There are two major groups within the Wabanaki – the Eastern Wabanaki (Etchemin and Mi’kmaq) located from Newfoundland to the Kennebec River Valley, and the Western Wabanaki (Abenaki) found between the Kennebec and Merrimack River Valley. The Eastern Wabanaki depended solely on hunting, fishing, and gathering, while the Western Wabanaki also grew maize, squash, and beans in semi-permanent villages.
The Etchemin lived in villages in times of plenty and went through an annual cycle of migration – moving southward to seashore camps for the summer, and then northward to deep woods hunting camps in the fall and winter. They foraged in small extended families, that were part of a larger tribal community that numbered between 300-500 people. The kin groups lived on their own for most of the year, foraging in their familiar areas, but in the spring, rejoined larger kin groups at food-rich sites. Many hundreds of tribal members and visitors from distant regions would then encamp together.
“Each kin group within the small communities had its own vested interests in certain tracts of forest, stretches of rivers and lakes, peninsulas, seashores, and coastal islands sustaining them … Successive generations of Indian hunters, fishers, and gatherers periodically returned to these familiar places where they could hunt, fish, and gather for some time, before moving on to another place to set up camp. With kinship ties, including intermarriage, between neighboring families, they would have operated in close association, and their foraging territories probably overlapped “ (Prins and McBride, 2007:pgs. 17-18).
The Wabanaki hunted and foraged widely. They used dogs to chase their prey, especially moose, deer, and caribou. They also hunted bears, beavers, otters, gray seal, waterfowl, and other birds. “They tapped the sweet sap of the maple tree and harvested greens (young ferns or fiddleheads, etc.), wild fruits (strawberries, etc.), nuts (chestnuts, etc.), seeds (wild rice, etc.) and edible roots and tubers (groundnuts, etc.). Etchemin families dug clams in the mudflats. Other shellfish were also eaten, including lobster, some being 20 pounds in weight … Etchemins used harpoons to take seals, porpoise, and sturgeon, and special three-pronged fish spears to catch salmon, trout and bass. At night, they lured the fish with torches of burning birchbark from their canoes. This way, a man could spear up to 200 fish during one trip. In addition to using nets, hooks and lines, Etchemins caught a variety of fish in weirs made of wooden stakes placed in a shallow stream or small tidal bay.” (Prins and McBride, 2007 – pgs. 21-22).
Wabanaki crafted their tools, clothes, and implements from available resources. They carved harpoons, needles, awls, and fishing hooks from animal bones. They built seaworthy canoes of birch bark, with a white cedar frame sewn with black spruce root, sealed with spruce gum or pitch, and lined with Northern white cedar slats. They used chipped stone to craft arrowheads, knives, scrapers, and heavy woodworking tools. They made ceramic cooking pots from fired clay mixed with crushed rock grit or shells. These pots were decorated with a variety of intricate designs that changed over time. They used sweetgrass to weave baskets. Their clothing was made of animal hides and furs, mostly moose, caribou, beaver, bear, and seal.
The Wabanaki lived in tent-like, birchbark homes called wigwams, which means “home” in Algonquian-based languages. They were cone-shaped, with a hole in the top to let out smoke from an internal fire. The interior was blanketed with large deer, moose, and bear pelts. Animal hides hung over the doorway to keep the elements out.
The Wabanaki leaders were usually chosen from a small group of men belonging to families believed to possess supernatural powers. The ”sokom” (sagamore or chieftain) kept his position until he died, or the people lost confidence in him. A new tribal leader was elected from among the leading family heads, but most were selected from the same respected family as the deceased chief. The sokom mediated disputes and decided on foraging territories, but all decisions were subject to the consensus of family heads and elders of his community. Most major decisions were made during the springtime gatherings.
Illustration: An engraving made by Mattheüs Merian (1593-1650) of Wabanaki hunting on Mount Desert Island. From Sir Ferdinando Gorges 1622 “Brief Relation of the Discover and Plantation of New England.
Bibliography: Prins, H.E.L and McBride, B. (2007) Asticou’s Island Domain: Wabanaki Peoples at Mount Desert Island 1500-2000. Northeast Regional Ethnography Program, National Park Service, Boston, Massachusetts.
Catalysts of trade and exploration 