Blog: Voices of Decolonization
Spirit of Black Mountain by Brian Altvater
September 01, 2022
During the last few cold and windy days of December, I decided to hike to the top of Black Mountain. I was very excited, especially since it had been a while since I...
Read More ShareTeaching with the Maine Wabanaki-State Child Welfare Truth and Reconciliation Archive
August 04, 2022
by Marieke Van Der Steenhoven, Special Collections Education and Engagement Librarian, Bowdoin College How do you prepare to bear witness—even if from a distance—to genocide? Bringing the archive of the Maine Wabanaki-State Child Welfare...
Read More ShareTruth, Healing, and Reconciliation in Maine
July 07, 2022
When I was first approached to work on TRC efforts, I wasn’t particularly enthusiastic. As a Penobscot historian, I was well aware of the legacy of trauma that Wabanaki people had endured in our...
Read More ShareDecolonizing While in Colonial Systems: Serving as Tribal Ambassador to the Governments that have Historically and Perpetually Oppressed our Nations
June 02, 2022
Decolonizing While in Colonial Systems: Serving as Tribal Ambassador to the Governments that have Historically and Perpetually Oppressed our Nations In 2015 the Penobscot Nation and Passamaquoddy Tribe voted to remove their Representatives to...
Read More ShareThanksgiving Revisited
May 05, 2022
From the dawn of history when the people were one and the gatherings weren’t of need but were life, there was nothing to turn back to, nowhere to come from, just moving forward...
Read More ShareA SPIRITUAL CANOE JOURNEY
April 07, 2022
by Butch Phillips, Penobscot Nation (An excerpt from “`Wilderness within Wildness without’ by Bridget Besaw) During an up river canoe trip to Katahdin, our sacred mountain, my son Scott and I paused to rest...
Read More ShareBoarding Schools Truth & Healing
March 03, 2022
by Erika Arthur [Warning – painful content on Indian Boarding Schools below] In May, 2021 the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation of Canada announced that they had discovered the bodies of 215 children buried...
Read More ShareThere is More Good Work To Do
February 03, 2022
By Jeffrey Hotchkiss. In 2009, I learned of my connection to an infamous act of violence against Indigenous people. My family name was on the four cannon that helped to kill hundreds of Lakota...
Read More ShareThe Power of Poetry
January 07, 2022
The Dawnland Signals show for December was such a special treat. We had a wonderful virtual visit with poets Mihku Paul and Penthea Burns, discussing how they came to write poems and how they...
Read More ShareThe Importance of Education and Trust Building for Wabanaki Self-Governance
December 02, 2021
This month’s blog features a contribution earlier this year to The Maine Policy Review by Wabanaki REACH Team member Katie Tomer Katie Tomer, part Penobscot and Maliseet, has co-facilitated Native healing circles in Maine’s...
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