Abenaki Spirit Mask by Gérard Anthony Tsonakwa Rancourt Jr.

Description

Offered by
Antique American Indian Art, LLC
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Abenaki Spirit Mask
by
Gérard Anthony "Tsonakwa" Rancourt Jr.
c. 1980s
overall size 22" x 20
mask with hair approximately 13" x 13" incl. hair
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Greensboro Daily News
By Tsonakwa Gerald Rancourt
"I tell the stories word for word, the way they were told to me," said Tsonakwa, 38, who was born on an Abenaki reservation in Quebec. "Every year as a boy when we hunted my father and uncle told stories at the hunting lodge because we had no electricity.
"I learned 230 stories," he said.
Only 1,100 Abenaki of the 2,500 remaining tribe members still speak the language.
The Abenak fought the British during the American Revolution, and sided with the French during the struggles for Canada. When the British prevailed, the treaties that had been honored by the French were destroyed, and most tribe members  were shunted off to reservations.
Most still live on the Quebec reservation, although 900 refugees moved south to live with another branch of the family, the Delaware.
Tsonakwa, who has lobbied for Indian rights in Ottawa and Washington, said the "Canadian government still won't recognize us as human beings. In 1977 Canadian Prime Minister (Pierre) Trudeau said we could go into the bush and live in animal skins. We replied there is no bush, no animals. They have left nothing behind."
The last Abenaki uprising was in 1867, Tsonakwa said, "and my family have been activists ever since."
Tsonakwa is Abenaki for "Wild Man Waiting at the North," and the name given only to those who prove to be great teachers. Teacher is only one of the things Tsonakwa has been.
He left the reservation at 16 and started a 22-year odyssey that has taken him to copper mines, lumber camps, the University of Hartford [CT], where he earned a degree in chemistry, and finally into modern Indian struggles. He is Director of the United American Indians, a former artist-in-residence at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and helped found Discovery Place, a living museum in Charlotte.
170626-11
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