The FCC UCC Wabanaki Working Group invites you to engage in the work of becoming better allies to the Indigenous peoples of the Wabanaki Confederacy. Below, we offer a variety of resources to help deepen your understanding, foster connection, and encourage meaningful action.
Books
Explore a range of books that offer historical context, cultural insights, and personal stories from Wabanaki authors and scholars. These selections aim to educate and inspire readers to reflect on their own roles in allyship.
Relations (University of Toronto Press, 2021).From Birchbark Books: “The Gatherings tells the moving story of these meetings in the words of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous participants. Reuniting to reflect on how their lives were changed by their experiences and how they continue to be impacted by them, the participants share the valuable lessons they learned.
The many voices represented in The Gatherings offer insights and strategies that can inform change at the individual, group, and systems levels. These voices affirm that authentic relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples – with their attendant anxieties, guilt, anger, embarrassments, and, with time, even laughter and mutual affection – are key to our shared futures here in North America. Now, more than ever, it is critical that we come together to reimagine.”
Morgan Talty, Night of the Living Rez
According to Bookshop.org, “Set in a Native community in Maine, Night of the Living Rez is a riveting debut collection about what it means to be Penobscot in the twenty-first century and what it means to live, to survive, and to persevere after tragedy.”
Morgan Talty, Fire Exit: A Novel
Bookshop.org shares, “From the porch of his home, Charles Lamosway has watched the life he might have had unfold across the river on Maine’s Penobscot Reservation. He caught brief moments of his neighbor Elizabeth’s life–from the day she came home from the hospital to her early twenties. But there’s something deeper and more dangerous than the river that divides him from her and the rest of the tribal community. It’s the secret that Elizabeth is his daughter, a secret Charles is no longer willing to keep.
Now, it’s been weeks since he’s seen Elizabeth, and Charles is worried. As he attempts to hold on to and care for what he can–his home and property; his alcoholic and bighearted friend Bobby; and his mother, Louise, who is slipping deeper into dementia–he becomes increasingly haunted by his past. Forced to confront a lost childhood on the reservation, a love affair cut short, and the death of his beloved stepfather, Fredrick, Charles contends with questions he’s long been afraid to ask. Is his secret about Elizabeth his to share? And would his daughter want to know the truth, even if it could cost her everything she’s ever known?”
Movies & Documentaries
Visual storytelling can bring history and contemporary issues to life in powerful ways. The following films and documentaries explore Wabanaki experiences, struggles, and resilience.
Learn More and Get Involved
For additional information and ways to support Wabanaki sovereignty, please visit Wabanaki Alliance, a coalition working to secure the rights of Wabanaki people and promote awareness of their history and culture.
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