The Ojibwe Peoples

The Ojibwe, Anishinaabe or Chippewa (also Ojibwa, Ojibway, Chippeway, Aanishanabe, or Anishinabeg) is the largest group of Native Americans/First Nations north of Mexico, including Métis. They are the third largest in the USA, surpassed only by Cherokee and Navajo. They are about equally divided between the United States and Canada. Because they formerly were located mainly around Sault Ste. Marie, at the outlet of Lake Superior, the French referred to them as Saulteurs; Ojibwa who subsequently moved to the Prairie provinces of Canada have retained the name Saulteaux. The major component group of the Anishinaabe, in the US they number over 100,000 living in an area stretching across the north from Michigan to Montana. Another 76,000, in 125 bands, live in Canada, stretching from western Québec to eastern British Columbia. They are known for their birch bark canoes, sacred birch bark scrolls, the use of cowrie shells, wild rice, copper points, and for the fact that they were the only Native Americans to defeat the Sioux at times and were never defeated by the US Army. The Ojibwe Nation was the first to set the agenda for signing more detailed treaties with Canada's leaders before too many settlers were allowed too far west. The M'dewiwin Society was well respected as the keeper of detailed and complex scrolls of events, history, songs, maps, memories, stories, geometry, astronomy and mathematics.

The autonym for this group of Anishinaabeg is "Ojibwe" (plural: Ojibweg). This name is commonly anglicized as "Ojibwa". The name "Chippewa" is an anglicized corruption of "Ojibwa". Although many variations exist in literature, "Chippewa" is more common in the USA and "Ojibwa" predominates in Canada, but both terms are used in both countries. The exact meaning of the name "Ojibwe" is not known; however, two most common explanations are 1) it is derived from "Ojiibwabwe" meaning "[Those who] cook until it puckers" referring to their fire-curing of moccasin seams to make them water-proof and 2) the most likely, it is derived from the word "Ozhibii'iweg" meaning "[Those who] keep Records of a Vision" referring to their form of pictorial writing, and pictographs used in Midewiwin rites. Across many Ojibwa communities across Canada and the US, the more generalized name of "Anishinaabe(-g)" is becoming more common. Anishinaabeg call each other "Shinobs."

Language

Many still speak the Ojibwe language known as Anishinaabemowin or Ojibwemowin. The language belongs to the Algonquian linguistic group, and is descended from Proto-Algonquian. Among its sister languages are Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Cree, Fox, Menominee, Potawatomi, and Shawnee. Anishinaabemowin is frequently referred to as a "Central Algonquian" language; however, Central Algonquian is an regional grouping rather than a genetic one. Ojibwemowin is the fourth most spoken Native language in North America (after Navajo, Cree, and Inuktitut). Many decades of fur trading with the French established the language as one of the key trade languages of the Great Lakes and the northern Great Plains. The Ojibwe presence was made highly visible among non-Native Americans and around the world by the popularity of Longfellow's 1855 epic poem, The Song of Hiawatha. Many toponyms with an origin in Ojibwa words are found in this epic. "Nokomis" means "grandmother" and "Gitchie Gumie" means "Great Lake" or "Sea".

History

Pre-contact

Original caption: Rocky Boy (Stone Child), a Chippewa chief; three-quarter length, standing, dressed in ornate costume.

According to their tradition, and from recordings in birch bark scrolls, many of them came from the eastern areas of North America, which they call "Turtle Island," and from along the east coast. They traded widely across the Continent for thousands of years, and knew of the canoe routes west, and a land route to the west coast.

According to the oral history, seven great miigis (radiant/iridescent) beings appeared to the peoples in the Waabanakiing (Land of the Dawn, i.e. Eastern Land) to teach the peoples of the mide way of life. However, the one of the seven great miigis beings was too spiritually powerful and killed the peoples in the Waabanakiing whenever the people were in its presence.

The six great miigis beings remained to teach while the one returned into the ocean. The six great miigis beings then established doodem (clans) for the peoples in the east. Of these doodem, the five original Anishinaabe doodem were the Wawaazisii (Bullhead), Baswenaazhi (Echo-maker, i.e., Crane), Aan'aawenh (Pintail Duck), Nooke (Tender, i.e., Bear) and Moozoonsii (Little Moose), then these six miigis beings returned into the ocean as well. If the seventh miigis being stayed, it would have established the Thunderbird doodem.

At a later time, one of these miigis beings appeared in a vision to relate a prophecy. The prophecy stated that if more of the Anishinaabeg did not move further west, they would not be able to keep their traditional ways alive because of the many new settlements and European immigrants that would arrive soon in the east. Their migration path would be symbolized by a series of smaller Turtle Islands, which was confirmed with miigis shells (i.e., cowry shells).

