for cultural adaptation and survival, the issue is that such change for us is measured, forced by, and in relation to colonization and its impacts. The material and social construct of Indigeneity itself is a relation/offshoot of colonization. The challenge, therefore, for both the future health of brown ash and us as Wabanaki people, is that we must remember and (re)make ourselves through our own ways of knowing and being based on our values of kinship and reciprocity, which are antithetical to colonialism and capitalism; the very impacts and conditions created by invasive species. I believe that when we create and engage in spaces such as this gathering, we are identifying these issues/challenges and working towards (re)building alternative futures together, both for the future and health of ash trees and ourselves as Wabanaki and Haudenosaunee people.

We ended our time together with a social dance at the Mohawk Nation Longhouse, where songs, dances, and stories were shared before our departing the next day. The Thanksgiving address was once again recited as our time together for the week was ending and our journey back to the Dawn Land would begin early the next morning. The Wabanaki people involved were already looking forward to reciprocating as good hosts in our own homelands just a few weeks after, and even into next year as plans for this project, and all the relationships within it, to happen again and continue to be strengthened into the future. With that, I would like to finish with uplifting the leadership and work of Jen Galipeau (Penobscot; WaYS Director), Leslie Benedict and other staff at the St. Regis Mohawk Environmental department, all of the WaYS and Haudenosaunee forest interns, and all of the cultural knowledge sharers for putting in care, time, knowledge, and compassion into making this gathering happen and working towards the resurgence of our relationships with each other through the care of our homelands and peoples. For more information about EAB management and or WaYS, feel free to check out Ash Protection Collaboration Across Waponahkik or the Wabanaki Youth in Science Website.