Dawnland Voices: An Anthology of Indigenous Writing from New England

Donald Soctomah

178 Donald Soctomah (b. 1955) The great-grandson of Sopiel Soctomah (above), Donald Soctomah received his bachelor’s degree in forest management from the University of Maine, where he later received an honorary doctorate. For eight years he served as the tribal legislative representative. He has written several books on the history of the Passamaquoddy Tribe and is now director of the Historic Preservation Office. Skicin Love Each day the bond within our souls gets stronger Each time we travel to the ancestral sites we get a blessing from above Each time we make love our bodies become one Each time we look into each other’s eyes I can feel the love growing deep inside . . . Forever Tribal Love Long time ago on Campobello Island, an island in the Passamaquoddy Bay on the Atlantic Ocean, was the summer village of the Passamaquoddy people. They always come to this spot for thousands of years; it was a good area for hunting and fishing activities. Here lived a young girl named Sipsis with her family; she made friends with a young boy name Posu; they enjoyed each other’s company during the summers, but during the wintertime they separated to their family’s hunting area deep in the forest. They looked forward to seeing each other during the summer, and after a few more years Sipsis had become a beautiful young lady and Posu a strong young man. But their families forbade them from spending time together. Finally Sipsis’s family moved to another island across the Bay from Campobello Island to separate the two young loves. Each summer they would look across the Bay hoping to see each other and dreaming Donald Soctomah 179 that the whales who swam around the island would carry them both to each other. Years passed and time flew by; they each called to Gloscap to grant them a wish, and both asked that their love would last through eternity. He heard their songs of love and felt their passion, but their families did all they could to prevent this. One day Posu was walking along the shore and suddenly his wish was granted: he had become a large rock in the shape of a man looking across the Bay, and Sipsis on the shore of the other island at the same instant also became a large rock in the shape of a woman; she too was looking across the Bay to her love. Forever they would look across the Bay to each other as symbols of true love. Today on Campobello Island stands the Skitap Man Rock (called Friar’s Rock) looking at Moose Island where his love also stands; she is known as Pilsqehsis Woman Rock. During the War of 1812 the British warships occupied Passamaquoddy Bay; they fired their cannons at Skitap Rock for target practice but were never able to hit it. If you look at the ledge you will see the spots where the cannonballs hit. Pilsqehsis Rock was pulled over in 1900 by local fishermen, but the outline of the spot still shows the base of the rock. The story lives on each time this story is told. Sacred Color Red Of all the color seen by humankind it is red that the Passamaquoddy Tribe holds sacred. This is the story of how this came to be: When native people were first made by the Great Spirit he wanted to make the people special to be close with nature and the universe. One would not exist without the other. The Great Spirit found a source of clay and mixed his blood with it started to mold a man and a woman then mixed the clay with the sacred plants. Now when the sky turns red something special happens in the tribal community: 180 people stay close to the village. As a way to honor this color and the union of the tribal spirit to the Great Spirit when someone dies, red ochre dust is put on the body and on all the special belongings of the deceased. Family and friends place the red ochre on their faces. Vera Francis (b. 1958) Vera Francis of Sipayik is a storyteller, public speaker, educator, and activist dedicated to protecting and reclaiming Passamaquoddy homelands, including ancestral territories in New Brunswick. In particular, she has been active in the fight against liquid natural gas (lng) development at the Pleasant Point Reservation, an issue...