“One day an Indian came to the house and asked to borrow a gun. The Indian explained there was a moose in the pasture which he would like to shoot. Mr. Jackson was a little reluctant to give a weapon to an Indian, but did so anyway. The Indian shot the moose, returned the gun, and left some moose meat for the family as a thank you.”

This little story seems particularly appropriate this Thanksgiving week. It’s an account of an incident that took place on Ferry Road in Lewiston around the 1780s, and the story evokes the traditional image of American Indians sharing their bounty with settlers. As we sit down to family feasts on Turkey Day, we give a nod to that classic image, with too little recognition of deep-seated inaccuracies that are promoted by our modern holiday.

Thanksgiving Day presents a great opportunity for families to begin learning about the real history of American Indians in Androscoggin County. There’s no better place to find these fascinating facts than in the work of Nancy Lecompte of Lewiston. Lecompte, also known as Canyon Wolf, is founder and director of Ne-Do-Ba, a nonprofit organization dedicated to exploring and sharing the Wabenaki history of Western Maine.

The quotation above is from an oral history contributed to Ne-Do-Ba by a man whose ancestors had settled in the Ferry Road area. It’s a fragment of history. In one sense, it’s a slice of local lore. On another level, if I take that anecdote out of context, I risk contributing to the simplistic or just plain wrong ideas about American Indians that have arisen in our culture.

Ne-Do-Ba does much to inform us about the people who were here long ago, and are still among us.

Lecompte’s book, “Alnbak,” has a wealth of detail about this area and many real people of American Indian ancestry. Her writing emphasizes the difficulty in separating fact from fiction. She warns us about early historians, some of whom might have a political agenda that can color their objectivity.

With that in mind, I’m going to pass along some more interesting items that I found in her research. It’s a bunch of snapshots of Androscoggin history. Taken alone, they tell very little of the big picture, but maybe they will encourage you to make a more complete study.

From Lecompte’s book, I learned about Amitgonpontook, an original “City on the Androscoggin.” It was the Indian settlement on Auburn’s Laurel Hill near the confluence of the Little Androscoggin and the bigger river. There’s a lot of detail about artifacts found there, and of a 1690 march and attack by Major Benjamin Church.

I also learned about Sockalexis (Jacques Alexis) Gabriel, possibly of Penobscot descent, who lived in this area just 50 to 75 years ago. He was known for his basket making and for his skills in the woods.

A log cabin he built and lived in on Holbrook Road in the Turner and North Auburn area still existed in recent years. Though he died away from this area, he is buried at North Auburn Cemetery.

We live near Bobbin Mill Brook, which flows from Lake Auburn to the river, so I was fascinated to read about a Bradman Street resident who found a large artifact in the stream that might have been an anchor or a pestle for grinding corn. It was somewhat cylindrical and weighed 75 to 80 pounds.

The account by Laura Lancaster on the Ne-Do-Ba Web site said, “It has two upraised portions extending around the rock, one near one end and the second not far from the middle, indicating that something – possibly a thong – was intended to be tied around the main portions of it.”

Lecompte’s research also notes that huge rocks with marked depressions in them can still be seen today in the Durham area.

On Thursday – Thanksgiving Day – we may remark on the Plymouth feast shared by Pilgrims and Indians, knowing it’s largely fiction. Many people will also choose to call our Thanksgiving a phony holiday, and they will take part in a National Day of Mourning to draw attention to the injustice and barbarity that Europeans brought to the New World.

There are many appropriate reasons for giving thanks around our 2006 Thanksgiving table, and it’s also a good time to acknowledge other sensitivities. And there are some delightful surprises to be had in the study of all the American Indians who once lived around the Androscoggin River.

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