The Visual Language of Wabanaki Art

By Jeanne Morningstar Kent

For centuries, the people of the Wabanaki Nations of the northeastern United States and eastern Canada used signs, symbols and designs to communicate with one another. As Native Peoples became victims of European expansion, the Wabanaki were separated by war, the search for work and intermarriage, as well as by hiding their identities to avoid persecution. In this diaspora, their visual language helped them keep their teachings and culture alive. Their designs have evolved over time and taken on different meanings, and they are now used on objects that are considered art. While their beauty is undeniable, these pieces cannot be fully appreciated without understanding their context. Tribal member Jeanne Morningstar Kent sheds light on this language, from the work of ancient Wabanaki to today's artists--like David Moses Bridges, Donna Sanipass and Jennifer Neptune--once again using their medium to connect with their fellow Wabanaki.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The History Press
• Release date: Jul 29, 2014
• ISBN: 9781625847096

Jeanne Morningstar Kent

Jeanne Kent is a Native American in the Nulhegan Band, Coosuk Abenaki of Vermont. In order to bring public awareness to her culture, she works as interpreter, demonstrator, workshop leader and lecturer at the Institute for American Indian Studies. She serves similar roles at Mt. Kearsage Indian Museum, Mashantucket Pequot Indian Museum and several colleges. Her Native artwork is in permanent collections at the Institute for Native American Studies, Chimney Point Museum and the Roger Williams Gallery.

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INTRODUCTION

Many of the signs and symbols to be discussed here represent Native spirituality or medicine. The Algonquins thought of ourselves as part of the natural world with which, for our own well being, we sought to live in harmony. Indian religion has not been well understood by Europeans. Missionaries who wanted to replace it with some form of Christianity, dismissed it with terms like ‘superstition’ and ‘magic.’³ Because of this, many of the meanings for earlier designs have been lost or their meanings replaced with Christian interpretations even though the designs themselves have survived without change.

There has not been a lot of Northeastern Woodland art recorded or preserved, except from the Heudonnese and Micmac. The Abenaki People were not, and still are not, known by many people and are rarely if ever mentioned in history classes anywhere other than Vermont, New Hampshire or Maine, where we are part of state history. The Wabanaki People (Abenaki, Micmac, Maliseet, Passamaquoddy and Penobscot) have been invisible to many. Collections of Native American arts rarely include Northeast Woodland items, and when they do, it is sparse. Abenaki items are comparatively rare.

While researching the crafts and designs of the Abenaki People, it became evident that the beautiful designs had few of their meanings recorded. Here and there, a clue to meaning tantalizes the researcher or offers a bit of history on how designs have been adapted from European ones. Information on designs from neighboring tribes has also been sparse. The little information shared has passed between artists of different tribes. It was the need to know more about our visual language that motivated my research.

There were books (many by Frank G. Speck) written in an attempt to record some explanations. Some books written by his protégés also recognized the importance of recording the information for posterity. The need to collect, compare and identify symbols and designs came with the understanding that before our People could write, there was a visual language that was shared and understood by neighboring tribes and those who participated in intermarriage or trade.

Frank Speck found that as early as 1930, many of the meanings for symbols and designs had already been lost. Only a few commonly used designs still held meaning to the artists who used them. In many cases, members within the same band could no longer interpret them. Most interpretations had to come from the artist who created them.

Today, Native artists use easily recognizable symbols and designs to decorate baskets, utensils, regalia and containers even though there may be no specific message intended. The medicine and magic are gone for the most part. There are designs that continue to reflect families who have handed them down from generation to generation. They were obviously important enough to share even if the meanings have faded from memory. Although their meanings have been lost, their connection to the history of the People who used them continues to be important enough to perpetuate their modern use.

I can only offer collected information and brief conversations with other Natives, as well as comparisons to Christian and European symbols, as possible explanations for the original meanings. There can be no absolute designation, as many of the designs reach as far back as prehistoric uses for communication or beautification. It is with steadfast commitment that I do my best to share what I have learned. As Rollo May said, Commitment is healthiest when it is not without doubt, but in spite of doubt.⁴ So it is that I offer you the best of my interpretations in spite of doubts and allow you to draw some of your own conclusions according to the research references I have provided.

CHAPTER 1

THE DIFFICULTIES OF PROOF

However convincing some of these arguments for relationships appear to be, it is inevitable that they remain inconclusive in the absence of any historical documentation. It is the [writer’s] belief, nevertheless, that attempts at the comparative study of traditions, more especially artistic traditions, of the Old and New Worlds should not be abandoned because of the obvious difficulties of historical documentation, but should, on the contrary, be systematically pursued, on a frankly tentative or hypothetical basis, in an effort to assess the true extent and significance of existing similarities.

–A Comparative Study of Motives in Western Chinese Folk Embroideries,

Monumenta Serica, vol. 2, fasc. 1 (1936), Peking, China⁵

Early hunting people, living in colder-climate areas, used clothing as a means of communicating stature within tribal families. Only hides made into clothing for chiefs (zôgemôk⁶) were decorated. Such designs often came to represent the tribe as a whole. Even as designs became more widely used within a tribe, certain effects of design clearly distinguished one tribe from another and an individual’s place within the tribe. In some cases, this continues to hold true.

