About twenty-five years ago, the New Hampshire Department of Highways proposed building a bypass near North Conway. The highway would bisect the Abenaki Indian land given to them years after their forced retreat to Canada by the Roger’s Rangers, a Colonial force fighting with the British during the French and Indian War.
The governor, Judd Gregg, requested his mother and former First Lady of New Hampshire, Cay Gregg, to visit the summer campgrounds with its small Abenaki museum, both of which would be affected. Cay invited me to accompany her on the visit. We met with Stephen Laurent, Harvard graduate and the son of the last chief of the Abenaki, and his lovely wife. Had I realized what a memorable day this would be, I would have brought a tape recorder (alas, no iPhones then).
The small museum was filled with beautiful artifacts, and Stephen related the history of the tribe, the story of each artifact, and folk tales of the Abenaki. When writing Northwest Passage, Kenneth Roberts used Stephen Laurent as his source for this famous historical novel based on the Roger’s Rangers campaign.
In memory of the day I discovered the Abenaki people, thanks to Stephen and Cay (who have both passed on), I share a few Abenaki words. Stephen’s father, Joseph, wrote the first Abenaki grammar/dictionary. Like his father, Stephen was a linguist who translated the French-Abenaki dictionary into English:
As Thanksgiving draws near, we put on our moccasins (derived from the Abenaki language meaning covers the whole foot) and eat our pumpkin (the Abenaki word means “grows forth around”). Maybe we'll spot a moose (the word moose is an Abenaki word — actually there are seven different words to describe a moose).
Thanksgiving Day, in each of our wigwams (wigwam, an Abenaki word meaning “a place in which we live”), we will celebrate the holiday with an appreciation of Native Americans —especially the Wampanoag people who met the Pilgrims, and the Abenaki Indian, Tisquantum (Squanto), who taught the settlers how to survive.
— Unknown