Talk:Wabanaki Confederacy

sources

Looking for a link for the 2015 Grandmothers' Declaration which is all over social media esp facebook but seems not to be formally published on any website of any authoritative source.

Also wondering if this source which is from a blog but also widely republished and referenced is suitable for this article.

Much of the literature seems to be moving around these sources, and there is a dearth of mainstream reporting, as is common on indigenous issues anywhere. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.212.125.141 (talk) 20:07, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Yucatan?

Does anyone know why the Yucatan peninsula is what is shown on the map here? Smashrgrl (talk) 05:12, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Flag

@GrahamSlam: About the image you added to the infobox:[1]. When was this flag adopted and/or in use? Do you have a link to a site or source about it? I did an image search and nothing is coming up. If we're going to use it we should source it. Thanks! - CorbieV ^☊ ☼ 18:03, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Removal of the Abenaki

On March 26, 2018 fours edits by 130.111.64.111 removed the Abenaki from the Wabanaki Confederacy‎. No reasons were given and no citations supplied. Seems suspicious to me. Vandalism? WikiParker (talk) 13:42, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

There are reasons for this that might not be due to vandalism. The "Abenaki" is not an original tribal or national name. This is often the case, however. When we go back 10,000 years, many of the nations, tribes, and bands we're familiar with across the U.S. didn't exist with the names the people of the regions now use. "Sioux" for example, is, after all, a French term not an Indigenous one. While an Algonkian term, I have seen Indigenous-centering literature that mentions the Abenaki (Eastern and Western, often), and other material that doesn't. It may have partly to do with what time period you're talking about. See, for example, the first one minute of this video with lecturer Elizabeth Neptune (Passammaquoddy): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoCjuPRaGgI and the title of this history book: https://www.amazon.com/Wabanakis-Maine-Maritimes-Penobscot-Passamaquoddy/dp/B000CS2AX0

I have heard discussion among Wabanaki peoples about the legitimacy of the Abenaki term. But such discussions and disagreements are bound to happen when talking about people and places that have been invaded, forced to relocate, are sites of slaughter, return, etc. The discussion isn't about whether or not people lived where the Abenaki originally lived, but about the authenticity and legitimacy of the term itself. Here is one source of historical and cultural knowledge of the region, from Maria Girouard (Penobscot): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1DRIzt0Zgc&feature=emb_logo. That video and other historical material may be found here: https://www.mainewabanakireach.org/wabanaki_health_wellness_and_self_determination. PaulThePony (talk) 01:39, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

Tribes or Nations

The article begins by talking about the First Nations and Native American tribes and then uses "tribes" the entire length. Would it not be more applicable to use both varied throughout? To a Canadian (and many others around the world), for example, the Mi'kmaq form a nation not simply a tribe. Indeed, ample evidence suggests that the use of "tribe" elicits correlation with inferiority compared with larger, more mainstream nations, due to the intense propaganda arising from the invasion and colonial-settlement periods. Please consider analyzing what terms appear in the article with regard to nationhood and how such political entities would be represented be them from Eurasia --Danachos (talk) 05:06, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

It is my understanding that "First Nation(s)" refers to the overall group (the majority of indigenous people in Canada) not to specific groupings within it?? North8000 (talk) 13:07, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

It refers to both. All First Nations are those Indigenous nations south of Inuit Nunangat and not part of the Métis nation. Specific First Nations also exist, generally what US Americans would call "bands" or "tribes", we call "First Nations" or "nations". Much like the Belgian nation exists within the larger European nation and houses the smaller Flemish nation, so too do First Nations exist on multiple levels. For example, there is the Dene Nation but within that is the Tlicho Nation, Sahtu Nation, Kaska Nation and so on. Or like how the Sipekne’katik nation exists within the larger Mi'kmaw nation which, in turn, exists within the larger Wabanakik nation. The Mi'kmaq nation is a "First Nation" as are the Sipekne'katik and Wabanakik nations.

