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ix Preface ❖ This is a study of a group of Native American ceremonies, written by a musicologist whose cultural identity is Euro-American. It reflects centuries of relations between Europeans, including my direct ancestors, and Native people in northeastern North America. The ceremonies under consideration are part of the alliance protocols of the Wabanaki Confederacy, and I imagine that some of my forebears may have experienced something like them before I did. I know that my father, Alvin H. Morrison, has, for I followed him into research in the same area of study and under the guidance of some of the same teachers. I was introduced to Wabanaki culture, part of the Maritimes region and Algonquian language group, when I was too young to remember. Salient recollections are of being miserable on a foggy shell midden, visiting Abenaki Elder Stephen Laurent in Intervale, New Hampshire, tramping around countless sites of importance in the intercolonial wars, and always admiring the sweetgrass and ash baskets that were used around our house. My sister and I were research subjects one year when my father investigated how Wabanaki people were presented in children’s literature. When his analysis of the political systems and adaptive diasporas of northeastern First Nations was used in land claims and federal recognition cases, I saw applied anthropology at work. I had no special interest in Native American music until a graduate class with Bruno Nettl at Harvard University prompted me to investigate Wabanaki songs and dances. I discovered that although well defined culturally, this was too large a research area. My father suggested that I present my seminar paper on sources for such a study to the Algonquian conference in 1990, and it was here that a Mi’kmaq Elder impressed on me the value that such sources could have for Native communities, and also that having access to Harvard University ’s libraries put me in a unique position to find them. Passamaquoddy x P R E FAC E educator Wayne A. Newell, a Harvard alumnus, was also encouraging; and he showed me the file that he keeps on outside researchers, which impressed me as a reversal of the usual anthropological relationship. Accepting the challenge of finding a research topic within Wabanaki studies , I attended the Sipayik Indian Days first in 1993, after being invited during a previous trip to the Waponahki Museum. The gracious welcome I received there from Joseph A. Nicholas and David A. Francis, and their dedication to promoting language and cultural traditions inspired me. Similarly moving was the frank interest of young people, and the hospitality of Denise Altvater, Margaret Apt, Barbara and Louis Paul, and others. I spent a year in Eastport, Maine, studying Passamaquoddy language, songs, history, and culture under the guidance of the museum staff and Robert M. Leavitt. There I met other researchers working with and within the Passamaquoddy Tribe. I also spent time observing the youth programs and talking with the staff, and having a great deal of time on my hands, attending Mass almost daily at St. Ann’s Sipayik (an excellent way to get to know older people). I made almost weekly visits to Indian Township, driving my friends from Sipayik to visit their friends there, to observe the school programs, and consult with individuals and families. During the next two years I returned several times to visit various consultants in both communities. My engagement and marriage to an Eastport man has facilitated continual contacts, with my helpful and well-connected in-laws passing along oral communications. When I first arrived at Sipayik and Indian Township, I found that the various tribal cultural offices had received repatriated materials including recordings , artifacts, and the bones of Ancestors; people were well aware of written sources on their culture, as well, even if they did not have access to copies. Attitudes toward these materials differ among individuals, but I did not find that helping people to access these resources would in any way upset a cultural process that was well under way when I arrived on the scene. I have therefore always shared my sources and assisted with requests for access where I could. Subsequently, much of my work has been collaboratively investigating historical sources. The uses to which these have been put by the Passamaquoddy community itself are many, ranging from publications to classroom teaching tools to private ceremonies and artistic creations. In 1995 the Wabanaki Confederacy meeting was held at Sipayik, hosted by the youth council. Invited to observe...

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