PENOBSCOT: A People and Their River
For some of the oldest inhabitants of Maine, a
river is the source of mythology, sustenance, memories of deprivation,
and newfound inspiration.
By Paul Bisulca
Long
before the coming of the great white swans that carried the fair-skinned
people to our shores and in a time when there were creatures much larger
than they are today, the People lived along a stream from which they
derived much benefit. One day they noticed that the water in the stream
was lower than it had been the day before. With each day, the water
level receded more, and the People began to suffer. It was decided that
someone must travel up the now almost dry stream bed to learn the reason
for this problem, and a person was chosen to do this.
After
some time and late in the day, the chosen man came to a mountain
blocking the stream. So he camped for the night. In the morning he felt
the earth shake and was startled from his sleep. Looking up, he realized
that he had camped near the foot of a giant frog. The man asked the
creature what it was doing there. The giant frog replied that it was the
largest creature on this land and that it was drinking all the water.
The more it drank, the bigger and stronger it would become. Unable to do
anything, the man returned to his village and informed the elders. It
was decided to summon Klose-kur-beh.
Klose-kur-beh
was the first man on this land, a man made from nothing, and he had
great power. Seeing the dire condition of the People and what was
causing it, Klose-kur-beh turned himself into a giant. However, he
lacked a suitable weapon to use against the frog. Klose-kur-beh looked
around and saw a giant pine tree which he pulled from the ground.
Raising the tree in the air he slammed it down on the frog, which burst
and spewed water in a thousand directions. As the water fell to the
earth, it drained into the depression created by the uprooted pine tree
and flowed powerfully from there. That is how the River came to be. The
People who lived where the River tumbled down over huge white boulders,
took their name from that place, Pana-wampskik. We are that People.
Memories
of a Nation
The Penobscot River drains the largest watershed in Maine and is the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's flagship river for the restoration of
Atlantic salmon in this country. Almost 80% of all salmon returning to
U.S. waters calls the Penobscot River home. It is also home to the
Penobscot Indian Nation whose 1996 census lists 2,093 tribal members.
Indian Island, located about 12 miles north of Bangor, is the site of
our tribal government and the residence of 500 of our members. The
Penobscot Indian Nation's reservation consists of Indian Island and all
the islands in the Penobscot River north of Indian Island. Clearly, we
are a riverine tribe with historical and contemporary connections to the
river and its resources. In 1820 Captain Francis, a Penobscot delegate
to the Treaty Conference in Bangor described us this way:
Brother,
the Good Spirit who made and placed the red men here, before the white
men came, gave us all the land from whence the waters run into the
Penobscot. He caused the forests to abound with game, and the river
with fish, for our use and subsistence. We then were contented and
happy.
But with
Maine's statehood in 1820 and the accelerated exploitation of its
natural resources by a rapidly expanding non-Indian population, things
began to change. By 1823 we petitioned the Governor and Council of
Maine:
...
in years past the beasts of the forest, Moose and Deer, were very
plenty about the head branches of the Penobscot and Kennebeck Rivers,
[but] in consequence of the white people killing them off merely for
the sake of their skins, they have now become nearly extinct. And in
order that their growth should be again propagated, the Indians on
their part have come to a conclusion to kill no more of the aforesaid
game, Moose and Deer, at present. [We wonder] whether it will not be
prudent on the part of government to pass an act in like manner
prohibiting the white people from killing those beasts in future.
Similar
petitions were subsequently submitted seeking relief from the impact on
the Penobscot's fisheries of 19th-century dam construction and
commercial fishing downstream of the tribe. But nothing was done to
remedy or ameliorate this devastation, and by 1906, when the Milford dam
was constructed several hundred yards below our principal village on
Indian Island, the salmon, shad, and alewife fisheries were almost
completely destroyed.
Considering
the prevailing attitude at that time, it is not surprising that Indian
petitions were ignored. Indians were not citizens of the U.S. and the
view of Indians as inferior was not just a vulgar view. The Maine
Supreme Court in 1824 wrote: "[I]mbecility on their part and the
dictates of humanity on ours, have necessarily prescribed to them their
subjugation to our paternal control; in disregard of some, at least, of
abstract principles of the rights of man." Maine's Indian agent
Purinton, wrote in 1861, "There are unmistakable indications that
the people to which this tribe belongs do not possess the high order of
intellect that distinguish the European race." One might argue that
today's attitudes do not mirror the past. But a large number of our
people still remember that Indians living in reservations received the
right to vote in the U.S. and in Maine as recently as 1954 and 1957
respectively.
