Henry Lorne Masta facts for kids
Henry Lorne Masta was an important Abenaki writer, teacher, and language expert. He was born on March 9, 1853. Masta was also a respected leader among his people. He wrote a book called Abenaki Legends, Grammar, and Place Names, which was published in 1932. He started writing it when he was 77 years old! The Abenaki language belongs to the Algonquian languages family. It is spoken in Quebec, Canada, and nearby parts of the United States. Sadly, very few people speak Abenaki today – only about 3% of the Abenaki population. Henry Lorne Masta could speak French, English, and, of course, the Abenaki language very well.
Early Life and Learning
Henry Lorne Masta went to school at the Protestant school and church on the Saint Francis Indian reserve. His uncle, Pial Pol Wz8khilain, started this school. Masta's teacher was Joseph Laurent, who was a tribal chief of the Abenaki people at Odanak, Quebec.
Masta, his uncle, and Joseph Laurent worked together to create language books. These books helped teach the Abenaki language within their community. Joseph Laurent, also known as Sozap Lolô, is famous for being a Native American linguist. A linguist is someone who studies languages. He helped keep the Abenaki language alive.
A historian named Ives Goddard said that Laurent's work was amazing. He noted that it was rare for native people to create their own grammar rules and language traditions. The books they wrote helped people from different Native American groups, like the Five Nations. These books explained Abenaki stories about the world and showed how names and tales were connected to special places. This was true even for families who no longer lived in their original home in Quebec. Masta's book also explains the history of words (etymology) for large areas of land, rivers, and traditions.
College, Family, and Work
Later, Masta went to Sabrevois College near St-Johns, Quebec. There, he studied old languages like Latin and Greek. In 1875, he married Caroline Tahamont. Her family came from places like Odanak, the Adirondack Mountains, and Saratoga Springs, New York. Caroline and her relatives would spend summers in Saratoga Springs to sell their handmade baskets in Congress Park.
For 31 years, Masta worked as a schoolmaster at the Protestant school in Odanak. He taught children the grammar rules of their language, which many were starting to forget. Henry Lorne Masta later became the chief of The St. Francis Abenaki at Odanak. He served as chief for 20 years.
Why He Is Remembered
In a book called The Oxford Handbook of Indigenous American Literature, the author James Howard Cox praised Masta. He said Masta helped bring the Abenaki language back to life:
Finally, a number of Native writers in the Northeast published or composed books, journals, and documents in their Indigenous languages, enabling, perhaps without knowing it, the revitalization movements of the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Odenak Abenaki writers, including Peter Paul Wzôkhilain, Joseph Laurent, and Henry Lorne Masta, published awikhiganak, Western Abenaki language books, designed for teaching their students English. These works are being used today by language teachers, creative writers, and community members on both sides of the border to continue an endangered language that has survived centuries of colonization.
This means that Masta and other Abenaki writers created books in their own language. These books were meant to teach English, but they also helped keep the Abenaki language strong. Today, teachers and community members still use these books. They help to continue an important language that has faced many challenges over hundreds of years.
