Aboutssipsis

Featured Artists

Sacred Turtle Shield
portrays the story, in picto-graphic
terms, seasons, geography, cultures,
ceremony, and relationships.

13 Panels of etchings on Birch Bark,
Sweetgrass edges bound with Spruce
roots.

See artists statement below of the
story.

To contact me or to place an order feel
free to e-mail me.

You can also call me at:

(207)941-9373

or write to me at:

Pam outdusis Cunningham
208 Old County Rd
Hampden, ME, USA
04444-1807

Payment in full when order is placed.
Checks, money orders, and
Visa/Mastercard accepted.

ssipsis (little bird)

She is Pam, Sue, Kim, and Bill's mother.

Artist, author of Molly Molasses and Me, story teller, activist,
mother, grandmother and Great-Grandmother, educator,
and...

Full blooded Penobscot Indian, born (1941) on Oak Hill,
Indian Island, Maine, USA.

She is a master of birch bark art, etching, and design.

The following is a letter written by the artist, ssipsis, to her daughter, Pam, about the inspiration to
create the Turtle Shield.

September 25, 2003

RE: Turtle Shield Story

Dear Pam,

After Theresa Hoffman received a letter from Thomas J. Woods Art Gallery, School of Art, Norwich
University, Montpelier, Vermont inviting any artists to display their art among the Abenaki '95-'96 year-
long exhibit, for a season September to December in the South Room, she passed me the letter and
telephone number to call in a hurry, which I did and I was able to borrow 50+ pieces of art from tribe
members with promises to return them and insure them. My brother, John Davis, cleaned out a space
in his Native American Veterans Association (NAVA) office in a vault with shelves. Every piece was
filmed and stored for two weeks until the museum art gallery workers brought their van with packing
tape and bubble wrap. Ganessa, Carol, John, and I went to Vermont to the opening and reception. We
stayed with Jeanne Brink, an Abenaki woman artist. At the reception, the curator of the museum at
Vergennes, Abenaki and French museum near Lake Champlain, asked me to bring art to Chimney
Point, Vermont, for the summer of '96. Lots of stuff was whispered to us, it seems, about Eugenics,
Vermont Laws of the late '20s to early '50s declaring Abenaki persons second class citizens, stealers
of brown ash trees and gypsy-nomad type people, giving license to state social workers to remove the
Abenaki from their homes and place them in state institutions. The Abenaki said it was to do research,
experiments. The goal was to weed out and make Vermont pure. Research was published and could
be found under Eugenics or Vermont Law during those years until the law was abolished, but not until
Hitler and Europe read it and liked it and Nazism developed into a horrible story of ethnic cleansing
against the Jewish population.

When I came to Indian Island to look for a place big enough to do the Eagles and Eagle Women vision
for Evelyn, I found the old greenhouse big enough and worked there and you brought Jacob and we
had snacks. Lloyd brought me breakfast on Mother's Day and Leya took naps under the tables. I met
with Mali, Abenaki. She told me of the great fear and need to be secret. That was the only way to
survive in Vermont, ancestral grounds given up to blend in and be good citizens. I cried with her and
for her people. It was then the MAP idea was born to heal this fear, re-awaken knowledge, be a
memory device, a mnemonic device, something that stirred the memory to life. If the ancestry lived and
walked the paths to food, shelter, work, and all knowledge was‹and is‹still there, then maybe the
orphans and scattered Abenakis could find their way again to home, health, happiness and give home
and courage to make their altars where they choose.

During this time I had a chance to go to Vermont Law School to do a crash course on Ecology/Law
and get a degree in it. Paid my fee, scholarship and application in, and got a sore throat. Kim and
Lloyd brought me soup and cough drops. I had been there to the Law School to talk about Art and
birch bark and Eugenics Law. Tuffy talked with a librarian who said she requested books, but they
were not to be found that day, hidden from the students! No loans that day from state.

All of the bark, roots, and sweet grass gathered that spring and summer were ready to assemble late
summer/early fall and by the end of October 1996 it was time to go home to do the etching. On the
10th of October I showed Kim the first etching of the Birthing lodge, a canoe pulled up to shore and
light on inside teepee shows mid wife holding up baby to outstretched arms of new mother. I told Kim
that my mother's birthday was the 10th of October and it was only after I was done that I remembered
and checked on the Census list for her birth date. How appropriate it was for beginning to tell this story
of life and birth, work winters. How important it is for tribes to support and work together. My life as an
orphan never felt that way because of family, neighbors, drums, and growing up in the community.
Now I know how to hunt, prepare hides, make baskets, make a lodge, and make a safe place for
grandchildren to sleep, play, and swim.

So when I hear of other tribes' losses I, too, feel the heartache and mourn with them. With the Turtle
Shield, I feel that the shield will protect us and keep us all strong.

The Turtle Shield went to Chimney Point, Vermont and the reception was held and pictures were taken
so handicapped, who could not make stairs and no elevator, could at least see exhibit on the second
floor.

I think of many things but for now, the Turtle Shield portrays the story in picto-graphic terms, seasons,
geography, cultures, ceremony, relationships. All of it is good and everyone should have one.

So for now, unless you can think of some more understandings, send them on and now I'll close this
letter. I thank you Mother Earth for making this possible, this growth of bark and roots and sweet grass
and my helpers Tuffy, Pam, Kim. Thank you Earth Women.

ssipsis

ssipsis new book
$24.00 + $2.00 shipping