A
tradition of respecting resources
Notwithstanding popular opinion regarding Indian intellect, the
Penobscots did understand resource management and had successfully
managed their land and water resources for a very long time. When an
1834 wing dam was built on land acquired from the tribe, we conditioned
the sale on the provision that the dam be opened each spring to
facilitate the shad spawning migration. And just eight years ago, when
the state of Maine still permitted each sport fisherman to catch and
keep three Atlantic salmon from the Penobscot River, we made a decision
not to take any because of the low return rate of spawners. This tribal
policy continues today. Native people, such as the Penobscots, have been
environmentalists long before CLF, the Sierra Club, or any other
environmental organization came on the scene and have long struggled
against the environmentally destructive dark side of industry.
However,
in December 1991, it was the Conservation Law Foundation's Dan Sosland
who first introduced this author to the advantages of collaboration with
environmental organizations. As a newly appointed member to the tribe's
Hydro Review Committee, I listened as Dan briefed our 12-member Tribal
Council on CLF's hope that it could work with the tribe to help protect
Maine's natural resources. During a time when state agencies were openly
hostile to Indian demands that they discharge their statutory
responsibilities to the tribes, I decided that the Penobscot Nation
would have to establish collaborative relationships with environmental
groups. This would be the only way to enhance our effort to articulate
the tribe's political and legal demands within state and federal
regulatory processes. Thus began a long and lasting relationship with
CLF and, subsequently, other environmental groups.
The
struggle continues. Currently, the Penobscot Nation is unable to fully
exercise its statutorily protected sustenance fishing rights in the
Penobscot River because of the discharge on to tribal land of 2, 3, 7, 8
tetrachloro-dibenzo-p-dioxin from Lincoln Pulp & Paper Company,
located 30 miles upstream from Indian Island. The mill bleaches its wood
pulp with chlorine and chlorine dioxide. This produces dioxin and other
dioxin-like organochlorines as a byproduct. Dioxin is the most potent
carcinogen known to man and impairs human reproductive capacity. A
state-imposed consumption advisory for the Penobscot River below Lincoln
limits men to two 8-ounce fish meals per month. Women and children
cannot safely consume any fish from this segment of the river.
In 1993,
the Maine Board of Environmental Protection issued a permit to allow
Bangor Hydro-Electric Company to build a new hydropower project at Basin
Mills and permanently trap salmon, shad, and alewife downstream of the
Penobscot reservation and truck those fish approximately 100 miles north
of Indian Island. The Basin Mills project is awaiting a license from the
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which, on March 26 this year,
granted a 90-day stay in proceedings for the Basin Mills, Orono,
Stillwater, and Milford projects to allow negotiations among the
Penobscot Nation, Bangor Hydro-Electric, the Governor of Maine, and
federal agencies to determine how Indian fishing rights constrain
project operations and new construction. The Departments of Justice,
Interior, and Commerce, the EPA, the Maine Council of Churches, and the
Maine Indian Relations Committee of the Episcopal Diocese of Maine all
support the Penobscot Na-tion's efforts to protect its fishing rights.
The tribe advocates sound fisheries management practices for both Indian
and non-Indian uses and is working cooperatively with the Atlantic
Salmon Federation and its Maine Council and with the Natural Resources
Council of Maine on the dioxin issue.
At the
initiative of Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and Maine Governor Angus
King, negotiations with the Penobscot Indian Nation commenced in
February this year. The purpose of these negotiations is to reach an
agreement on how to reconcile Indian fishing rights with certain
industrial operations that negatively affect water quality and fishery
management goals. It is safe to say that a negotiated settlement will
produce substantial environmental benefits, while a failure in
negotiation is likely to result in litigation and continued conflict. In
case of the latter, it may be necessary for our tribal elders to again
summon Klose-kur-beh from his home within Mount Katahdin.
Regardless
of our short-term successes or failures, we have been here far longer
than anybody else and I am reasonably confident we will not be going
away any time soon. We will remain an entity to be reckoned with,
especially as our scientific, legal, and political capabilities grow, as
they have over the past few years. We shall also continue to nurture our
respect for other life forms and our commitment to protect and preserve
them. In those cases where our environmental objectives are consistent
with those of environmental organizations or environmentally minded
individuals, we will continue to work with them, as we do now. Together
we will raise the pine tree and leave its impression on this state.
Paul Bisulca is a
former representative of the Penobscot Nation in the Maine legislature.
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