Rutland High School has a new mascot. The city’s Board of School Commissioners voted 6-4 on Tuesday to approve the “Rutland Ravens,” a name that a group of Rutland High School students selected after seeking suggestions from city residents and other students in the district.

A partnership between Abenaki tribal members and the Endangered Alphabets Project has created an illustrated Abenaki dictionary for schools, the Endangered Alphabets Project announced last week.

According to their announcement, the Burlington-based Endangered Alphabets Project partnered in 2019 with the Abenaki Circle of Courage, a youth group associated with the Missisquoi Abenaki Nation, to publish N’Dakinna: An Illustrated Abenaki Dictionary for Schools.

The Indigenous Abenaki people of the Northeast have, for generations, been subjected to both genocidal attacks (killing of people) and ethnocidal attacks (killing of culture) by colonial settlers and their descendants. In the colonial era, these threats took the form of murderous attacks on families and villages in war-time. In the modern era, these threats have included eugenic sterilization, forced separations of children and families, misrepresentations of history, and other attacks that the United Nations classifies as “ethnocide.”

modern maps hold no memory of what the land was before. Few of us have thought to ask what truths a map may be concealing, or have paused to consider that maps do not tell us where we are from or who we are. Many of us do not know the stories of the land in the places where we live; we have not thought to look for the topography of a myth in the surrounding rivers and hills. Perhaps this is because we have forgotten how to listen to the land around us.

This online panel will look at the cultural, social, and environmental issues surrounding ice fishing, what it means to those who participate in it, and how it may continue to evolve and change in the future. This event is presented in connection with BMAC’s ICE SHANTIES: FISHING, PEOPLE & CULTURE, and ERIK HOFFNER: ICE VISIONS.

This past summer, REACH invited me to participate in the development of its new Decolonizing Conservation Communities program. As former staff of a Maine land trust organization, I was excited to offer my first-hand knowledge and experience to shape the program. Truth be told, I was also grappling with how, as a member of the conservation community, I had come to see myself as a perpetuator of colonization, and I wanted to take an active role in disrupting patterns of continuing colonization endemic to land trust work while also supporting a conversation about how land trusts can shift their work to become agents of decolonization.

At today’s online convening of the Vermont House of Representatives, Rep. Brian Cina offered the session’s devotional by singing the Mi’kmaw Honor Song by George Paul, as translated into Western Abenaki by Jesse Bruchac. This is a powerful moment in a renewal of Indigenous voice in the homelands. Kchi wliwni Brian.

Perhaps we need to join the growing movement called the “Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature (GARN)” that’s taking hold in countries around the world and in various communities here in the U.S., a movement that recognizes that our ecosystems — including animals, forests, oceans, rivers, mountains, etc. — have god-given rights just as human beings have god-given rights.

Elnu Abenaki are happy to join in this supportive local opportunity, recognizing that we share common challenges with other area advocacy groups. This program will enable Elnu to better support both the well-being of our own People and that of the larger community of which we are a part. Kchi wliwni — with great thanks!

A scholar in Canada has been attacking Abenaki people in the U.S. Here are some thoughts about that…

As Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy. How, she asks, can we learn from Indigenous wisdom and ecological systems to reimagine currencies of exchange?

With all of us searching for ways to escape the screen during the pandemic, podcasts are the perfect way to do that. Here are ten of our favorite podcasts featuring Indigenous content. Cozy up and enjoy some great listening.

“I suggested that there was a need to look at all of the people who were here before this became Brattleboro because that period of time is significant,” he said. “We’re talking thousands of years.”

This poem considers the plight of a language, how it — like the child Moses in the biblical story of the Exodus — is vulnerable, and might be in need of someone like the Pharaoh’s daughter to nurture it. In considering the precarious situation of many lesser-spoken languages, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill casts a story of language preservation through the archetype of women helping women in ancient texts.

“I think it was a very wise choice and also a very empowering choice to have representatives from the Native community,” said Carol McGranaghan, now in her third term as chair of Vermont’s Commission for Native American Affairs.

‘Western science is a powerful way of knowing, but it isn't the only one says Robin Wall Kimmerer. A new interview on Tapestry at CBC Radio Canada.

Roll up your sleeves and gather in the kitchen for this virtual instructional cooking class taught by Missisquoi Abenaki chef Jessee Lawyer. Jessee will demonstrate how to create a seasonal dish showcasing Native techniques and pre-colonial, Vermont-grown and gathered ingredients. Recipes will be included so you can create the dish for your own family and friends.

The Squamscott River

grew lazy in early summer—

muskrat rose and dove

heron swept the air and landed

and hemlocks that had survived

another century's practice

of harvesting their bark

were thriving…

Etuaptmumk - Two-Eyed Seeing is explained by saying it refers to learning to see from one eye with the strengths of Indigenous knowledges and ways of knowing, and from the other eye with the strengths of Western knowledges and ways of knowing ... and learning to use both these eyes together, for the benefit of all.

"The proposed desired conditions in the plan fail to specifically describe the wild nature, solitude and other characteristics that underscore what makes the mountains sacred and worth protecting. The Forest Service also needs to provide tangible benchmarks towards which management goals should be directed."