The use of the term "nation", I believe, is the most applicable as it has a range of usage, much wider and better accepted than "tribe" does. Although "tribe and "band" still retain their definitional meanings and are thus applicable, they have been used so often to denigrate nations because early newly-come Europeans viewed the Indigenous Turtle Island populations as lesser and incapable of "proper" societal structure. Mistaking fluid and flexible structures for having none is still a common occurrence when considering Indigenous countries and legal systems. If we consider the Kurds, the Tibetans, the Basque, the Faroese and Mongolians as nations, we must extend the same labelling to nation-groups on this continent. Please, also, consider the differences in the meanings between nation, state (polity), country and nation-state. Nations frequently exist without statehood, and countries do not need to be states to be countries. Danachos (talk) 15:11, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the great info. In the US there lots of words that are used in the vaguer sense but "tribe" or "band" is pretty universal for specific groups including for self-identification. (e.g. tribal government, tribal police etc.) I don't know what that means for the article, I'm just talking. North8000 (talk) 17:07, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

Following up on the above, with great thanks and deference to Danachos, complicating matters greatly and problematically are how Indigenous and Aboriginal Peoples are designated by the Colonialist State--the USA, for example. From 'legal' membership to a nation to 'recognition' of the nation by the colonialist settler government, Native peoples have had to navigate these sometimes mind-boggling, hazardous, and lethal definitions to get federal funding, to allow a casino to be built to generate needed funds for self-care, or to keep land, for example. Tribal governance, itself, has been greatly impacted and shaped by occupying European forces over several hundred years. The US Nation-state, in other words, has the means and motive (on-going theft of resources) to manipulate groups, bands, tribes, nations of people to its own ends, which is, after all, the story of the US and the West more broadly. When in doubt, I seek to ask those whose identification, personhood, and nationhood is being questioned or consult the histories of such peoples told by themselves/ourselves to one another, if offered. PaulThePony (talk) 02:02, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

How to remove this blocked section?

I am going to find the copyrighted section. The rest of the article should be unblocked.

Copyrighted section: The Passamaquoddy wampum records describe that there were once fourteen tribes, along with many bands, that were once part of the Confederation. Native tribes such as the Norridgewock, Etchemin, and Canibas, through massacres, tribal consolidation, and ethnic label shifting were absorbed into the five larger national identities.

Notice: This section is a potential copyright issue. I removed the problematic section because no one would fix the issue as quickly as possible.

Copyrighted link (removed):

Another copyrighted section: By the 1640s, internal conflicts within the region started to make Iroquois advances harder to combat for what would become the Wabanaki peoples, but also the Algonquian (tribe west of Quebec City), the Innu, and French to manage separately. Aided by French Jesuits, this led to the formation of a large Algonquian league against the Iroquois, who were making significant territorial land gains around the Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence River region. By the 1660s, tribes of Western Abenaki peoples as far south as Massachusetts had joined the league. This defensive alliance would not only prove to be successful, but it helped repair the relationship among the Eastern Algonquians, promoting greater political cooperation in the coming decades.[1]:124

[1]:124 is the copyrighted mark. It should be scrapped off the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ant1234567 (talk • contribs) 16:16, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

@Ant1234567: @Moneytrees: I agree that something needs to be done. It has been close to four months and absolutely nothing productive has advanced since Moneytrees flagged this article. Not only has this prevented further information from being contributed to the article, but also any potential corrections where they are needed. If the information is so problematic, then just remove it if that will give people the article back because this is getting out of hand. One of the biggest challenges when it comes to Native American history is the complications involved with obtaining information that exists in a format that is citable to begin with. This gives a huge bias in narrative to Western documentation methods, and by extension their perspectives. Considering the complication surrounding providing citations for wampum rolls, especially when information about them has a significant oral history component, often individuals describing those stories and histories are in a weird complicated legal limbo. This is especially true considering any modern reading of an old wampum roll will never be verbatim, but include new creative narrative elements which could be argue to be under copyright again. This is one of the hard parts about western interpretations of copyright law being imposed on indigenous societies. That being said, what is particularly frustrating is the fact that this article from 1998 is simply relying information that comes from a 1921 publication by Robert M. Leavitt and David A. Francis. The information itself and the exact wording are by extension in the public domain. One complication I do recognize is the fact that upon further reading it appears that the claim of 14 tribes is within the context of attending tribes to the Caughnawaga council itself, and not the total amount of tribes that would ultimately become part of the Wabanaki Confederacy. So if that wants to be addressed, please do it. With all of that, something needs to be done. -Wolastoq — Preceding undated comment added 20:19, 26 August 2021

@Sennecaster: Would you mind if I could please get your help clearing up this copyright issue for this article? It would be nice so that way people, as well as myself, could get back to working on it. It has been in this limbo for months now. Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wolastoq (talk • contribs) 06:40, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

References

John Cabot

According to the John Cabot article, no one is sure where Cabot landed, what happened to him on his last known voyage, or whether he ever came back. We don't know if he ever met any Mi'kmaq, or fought with any natives, AFAICT. This article claims he kidnapped and fought with, and was defeated by, Mi'kmaq, citing a blogpost with no references. It appears to be pure speculation. 70.77.37.23 (talk) 19:52, 9 August 2022 (UTC)