 Hello, my name is Lucy Neal. I'm with the Nalhegan tribe of the Abenaki people out here in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. I'm also the Title VII Indian Education Coordinator for our tribe, and twice a year we work in conjunction with the Old Stone House, and we do program for local elementary school children and various community activities. Today we had several schools here in Orleans County. We had a school from St. Johnsbury, Vermont. We also had a group of seniors from the meeting place in Newport, Vermont, and we did half-hour presentations of our culture with these participants, and that incorporated learning what life was like before European contact, and then how life changed with European contact, and Native Americans today. We also did some activities. We did some games, and provided like a 30-minute program for the community, for our community children, and this will enable our children to learn our culture and to pass it on and keep our culture going. Next one, gold. Okay, right here. Okay, so then when we hand out the drumsticks, we hand them out the same way. So the first, so when we start a song, Gail's the drum leader, so you guys are going to follow her. Okay, so when she starts, you don't start until she gives you the look. Okay, what song do you want to do first? Different names? A longhouse? Yes, there were longhouses, and those were for many, many families to live together in. They were really very large. They could be as long as this building, not as tall, and they were made from bent wood, saplings. Those are covered with bark, you can see birch bark. Birch bark, of course, you all know what a birch tree is, right? Okay, with the white bark on it. Well, birch bark is very wonderful. It's very, very useful. And birch bark on the outside, we see this, right? We see white, but on the other side, this was rolled off of a tree that had been cut down. This is the part that's up against the wood, and it's very strong, and it's waterproof. So I'm going to pass this for you on. It's kind of breaking in half, it's fine, because a lot of boys and girls have seen it. So this is what was used on the outside and used for many, many other things. It could be folded into different containers to put things in. This is birch bark right here. You can make it out of a telescope. Okay, what do you think this is? Yeah, it looks like a megaphone, doesn't it? It is a horn, but it's used to call in moose for moose hunting. So you can do it. Right, so I'm not very good at this. This one, this one is adapted. There are several countries that also do this, but we also did this. This is called a bull roar, and it was the loudest how you could make your sound. So I'm going to give this a whirl, because sometimes I can do this, sometimes I can't. You're going to get wound up now. Really? It was games made of boys and girls plays, and many of the games helped teach different things. And this is one, I've seen this, a more modern version of it. This is called a hoop and stick game, and that's what it is, a hoop and a stick. And what you do is you try to flip the hoop onto the stick, and it helps people, our boys and girls, to be better at aiming. Who'd like to try this? Me. If you had your hand up first, come over here. See if you can do it. No, go ahead, try again. One more time. One more gentle. Almost, one more time. One more, and then we'll go on to another game that's fun to play. Oh, that was close. Oh, one more. We have other things to show you. You can eat a rabbit. Yes, you can eat a rabbit. You can eat a rabbit. Chicken. There were no chickens, but we had grouse, right? Partridge. We need squirrels. What about quack, quack, quack? Duck. Look at goose. Fishing. Yes, fishing. And lions. Right, so besides you, many of the animals were used for, as I said, eating, but all parts of the animal were used for different things. It was very little waste. So we're going to show you some things that were made from different parts of the animals. Yes. Is it on the skin? Go ahead. The beds and clothes. Yes, it is. Bedding and clothing and outside of shelters. Yes? Can I say something? Yes. So I was living at my old school house, and so my dad said it was chicken, but it was actually rabbit, and so. Oh, you mean for supper? Did it taste like chicken? Yeah, that was actually rabbit. Oh, he told me. When I ate it, all of my, my dad was like, that was rabbit. I'm like, ew. Oh, but it tasted good while you were eating it, right? He tried to trip it. Yeah, you'd get used to it. So different things from the animals. Balls were used for many, many different things. Oh, bless you. And this ball, this is a rattle. There are other rattles too, right, that is made from a leg bone. And then on this part of it, these are the toes of deer, and Rowan has deer toes on his as well. And I could pass that around so you could shake it once or twice. These are knuckle bones from feet, and this is some sort of a seed. Here is a nailing, right? I can't use that. What might we use this for? Halloween's deer leg. If you had two, you could just, like, stretch it together. What else would we use for it? Oh yeah, very well. What would we use this for? Weapons. I bet you could really hurt somebody with one of these, right? Sure, sure, sure. What else? You could make knives out of these, but just like this, you could use this. You could use it to break up the soil so that we could plant these at gardens. And native Abenaki people had a special way of gardening, didn't they? It was called, did anyone know what it was called? You could also use that for rape. Right, I know. Did anyone ever hear of the three systems? No. It's a very