The Abenaki Worldview:
​Traditional Knowledge as a Guidepost For the Future
​with Melody Walker Brook 

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Melody Walker Brook
Melody Walker Brook is an Abenaki educator, activist, and artist. She is a citizen of the Elnu Abenaki Band and has previously served as the vice chair and chair of the Vermont Commission on Native American Affairs. She received her master's degree in history from the University of Vermont. She is an operations manager and was an adjunct professor at Champlain College until she recently moved to the South. As an adjunct professor at Johnson State College she taught Native American History and Culture, Abenakis and Their Neighbors, and Native American Spirituality. Within her community Melody has focused on cultural revitalization and concepts of personhood. She lectures in K-collegiate level classrooms and consults with many organizations in the community. She is a fingerweaver, beadworker, traditional tattoo artist, and interprets belts. 

Click here to meet Melody in this Tedx Talk on Weaving a Thread Through the 7 Generations.  
This event is organized by the Decolonization Solidarity Study Group (Leah Fury, Erok, Eli Mutino, Yepeth Perla Rubin, Murphy Robinson, Abbi Jaffe and Amanda Franz).  We are non-indigenous folks living on the unceded territory of the Abenaki people.  For the last 2 years we have met once or twice a month to discuss indigenous writing and decolonization texts and to check in about our efforts to re-center indigenous voices, initiatives and sovereignty.  
Dec 16, 2018, 11am-2pm  
(Come at 10am for optional reading time in our library)

Presentation by: Melody Walker Brook
Event facilitated and supported by: Melody Walker Brook, Amanda Franz, Abbi Jaffe, Erok,  Lane Fury, Yepeth Perla Rubin and more 

There is a cultural and academic rift between the traditional knowledge of indigenous people and dominant society. Within the dominant culture indigenous ways of knowing are given little credence outside of curiosity.  Abenaki people have lived in their homeland for more than ten thousand years. They intimately knew the land and its people, human and non-human, and actively shaped the world.  We still are.  Our worldview and contributions to this place can be reimagined and used as a guidepost to understand our place within the circle of creation and to help other people understand the space we are holding.  What our ancestors had to teach is not only valuable but essential. It can be used to heal historical trauma, instill resiliency, and reinstate the key ingredient for a more beautiful world - reciprocity. Come explore Abenaki ways of knowing and discuss how to grow a better path for the next generations.
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Join us for a presentation with Melody Walker Brook.  Afterwards there will be time for questions, small group discussion, personal processing and a closing circle.  
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  • Recommended reading: Please read The Gift of Strawberries p. 22 - 32 in Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer.  
    • This book can be ordered at your local bookstore or found in your library.  There are also a copy at The Everything Space’s library (open when classes are being held or by appointment (contact abbi.jaffe@gmail.com).  We highly recommended this book.  
    • If you are unable to find a copy of this book
    • Also, this talk by Robin Wall Kimmerer addresses some of the material in the chapter.


Cost: $25 (sliding scale $5-50).  No one turned away.
Money goes to pay our presenter/lecturer.  Any extra funds raised will be donated to an indigenous cause of the presenter’s choice.