#PenobscotNation #Elder ‘Butch’ Phillips dies at 85
A celebrated #CultureBearer and artist, Reuben Elliot 'Butch' Phillips also was part of the team that negotiated the #Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act of 1980.
Reuben M. Schafir, July 29, 2025
"Reuben Elliot “Butch” Phillips, a Penobscot elder, artist, culture-bearer and the former lieutenant governor of the tribe, died Sunday at the age of 85.
Phillips was a leader within his tribe, an accomplished birch bark artist known for crafting moose calls adorned with intricate etchings, an athlete and a masterful hunter.
Scott Phillips, one of the elder Phillips’ three sons, said his father was a “very patient, very soulful” hunter who successfully hunted moose until just two years ago.
Phillips was often called upon to perform ceremonies and lead prayers at events. He cherished his role as a tribal elder, family members said, and was a living advocate for Penobscot traditions.
“He was a proponent of the Penobscot Nation,” Scott Phillips said. “All the traditions and customs, he wanted to keep that going for future generations, and he tried to pass a lot of that knowledge on to me and my brothers, his grandchildren and the people of the nation.”
“He never opened a ceremony without recalling the ancestors and ensuring that we honored them in our daily lives,” said #BarryDana, Phillips’ nephew and former two-term chief of the Penobscot Nation. “When you’re an elder and you preserve a value, you repeat it as early and as often as needed, and he didn’t hesitate to repeat it all the time. And now he’s an ancestor.”
#MaulianBryant, Dana’s daughter, recalled her great-uncle as well-spoken, diplomatic and warm, yet stalwart in his convictions. Known for his impeccable presentation, Bryant said he sported a neatly combed coif of dark hair well into old age and was often present at tribal ceremonies in full regalia.
Phillips was born May 7, 1940, and grew up on Indian Island, the seat of the Penobscot Nation’s government. He served in the U.S. Army and had a lengthy career in telecommunications, in addition to the various positions he held within the Penobscot Nation and associated causes, according to an obituary written by his family. He served as lieutenant governor, a position now known as vice chief, of the Penobscot Nation from 1992 to 1994. He lived in his later years on Penobscot ancestral homelands known today as Milford, across the river from the tribe’s headquarters.
In the 1970s, Philips was one of the Penobscot representatives on the team that negotiated the Maine Indian Land Claims Settlement of 1980. The legislation was viewed by many at the time as the only way for tribes to secure limited compensation for stolen land. It also subjected tribal nations to state government control and excepted them from the sovereignty all other federally recognized tribes have.
The law was a divisive topic internally among tribal members during negotiations. Its impacts have shaped the work of Dana and Bryant, who served as Penobscot tribal ambassador before she became executive director of the Wabanaki Alliance in January 2025. Bryant’s work today is largely dedicated to unraveling many of the restrictions imposed by the settlement act. Conversations with her great-uncle caused her to shift her thinking of the law and of the negotiators who partook in its crafting.
“I never wanted those tribal leaders to feel ashamed or that they did a bad thing, because it was a historic thing and there were good things for the tribe and they were between a rock and a hard place,” she said. “I really credit him with me shifting my approach to the whole thing and seeing it in a wholesale way and just remembering the humanity of everyone involved.”
Dana and Phillips never spoke of the negotiations outside of a single town-hall meeting — but Dana said he knew his uncle was fully behind him when he went head-to-head with the state on several occasions.
By working on the negotiating team, Phillips was fulfilling a duty asked of him by his government, said John Dieffenbacher-Krall, the former executive director of the Wabanki Alliance.
“There can be no greater example of citizenship,” he said.
Phillips was also an outspoken advocate of the #PenobscotRiver restoration.
“My generation, we saw the Penobscot River at its worst. It was like an open sewer,” he told #WERU Community Radio and #SunlightMediaCollective in 2018. “And as children, it really didn’t mean too much to us. We still swam in it, we still ate the fish, we still canoed in it and so forth. But I also witnessed the cleansing of the river.”
He was part of a group in 2002 that built the first birch bark canoe on Indian Island in 60 years and helped paddle the boat up the Penobscot River to Katahdin.
Butch Phillips at his Milford home in 1997. (John Ewing/Staff Photographer)
“It was a really strong moment in the revitalization of our culture,” Dana said.
Phillips was married for 40 years to Linda Ann Stewart, who died in 2001. He is survived by his three sons, four siblings and numerous grandchildren, great-grandchildren and friends.
In his final days, family members say Phillips asked those around him to show love.
“He hoped people would put their differences aside and just love each other,” Scott Phillips said."
Source:
https://www.pressherald.com/2025/07/29/penobscot-elder-butch-phillips-dies-at-85/
Archived version:
https://archive.md/Dmby4
#Penobscot #PenobscotElder #MaineSettlementAct #WaterIsLife #PenobscotRiver #WaterKeeper #NativeAmericanArtist #CultureKeeper
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