YES, VIRGINIA, AMERICA HAS A LONG HISTORY

A TRIP TO THE ABBE MUSEUM IN BAR HARBOR, MAINE

By Laurie Meunier Graves

In the beginning there was just the sea and the forest—no people and no animals. Then Koluskap came. He possessed great magic…With his bow he shot arrows into the trunk of an ash tree. Out of the tree stepped men and women. They were strong and graceful people with light brown skin and shiny black hair. Koluskap called them Wabanaki, "people of the dawn."
—From the Abbe Museum’s website

Every so often I come across an essay or an article, usually written by someone who is European, that makes a sad reference to the absence of an American history. Often, this is trotted out to explain our short attention spans, our lack of perspective, our impetuousness, and our arrogance. While I am perfectly willing to admit that as a country we are guilty of all these sins, I draw the line at chalking it up to a lack of history. Our history is as long and as varied as the history of the British and the Europeans, and to deny this is to deny the existence of a Native American culture that stretches back at least twelve thousand years and continues, changed of course, to the present. It is still here, and they are still here. Granted, the United States doesn’t have ancient cathedrals or castles, but we do have artifacts as well as actual people to tell the stories, past and present, of their culture, their history, and their religion.

These stories are more than evident at the excellent Abbe Museum in downtown Bar Harbor, Maine, which focuses on Maine’s Native American history. The exhibitions are beautifully presented in various galleries with plenty of placards to educate visitors. Going through this first-rate museum is a rewarding experience, and my only regret is that I don’t live close enough to make regular trips, and therefore devote more time to writing about the individual exhibits. As it is, after just one visit this spring, I can only give an overview of what the Abbe Museum has to offer. However, I hope this will encourage people to visit this sparkling place and that it will put to rest the notion that our country lacks history.

Appropriately enough, visitors to the museum start by following a timeline of Maine’s Native American history from prehistoric times to the present. (As a Franco-American, I can’t resist pointing out that in these anti-French times, it might be instructive to remember that the first European colony in North America was settled by the French.) Artifacts through the ages combined with placards give visitors a sense of the past and how it connects with the present.

Other exhibitions include My Grandmother’s Baskets: Selections by Watie Akins; The Frank T. Siebert Native American Collection; Layers of Time: 75 Years of Archaeology at the Abbe Museum; and 2004 Waponahki Student Art Show. In My Grandmother’s Baskets, as I admired the wonderful baskets from Watie Akins’s collection—including some made by his grandmother—I read from one of the placards that the baskets were Akins’s grandmother’s “bread and butter.” They were not a quaint project that she undertook to while away the time. Indeed, the baskets look so tight and well made that viewers can easily imagine using them in their houses. With their patterns and muted colors, the baskets are lovely, but they are also practical. (Like the women who made them, perhaps?)

To continue with the notion of practicality, a placard in Layers of Time: 75 Years of Archaeology at the Abbe Museum gives a short but apt definition of artifacts: “An artifact is anything made or used by people.” In this exhibition, ancient arrowheads, stone tools, and a bone flute are displayed with an LP record, a Ziploc bowl, and a Walkman. Layers of Time, while illustrating the job of excavating objects from the past, reminds us that artifacts belong to every age, including our own.

The Frank T. Siebert Native American Collection features items that Siebert acquired during his long life. (He was born in 1912 and died in 1998.) According to the museum’s handout, Siebert was a pathologist and a collector who was also interested in linguistics and Native American culture. “Siebert’s greatest passion was the Penobscot language, which he studied and documented for 60 years…For the last 30 years of his life, Siebert lived in Old Town [Maine]…where he could focus solely on working with the Penobscots and their language.” The items—including snowshoes, moccasins, beaded straps, clothes, and baskets—come from various tribes in the United States, not just the Penobscots.

Whenever I go to a good museum, I always find “favorites,” work that for one reason or another really appeals to me, and the Abbe Museum is no exception. In this case, my absolute favorites were modestly called birch root clubs; to me, they looked like staffs of magic. Carved by contemporary Penobscot artists Stanley Neptune and his son Joseph, they have an undeniable power. Some of them have eagles carved on top; others have what look to be either a loon or a duck. Leaves and geometric shapes wind their way down the staff, and some have the face of a person carved near the top. They are precise and intricate and wild. If they had suddenly come to life and crashed out of their cases, I wouldn’t have been at all surprised.

Another favorite was actually an entire room called Circle of the Four Directions. The room, of course, is round, but it is also tall and tapered with skylights at the top. An eagle sculpture carved from a moose antler seems to be flying in the center of the room, and cloudlike triangles float over the eagle. In addition, there is Native American music playing in the background. The word sacred has probably been overused in recent times, but that’s exactly how it felt to be in this tranquil yet energy-filled room.

Finally, I want to mention the 2004 Waponahki Student Art Show, a snappy exhibit filled with terrific art by young people. One first grader, Marcus King, especially stood out with a piece called The Fish Book. It’s an abstract painting of two fish, and colors fill the whole picture, from which the fish emerge. The title suggests that the painting is a copy of a book cover. However, for a first grade student, the approach and use of colors is very sophisticated, and indeed I have seen work by adult artists that haven’t been anywhere near as vibrant and alive as The Fish Book. After looking at this painting, I can’t help but wonder if Marcus King will be a major figure in the art world thirty years from now.

The Abbe Museum belies the statement that America has no history. Indeed it does, and this wonderful museum—using artifacts, stories, religion, and facts—shows just how rich it was and how rich it continues to be.

 

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