Abenaki tribes are spread across most of Northern New England. Most villages were fairly small, with about 100 people in each of them. The Abenaki may of contained 40,000 people in all their tribes put together. All the diseases (smallpox, unknown epidemics, influenza, diphtheria, and measles) that the Europeans brought over from Europe at that time killed more than half of the Abenaki people. The population was reduced to 5,000 people!

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Beliefs

The Abenaki believed when a boy became 14 he was considered a man. To become a man, he would go on a vision quest. The vision would protect him throughout life. He went to a remote place by himself to wait for a guardian helper to appear in a dream or a vision. The guardian might be in a form of an eagle, bear, or turtle. If he was successful with his vision he would become a hunter, warrior, provider, or protector. Abenakis believed in spirits

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Diet

A large part of the Abenaki diet was beans, squash, and especially corn. Sometimes they had more than 250 acres of corn. Most of Abenaki agriculture was hunting, fishing, and gathering. In places where the soil wasn’t good they would use fish as fertilizer. Nuts, dried berries, corn, smoked fish, and dried meat were all stored together. The men hunted deer, moose, bears, beavers, and muskrats. Women cooked the meat and made clothes from hides of the animals, they didn’t waste anything. Women also collected sap in birch bark containers then boiled the sap. They grew tobacco which is very important in Abenaki ceremonies. They harvested in the late summer and early fall. Women and children gathered berries, nuts,acorns, beechnuts, walnuts, buttermilks, chestnuts, cranberries, blackberries, blueberries, and raspberries.

When a man asked a women to marry him he would toss a chip of wood at her to show his affection. If the girl picked it up it showed she accepted the proposal. Other times a man would ask an uncle or an elder to give the girls family a certain gift. If they accepted the gift it meant they accept the marriage. During the wedding celebration they would have a feast and dance around the fire.

The men in the Abenaki tribes wore things made of a loose skin coats or red or blue cloth. Women of the Abenaki tribe wore coverings which also serves as a cloak. One extends from the neck to the middle of the leg, also they wore a cloak on the head which falls to the feet. They wore leggings from their knees to their ankles . Also they wore elk skin socks lined with wool or hair. The socks served as shoes.

There was a lot of preparation before burying someone. Most Native American people lived to be 40 years old but some lived from 80-90 years of age! When someone died they put the body in their finest garments (clothes) and then they wrapped the body in birch bark. The person was buried with personal possessions and their valuables. At the funeral they would sing a funeral song. A widow would mourn for a year and wear black with a black hood and paint their face black in sign of grief.