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ST MARY'S FIRST NATION, UNCEDED WABANAKI TERRITORY (NB)—For the first time in several hundred years, non-Indigenous peoples were invited to participate
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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