Would you like to join our virtual reading group? Please email Mia to learn more and join us!  For more information please e-mail Mia at [email protected]

As students of this area’s history, we grapple with the enduring invisibility of the Indigenous history and presence of the Midcoast region, the place we call home. In our MIAG reading group, we often return to the question, “how do we know what we don’t know we don’t know?” In this spirit, we remind ourselves to practice ending our discussions with questions rather than conclusions, thereby encouraging our process of learning and inquiry. Meeting regularly since 2017, the reading group gathers to discuss various books, lectures, and interviews that approach this territory from different perspectives, including fiction, history, ethnography, and more. As we meet and discuss, we learn from each other and share our unique strengths and questions that emerge from this diversity of sources. It is our experience that the more we learn the more we realize the scope of what is still invisible to us. We hope you will join us in this ongoing community inquiry. See our Reading Group Sampler:

HISTORY 
Snowshoe Country: An Environmental and Cultural History of Winter in the Early American Northeast by Thomas M. Wickman
This history closely examines indigenous and settler knowledge of snow, ice, and life in the cold. Indigenous communities in this region were more knowledgeable about the cold than European newcomers from temperate climates, and English settlers were especially slow to adapt. To keep surviving the winter year after year and decade after decade, English colonists relied on Native assistance, borrowed indigenous winter knowledge, and followed seasonal diplomatic protocols to ensure stable relations with tribal leaders.

FICTION 
Fire Exit by Morgan Talty
From the porch of his home, Charles Lamosway has watched the life he might have had unfold across the river on Maine’s Penobscot Reservation. He caught brief moments of his neighbor Elizabeth’s life—from the day she came home from the hospital to her early twenties. But there’s something deeper and more dangerous than the river that divides him from her and the rest of the tribal community. It’s the secret that Elizabeth is his daughter, a secret Charles is no longer willing to keep. This novel is a rich exploration of the issues of blood quantum, tribal identity, and kinship.  

ORAL TRADITION 
Still They Remember Me: Penobscot Transformer Tales, Volume 1 by Carol A. Dana, Conor M. Quinn and Margo Lukens
Newell Lyon learned the oral tradition from his elders in Maine’s Penobscot Nation and was widely considered to be a “raconteur among the Indians.” The thirteen stories in this new volume were among those that Lyon recounted to anthropologist Frank Speck, who published them in 1918 as Penobscot Transformer Tales. Transcribed for the first time into current Penobscot orthography and with a new English translation, this instructive and entertaining story cycle focuses on the childhood and coming-of-age of Gluskabe, the tribe’s culture hero. Learning from his grandmother Woodchuck, Gluskabe applies lessons that help shape the Wabanaki landscape and bring into balance all the forces affecting human life.

RESEARCH 
Maine Indian Tribal-State Commission Special Report “Sea Run: A Study Regarding the Impact of Maine Policies on the Quality and Quantity of Traditional Tribal Fish Stocks and Sustenance Practices” by Judd Easty-Kendall & Tony Sutton, and accompanying “Tributaries” video spots
This study addresses the impact of Maine policies and activity on the quality and quantity of traditional tribal fish stocks and sustenance lifeways practices, spanning from the time of first contact between Europeans and the Wabanaki Nations to the present day. This report provides a broad overview of actions and inactions by the State of Maine, whether those actions/inactions were based on express policy, informal policy, or on decisions simply not to have any policy at all. The report includes specific recommendations for implementation that are intended to promote discussion and cooperative action.  

CONTEMPORARY WABANAKI  ISSUES
​"Wabanaki Windows” on WERU 89.9 FM Hosted by Donna Loring This radio broadcast is a monthly interview show featuring topics of interest from a Wabanaki perspective. The program is hosted by Donna M Loring, a Penobscot Indian Nation Tribal Elder. Loring is a former tribal Council Member and represented the Penobscot Nation in the State Legislature for over a decade. She is a former Senior Advisor on Tribal Affairs to Governor Mills. She is the author of “In The Shadow of The Eagle: A Tribal Representative In Maine.” This show illuminates some of the hidden histories in the colonial relationship between Wabanaki and settlers in the place we now call Maine. See the “Unpacking Sovereignty” and “Hidden Elements” series in particular.

