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Reclaiming the Ancestors
Decolonizing a Taken Prehistory of the Far Northeast
Frederick Matthew Wiseman
University Press of New England
2005 • 312 pp. 39 illus. 4 tables 6 x 9"
Native American Studies / Ethnic Studies / New England
$24.95 Paper, 978-1-58465-399-8
$55.00 Cloth, 978-1-58465-398-1
(Cloth edition is un-jacketed.
Cover illustration is for paperback edition only)
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"Wiseman's synthesis of widely accepted archaeology with an innovative interpretive scheme centered on the Wabanaki is welcome and convincing."—Choice
A sweeping new account of Wabanaki prehistory from a native perspective.
Frederick Matthew Wiseman’s The Voice of the Dawn carefully balanced western and Native American expectations and methodologies to tell the story of the Abenaki Nation; the New England Quarterly hailed it as “inspiring.” Wiseman brings that same respect and expertise to a new history of all of Wôbanakik, whose “Land of the Dawn” stretches from Vermont and Quebec to Maine, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. In this first volume, he focuses on the prehistory of the Wabanaki tribes: Abenaki, Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, Malecite, and Micmac, arguing that the ancient Wabanakis were cultural and technological innovators.
An Abenaki by birth and an archaeologist by training, Wiseman is the designated Mikwobaid, or “Rememberer,” for his own tribe. He is well-suited to making informed but culturally sensitive use of archaeological and paleoecological data to tell the story of some 11,000 years of Wabanaki prehistory, up to the time of European contact. Combining the viewpoints of a Native American with that of a scientist, Wiseman offers a new and unique account of the Northeast’s First Nations.
“One of the boldest scholars on the Wabanaki academic frontier... Readers looking for extensive and subtle discussions of prehistoric artifacts in the region will find this to be a useful addition to their libraries. Wiseman’s use of some oral histories, native philosophy, personal reflection, and quotations from native scholars and tribal historians is refreshing and long overdue.”—Vermont Historical Review
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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FREDERICK MATTHEW WISEMAN is chair of the Department of Humanities at Johnson State College in Johnson, Vermont; founder and director of the Abenaki Tribal Museum and Cultural Center in Swanton, Vermont; and author of The Voice of the Dawn: An Autohistory of the Abenaki Nation (UPNE, 2000). Before devoting himself to studying his Abenaki heritage, he was Principal Research Scientist at MIT’s Center for Materials Research in Archaeology and Ethnology.
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