After receiving assurance from the their "Allied Brothers" (i.e., Mi'kmaq) and "Father" (i.e., Abnaki) of their safety in having many more of the Anishinaabeg move inland, they advanced along the St. Lawrence River to the Ottawa River to Lake Nipissing, and then to the Great Lakes.

1. First of these smaller Turtle Islands was Mooniyaa, which Mooniyaang (Montreal, Quebec) now stands.

2. The "second stopping place" was in the vicinity of the Wayaanag-gakaabikaa (Concave Waterfalls, i.e. Niagara Falls).

3. At their "third stopping place" near the present-day city of Detroit, Michigan, the Anishinaabeg divided into six divisions, of which the Ojibwa was one of these six.

4. The first significant new Ojibwa culture-centre was their "fourth stopping place" on Manidoo Minising (Manitoulin Island).

5. Their first new political-centre was referred as their "fifth stopping place", in their present country at Baawiting (Sault Ste. Marie). Continuing their westward expansion, the Ojibwa divided into the "northern branch" following the north-shore of Lake Superior, and "southern branch" following the south-shore of the same lake. In their expansion westward, the "northern branch" divided into a "westerly group" and a "southerly group".

6. The "southern branch" and the "southerly group" of the "northern branch" came together at their "sixth stopping place" on Spirit Island ( 46°41′15″N, 092°11′21″W) located in the St. Louis River estuary of Duluth/Superior region where the people were directed by the miigis being in a vision to go to the "place where there are food (i.e. wild rice) upon the waters."

7. Their second major settlement, referred as their "seventh stopping place", was at Shaugawaumikong (or Zhaagawaamikong, French, Chequamegon) on the southern shore of Lake Superior, near the present La Pointe near Bayfield, Wisconsin. The "westerly group" of the "northern branch" continued their westward expansion along the Rainy River, Red River of the North, and across the northern Great Plains until reaching the Pacific Northwest. Along their migration to the west they came across many miigis, or cowry shells, as told in the prophecy.

Contact

Au-nim-muck-kwa-um, Tempest Bird, 1845 Ojibwe/Chippewa - George Catlin, painter

Their first historical mention occurs in the Jesuit Relation of 1640. Through their friendship with the French traders they were able to obtain guns and thus successfully end their hereditary wars with the Sioux and Foxes on their west and south, with the result that the Sioux were driven out from the Upper Mississippi region, and the Foxes forced down from northern Wisconsin and compelled to ally with the Sauk. By the end of the eighteenth century the Ojibwa were the nearly unchallenged owners of almost all of present-day Michigan, northern Wisconsin, and Minnesota, including most of the Red River area, together with the entire northern shores of Lakes Huron and Superior on the Canadian side and extending westward to the Turtle Mountains of North Dakota, where they became known as the Plains Ojibwa, "Pembina" or "Saulteaux."

The Ojibwa were part of a long term alliance with the Ottawa and Potawatomi First Nations, called the Council of Three Fires and which fought with the Iroquois Confederacy and the Sioux. The Ojibwa expanded eastward taking over the lands alongside the eastern shores of Lake Huron and Georgian Bay. The Ojibwa allied themselves with the French in the French and Indian War, and with the British in the War of 1812.

In the USA, the government attempted to remove all the Ojibwa to Minnesota west of Mississippi River culminating in the Sandy Lake Tragedy and several hundred deaths. Through the efforts of Chief Buffalo and popular opinion against Ojibwa removal, the bands east of the Mississippi were allowed to return to permanent reservations on ceded territory. A few families were removed to Kansas as part of the Potawatomi removal. After the Sandy Lake Tragedy, the goal of the government changed to instead moved the tribes onto reservations, often consolidating whole groups of communities. However, after the Dakota War of 1862, many Anishinaabe communities in Minnesota were relocated and further consolidated.

In British North America, the cession of land by treaty or purchase was governed by the Royal Proclamation of 1763 and subsequently most of the land in Upper Canada was ceded to the Crown. Even with the Jay Treaty signed between the Crown and the United States, then newly formed United States did not fully uphold the treaty, causing illegal immigration into Ojibwa and other Native American lands, which culminated into the Northwest War. Subsequently, much of the lands in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, parts of Illinois and Wisconsin, and northern Minnesota and North Dakota were ceded to the United States. However, provisions were made in many of the land cession treaties to allow for continued hunting, fishing and gathering of natural resources by the Ojibwe even after the land sales. In northwestern Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta the numbered treaties were signed. British Columbia had no signed treaties until the late 1900's, and most areas have no treaties yet. There are ongoing treaty land entitlements to settle and negotiate. The treaties are constantly being reinterpreted by the courts because many of them are vague and difficult to apply in modern times. However, the numbered treaties were some of the most detailed treaties signed for their time. The Ojibwa Nation set the agenda and negotiated the first numbered treaties before they would allow safe passage of many more settlers to the prairies.

