Strawbery Banke Museum hosts virtual indigenous storytelling festival

By Jenny Whidden, Report for America Corps member

Granite State News Collaborative

Louise Profeit-LeBlanc, a traditional storyteller from Nacho Nyak Dun First Nation of the Yukon Territory in Northern Canada, delivers her keynote address at the 2021 Dawnland StoryFest.

Indigenous storyteller Louise Profeit-LeBlanc says stories are medicine. They help people to laugh, cry and grieve. They help people reflect and learn life lessons.

“Stories challenge us to be more human, more loving, more respectful, more forgiving, more compassionate. To take courage, to have a greater sense of humility and generosity of spirit despite what has happened in our past,” Profeit-LeBlanc said at New Hampshire’s annual indigenous storytelling festival Saturday.

The Dawnland StoryFest, gathered five indigenous Northeast storytellers to perform throughout the day. From morning to early evening, a group of about 45 people told and listened to traditional Native stories over Zoom. The tales were about everything from compassion, growth and love — to fear, responsibility and grief.

“The cool thing about doing (the event) on Zoom is that we have a wide net of storytellers. We have tribal members from Nacho Nyak Dun Nation in the Yukon, Wampanoag, Schaghticoke, Narragansett tradition,” event organizer and museum archaeologist Alix Martin said.

The event was put on by the Strawbery Banke Museum, in Portsmouth, as part of its “People of the Dawnland” exhibit. “People of the Dawn” is a group of indigenous people who called themselves the Wabanaki, which encompasses the Abenaki. The space is dedicated to learning about the indigenous people who lived in the place that is now called New Hampshire.

The festival included “Swapping Grounds” sharing sessions, in which attendees both Native and non-Native could practice sharing traditional Native American lesson stories.

In an open conversation that followed the event, storytellers and attendees shared their thoughts on who should share Native stories. One storyteller said the question isn’t about how Native a person is, but rather how enculturated a person is: whether they have dedicated time to fully understand, respect and uphold Native cultures and values.

Alongside casts of engrossing characters, the stories shared on Saturday often weaved a narrative about why things are the way they are today: why turtles have lines on their shells, how evergreen trees keep their leaves in the winter while other trees don’t, where corn, fire and strawberries came from.

Other stories were about the storytellers’ own families, and touched on the intergenerational passing down of stories.

Profeit-LeBlanc, a traditional storyteller from the Nacho Nyak Dun First Nation of the Yukon Territory in Northern Canada, said sharing stories is the most important skill a person can learn today.

“In this world that’s gone quiet with isolation because of the pandemic and our dependencies on technologies, we have to be able to transmit our human thoughts, one to the other,” she said. “Certainly technology cannot read heart thoughts. Another person, another living being can detect your heart.”

The keynote speaker touched on the strength stories give to Native people.

“Despite the fact that the indigenous population of Turtle Island has not been treated well,— we all know that history,” Profeit-LeBlanc said, using a name for North America that is based on a common indigenous creation story. “These stories give us strength. They give us the resilience, the foundation of which we can preserve and go forward.”

Among the speakers was Anne Jennison, a New Hampshire-based Native storyteller and current chair of the state Commission on Native American Affairs.

Jennison shared five stories, including a tale of the origins of the Amoskeag Falls or the “Good Fishing Place,” a set of waterfalls located in Manchester, New Hampshire, on the Merrimack River.

“It’s been just so moving to hear all of these stories today,” Profeit-LeBlanc said. “It was such a joy because many of the stories you shared, I have only read them in books. To hear them told is so rich.”

This year’s fest was dedicated to the life and work of Wolf Song, a Vermont Abenaki traditional storyteller who died in 2000.

“(Wolf Song) would say, ‘It is when we tell stories to each other that we pause in our busyness to look into each other’s eyes and touch each other from our hearts. That is the way it used to be a long time ago,’” Jonathan Cummings, a guest storyteller who moderated the Swapping Grounds, said at the event. “We at the DawnLand StoryFestival seek to make today that way again.”

A recording of the day’s performances will be available on the museum’s YouTube page, event organizers said.

These articles are being shared by partners in The Granite State News Collaborative as part of our race and equity project. For more information visit collaborativenh.org.