Ongoing Programs
Health and Mental Health Care Provider Trainings
Abenaki Health and Heritage offers trainings for health and mental health care providers and staff around understanding the strengths, challenges and needs of the Abenaki community. The training provides background information on how colonization and historical trauma have impacted the health and well-being of Abenaki population, as well as best practices for working with this community. The training is an hour and a half and is free of charge. You can use the Contact Us page to arrange a training at your organization.
Historical and Intergenerational Trauma Trainings for Health Care and Mental Health Care Providers and their Staff
For more details, please see the Historical and Intergenerational Trauma section of our Health and Wellness page under American Abenaki.
Upcoming Events and Programs
Come help us celebrate Abenaki Recognition and Heritage Week.
Each year the Governor proclaims the first full week of May as Abenaki Recognition and Heritage Week and this year the Friends of the Missisquoi Wildlife Refuge have invited us to do a book reading. The book Always Coming Home tells the story of an Abenaki family in Northern Vermont during the 1800’s. The reader is invited in to experience the traditions and customs of the family as they prepare for the Forgiveness Day Ceremony. The illustrated book includes many beautifully sketched images from the story and even provides an appendix in the back that explains each image.
The book reading is taking place at the Missisquoi Wildlife Refuge Visitor’s Center at 5:00pm on Sunday, May 4th.
We are looking to offer a Healing Drum Circle
The purpose of this drum circle project is to offer a safe experience to celebrate the power of healing through the sacred drum.
Participants will learn how to make their own drum from start to finish. This process will set the stage for our cultural experience. Along the way they will understand the powerful connections of the materials and living beings that were used in the creation of the drum. Their spirit and soul are integral in healing and finding a special connection to mother earth.
We will emphasize the importance of healing through connecting to your drum and ultimately, mother earth. We will integrate traditional medicines, song, and ceremony as we create a trusting circle of friendship. The circle will focus on a personal healing through the creation of a drum and the power of its rhythm and heartbeat. Members will leave after each gathering with healing practices to integrate into their daily lives.
Events - March 2025
Introduction to Abenaki Baskets
10:00am - 3:30 March 8, 2025, Vermont Historical Society, 60 Washington Street, Barre, VT 05641
Come and explore the variety of amazing baskets made by Abenaki artists. We will learn about the artists, the baskets, and the materials used. Hope to see you there.
Events February 2025
Introduction to Wabanaki Beadwork
10:30am - 3:30pm February 8, 2025, Vermont Historical Society, 60 Washington Street, Barre, VT 05641
Some of the most iconic and memorable Indigenous North American art is found in 19th century beadwork. Native people throughout North America, whether it be Mi’kmaq or Nu-chal-nuth, style their symbolic identity on ancestral beaded regalia. Scholars have studied in detail not only the designs and motifs, but the nuances of bead size and color choice. “Typical Native American Tribal Bead Color Preferences” (crazycrow.com/site/native-american-tribal-bead-color-preference) is a good example of this sort of detailed research developed for general audiences such as Vermont Abenaki beadworkers. However, the equivalent American Abenaki tradition has been little known; even at the coarsest design level. By default, local beadworkers have patterned their work on designs taken from Eastern Wabanaki or Pan-Indian sources. The fact that there has been no technical, stylistic and geographic analysis of American Abenaki beadwork art (or other types of material culture) has led people to believe that there is no Abenaki art history, nor perhaps any American Abenaki history at all! However, recently published preliminary research into our regional variant of Northeastern Native American beadwork has demonstrated its uniqueness, but with an affinity to beadwork of the Penobscots, Passamaquoddies, & Maliseets; as well as that of Kahnawake Mohawks.
The Bead Workshop
Join Dr. Frederick Wiseman on February 8, 2025, for an in-depth workshop in this fascinating type of American Abenaki material culture. The program will begin with an indigenous perspective on material culture research; then proceed to an historical and geographic overview of 19th and early 20th century American Abenaki beadwork style and technique. It will consist of a PowerPoint slide show, followed by a Museum gallery tour focused on the documented beaded artifacts in the Abenaki Cultural Conservancy holdings in the VT Historical Society Research and Exhibition Gallery. After a lunch break, we will proceed to “bead lab,” where attendees will have an opportunity to directly examine dated and provenanced American Abenaki and related Wabanaki and Haudenosaunee examples. The goal is to learn the basics of Abenaki beadwork, including design attributes, bead size and color selection. We will illustrate how we can develop a standardized bead design “vocabulary” that is equivalent to those established elsewhere in Native America. For example, bead colors can be easily identified to standard Pantone colors, and bead sizes can be easily measured in tenths of a millimeter with a microscope micrometer reticule. These measures will begin to develop an understanding of the Wabanaki bead palette and hopefully distinguish that of the American Abenaki subvariety. In this way we can carefully approach the margins of the hearts and minds of the 1840’s Connecticut River Valley or Champlain Basin beadworker -- and bring that knowledge into our modern world.
Events January 2025
On January 30, 2025, Fred Wiseman, one of AHH’s board members will be giving a lecture on Indigenous Ethnobotanical Spirituality at the Missisquoi Wildlife Refuge as part of the Friends of Missisquoi Wildlife Refuge’s winter and spring lecture series.
Come join us and our Friends for an evening of learning.
On January 9, 2025, Fred Wiseman, one AHH’s board members will be giving a lecture on Indigenous Ethnobotany at the Missisquoi Wildlife Refuge as part of the Friends of Missisquoi Wildlife Refuge’s winter and spring lecture series.
Come join us and our Friends for an evening of learning.
Events December 2024
Introduction to Material Culture Studies I
10:30am - 12:30pm, December 14, Vermont History Center, 60 Washington Street, Barre, VT 05641
Join Frederick Wiseman as he offers introductory tours of the Abenaki collections in the Vermont Historical Society’s Research and Exhibition Gallery.
Introduction to Material Culture Studies II
1:30pm - 3:30pm, December 14, Vermont History Center, 60 Washington Street, Barre, VT 05641
Join Frederick Wiseman as he offers an introduction to method theory and techniques with the use of a microscope on some of beadwork, wood, and lithograph from the Abenaki collection.
Events November 2024
The Abenaki Cultural Consortium Collection: a Leisurely Introduction.
10:30 AM-3:30 PM, November 9 Vermont History Center, 60 Washington Street, Barre, VT 05641
Join Dr. Frederick Wiseman as he offers introductory tours of Abenaki Cultural Consortium research collection of beadwork, tools, birch-bark, and bentwood containers, baskets, canoe paddles and even a birch bark canoe. These materials have just been installed in the New Vermont Historical Society Research and Exhibition Gallery. People will also have an opportunity to view some of interesting recent acquisitions including an Early Phase One (ca. 1800-1810) pigmented, wide-splint Vermont storage basket, and an 18th century chip carved & corner cut medicine staff. In addition, the Historical Society Community Room will have some scientific instruments available to demonstrate the potential of the collection for understanding the 19th and 10th century American Abenaki experience. We intend to begin using this equipment at the History Center for analysis of original 1840’s-1860’s Wabanaki beadwork and archival lithographs of American Abenaki clothing.
(Illustration to the right is of a portion of the American Abenaki utility and work basket collection, 1830-1930)