Often, earlier treaties were known as "Peace and Friendship Treaties" to establish community bonds between the Ojibwa and the European settlers. These earlier treaties established the groundwork for cooperative resource sharing between the Ojibwa and the settlers. However, later treaties involving land cessions were seen as territorial advantages for both the United States and Canada, but the land cession terms were often not fully understood by the Ojibwa due the cultural differences in understanding of the land. For the governments of the United States and the Canada, land was considered a commodity of value that could be freely bought, owned and sold. For the Ojibwa, land was considered a fully-shared resource, along with air, water and sunlight; concept of land sales or exclusive ownership of land was a foreign concept not known to the Ojibwa at the time of the treaty councils. Consequently, today in both Canada and the United States, legal arguments in treaty-rights and treaty interpretations often bring to light the differences in cultural understanding of these treaty terms in order to come to legal understanding of the obligations entrusted through these past treaties.

Culture

Most Ojibwe lived in the northern Great Lakes with a short growing season and poor soil. They were hunter-gatherers who harvested wild rice and maple sugar. Woodland Ojibwe had no salt to preserve food and generally mixed everything with maple syrup as seasoning. They were skilled hunters and trappers (useful skills in war and the fur trade). Fishing, especially for sturgeon, provided much of their diet and became progressively more important in the northernmost bands. As a rule, Woodland Ojibwe rarely used horses or hunted buffalo. Dogs were the only domestic animal and a favorite dish served at their feasts. The Ojibwe used birchbark for almost everything: utensils, storage containers, and, most importantly, canoes. Coming in a variety of sizes depending on purpose, the birchbark canoe was lighter than the dugouts used by the Dakota (Sioux) and other tribes. Birchbark was also used to cover their elliptical, dome-shaped wigwams. When a family moved, the covering of the wigwam was rolled up and taken along leaving only the framework.

Summer clothing was buckskin with fur outer garments added for winter. The men wore breechcloths, but both sexes wore leggings. Moccasins were the distinctive puffed seamed style that gave Ojibwe their name. These were often colored with red, yellow, blue, and green, dyes made by the women. Long, cold winters were spent confined inside their wigwams (picture) also allowed time to add intricate quill and moose-hair designs. The Ojibwe often passed these times and entertained each other with stories, an art for which they are still renown. Generally, men and women wore their hair long and braided. In times of war, men might change to a scalplock. Ojibwe scalped, but as a rule they killed and did not torture. Like other Great Lakes warriors, there was ritual cannibalism of their dead enemies. Polygamy was rare. Their social organization was based on approximately 15-20 patrilineal clans which extended across band lines and provided their initial sense of tribal unity.

According to their tradition, and from recordings in birch bark scrolls, they came from the eastern areas of North America, or Turtle Island, and from along the east coast. According to the oral history, seven great miigis (radiant) beings appeared to the peoples in the Waabanakiing (Land of the Dawn, or Eastern Land) to teach the peoples of the mide way of life. However, the one of the seven great miigis beings was too spiritually powerful and killed the peoples in the Waabanakiing whenever the people were in its presence. The six great miigis beings remained to teach while the one returned into the ocean. The six great miigis beings then established doodem (clans) for the peoples in the east.

Of these doodem, the five original Anishinaabe doodem were the Wawaazisii (Bullhead), Baswenaazhi (Echo-maker, or Crane), Aan'aawenh (Pintail Duck), Nooke (Tender, or Bear) and Moozoonsii (Little Moose), then these six miigis beings returned into the ocean as well. If the seventh miigis being stayed, it would have established the Thunderbird doodem.

Most Ojibwa, except for the Plains bands, lived a sedentary lifestyle, engaging in fishing, hunting, the farming of maize and squash, and the harvesting of Manoomin (wild rice). Their typical dwelling was the wiigiwaam (wigwam), built either as a waaginogaan (domed-lodge) or as a nasawa'ogaan (pointed-lodge), made of birch bark, juniper bark and willow saplings. They also developed a form of pictorial writing used in religious rites of the Midewiwin and recorded on birch bark scrolls and possibly on rock. The sacred scrolls are complicated with a lot of historical, geometrical, and mathematical knowledge communicated through the many complex pictures. The miigis shell () was also used in ceremonies, and this shell can only be found from far away coastal areas, indicating a vast trade network at some time across the continent. The use and trade of copper across the continent is also proof of a very large area of trading that took place thousands of years ago, as far back as the Hopewell culture. Certain types of rock used for spear and arrow heads were also traded over large distances. The use of petroforms, petroglyphs, and pictographs was common throughout their traditional territories. Petroforms and medicine wheels were a way to teach the important concepts of four directions, astronomical observations about the seasons, and as a memorizing tool for certain stories and beliefs.

