Reclaiming the Ancestors: Decolonizing a Taken Prehistory of the Far Northeast

Author Frederick Wiseman, a scholar of Abenaki descent with training and experience in archaeology, has created a unique work that combines scientific data from archaeological sites with Wabanaki knowledge of history. The Wabanakis pass this knowledge down orally, creating a traditional oral history of their society. Wiseman defines the region or culture area of his study as “Wabanakik” including the Abenaki of Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, and Penobscots, Passamaquoddies, Maliseets, and Micmacs of Maine and the Maritime Provinces of Canada. Wiseman describes Wabanaki knowledge of history as having three parts: (1) The Past—when the world was made and people learned to live in it; (2) Close History—knowledge of the origins of political systems and relations between nations; and (3) Living or Recent Memory. Wiseman’s unique Native American perspective makes the work important to oral historians working with indigenous people, as well as to anthropologists and historians of northern New England and the Maritime Provinces of Canada or anyone working with an oppressed group.

Wiseman begins the work by telling the reader how he came to know about his Wabanaki heritage after he trained as an archaeologist and how this knowledge and interaction with other Wabanakis changed his perspective. He came to believe in certain basic tenets that define Native American scholarship today. The most important tenet is that information is not neutral but is necessarily political when it is obtained from an oppressed people by the oppressors. Wiseman states that archaeologists and historians have taken the permission to speak about Native American heritage away from Natives, thus creating a situation where indigenous people have lost political control of their cultural information. That information is critical to their survival and the protection of their rights and sovereignty. He cites especially the situation in Vermont, where the state, using data from works by historians and archaeologists, has denied Wabanaki recognition. For oral historians, this is a critical issue, one we should be aware of when working with any oppressed group. When planning an oral history project, thinking about whether our findings might be politicized in some way or used to deny people their rights is worthwhile. It is a difficult problem and one that often comes up when institutions review research proposals that include human subjects.

Wiseman has made it his professional goal to address the issue of cultural appropriation and has written two books in that effort. His first book, The Voice of the Dawn (2001), addresses Wabanaki history. Reclaiming Ancestors addresses Wabanaki prehistory.

Wiseman calls his research design a “sovereigntist” approach or “emic” in anthropological parlance. He has an unabashedly political sense of purpose in using native political sovereignty as the basis of his argument. His approach creates an intellectual framework that serves native scholars who desire to assist their nations politically. In developing this intellectual framework, Wiseman refers to the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act that forced archaeological and anthropological public collections and museums to return ceremonial and burial items to their originating Native American community. One positive result of this act has been native peoples ’ greater influence over their own material culture and a tendency for archaeologists, anthropologists, and historians to work more collaboratively with Native American scholars.

A distinct strength of this book is Wiseman’s knowledge of archaeological data and his embrace of science. Rather than refuting the idea that the Northeast was once covered with glaciers, he discusses the scientific data in conjunction with Wabanaki history and culture. He argues against an ethnocentric bias that originated among New York archaeologists who tend to see Iroquoian culture as superior, more advanced, or more complex than Wabanaki culture. By demonstrating his understanding of the science, Wiseman is able to incorporate native intellectual thought in interpreting science and demonstrating the cultural complexities of the Wabanaki peoples.

Wiseman consults the scholarship of Penobscot writer Joseph Nicolar (Life and Traditions of the Red Man, 1893) and Passamaquoddy Lewis Mitchells Wapapi Akonutomakonol. Robert Leavitt and David Francis revised, annotated, edited and retranslated Mitchell’s original work, Wapapi Akonutomakonol. The Wampum Records: Wabanaki Traditional Laws, 1897, Robert Leavitt and David Francis revised, annotated, edited, and retranslated under the same title in 1990) to assist in interpreting the archaeological data for the Northeast. Both these publications are accounts of traditional oral history. Wiseman cites Nicolar as proof of Wabanaki knowledge of mastodons in his discussion of Pleistocene hunting. He also reconstructs scenarios of Wabanaki hunting to assist the reader to understand how they may have created and used stone tool assemblages.

The importance of this book for oral historians lies in its role as a cautionary tale for academics who need to be vigilantly aware of how our work can be misused by politicians who wish to prove someone existed or did not existed or had a culture worth preserving or not worth preserving. Whether you agree or disagree with Wiseman’s research methodology and analysis, his new and unique account of the Northeast’s native population’s prehistory provides an important indigenous perspective on the issue of ownership and dissemination of cultural information.