Full Reading Group List 
“People of the Dawn, People of the Door: Indian Pirates and the Violent Theft of an Atlantic World” by Matthew R. Bahar (Journal Article)

“Storm of the Sea: Indians and Empires in the Atlantic’s Age of Sail” by Matthew R. Bahar

“The Sea of Trouble We are Swimming In: People of the Dawnland and the Enduring Pursuit of a Native Atlantic World” by Matthew R. Bahar (Dissertation)

“A Means of Removing Them Further from Us: The Struggle for Waterpower on New England’s Eastern Frontier” Zachary M. Bennet (Journal Article)

 “Flowing Power: Rivers, Energy and the Remaking of Colonial New England” by Zachary M. Bennett
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 “The Rights of Nature: A Legal Revolution That Could Save the World” by David R. Boyd

“Common Pot: The Recovery of Native Space in the Northeast” by Lisa Brooks

"Our Beloved Kin: A New History of King Philip’s War” by Lisa Brooks

“Savage Kin: Indigenous Informants and American Anthropologists” by Margaret M. Bruchah

“The Indian World of George Washington: The First President, the First Americans, and the Birth of the Nation” by Colin G. Calloway

“Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England” by William Cronon

“Still They Remember Me: Penobscot Transformer Tales, Volume I” by Carol A. Dana, Margo Lukens & Conor M. Quinn

“We Talk, You Listen: New Tribes, New Turf” by Vine Deloria Jr.

“Old John Neptune and other Maine Indian Shamans” by Fannie Hardy Eckstorm

“The Night Watchman” by Louise Erdrich

“Awakening the Learning Spirit: Repatriating Mi’kmaq Feminine Perspectives” by Terrellyn Fearn (Lecture)

“Sunrise at Sipayik: A Passamaquoddy Tribal and Personal Oral History” by David A. Francis and Karen Schaumann

 “The Original Meaning and Intent of the Maine Indian Land Claims: Penobscot Perspectives” by Maria L. Girouard (Thesis)

 “Anoqcou: Ceremony is Life Itself” by gkisedtanamoogk

“The Gatherings: Reimagining Indigenous-Settler Relations” by Shirley N. Hager and Mawopiyane

“Notes on a Lost Flute: A Field Guide to the Wabanaki” by Kerry Hardy

“The Mi’kmaq Anthology” by Rita Jo and Lesley Choyce

“Sea Run: A Study Regarding the Impact of Maine Policies on the Quality and Quantity of Traditional Tribal Fish Stocks and Sustenance Practices” by Judd Esty-Kendall and Tony Sutton (Report), and accompanying “Tributaries” video series.

“Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teaching of Plants” by Robin Wall Kimmerer

“The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World” by Robin Wall Kimmerer

“One Nation, Under Fraud: A Remonstrance” by Hon. Donna M. Loring, Hon. Eric M. Mehner, and Joseph G.E. Gousse Esq. (Report)

“Wabanaki Windows” by Donna Loring (Radio Show), including “Unpacking Sovereignty” series and “Hidden Elements” series

“Molly Spotted Elk: A Penobscot in Paris” by Bunny McBride

“Sacred Instructions: Indigenous Wisdom for Living Spirit-Based Change” by Sherri Mitchell

“Neither Wolf nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder” by Kent Nerburn

“The Girl Who Sang to the Buffalo: A Child, an Elder, and the Light from an Ancient Sky” by Kent Nerburn

“The Wolf at Twilight: An Indian Elder’s Journey through a Land of Ghosts and Shadows” by Kent Nerburn

“Kuhkomossonuk Akonutomuwinokot: Stories Our Grandmothers Told Us” Edited by Wayne A. Newell and Robert M. Leavitt

“The Life and Traditions of the Redman: A Rediscovered Treasure of Native American Literature” by Joseph Nicolar

“We Were Not the Savages: The Collision between European and Native American Civilizations” by Daniel N. Paul

“Dawnland Voices: An Anthology of Indigenous Writing from New England” Edited by Siobhan Senier

“Dancing On Our Turtle’s Back: Stories of Nishnaabeg Re-Creation, Resurgence, and New Emergence” by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson

“Three Hundred Years in Thirty: Memoir of Transition and Change with the Cree Indians of Lake Mistassini” by Nicolas N. Smith

“An Upriver Passamaquoddy” by Allen J. Sockabasin

“Molly Molasses & Me: A Collection of Living Adventures” by ssipsis and Georgia Mitchel

“Prayers, Poems, and Pathways” by ssipsis

“Night of the Living Rez” by Morgan Talty

“Fire Exit” by Morgan Talty
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“Snowshoe Country: An Environmental and Cultural History of Winter in the Early American Northeast” by Thomas M. Wickman