Abenaki Warrior

The novel also explores the more mundane activities of everyday Indian life including:  farming techniques, hunting and trapping, gender roles within the Indian tribes and the sociopolitical aspects of Indian life.  Kayworth examines Escumbuit's exile from one tribe for the murder of a fellow warrior and stays with the controversial chief in his fall from glory.

Throughout the book, Kayworth consistently portrays people, villages and countryside in a manner that makes the reader feel as if he is inhabiting New England in the 1600's.   The minds eye can clearly see each and every scene Chief Escumbuit travels through.   A new understanding of the importance of the events in Chief Escumbuit's time can be gained by reading Kayworth's penetrating novel.

Kayworth says he was apprehensive about the reaction to his book from the current-day Abenaki tribe members.   He needn't have been.  In recent months, since the book's publication by Branden Publishing Company in Boston, several Abenaki descendants have written or e-mailed him.  "One woman wrote saying she was 'stunned and very pleased'," he said.   "So little has been written to present their side of the story."

Another, Lou Annance of Mechanics Falls, Maine, praised Kayworth's attention to research.  "I enjoyed your book very much," he e-mailed Kayworth, "and I am so grateful that you researched before writing and publishing.  So many people write books and do not do enough research before they publish."

Kayworth spent the entire summer of 1996 researching the history of the area and his interest became focused on Escumbuit.  He uncovered English historical works that described the Abenaki chief as a murderer and a "monster," and French accounts that labeled him a hero.

He used both in writing his own book, filling in the large gaps with more general historical information about Abenakis of that time period and his own imagination of what Escumbuit's thoughts and motivations must have been.