People of the early New England tribes decorated our bodies with tattoos. These tattoos contained information about us as individuals and/or identified us as belonging to a specific tribal People. Tattoos commonly appeared on both men and women. Since the concept of the human as a living genealogy record existed among many tribal groups, certain designs were intended to record our ancestry, while others recorded our relationship to spiritual or natural elements around us. Others represented protective symbols for the wearer. It is those designs that eventually evolved into the geometric designs we see today.

When the People began to wear more clothing made of animal skins, some of the tattoo designs were used on clothing, while tattoos slowly declined in use as body art. Tattoos are still worn by men and women alike, though. Many of the same designs once applied to hides to be worn as clothing continue to be used on regalia of dancers today. Early designs were drawn onto hides with natural inks, but they now appear in detailed beaded work on regalia.

Something as mundane as a zigzag has its origins traced back to distant ancestors. Some of the most basic designs come from both Native culture and non-Native cultures around the world. Edmund Carpenter believed them to be imitative of stitching that once held together more than one pelt in the making of clothing. With progressive use, the meaning changed even though the design did not. Examples of this basic design can be found all over the world. As the original meanings became lost, the artists used the designs in different combinations and assigned meanings of their own. Some evidence indicates that the designs of women’s clothing differed from those on men’s. Since history has recorded many spiritual and ritualistic differences between male and female, it would make sense that designs would also differ.⁷ Originally, men decorated themselves and their clothing, while women decorated only those for women. Today, that is not the case. While these designs and the work to make them were divided by gender, it rarely represented a single individual. It either represented the tribe as a whole or the ancestors of the individual making the item. Since most Natives believe that there is continuing life (rather than life and death), honoring the ancestors allows the cycle to continue for those who have been reborn or crossed into the other world. This is the reason for the presence of circles in designs. The circle represents a never-ending cycle of life and is indicative of generations past, present and future.

The first thing the viewer assumes is that everything a Native American wears or creates means something to him or her. While this holds true to many things like face paint (which is handed down from generation to generation) or the colors of a particular tribe or band, it is not always the case. Sometimes we simply find things in nature that are pleasant and appealing. (See Plate 10.) The purest types of meaningful designs are used on religious or ceremonial objects. Objects used every day do not necessarily include religious or ceremonial decorations. Such designs are never used for trade or sale items. To truly understand the designs, the viewer must understand Native American culture, spiritualism and stories.

Porcupine quillwork on birch bark. Birch bark/quills/spruce root. Micmac/Maritime/Canada. Courtesy Mount Kearsage Indian Museum, New Hampshire. Photo by Morningstar Studio.

Such is the case with Northeast Woodland tribes known as the Wabanaki. This group includes the Maliseet, Micmac, Penobscot, Passamaquoddy and the Abenaki. Many of the designs used in our beadwork or on birch baskets consisted of natural plants found along the forest paths we walk. (See Plate 7.) A leaf, a flower or a medicine plant may be included just for its beauty. Sometimes their mere presence is a reminder of a woodland tale told around a campfire. Other times, the plants represent good (spiritual) medicine because they contain physical healing properties. With the advance of cultural change, the decorative use of designs of medical plants and herbs has given way to more realistic flowers, moving away from the original symbolic intentions to a more detailed and decorative motif that researchers attribute to European influences.⁸

It was not until the Europeans brought their artwork, crafts and designs to this country that Natives began to include animal and human figures in our work. It is obvious from the few surviving artifacts that Natives influenced the Europeans and the Europeans influenced the Natives in the use of certain symbols and designs.

During the nineteenth century, family roles changed, and women began making crafts for sale to Europeans. These crafts were devoid of any meaning they might have had earlier. Such items were purely for sale and trade.

Lid to large oval birch bark basket. Courtesy Mount Kearsage Indian Museum, New Hampshire. Photo by Morningstar Studio.

Little information about Native designs was recorded before the 1900s, making it difficult to know how far back into history many of these designs were used without foreign influence. This makes researching early designs very difficult. Frank Speck (a respected researcher of the 1920s) was the first anthropologist to visit reservations, where he made drawings of designs in use at that time. Because of his government reports on them, we have some recorded history. He noted that even at that time, many of the Elders had forgotten what the images meant or how long they had been used. As his work progressed, he found that the Natives began to shy away from sharing with him. While his research was not extensive about any individual tribe, it was the most in-depth study of its time.

Speck’s drawings and the explanations for them brought about some concern that language differences or the guarded attitudes of our ancestors might have led to discrepancies in his work. It is noticeable that many different flowers were identified as lilies by Speck. Whether this was the only English word his subjects knew for flowers or because our ancestors did not wish to explain further is unknown. Another explanation is that any flowers growing near a pond were labeled pond lilies as a means of geographical description rather than a specific floral