Test Your Wabanaki Knowledge

The following test items were compiled by my 7th and 8th grade students following their taking the ‘Test Your Native IQ’ quiz. I asked them to submit two questions each and drew these 20 from those for you to use to test your general knowledge of the Wabanaki, past and present. Keep track of your answers and then check them at the bottom of this page. Please let me know how you do. Joseph

1. The term ‘Wabanaki’ means:
a. The People of the Eastern Shores
b. The People of the Dawn
c. The Dawnland People
d. all of the above
2. ‘LD291’ is a mandated piece of Maine legislation that requires:
a. Social Studies teachers to teach about the Native peoples of Maine
b. all teachers to teach about the Native peoples of Maine
c. Social Studies and LA teachers teach about the Native peoples of Maine
d. teachers to decide if they will teach about the Native peoples of Maine
3. Around ___ Maine Passamaquoddy still speak their own language.
a. 50
b. 500
c. 1,500
d. 2,500
4. In ___, the state of Maine sold 100,000 acres of Penobscot tribal land without the tribe’s permission.
a. 1781
b. 1833
c. 1904
d. 1980
5. This Wabanaki nation was likely the first to come into contact with Europeans.
a. Mi’kmaq
b. Penobscot
c. Maliseet
d. Passamaquoddy
6. The Passamaquoddy nation:
a. is self-governing
b. has no distinct government
c. is self-governing with state and federal oversight
d. is self-governing with federal oversight only
7. The Mi’kmaq of Maine received Federal Recognition in:
a. 1958
b. 1983
c. 1991
d. 1995
8. Which two Wabanaki nations share an Algonquian language?
a. Mi’kmaq and Maliseet
b. Passamaquoddy and Maliseet
c. Penobscot and Mi’kmaq
d. Penobscot and Passamaquoddy
9. This Wabanaki American Indian nation has two reservations in Maine:
a. Mi’kmaq
b. Penobscot
c. Maliseet
d. Passamaquoddy
10. During the American Revolution, the Penobscot people:
a. sided with the British
b. did not take sides
c. sided with the Americans
d. were not aware that the war was going on
11. What is the purpose of the Wabanaki Center at UMaine - Orono?
a. for people to learn about the Wabanaki peoples
b. for Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples to meet about the Wabanaki
c. for Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars to research the Wabanaki
d. all of the above
12. The Wolastoqiyik or Etchemin are more commonly known as:
a. Maliseet
b. Penobscot
c. Mi’kmaq
d. Passamaquoddy
13. The Passamaquoddy and the Commonwealth of MA signed a binding treaty in ___.
a. 1641
b. 1794
c. 1887
d. 1980
14. Between 1616 and 1619 alone some ___% of Wabanaki perished from European-introduced disease.
a. 60
b. 75
c. 80
d. 90
15. Europeans / Americans diminished Native land-holdings by:
a. abrogating treaties
b. conducting ‘scorched-earth’ type warfare
c. creating legal justifications such as “Right of Discovery”
d. all of the above (and more)
16. The ‘Penawahpskewi’, ‘People of the White Rocks’, refers to the:
a. The Maliseet
b. The Penobscot
c. The Mi’kmaq
d. The Passamaquoddy
17. Many Mi’kmaq still bear the scars of ___.
a. poor health care
b. boarding schools
c. ‘English only’ classes
d. all of the above
18. Old Town High School recently changed its mascot from the ‘Indians’ to the ‘Coyotes’. How many Maine schools still use Native mascots?
a. 10
b. 20
c. 30
d. 40
19. Until what year were the Penobscot (and other Wabanaki) considered ‘mentally unfit’ by the Maine State Legislature?
a. 1930
b. 1945
c. 1960
d. 1975
20. The issue(s) of ___ plays an on-going role in Wabanaki / State & Federal Government relationships.
a. sovereignty and self-determination
b. recognition
c. reorganization
d. trade

Answers
1. D - All of these names have been used to translate the word “Wabanaki”.
2. B - All teachers in Maine are required to teach to LD291. As time goes on, the materials and resources for that to happen effectively will be created and disseminated.
3. D - The question is: will the next generation of Native youth be able to withstand the incredible social and economic demands of the dominant society and gain a firm understanding of their culture’s linguistic heritage?
4. B - The illegal sale and / or appropriation of Indigenous people’s land continues today in many parts of the world, including the US.
5. A - The voyages of the Norsemen, and archaeological evidence recovered in the Maritimes, suggests that the Mi’kmaq were the first to meet up with Europeans. The meeting did not go well for the Vikings.
6. C - Native American governmental forms, imposed by the British and then American governments, are a complex mixture of “sovereign, but dependent” governing (Chief Justice Marshall).
7. C - The Mi’kmaq pursued Federal Recognition apart from the Passamaquoddy and Penobscot Land Claims Settlement. One advantage in their settlement was that the State of Maine exercises no legal controls over them that they do not agree to.
8. B - Both can be understood by the Penobscot, while Mi’kmaq can be challenging for all three. “Maliseet”, by the way, is a Mi’kmaq word for “slow talkers”, not necessarily a compliment.
9. D - Indian Township, near Princeton and Sipayik, near Eastport, and about 50 miles apart.
10. C - It is little wonder considering the way in which they had been treated by the British, including having had a bounty placed on their scalps - men, women, and children - under the Phipps Proclamation. Indeed, the first British warship captured in the Revolutionary War was taken by Penobscot warriors who then sailed it, without any training!, to an American port.
11. D - The Wabanaki Center  http://www.naps.umaine.edu/) is one of many resources available for all to learn more about the Wabanaki.
12. A - Native peoples rarely are known by their own names, but are rather given names by other tribes (“Sioux = enemy” and was the Anishinabe word for their Lakota neighbors) or by invaders. “Wolastoqiyik” means the “People of the Wolastoq” (St John’s River) and “Etchemin” is believed to be a French rendition of the Native word for “canoe”.
13. B - This treaty, signed before Maine became a separate state, formed the basis of the 1980 Land Claims Settlement Act. Almost none of the provisions of the over 300 treaties signed by Native and non-Native leaders has been honored. Treaties were always signed government-to-government and thus form a basis for on-going self-determination actions on the part of Native nations.
14. D - While sometimes disputed, this figure holds for losses across the entire continent, including the Far North. A close reading of the book, 1491, provides a fascinating look into the role disease played in providing a base from which Europeans launched their seizure of much of the Indigenous world.
15. D - From George Washington (“Town Destroyer” to the Iroquois) on, there has been a focused policy of removing land and resources from Native control. The use of legal niceties has backfired in recent years as Native lawyers use the courts to demand reparations, but the battle for Indigenous peoples land continues to this day across the globe.
16. B - You can see what remains visible of the rocks beneath the dam across the street from Old Town Canoe Company in Old Town. If you cover up a people’s heritage, does that mean it no longer exists?
17. D - Isabelle Knockwood’s outstanding book, Out of the Depths, gives the reader a harrowing look into the boarding schools and their impact on Native Peoples everywhere. The movie, “The Rabbit-Proof Fence”, is another powerful exploration of this topic as experienced by Australian Aborigines.
18. C - Mascot comes from the Spanish for “pet” and the French for “a person, animal, or thing that brings good luck”. This is a loaded topic for many schools across the country and says a lot about our society’s continuing perspectives on Native peoples. By the way, “coyote” is an animal that is not indigenous to Maine: there is no Passamaquoddy or Penobscot word for the animal.
19. D - In 1975, the State Legislature finally struck language from their records that painted Native peoples as being “less able, intelligent, capable” than non-Natives. How does language manifest stereotypes in a culture?
20. A - The idea that Native nations are sovereign and continue to be self-determining is a continuous source of debate in the courts and in the halls of government. Cf. treaties above.

Thanks for taking this quiz and for working to advance your understanding of the Wabanaki and other Indigenous peoples around the world. Please let me know how you did and if any of the questions need reworking or up-dating.
Woliwon / Woliwoni / Wela’lin!