{"id":211,"date":"2023-04-29T03:52:31","date_gmt":"2023-04-29T07:52:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/elnuabenakitribe.org\/WP\/?page_id=211"},"modified":"2023-06-30T03:04:46","modified_gmt":"2023-06-30T07:04:46","slug":"tribal-headquarters","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/elnuabenakitribe.org\/WP\/tribal-headquarters\/","title":{"rendered":"Tribal Headquarters"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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For thousands of years, the Original People of this region have visited, lived, and been laid to rest at the confluence of the Wantastekw (West River) and Kwenitekw (Connecticut River), in what is now known as Brattleboro, VT. The significance of this place as sacred, both holding balance and exchanging Spirit, is acknowledged by the rare presence of petroglyphs – submerged due to hydro development over 100 years ago – and historically documented Indigenous burials.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>

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With the adjacent riverbank under threat of development and extensive disturbance, Elnu (Vermont state-recognized) with Atowi Project in partnership with Vermont Land Trust, raised the funds to purchase the 2-acre parcel on the open market. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are now renovating the building which has become our new tribal headquarters and a future cultural center where we can hold community gatherings and offer workshops and programs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Significance of Place<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Those who have an understanding of the cultures that create these physical, cosmological manifestations appreciate\u00a0that contextual\u00a0location is critical to their significance. The symbols in the bedrock are there for specific reasons, and they fulfill (in an ongoing manner) requisite\u00a0roles, in the cultural understandings of the People who realized them. A lasting message to successive generations, they speak to a balancing of power, as an acknowledgment of the interplay of relationships and connections between the three-layered\u00a0worlds: above [sky], middle [earth surface], and under[water or ground]. These carvings\u00a0in the living rock are created by informed\u00a0individuals on behalf of the communities\u00a0for whom they are responsible\u00a0and proximately situated in locations that allow access\u00a0to\u00a0these portals of exchange\u00a0between worlds.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An illustration (drawing by T. Fitzpatrick) of the primary panel at \u201cIndian Rock\u201d from Edward Lenik\u2019s \u201cPicture Rocks\u201d 2002<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>

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Current dispositions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Scuba diver Annette Spaulding has made it her lifelong passion to search for these symbols hidden deep beneath the river\u2019s surface, with the added barrier of an accumulation\u00a0of silt. With thousands of hours underwater over many years, she has recently begun to have some meaningful results. In the fall of 2015, she located a single face, similar to those on Bellows Falls, previously noted only once.\u00a0Last year, toward the end of \u00a02016, she thinks she may have found a partial thunderbird. She has returned since then to confirm that new lead. Local Abenaki representatives are in regular communication with her, to advise her as to protocol and stay apprised\u00a0of the current status of her search. Annette remarks that bald eagles are often perched above her as she dives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A single face relocated in 2015 by diver Annette Spaulding.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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