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Abenaki Village

The Abenaki before 1600

Abenaki means “people of the dawn” because as the sun rose each morning in the east, it shone on the Abenaki before any other people in North America. These first peoples who have lived in New Hampshire for thousands of years helped shape its history. Their culture is still celebrated in the state today.

As you learn more about the Abenaki, think about the following questions:
  • How did where the Abenaki live impact how they lived?
  • How did Abenaki traditions reflect their way of life and beliefs?
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People of the Dawn

Who were the Abenaki, and where did they live?

The last ice age ended nearly 12,000 years ago. When the ice melted and the glaciers receded, plant and animal life returned to northern New England. Native Americans had been living in other parts of the continent for thousands of years, and when the ice age ended, some of them began to move north. They were following large animals like woolly mammoths, which once lived all over North America but are now extinct.

Abenaki Couple
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Abenaki Life

How did the Abenaki meet their basic needs?

For the Abenaki, their main tasks were to find food, protect themselves from the weather (especially New Hampshire’s cold winters), and make tools from the natural resources around them that would help them with their other tasks. The Abenaki had to find everything they needed in the natural world around them. They made things from trees, plants, animals, rocks, and water. They did not have metal to make tools.

The Manner of Their Fishing
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Abenaki Culture

What ideas shaped the Abenaki’s beliefs about the world?

The Abenaki believed that everything in the world around them had a spirit, including all animals and plants. Even the elements (wind, sun, rain) and the land (mountains, lakes, rivers) were thought to have spirits. Each spirit played an important part in the world and was respected.

Sometimes the spirits argued with one another, which produced conflicts like storms or floods. Sometimes one spirit had to make a sacrifice so that other spirits could survive. For example, whenever an Abenaki hunter killed an animal, he would take a moment to thank the animal’s spirit for its life.

The Abenaki also honored spirits in the natural world during their ceremonies.
Recollections of the White Mountains

Abenaki Stories: Creation

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Connections

In what ways did the Abenaki interact with one another and other Native Americans?

Although most of the Abenaki’s time was spent with their family groups, they were well aware of other Native Americans living in this region. There were trails all throughout New England, which shows that the Native Americans in this area often traveled between different groups.
On the Abenaki Trail
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The Abenaki in New Hampshire

In what ways can we still see the Abenaki in New Hampshire?

When the English arrived in New Hampshire in the early 1600s, the Abenaki shared with them many ways to survive in this region, from how to tap the trees to make maple syrup to how to use snow shoes to get around in the winter. In fact, the first English settlers might not have survived in New Hampshire without the Abenaki’s help.

The Abenaki also shared with the English their decorative arts, particularly their skills at basket-making. And many English settlers learned from the Abenaki how to make both dugout canoes and birch bark canoes. The English also adopted the Abenaki’s traditional crops, like corn and squash, which are still grown in New Hampshire today.

Native Americans and English Trading

Unit 2 Student Reading

A printable version of the student reading for this unit, without pictures or graphics.