page_title: Wabanaki Confederacy
section_title: Wabanaki Confederacy government
hierarchical_section_title: Wabanaki Confederacy / Wabanaki Confederacy government
caption_attribution_description: English: A belt that is largely white is to denote peace, when it is largely blue it denotes conflict. Going from left to right. A. The first belt represents a peace mission. The four dots are to denote the Miꞌkmaq, Maliseet, Passamaquoddy, and Penobscot. The middle square is to denote a council fire, a government meeting. B. This belt represents the union of the tribes as Wabanaki. The four symbols, being wigwams, reperesent the Miꞌkmaq, Maliseet, Passamaquoddy, and Penobscot. The middle object is a peace pipe and represents the peace ceremony that brought and brings the union of Wabanaki together. C. This is the war belt. The four symbols are tomahawks represent the four tribes. It would be used as a way to get people in a town together to call them to arms to fight an enemy attacking the nation. D. This is a peace belt, with a peace pipe. It would be use to inform people that peace has been made. It was also worn to summon leader to a consul fire over peace proposals. E. Was a belt used in the election of a new chief/sakom. Upon the death of a chief, a year of mourning would take place. Once done, members of the other 3 tribes would come they would all take part in electing a new leader.
context_page_description: The Wabanaki Confederacy are a First Nations and Native American confederation of four principal Eastern Algonquian tribes: the Miꞌkmaq, Maliseet, Passamaquoddy and Penobscot. The Western Abenaki are also considered members, being a loose identity for a number of allied tribal peoples like the Pennacook, Sokoki, Cowasuck, Missiquoi, and Arsigantegok, among others.
  The Passamaquoddy wampum records describe that there were once fourteen tribes along with many bands that were once part of the Confederation. Native tribes like that of the Norridgewock, Etchemin, and Canibas, through massacres, tribal consolidation, and ethnic label shifting were absorbed into the five larger tribal identities.
  Members of the Wabanaki Confederacy, the Wabanakik, are in and named for the area which they call Wabanaki, roughly the area that became the French colony of Acadia. It is made up of most of present-day Maine in the United States, and New Brunswick, mainland Nova Scotia, Cape Breton Island, Prince Edward Island and some of Quebec south of the St. Lawrence River, Anticosti, and Newfoundland in Canada.
context_section_description: The Wabanaki Confederacy were governed by a council of elected sakoms, tribal leaders who were frequently leaders of the watershed their village was on. Sakoms themselves were more of respected listeners and debaters than simply rulers. They often were older members of extended families who had shown a talent for settling disputes, collecting food for the needy, and maintaining the corporate resources of the band, both tangible and intan­gible.   
  
  Wabanaki politics was fundamentally rooted on reaching a consensus on issues, often after much debate. Sakoms frequently used stylized metaphorical speech at council fires, trying to win over others sakoms. Sakoms who were skilled at debate often became quite influential in the Confederacy, often being older men who were called nebáulinowak or "riddle men."   
  "They have reproached me a hundred times because we fear our Captains, while they laugh at and make sport of theirs. All the authority of their chief is in his tongue's end; for he is powerful in so far as he is eloquent; and even if he kills himself talking and haranguing he will not be obeyed unless he please the [Indians]." 
   Wabanaki sakoms held regular conventions at their various "council fires" (seats of government) whenever there was a need to call each other together. In a council fire, they would sit in a large rectangle with all members facing each other. Each Sakom member would have a chance to speak and be listened to, with the understanding that they would do the same for the others. Each tribe a sakom was part of also had a "kinship" status, being that they are brothers some members were older and younger. Familiar ritual, reciprocity, and metaphorically ascribed kinship statuses enabled strangers to feel secure and comfort­able with one another. They were encouraged to think of themselves as elder or younger brothers, and familiarity and mutual trust flourished in the confederacy because intertribal relationships were not exclusively diplomatic and political. The formal greetings were inevitably followed by house-to-house visiting, feasting and dancing, communal prayer, and athletic contests. The lack of a single centralized capital complemented the Wabanaki government style, as sakoms were able to shift their political influence to any part of the nation that needed it. This could mean bringing leadership near or away from conflict zones. When a formal internal agreement was reached, not one but often at least five representatives speaking on behalf of their respective tribe and nation as a whole would set off to negotiate.
  
  Probably influenced by diplomatic exchanges with Huron allies and Iroquois enemies (especially since the 1640s), the Wabanaki began using wampum belts in their diplomacy in the course of the 17th century, when envoys took such belts to send messages to allied tribes in the confederacy. A number of important symbols and ceremonies were used to keep the Confederacy alive. Wampum belts called gelusewa'ngan, meaning "speech", played an important role in maintaining Wabanaki political institutions. Each wampum belt or strand had a design on it, which stood for a message from one tribe to the Confederacy, or from the Confederacy to a member tribe. The belts were kept at political centers like Kahnawake, Tobique, and Digby as records of all past exchanges among the five tribes. There they were "read" aloud at meetings. The design on each belt did not stand for precise words, but represented the main idea of the message and helped the delegate remember what to say as they delivered it. The threads at the top of each belt or string were left loose to symbolize "emanating words". (Threads at the ends of wampum used for decoration or jewelry were braided or tied together.) One of the last keepers of the "Wampum Record" and one of the last Wabanaki/Passamaquoddy delegates to go to Caughnawaga was Sepiel Selmo. Keepers of the wampum record were called putuwosuwin which involved a mix of oral history with understanding the context behind the placement of wampum on the belts.
  Wam­pum shells arrange
caption: Colorized photo of 1915 reproductions of Wabanaki wampum belts that would have been used for political matters.
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