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Our Heritage

Saturday, 25 August, 2007 @ 12:00 am

As regular readers know, Guss and I are Native Americans who grew up on an Indian Reservation in Maine.

This will be a long post, but most of it will be photos of people and places special to both of us. I hope you enjoy.

We grew up on an island isolated from the mainland except by private canoe or a public ferry.

This is a color shot of the ferry.

During the winter, after the ice had frozen solid sawdust and lumber were put on the ice for the Natives to be able to get back and forth to the mainland to go to work and get supplies.

When the ice was thin it was dangerous going for the people on the reservation, as you can well imagine.

Thanks in large part to our family members they were finally able to persuade the legislature a bridge was needed, and this one-lane bridge was built in the early 50’s.

Several years ago this bridge was replaced with a two-lane bridge.

This is an old picture of the Catholic school on our reservation. Guss and I attended public schools on the mainland.

This is the Penobscot Indian Band performing on the mainland. Notice the men’s headdresses were with the feathers pointing up and not down like the Plains Indians.

This is a view of the lower part of the island. Our house was on the right, just beyond the trees and out of sight in this photo.

Let’s trace our family roots now.

This is the only photo we have of our maternal great-grandfather. It appears he is carving a war club.

This is our maternal great-grandmother in her old age. She was loved by all her children and grandchildren, and I look forward to meeting her in Heaven.

Here’s a shot of our maternal great-grandmother making a basket, with some of her finished handiwork on display.

This is a shot of our maternal great-aunt, who raised us both, displaying some of her finished basketry.

Our great-aunt and our great-grandmother showing their handiwork.

Our family left the Catholic Church and our great-grandmother gave a dance hall she owned and the land to be used for a Baptist church.

Here she is standing outside the church door before the building was complete.

Here’s the first Sunday meeting at the new church. All of our mothers’ siblings who were still alive are there along with them and our great-grandmother and great-aunt. Of course others were there too.

Here is the finished product.

While we’re still talking about the church I want to show you the man who raised Guss and me. He’s the man in the center of this photo. The others are unknown. We called him Da-Da and he did most of the work on the church building. He boarded with our great-grandmother and great-aunt and was a father to Guss and me. He was a full-blooded Mohawk Indian.

Here is a photo of our maternal grandfather and some members of his band. Grampy is the second one from the left.

The Korean War broke out and our uncle served in that war as a Marine. Here he is on leave at our great-aunt’s house.

Here is our uncle as he looks now.

Here’s our grandmother about ten years before she died.

Here is our grandmother and her second husband, whom we knew as grandfather, as they renewed their wedding vows. The other man on the far left is the minister.

This is our grandmother and step-grandfather about 15 years or so before she died and about 20 years before he died. This photo was taken at my house.

This is our great-aunt who raised us. She’s the same woman as the young woman you see in some previous photos with her mother and their basketry.

Now we come to the last of the family photos.

This must be ~J~ in kindergarten! I had long braids but a certain cousin we all know cut one of them off and the other had to be cut off too, so here I have a short haircut.

I was scared to death of what that man was doing with that big box he had so I look like a deer caught in the headlights.

This woman was actually from a different tribe, but married a man from our tribe and lived among us as a member of our tribe. She was a sweet old lady.

This is part of the Ranco family. Since our great-grandmother was a Ranco these people could very well be relatives of ours.

A group of Penobscots posing but not in native Penobscot attire.

Having some fun Indian dancing.

I hope you enjoyed your excursion through our reservation and visiting with our family as much as I have enjoyed putting this together.

Written by ~J~

9 Responses to “Our Heritage”

Sue Says:
August 25th, 2007 at 12:14 am
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J:

I absolutely love, love, love this post.

How wonderful of you to share it with all of us so we may learn a bit of not only your heritage but some of the Native American Culture.

~J~ Says:
August 25th, 2007 at 7:22 am
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Thank you, Sue. These are my most prized photos as some of them are the only ones we have of our departed loved ones.

Other than those, though, the one I love is the one showing the street where we lived even though we can’t see our house, because it’s so beautiful with all the trees it gives me a feeling of peace and home.

david Says:
August 25th, 2007 at 1:50 pm
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I’m so pleased to have received this in my morning email and see it posted. J knows I’m very interested in this. I run a voting rights program for 10 tribes. Besides seeing your beautiful family, I really appreciated the baskets. All of our 22 tribes have an art form, but we have no basket making tribes. We all do pottery, plus jewelry and weaving. I deeply appreciate your sharing this–plus your grandmother looked a LOT like mine–especially the handbag. I have a picture of my grandmother hanging laundry–with her black purse on her arm.

Big Mo Says:
August 25th, 2007 at 7:26 pm
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THANK YOU!! That was fascinating. Thank you very much for sharing.

Would you provide a phonetic pronunciation of the tribal name?

~J~ Says:
August 25th, 2007 at 7:36 pm
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Pah NOB’ Scot

Cathryn Peters Says:
August 26th, 2007 at 8:54 am
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Hi there,

I was delighted to receive your posts about your heritage and the connection with basketweaving in this morning’s email from a Google Alert on Native American Baskets.

Although I am from Scandinavian, German and Scotch heritage, I am terribly interested in the Native American culture and frequently blog about it and also add articles and links in my free monthly ezine, Wicker Woman’s Weavings.

I live in northeastern Minnesota where the Ojibway is the predominant tribe. And just recently was asked by a California Native if I could or would weave ceremonial (to wrap pipes in) and everyday cattail leaf rush mats for him and the remaining members of his tribe out there. He was originally from Michigan, but had moved out west years ago.

After doing quite a bit of research on the Net and also trying to find Natives around here to weave the mats instead of a white woman, I realized that there are no active Native mat weavers anymore around here. Are you aware of any so I could put them in touch with this gentleman?

Since I am a basketmaker too, although mine are contemporary antler baskets instead of traditional black ash, your posted pictures were a delight for me to see. How fascinating and intricate their work was and what an honor to have had these masters in your family.

Please continue to post and take pride in the fact that you are enriching other’s lives by sharing your culture and heritage! God Bless you!

The Wicker Woman-Cathryn Peters-Angora, MN
http://wickerwoman.blogspot.com

~J~ Says:
August 26th, 2007 at 10:33 am
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Cathryn,

What a beautiful spelling to a beautiful name!

I don’t know anyone who weaves mats, as I’m not even sure what the mats look like. I don’t even know anyone who weaves placemats.

Our baskets are made of brown ash and, as you probably know, a lot of preparation goes into getting the material from tree to basket.

I might refer to to http://www.penobie.com. As far as I know she still makes baskets and has traveled the country in competitions so she may know what it is you’re describing. She has contact information on her page.

She and I had a falling out a few years ago, so don’t even mention my name.

Thank you for visiting and for your lovely comment.

abimelsmom Says:
August 26th, 2007 at 10:48 am
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EVERYONE should be as proud of their heritage as you obviously are. Many people forget that they can only go forward if they understand where they have been, and that includes your family. Thank you for sharing your history.

~J~ Says:
August 26th, 2007 at 10:52 am
Visit ~J~
Thank you, abimelsmom. We are indeed very proud of our heritage of hard-working people who did for themselves and helped others besides. We come from good stock on our mothers’ side and on our fathers’ sides too, I imagine.

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9 Responses to “Our Heritage”

Sue Says:

~J~ Says:

david Says:

Big Mo Says:

~J~ Says:

Cathryn Peters Says:

~J~ Says:

abimelsmom Says:

~J~ Says: