Fred Wiseman is Professor At Johnson State College in Vermont, and Director of the Abenaki Tribal Museum and Cultural Center. He’s written a book titled, “The Voice of the Dawn,” published by University Press of New England. Prior to the European settlement of North America, the Abenaki lived in New Hampshire, Vermont, and western Maine. During the colonial period, they fared less well than other native peoples. Unlike the Iroquois, they weren’t allies of the English colonists, they haven’t received as much anthropological and historical attention as other tribes. Wiseman talks about the challenges the Abenaki have faced in preserving their culture in the years since colonization, and how surviving Abenaki have lost some of their tribal identity. He even speculates that the Abenaki, who became seafarers when they settled along the ocean, may have traveled as far as Europe, centuries before the voyages of the Vikings and Christopher Columbus.
