Kchi Pontegok Project awarded grant

Petroglyphs in Bellows Falls. Photo by Michael Fuller

ROCKINGHAM, Vt. – A collaborative of the Elnu Abenaki Tribe and the Rockingham Historic Preservation Commission has been awarded a National Park Service Underrepresented Community Grant to support reassessing the historic landscape of the Bellows Falls petroglyph site, Kchi Pôntegok.

In the language of the Indigenous Western Abenaki Kchi Pôntegok, pronounced “kit SEE POHN tuh guk,” means “at the Great Falls” and inspires the project name. The site is a rare instance of petroglyphs in New England and marks a sacred place.

“It is good to see folks starting to understand the history of Kchi Pontegok,” said Abenaki Chief Roger Longtoe Sheehan. “The Great Falls and the landscape around it is not just a few hundred years old but thousands and thousands of years old. This much older history is that of Indigenous Abenaki Peoples who have and still live here and consider Kchi Pontegok and the lands around it sacred. We hope other folks will start to understand why this history is important.”

The site is located at the Great Falls along the Connecticut River in Bellows Falls Village near the Vilas Bridge. It is identified in the State of Vermont’s archaeological site inventory and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Goals of the project are to affirm the sacredness of the Bellows Falls petroglyph site, address cultural representational inequalities, and to update the site’s listing on the National Register of Historic Places.

“The town of Rockingham and its environs have always recognized that we have history that extends back millennia before people of English descent settled here in the eighteenth century,” said John Leppman, Historic Preservation Commission chair. “Artifacts such as the petroglyphs at the Great Falls remind us of this heritage. The Commission is delighted to have support from an Underrepresented Communities Grant to expand our vision of a heritage that is not only ancient but decidedly lasting and relevant.”

Since the 1980’s, when research of the petroglyph site was undertaken for the National Register, new studies have revealed greater detail and ways of understanding and interpreting the carvings. The Kchi Pôntegok Project will include a review of current scholarship, archaeological field research, collection of oral histories and traditions, and archival research. The intent is to raise awareness of their place as an anchor in a sacred landscape of significance to the Indigenous Western Abenaki Tribe.

“I feel excited and honored that our partnership received this grant,” said Walter Wallace, Commission Coordinator. “Excited because this is an important collaboration between the Abenaki and EuroAmerican communities in our region, honored because this is the first Underrepresented Communities Grant awarded by the National Park Service to a Vermont town.”

Petroglyphs in Bellows Falls. Photo by Gerry Biron

The Underrepresented Community Grant program is supported by the Historic Preservation Fund to identify, plan, and develop nominations to the National Register of Historic Places increasing representation of Black, Indigenous, and communities of color listed on the Register. The HPF uses revenue from federal oil leases on the Outer Continental Shelf to assist with a broad range of preservation projects without expending tax dollars, with the intent to mitigate the loss of a nonrenewable resource to benefit the preservation of other irreplaceable resources.

For more information about the Kchi Pôntegok Project, email clg@rockbf.org.

For more information about NPS historic preservation programs and grants and the Underrepresented Community Grant program visit their websites.

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