The spirit of Maine’s proud American Indian tribes has been captured for the ages by the Abbe Museum, the first and only place in the state where the artwork, ancient tools, music and legends of the Wabanaki people have been preserved and honored with a place of their own.
Next week, The Abbe, as it is fondly known, will mark its 75th anniversary with a colorful and cultural celebration featuring demonstrations, storytelling, music, food and dancing.
Many supporters and lovers of the museum plan to attend, organizers said this week, along with members of the four tribes that compose the Wabanaki, which in English means “People of the Dawn”: Maliseet, Micmac, Passamaquoddy and Penobscot.
Although The Abbe was founded as a repository for prehistoric American Indian collections, the museum today features 50,000 items representing 10 millennia of American Indian life in Maine – from ancient stone tools to modern art and photography.
The Abbe’s most important contribution, one museum leader said this week, was to create a special place to honor the past and present legacies of Maine’s “First People.”
“We are giving the Native Americans a voice and a pride of place and heritage,” Alice Wellman, president of the board of trustees, said this week, “and they are more fully partners in the Abbe enterprise” than at any time in the past.
Another trustee, Penobscot Bonnie Newsom, agreed. “The Abbe Museum is important to Maine tribes because it is the one museum that focuses exclusively on the four tribes of Maine and it brings tribal culture to the communities of Maine,” Newsom said in a recent interview.
“They bring a tribal voice to everything they do,” she added. “You’re not just getting your standard museum interpretation. You’re getting an interpretation that is supported by tribal people and tribal culture.”
The museum plans a gala celebration to celebrate its birthday. Be sure to carve out plenty of time to see it all: both the new museum near the Village Green and the original, much smaller museum at Sieur de Monts Spring in Acadia National Park.
The celebration will conclude with a silent auction and buffet dinner, including cake and champagne, at a cost of $75 per person. The price includes a $25 donation to the museum.
“It’s very important for people to have an opportunity to communicate with people of another culture, a very different culture in many ways, and to experience that culture,” said Abbe Director Sharon Broom.
“We think this is a piece of what can help all cultures better understand each other,” she said.
Maine’s Native American tribes were quietly involved with the Abbe from its inception, but only in the past 20 years have they shown a deep interest in preserving their past, according to Wellman. The Abbe trustees now include three Native American representatives, in addition to numerous advisors. A large group of Native Americans routinely presents demonstrations and exhibits at the museum, and also participate in the annual Native American Festival at College of the Atlantic – the largest yearly event for the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance.
When New York physician Robert Abbe founded the museum in 1928, he was looking for a place to preserve and exhibit his growing collection of Native American artifacts. He had purchased his first collection after seeing a display of ancient stone tools on display in a Bar Harbor office window in the autumn of 1922, later writing, “When I saw them I was filled with a desire to possess and study them.”
Years later, three other local collectors told Abbe they would give him their collections of ancient Native American artifacts if he could assure them he would create a safe place to put them.
“There were many people collecting Native American artifacts, but most of them remained private collectors,” said Earle Shettleworth, director of the Maine Historic Preservation Commission. “[Abbe] really went the next step and founded a public institution that was devoted to both the preservation and study of these artifacts, which led to an opportunity for public education.
“I think that role has been right at the heart of what the Abbe Museum has been about for the past 75 years,” he said.
In 1928, the Robert Abbe Museum of Stone Age Antiquities was built in the shadow of Dorr Mountain in Acadia National Park, becoming not only the first museum in Maine to exclusively feature Native Americana but also the first museum to sponsor archeology digs in places such as Ellsworth Falls, Sorrento and Mount Desert Island.
Abbe died before he could see the museum he founded, but today’s museum safekeepers think he would be proud of what The Abbe has accomplished over 75 years.
“Any museum grows in stages,” Wellman said this week. “Gradually it has to change to grow. I think [in the future] it’s going to become much more of a community resource. It’s more welcoming where it is now and I think it’s going to be a real partner in the local and regional cultural and educational scene.”
Wellman should know. She has served on the Abbe board for more than 40 years, including through the crucial 1990s, when the museum decided to expand into the downtown and needed a few million dollars to do it.
In the end, museum supporters raised some $4 million and built a modern, beautifully lit and perfectly air conditioned building to store, exhibit and research the still-growing collection of historical artifacts.
The most notable feature of the new downtown museum is the Circle of the Four Directions, a circular room with lots of natural light, Native American music and ample space for quiet reflection and thought.
The Abbe, with its new space, growing membership and increasing influence in the state and region, is well positioned for the future, Wellman said.
“The museum is receiving the recognition it has deserved for a very long time,” she said.
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