Moving Forward While Looking Back: Alnôbakskwak (Abenaki Women) Designing and Creating Modern Regalia for Generations of Native American Descendants

ABSTRACT The Abenaki Tribes living in Vermont are situated on the borderlands between the United States and Canada; they recently have been recognized by the State of Vermont but remain unrecognized by the federal government (more about State recognized Abenaki Tribes and their recognition dates can be found on the State of Vermont: Vermont Commission on Native American Affairs website. https://vcnaa.vermont.gov/recognition/recognized-Tribes). When the recognition applications of four Abenaki Tribes were compared, it became apparent that many Abenaki agricultural traditions had been preserved and that our cultural revitalization efforts could be extended not only to the planting and harvesting of heirloom crops but also to reviving ceremonial dances and the creation of regalia for both planting and harvest ceremonies. The regalia's role in this project was to help strengthen intertribal relationships and restore cultural context to the dances for the first time in generations. As women from different communities prepared for the renewal of the harvest dances, questions arose around issues of cultural identity, design motifs, materials, and custodianship of the regalia between ceremonies. Many Abenaki people have their own regalia, but this set of regalia was made for a community. This paper highlights the story of the Abenaki Women’s Group (AWG) that reinvented Abenaki traditional clothing for the modern age and focuses particularly on the regalia it made for use in Abenaki agricultural ceremonies. It explores the process of creating the garments, their materiality, and the outcome of the ceremony. It sets the stage for a discussion about the essential yet hidden leadership roles of Native American women in a consensus-based society. It demonstrates how a team of Abenaki women from different communities came together to play a crucial role in the cultural revitalization process through the creation and usage of regalia for agricultural ceremonies.