special way that three different crops were planted in a garden, and they worked together to grow together, and they were corn, beans, and squash. Three different things, the three sisters. The corn would grow tall. The beans would wrap their way up the corn, to keep it growing, and the squash would be low to the ground, and it would keep shade so there wouldn't be weeds growing, and it would keep the soil moist. So that's the three sisters that you're going to hear that against. Here's another thing made out of bone, here's a comb. Yes, what are you doing with those? You'll see later. Yeah, you'll see. Here's some deer hide. This is what was used for cloning. Can you pass this? It's very soft, very nice to touch. Part of what we do is we do storytelling, and we have stories that we tell that how things came to be. So the story that you're going to hear is how our calendar came to be. Okay? The Abenaki calendar is a little different from the calendar that we're used to. How many months are there in the year? Eleven. Yes. Eleven. At twelve. Twelve, right. And how many days are there in a month? 30. Around 30. Sometimes we eat. 30 or 31. Well, our calendar came from Turtle. Turtle taught us about her shell. Turtle's shell has 13 sections on the top. Now, there's just so happens to be 13 moons, full moons. When we say moons, we mean full moons on Turtle's back. We just had a full moon this weekend, a beautiful full moon. Abenaki people count their months by moons. So Turtle taught us that they're 13. Every single time you see a turtle shell, there are, here's another one, 13 sections on Turtle's back. Isn't that cool? No, it's hard to see on this one. And around the edge, see the little tiny ones around the edge? There are always 28 of those. And in between each full moon, there are 28 days. So that's what Turtle taught us. And it came to be that we have our months as 28 days, 13 days. This is a rattles. And this is a pouch to hang around your neck. That's a turtle. So once again, we're using the animal for something. And no matter how small or how big the turtle is, you'll always have those 13 big ones and 28 little ones. And each, each moon represents something different to us. Like we have the planning moon, we have the strawberry moon, some of the other. A hunting moon, hunting moon, harvesting moon. Each moon tells us something different. It's a frost moon. Right. So the moons have to be used by hunters to haul in them. And we're going to roll in on the spot again and ask him to do it. Okay, you guys look for moves, okay? It's the only reason. You can run in around the building at any moment when it goes. This is the only reason why she's really strong. So I can do a loose call. When we're talking about birch bark, how do you think we traveled when we weren't on land? Boats, a canoe, a tire, wood. Some of them were, some of them were burnt out, some of them were burnt out. They count canoes, big logs, and they burnt them out so that people could sit in them and use them as a canoe. And this one Michael made the other day, and this is a birch bark noon. Now when I was a little girl, I'm going to, we'll close with story, a real one. When I was a little girl, I grew up in Newport Center, Vermont. My grandfather was Abnaki, and he used to come and get me to pick gooseberries. What I remember about gooseberries was that they were round and they had a little thorn on the end of them. I didn't particularly care for them that much. But every time he'd come and get me, okay, he, I would never have a container. I think subconsciously I did it on purpose because he would go and talk to the tree. And I thought that was weird. And then he would cut out this piece of birch bark, and he'd make me a canoe. It was similar to this, but a little bit bigger and a little bit wider. Okay. And he would sew it together. And that was my container to get my gooseberries. Okay. So when I grew up, I always knew I was native because we did things that were different than everybody else. Like my pepe would make me a canoe. Okay. My memey would take a chicken wing or a turkey wing, and she'd clean out the wood stove. That wood stove is in my house now. I own that stove, but she would clean out the ash pan and everything else with with the feather too. It was like your dust paint. And she could get in the corners with it. My grandmother was the best chicken plucker you ever saw in your life. That woman could sit on the porch and she could just do that. This is a feather fan. And if you can, we use it for ceremony anymore, but memey would just get right in there and she'd clean it all up. So it's like a strong, strong. So think back in your history. Ask your parents. Ask your grandparents what they remember, because what they remember is very, very important today. I was a lucky girl. I was able to know my great grandparents when they were very, very old. I was in high school, so I was able to take care of them. So I'm translating now a cookbook that belonged to my great grandmother. My sister is very fluent in French. I'm not so much. And it was written in French in a composition book. And in the composition book, everything is either low heat, medium heat or high heat. There were recipes in there for cleaning solutions to clean in your house with vinegar and a few other things. There was even in there a solution, a mixture, to clean your floors and to make varnish, to varnish your floors. So when we started translating the cookbook, my sister had a hard time with small, medium or high heat. And I said, you have to remember it was a wood stove. And she was born in the late 1800s. So it was a wood stove heat. So this has been a fun project to