John Moody, tribal ethno historian, eulogized the chief,
extolling Homer St. Francis’ spirit, his determination, his
understanding of history and prophecy, and his love for the children. He
started by reciting the length of Abenaki presence at Missisquoi -
literally thousands of years - thinking, as many of us were, of Odzihozo,
the anthropomorphic glacier that formed the lake now called Champlain, the
ancestors who were there to witness those transformations, and the remains
of those ancestors who still lie in the land all around this part of the
world.
John also made the comment, aimed particularly at the
local and state of Vermont dignitaries seated in the church, including
Governor Dean, that Vermont owes its beauty and wildness to the long
presence of Abenaki who preserved their traditional homelands and held off
more concentrated settlement. "Greylock was the 18th century
Abenakis’ solution to urban sprawl."
Moody, himself a Vietnam veteran, went on to list the wars
in which Abenaki men had fought, on behalf of the United States, beginning
with the many scouts who served in the French and Indian wars, as the
Abenakis played both sides to cleverly preserve their territory. There was
"Indian Joe," from Missisquoi, who, along with other Abenaki men
who fought on the colonial side in the Revolutionary War, was promised
that the traditional homeland at Missisquoi would be preserved. Other
Indian war veterans received similar assurances - the Penobscots were
promised that they could hold "Indian Island" in Maine, and the
Passamaquoddys reserved "Pleasant Point," both long-inhabited
sites. There was Chief Louis Gill, who held an officer’s commission from
George Washington, and generation upon generation of northeastern Indians
in general, and Abenaki in particular, who went to war alongside their
Yankee neighbors, to preserve America and their homelands, even while the
American government was systematically erasing Abenaki sovereignty,
sterilizing Abenaki women, and sending Native children off to
institutions. During the 1940s and 50s, white Vermonters formed Ku Klux
Klan vigilante groups in northern Vermont, and started targeting Abenaki
and other undesirable "colored people," ensuring that
Vermont’s population would become the overwhelmingly "white"
demographic that it is today.
Homer knew all of that, and he fought all his life to keep
this corner of what we now call "Vermont" for an Abenaki
community that went underground and survived right under the noses of
their neighbors for the last two hundred years, long after Ethan and Ira
Allen claimed Vermont was a deserted hunting ground.
We got to hear how John Moody, as a young anthropologist
thirty or more years back, came to interview a few Indians, and met Homer
St. Francis. "I told him how my Yankee mother had raised me to fear
the St. Francis Indians, who were the scourge of the settlers, and told me
they were eventually wiped out by Robert Rogers in 1759." Despite the
statements in Rogers’ falsified reports, and the myths perpetuated by
white New Englanders, the Abenaki communities at St. Francis and elsewhere
survived. Homer told the young anthro, "I won’t kill you today...
but you’re mine." Moody has ended up devoting his life to
collecting and preserving the history of the tribe. He is now our tribal
ethnologist, and is married to our Repatriation Coordinator, Donna
Roberts.
Moody acknowledged the chiefs and delegations from the St.
Francis Abenaki Reserve at Odanak, in Canada, from Penobscot,
Passamaquoddy, Micmac, Maliseet, Mohegan, Narragansett, and many other
Native Nations, who sent one, two, or many people to honor the chief, whom
they didn’t always agree with, but whose spirit was admired by all who
knew him. Then Moody brought our attention to one of the most pressing
problems that needs to be addressed by all Vermonters. As Homer used to
say, "There’s more of us in the ground than there are walking
around above it." Vermont has hundreds of thousands of Abenaki
burials that are not protected by any state officials, despite existing
laws against disturbance of marked and unmarked burials. Remains are still
being unearthed in known habitation sites, and still being shoveled back
into landfills, even at places like Monument Road, a stone’s throw from
the church we were seated in. Monument Road, Moody reminded us, was the
site of the first church in Vermont, founded by a Jesuit who came to live
among the Missisquoi at Greylock’s village, along the same river where
many of the Abenaki seated in the church along with us were born.
Ironically, the chief’s passing forced a rescheduling of
a coalition that has been formed to address the issue of continued
disturbance of Abenaki burials, in known village sites, by housing
construction and urban sprawl. "It’s time for us to council
together, to preserve our ancestors, and to look to those who come
after." Moody also noted that this church, placed here on one of the
oldest sites of human habitation in Vermont, was acknowledging, as the
earliest priests among the Abenaki did, that there need be no conflict
between Christian and Abenaki traditions. "Gluskabe and Jesus both
counseled the same ideals - care for the old ones, heal your spirits, look
to the children."
The chief was also a Marine, so a Marine honor guard in
addition to the tribal honor guard attended him. What choked me up the
most was the moment when, as the church bell started tolling his age, and
the Marines were unfolding the flag over the casket, the voices of the
Maliseet drummers could be heard outside the church, singing the Wabanaki
chief’s honor song. We processed to the church graveyard and stood by,
as the sky shifted through clouds and rain and bright sun. As the flag was
being folded for his wife Patsy, a small fire of sweetgrass, sage, and
tobacco was started at the foot of the coffin. When three crisp shots from
the Marine rifles suddenly broke the silence, many non-Natives flinched
and startled, but not an Indian among us moved. The now-bare coffin was
soon covered with flowers, the chief’s headdress, tobacco, and many
other offerings. I brought a hide of my own long-past father’s white
deerskin, to cover the chief as we have covered the old ones who have
traveled back, home to Missisquoi, home to Greylock’s village, home to
Monument Road, by way of the Winooski, Bitownbauk, and Missisquoi waters.
Chief Homer St. Francis can now sleep with the old ones.