The Ojibwe people and culture are alive and growing today. During the summer months, the people attend jiingotamog for the spiritual and niimi'idimaa for a social gathering (pow-wows or "pau waus") at various reservations in the Anishinaabe-Aki (Anishinaabe Country). Many people still follow the traditional ways of harvesting wild rice, picking berries, hunting, making medicines, and making maple sugar. Many of the Ojibwa take part in sun dance ceremonies across the continent. The sacred scrolls are also kept hidden away until those that are worthy and respect them are given permission to see them and then to interpret them properly.

The Ojibwa would bury their dead in a burial mound; often they would erect a jiibegamig or a "spirit-house" over each mound. Instead of a headstone with the deceased's name inscribed upon it, a traditional burial mound would typically have a wooden marker, inscribed with the deceased's doodem. Due to the distinct features of these burials, Ojibwa graves have been often looted by grave robbers. In the United States, many Ojibwa communities safe-guard their burial mounds through the enforcement of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.

Several Ojibwa bands in the United States cooperate in the Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission, which manages their treaty hunting and fishing rights in the Lake Superior-Lake Michigan areas. The commission follows the directives of U.S. agencies to run several wilderness areas. See List of U.S. state and tribal wilderness areas. Some Minnesota Ojibwa tribal councils cooperate in the 1854 Authority, which manages their treaty hunting and fishing rights in the Arrowhead Region. In Canada, the Grand Council of Treaty #3 manages the Treaty 3 hunting and fishing rights around Lake of the Woods.

Kinship and Clan system

Ojibwa understanding of kinship is complex, taking into account of not only the immediate family but also the extended family. It is considered a modified bifurcate merging kinship system. Siblings generally share the same term with parallel-cousins as with any bifurcate merging kinship system since they all part of the same clan, but the modified system allows for younger sibling to share the same kinship term with younger cross-cousins. In addition the complexity wanes as one goes away from the speaker's immediate generation, with some degree of complexity retained with female relatives (for example, ninooshenh is "my mother's sister" or "my father's sister-in-law"—i.e., my parallel-aunt—but also "my parent's female cross-cousin"). In both with the great-grandparents and older generations and with the great-grandchildren and younger generations, the Ojibwa collectively calls them aanikoobijigan. This sign of kinship/clans speaks of the very nature of the Anishinaabe's entire philosophy/lifestyle, that is of interconnectedness and balance between all living generations and all generations of the past and of the future.

The Ojibwe people were divided into a number of odoodeman (clans; singular: odoodem) named primarily for animal totems (or doodem, as an Ojibwe person would say this word in English). The five original totems were Wawaazisii (Bullhead), Baswenaazhi (Echo-maker, i.e., Crane), Aan'aawenh (Pintail Duck), Nooke (Tender, i.e., Bear) and Moozwaanowe ("Little" Moose-tail). The Crane totem was the most vocal among the Ojibwa, and the Bear was the largest — so large, in fact, that it was sub-divided into body parts such as the head, the ribs and the feet.

Traditionally, each band had a self-regulating council consisting of leaders of the communities' clans or odoodeman, with the band often identified by the principle doodem. In meeting others, the traditional greeting among the Ojibwe peoples is "What is your doodem?" ("Aaniin, odoodemaayan?") in order to establish a social conduct between the two meeting parties as family, friends or enemies. Today, the greeting has been shortened to "Aaniin."

Spiritual beliefs

The Ojibwa have a number of spiritual beliefs passed down by oral tradition under the Midewiwin teachings. These include a creation narrative and a recounting of the origins of ceremonies and rituals. Spiritual beliefs and rituals were very important to the Ojibwa because spirits guided them through life. Birch bark scrolls and Petroforms were used to pass along knowledge and information, as well as used for ceremonies. Pictographs were also used for ceremonial use. The sweatlodge is still used during important ceremonies about the four directions and to pass along the oral history of the people. Teaching lodges are still common today to teach the next generations about the language and ancient ways of the past. These old ways, ideas, and teachings are still preserved today with these living ceremonies.