do. And she was a pretty unique lady. Had 10 kids. And oh yeah. So that was typical of big families because you needed the kids to work farmland. Now my ancestors came down on my dad's side. They came down to North Troy, Troy, Westfield, Vermont, and they came back then the land was cheaper to purchase here. But they when they came, it was teach people how to make maple syrup. They came to sugar makers and they came to teach the people and then they wound up staying here. So that was that was like my history. But it's fun to look at your history and to see where you came from. Okay. So anyway, on that note, it was fun. I hope you guys had a really good time. We are available. So give us a call. And you guys are from where? St. Johnsbury. This is a moose calling. That's made from birch bark as well. And the ends of it are spruce roots. And this is a little bit right here. My bark was splitting. So I put a little bit of spruce sap on there. That was used for sort of light blue. We're going to let Roland do that. That's a good idea. Here comes one. An Adel Adel, which was usually back prehistoric times 10,000 years ago. We hunted with bow, but we also hunted with Adel Adels. And we hunted as a group. So it was like six to 10 to 12 hunters to kill a moose, mammoth, or whatever that was there at that time period. So do you throw that out? I'm going to show you. I'm going that way. So this is an Adel Adel. But this one here is not my favorite. This one you have a notch that your tip goes in right here. And then you hang on to it with your fingers. So you're going to do it like you do a bow. So you're going to aim. All right. Now you want it to go in an arch kind of a thing to come down on your animal. So anyway, I'm going to point, bring it right up to my ear. The wind helps. So this one is a six foot lance. And this one, this Adel Adel, you can hold it like this. So it's got to think, I like this one. So let's see how I can do with this one. Yeah. I do better than this one. Yeah. That's how they were hunting. Yes. There's a spear point usually on the end of them. Okay. These don't have. So you can see how it would take five or six of those to kill an animal. Into a mammoth. Something large. That's what I'm talking about. Wampum. Many of you have ever heard of Wampum? Money. That's money. Money? Yeah. Here we choose this money. We use this currency. Yeah. Okay. J.D. Money. A. Sure. Wampum's made from a shell. Okay. Comes from the coast. Down in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. It's a type of clam. It's called Kohawk. All right. And the shells have all different shades of purple and whites. And they're shared into beads. Oh, wow. Okay. So these are real Wampum beads. These beads were used as currency, but they were also used to make belts for communicating. Okay. Sometimes belts were made to honor treaties. Belts were also made with verbs. It was a belt. Each tribe had a belt that they would use when somebody was born. Oh, my gosh. I didn't know that. And they would have them for marriages. Naming. They would have them for naming ceremonies. Okay. Even when somebody crossed over, there was a belt that was used for that. Okay. Now. Can you imagine making those beads without power tools? Yeah. Now, one of the first means of communication between two groups that didn't share the same language and couldn't really understand each other. See, somebody came into our territory and we didn't understand their language. We had a universal Wampum belt that everybody knew what it meant. And we would, the chief usually carries this belt. And they would have a runner. The chief would give the runner the belt. He would give it to him just like this. He would then take this belt and go over to the other tribe. And he would hand it to their chief just like this. Now the chief's going to pick it up and he looks at it. What does he see? Some of you have smoked one of these. Is it a joke? No. A piece of pie. A piece of pie. A piece of pie. Okay. Now he would look at it and he would see it this way. And he would see a piece of pie. And then he'd turn it like this and he'd look at it. Oh yeah. Now what do you think he's seeing here? That's him. Give him a lay out of the hook. And that's Tomahawk. So then he would think, do I want to go to war? Now the way he sent the message back was how he handed this back to the runner. If he handed this belt back like this to the runner, then the runner would take you back to the chief, his chief. And that chief would think they want to talk peace. We're going to have a feast tonight. But if it came back like this, then the chief knew we're going to war. We have to prepare for war in the morning. So this was called a war and peace belt. There are many different designs to it, but the one standard is always going to be the pipe in Tomahawk. So that told everybody what their intentions were when they met. So the wampum was used for many different things. We still use it today. And they made it any bigger? The belts? Yeah. Oh yes. Belts have been made from smaller than this size to six and eight feet long. You could wear them, but they weren't often worn because they were made with the real wampum beads. And they're very expensive. To buy those beads today. Each bead is six dollars a piece. So yes. So if you're talking a belt that's got two or three thousand beads in it, each one of those is six dollars a piece. Because of the labor involved to make them? It takes a lot of work to make those beads. That can just be an old model. Yeah. At least. Yeah. So today, most of the time, unless we're actually doing like a treaty belt, we use what's called simulated beads. And that's what this belt is.