Burnurwurbskek Singers
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About
The Burnurwurbskek Singers—a men’s drum group from the Penobscot Nation on Indian Island [Burnurwurbskek] in the Penobscot River near Old Town, Maine—have been performing traditional Wabanaki songs for audiences across Maine and other states for many years; this will be their first appearance at the Lowell Folk Festival.
The word “Penobscot” comes from “Panawahpskek,” which translates as “where the rocks spread out.” The Penobscot Nation is the federally recognized tribe of Penobscot people in the United States. They are part of the Wabanaki Confederacy, along with the Abenaki, Passamaquoddy, Maliseet, and Mi’kmaq nations. The Wabanaki Confederacy, translated roughly as “people of the first light” or “people of the dawnland” are a Canadian First Nations/Native American confederation of the five groups in northern New England and the Canadian Maritimes.
Penobscot drummers were introduced to the larger, western-style drum in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but were traditionally hand and water drummers. All the drums have a membrane, usually an animal skin, stretched over a hard body; water drums have some of the drum chamber filled with water to create a unique, resonant sound. Most of the songs by the Burnurwurbskek Singers originated from medicine- and individual vision-quest ceremonies, casual and formal gatherings, blessing ceremonies for the annual harvests and their corresponding moons, for their warriors going out to battle, hunters leaving for their family hunting grounds, and also honor songs for their mothers and children. Some songs are performed within their own community; others are presented publicly.
The Burnurwurbskek Singers sing as one voice and sit at one shared drum. The performance begins with blessing the drum. Drummer Dean Francis describes it as “drumming from their toes,” as he speaks about the power of the drum to bring people together and to remember who they were, who they are, and who they want to be.
Drummers include Nicholas Bear, Ronald Bear, Cree Neptune Bear, Dean Francis, and dancer Selena Neptune Bear in traditional dress. The group has performed at regional pow-wows; at the Hudson Museum’s annual December basket sale at the University of Maine; and at the Native American Festival at the Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor, convened each summer with the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance, as a community gathering in an historic area of the Wabanaki homeland where Penobscots and other Wabanakis have come for centuries.
