The land we live on has been inhabited for over 10,000 years
by people we know today as Wabanaki, yet many of us have little understanding
of the history and culture of the people who have called this place home for millennia.
We invite you to join us as we seek a better understanding of indigenous history and culture
through storytelling, film, art, archaeology, and examining our own relationship to the land.
Documentary Screening and Panel Discussion
Friday, April 25th
7 pm (Doors open at 6:30 pm)
Meetinghouse Arts - 40 Main Street, Freeport, ME
Please join The Land We Live On for a screening of the documentary film We Are The Warriors, winner of the 2023 Maine International Film Festival’s Tourmaline Prize for best feature made in Maine.
This documentary tells the story of how the residents of Wells worked to better understand the lasting effects of their colonial past while deciding the fate of their high school’s American Indian mascot after facing public allegations of racist behavior at a home football game.
Not able to attend the November lecture with Chris Newell on “Indigenizing History and Education”? Check out the recording here!
Community Resources
Wabanaki and North American Indigenous Reading Lists
Freeport Community Library has several curated reading lists about North American Indigenous folks, including both fictional and nonfictional books written by or featuring Wabanaki Tribal citizens, Canadian Tribal citizens, Native Americans, and Indigenous peoples generally. With the exception of 1 or 2 reference books, all of these books can be borrowed from the library.
The Land We Live On is a community partnership with
Past Events
November 29, 2023
with Nathan D. Hamilton, Associate Professor of Archaeology, University of Southern Maine and Thomas Bennet, Director, Prince Memorial Library, Cumberland, Maine
6:00 PM at the Smith Center for Education & Research, Wolfe’s Neck Center
Free, registration is required.
A rich archaeological record has much to tell us about Native American activities on the islands and shore of Casco Bay thousands of years ago. This presentation will use displays and hands-on activities to show how materials from field work in our region are analyzed to compile archaeological and environmental data that informs our knowledge of the lives of Indigenous people in Casco Bay before written history. Topics covered will include: sea-level rise and changes in shoreland, use of migratory fish and terrestrial animals such as white tailed deer and sea mink, and the changing use of marine shellfish in relation to water temperature.
presented by Freeport Historical Society and Wolfe’s Neck Center
November 9, 2023
Community Conversation
6:30 PM at Freeport Community Library meeting room
The Tri-Town Equity and Inclusion Coalition (TTEIC) invites you to a Community Conversation. What is stirring for you from what you have heard, learned, and witnessed about Wabanaki history and truth telling? Are you interested in processing and making meaning together? Join us!
October 25, 2023
Wabanaki Stories to Live By (in the Time of Climate Emergency)
with Dwayne Tomah, Passamaquoddy language keeper, storyteller and cultural ambassador
6:00 PM at the Smith Center for Education, Wolfe’s Neck Center
What Native American stories can teach us about protecting our air and land and water, our plants and animals, and ourselves.
Join us for an evening of story telling and drumming. Dwayne is the keeper of wax cylinders containing original recordings of Native American songs and dances and will play one of these cylinders for us! Free event, registration required due to limited space
presented by Freeport Climate Action Now in partnership with Freeport Historical Society and Wolfe’s Neck Center
October 20, 2023
Americans Who Tell the Truth: Portraits by Robert Shetterly
Renowned Maine artist Robert Shetterly has painted over 265 portraits of Americans, who are, in his words, “icons of the historical struggle for justice and equality. They stood up against powerful people and systems which had denied them their rights and dignity.”
4:00 PM Opening Reception
6:00 PM Truth Tellers documentary screening
7:00 PM Artist Robert Shetterly on Meetinghouse Arts Stage.
presented by Meetinghouse Arts
Freeport Community Library Film Series
Tue, Nov 7, 1:00 PM, The Warrior Tradition (2019, 56 mins)
The Warrior Tradition tells the astonishing, heartbreaking, inspiring, and largely-untold story of Native Americans in the United States military. Why would Indian men and women put their lives on the line for the very government that took their homelands? The film relates the stories of Native American warriors from their own points of view – stories of service and pain, of courage and fear.
Wed, Nov 15, 5:30 PM, Invisible (2005, 59 mins)
The Native American people of Maine are invisible. To most whites they do not exist, and many who do know of the Indians’ presence are ignorant or both their history and their present circumstances. This film examines some of the history of the relations between the white and Indian communities in Maine. Through individual voices, it looks at underlying reasons for the racism so deeply embedded in white American culture and how that racism continues to shape Native American reality today. It then asks how we can begin to change our own racism and confront the invisible racism that underlies much of white American society today.
Tue, Nov 21, 2:00 PM, Fighting Indians (2021, 117 mins)
On May 16th, 2019, The State
of Maine made history by passing LD 944 An Act to Ban Native American Mascots
in All Public Schools, the first legislation of its kind in the country. For
Tribal Nations in Maine, the landmark legislation marked an end to a decades
long struggle to educate the public on the harms of Native American mascotry.
This is the story of a small New England community
forced to reckon with its identity, its sordid history, and future relationship
with its indigenous neighbors.
Mon, Nov 27, 11:00 AM, Gabriel Women Passamaquoddy Basketmakers (1999, 28 mins)
The Passamaquoddy communities of eastern Maine are the home of some of the finest Wabanaki basketmakers, and the tradition is often carried on by women in extended families. Six women of the Mitchell and Gabriel families from Indian Township have shared and passed along these traditions. Perhaps the best known basketmaker in the family was Mary Mitchell Gabriel (1908-2004), who was first Maine Native American to receive the prestigious National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, in 1994.