In the 19th century, Penobscot grandmothers approved marriages, adjusted family disputes, sanctioned divorces and carried wampum. The tribe’s grandmothers’ council (nohkəməssizak mawebohwak, or the modern spelling, nohkomess potawasin) could veto a declaration of war by the chief and tribal council. Penobscot women had powerful and wide-ranging roles in their society, and their importance was embedded read more Penobscot women and the tribal land tenure system in 19th-century Maine