`Dawn’ depicts tough lives of state’s native people

WOMEN OF THE DAWN by Bunny McBride, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, Neb., 1999; 152 pages, hardcover, $22.

The last four centuries have brought unspeakable suffering to the native people of North America. By the 1700s more than 90 percent of them, in some estimates, had died of European diseases. White people with better weapons and resistance to smallpox swindled and bullied them off land they had inhabited for centuries. They were sucked into colonial conflicts and forced to play careful politics or be destroyed, if not by fever, war and alcohol, then by dispersion.

The Wabanakis, or “People of the Dawn,” of what is now Maine and Maritime Canada were on the front lines of this cultural disaster. But by a miracle of physical, political and spiritual toughness, they survived as distinct peoples.

“Women of the Dawn,” by Kansas State University anthropology instructor Bunny McBride, tells the stories of four women among the hundreds of thousands who suffered in these upheavals. The book is framed by the curious parallels between the life of a 17th century Penobscot woman known to us as Molly Mathilde, and the life of a 20th century Penobscot woman known as Molly Dellis. Molly Mathilde “was born about 1665 … on the banks of the great Penobscot River,” the daughter of Madockawando. She married a Frenchman, Jean Vincent de St. Castin, and they lived in Pentagoet, the vicinity of what’s now Castine, their family constantly embroiled in conflicts between French and English colonists. In his 50s, St. Castin returned to France to settle problems over his family estate but never returned, dying in southern France in 1707. Molly Mathilde probably ended her years at Panawahpskek — Indian Island.

Molly Dellis Nelson was born at Indian Island in 1903. She lived a roving, exciting and disillusioning life as a dancer, and eventually married a French journalist, Jean Archambaud. She accompanied him to France, but the turmoil of World War II forced her to flee with their young daughter. Archambaud remained, and died in southern France in 1941, near where St. Castin had died.

Afterward, Molly Dellis lived a difficult, heartbroken life, and in an effort to make sense of her experience, she painstakingly researched Molly Mathilde’s life. She died at Indian Island in 1977.

“Women of the Dawn” develops Molly Dellis’ effort by also recounting the lives of Molly Ockett (c. 1740-1816) and Molly Molasses (c. 1775-1867). The task is complicated because little is known about any of the Mollys (the native pronunciation of “Marie”) except Molly Dellis, the subject of McBride’s “Molly Spotted Elk” (1995).

Each of the four chapters is researched with great care for historical and cultural detail, stitching together valuable, readable views of the last 350 years of Wabanaki life.

The book’s weakness is that it does not quite live up to its creative ambitions. The author intends to tell the women’s stories in Molly Dellis’ voice, but despite poetic efforts, the prose has a clinical, academic feel throughout. “Reconstructions” of events and of the women’s thoughts and feelings are laced fictively into historical summaries, but it’s not always easy to tell known facts from imagined ones. A “methodology” appendix attempts to clarify this, but it’s a scholarly solution to an aesthetic problem.

Its aesthetic flaws notwithstanding, “Women of the Dawn” provides interesting historical-cultural accounts. The parallels between the lives of Molly Dellis and Molly Mathilde are thought-provoking, and the stories of Molly Ockett and Molly Molasses help bring into human focus the suffering and elemental toughness of this region’s native people. Anyone interested in the history and lives of the Wabanakis will find it an instructive and at points vivid book.