Pleasant Point: Tribal program battles violence

By Diana Graettinger

PLEASANT POINT, Maine — Passamaquoddy Peaceful Relations teaches women and girls that they don’t have to be the victims of violence.

The reservation has been offering victim services since 1999, but Passamaquoddy Peaceful Relations is attacking the problem head-on under the leadership of its program coordinator, Nancy Soctomah.

The Passamaquoddy believe there is a precolonial component to domestic violence.

"Prior to European contact," the group’s brochure says, "Native men and women’s roles were based on specific traditional values practiced and honored through individual clans and tribes. Women were honored as pivotal to the survival of the tribe. Although they had separate roles, Native women were considered equal in status to Native men."

Things changed with the arrival of the Europeans. "Associating violence with power occurred in Native communities after the advent of colonization," the brochure says. "Along with this change came a shift in the concepts of women’s roles, in particular defining women and children as property. This imbalance of power created a framework that allows domestic violence to be a common occurrence affecting four million women every year."

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