Sogalikas: Sugar Maker Moon

With the change of the most recent new moon on March 21, 2023 in Sokwakik, we are now well into Sogalikas, the Sugar Maker Moon, fourth in the lunar year. This moon will peak with a full face on April 6th. Climate change has brought an earlier spring in recent years, shifting the time of sap harvest back toward Mozokas and even into Piaôdagos, but there is still some overlap, and the further north - toward Pebonkik, the Winter Land - one travels, the longer the season persists. The Abenaki solar cycle is flexible and can be adjusted to reflect present realities… perhaps Mozokas will have a different face some day.

Agwa – “it is said” – that Native people learned of this delicious source of energy from the red squirrel nation, observing them nip off the end bud of a maple twig and drinking the sap that flowed from the tip. Following this example, a slanting cut was made in the bark of the tree as the days grew warmer from the arcing return of kizos (the sun), and fitted with a shaped piece of bark or wood to direct the sweet water toward a bark container. The sap was reduced by freezing and boiled down in a large wooden trencher using red-hot stones.

Written historical accounts state that the first maple sugaring performed by  British settlers – in the person of Alexander Kathan – and within what is now Vermont, took place at Sweet Tree Farm on today’s US Route 5 in Dummerston, just north of Wantastegok/Brattleboro and adjacent to the Kwenitekw/Connecticut River. The settling colonists would have learned this skill from the indigenous Sokwakiak, and most likely appropriated an existing sugar orchard for the purpose. Sugaring still takes place at the farm nowadays, along with many others strung the well-travelled ancient trail.

This post first appeared on Sokoki Sojourn in April 2019.