Maine Memory Network

Penobscot Band Basket, ca. 1860

Contributed by: Hudson Museum, Univ. of Maine Date: circa 1860 Media: Black ash

Band box basket, Penobscot, ca. 1850

Contributed by: Abbe Museum Date: circa 1850 Media: Ash splints, indigo dye

Gifts From Gluskabe: Maine Indian Artforms

According to legend, the Great Spirit created Gluskabe, who shaped the world of the Native People of Maine, and taught them how to use and respect the land and the resources around them. This exhibit celebrates the gifts of Gluskabe with Maine Indian art works from the early nineteenth to mid twentieth centuries.

Holding up the Sky: Wabanaki people, culture, history, and art

Learn about Native diplomacy and obligation by exploring 13,000 years of Wabanaki residence in Maine through 17th century treaties, historic items, and contemporary artworks—from ash baskets to high fashion. Wabanaki voices contextualize present-day relevance and repercussions of 400 years of shared histories between Wabanakis and settlers to their region.

Lincoln, Maine - The Stanislaus Family

"Growing up, she learned how to make baskets which she sold until she turned 96. She spent many summers selling her wares in Rye Beach, New Hampshire."

Islesboro--An Island in Penobscot Bay - Historical Overview

"… pick berries, dig for clams, pick sweet grass for baskets and split ash for containers. This practice continued into the 1930s and ‘40s, until it…"

Masters and apprentices
by Theresa Secord

Wabanaki basket makers learn to weave by apprenticing with master artists.

Wikpiyik: The Basket Tree
by Darren Ranco

Countering the Emerald Ash Borer with Wabanaki Ecological Knowledge

Wabanaki Studies: Out of Ash

Grade Level: 3-5, 6-8, 9-12 Content Area: Science & Engineering, Social Studies
This lesson plan will give middle and high school students a broad overview of the ash tree population in North America, the Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) threatening it, and the importance of the ash tree to the Wabanaki people in Maine. Students will look at Wabanaki oral histories as well as the geological/glacial beginnings of the region we now know as Maine for a general understanding of how the ash tree came to be a significant part of Wabanaki cultural history and environmental history in Maine. Students will compare national measures to combat the EAB to the Wabanaki-led Ash Task Force’s approaches in Maine, will discuss the benefits and challenges of biological control of invasive species, the concept of climigration, the concepts of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and Indigenous Knowledge (IK) and how research scientists arrive at best practices for aiding the environment.