The Legacy of Shingwaukonse: A Century of Native Leadership by Janet Chute (review)

HUMANITIES 273 reasonable topic for a short essay, but it adds very little to what was billed as a study of the narratology of The Life ofArsen'ev. In the end, this reader simply feels that narratological analysis in the detail presented here (a) is unnecessary and (b) causes the author to avoid examining most of the things in Bunin's great novel that are most worthy of discussion. (ANDREW WACHTEL) Janet Chute. The Legacy of Shingwaukonse: A Century ofNative Leadership University of Toronto Press. xu, 360. $60.00, $24.95 The Dictionary ofCanadian Biography is justly renowned as one of Canada's academic treasures. The fourteen volumes which have appeared to date include the biographies of nearly eight thousand persons who died before, or who flourished up to and including, 1920. Yet, despite its completeness we now know that the volume for the years 1851-60, published in 19851 has one major omission: Shingwaukonse (1773-1854), head chief in the 1840S and early 18505 of the Garden River Ojibwa near Sault Ste,Marie. Thanks to Janet Chute's new book, scholars have access for the first time to a full study of the life and the legacy of this important mid-nineteenth-century Lake Superior Ojibwa leader. Chute's biography is the result ofan exhaustivesearch into the surviving documentary record and extensive interviews conducted in the early 19805 with knowledgeable Ojibwa elders - one ofwhom, Dan Pine, Sr, incredible though it may seem, was Shingwaukonse's grandson! (Dan Pine's father, John Askin Pine, who lived from 1836 to 1919, was one ofShingwaukonse's yotmgest sons). In her research Chute travelled around lakes Huron, Michigan, and Superior, visiting archives and Ojibwa elders. On one occasion Fred Pine, Sr, Shingwaukonse's great-grandson, then in his eighties, travelled with her. This close contact with elders gave her special insights. Chute recalls, for example, how she witnessed unspoken messages being passed between the elders: 'Much information is non-verbal in nature: careful hand and eye movements and a generally poised and dignified demeanour characterize such exchanges.' The book is divided into nine chapters, all superbly researched, the first dealing with theoretical considerations about the Ojibwa belief system. Unfortunately for the general reader, this background chapter, at times quite dry and technical, dampens interest. In chapter 2 the manuscript becomes far more accessible and interesting. In chapters 2 to 4 Chute reviews Shingwaukonse's life from the late 18205 to his death. Skilfully she places the emerging Sault Ste Marie Ojibwa leader at the centre of the narrative. Her discussion of his response to Christianity is faScinating. ApparentlyShingwaukonse did not rejecthis traditional religion as he tried to establish 'new linkages with what he perceived to be both the spiritual and political sources of the white man's strength.' . 274 LETTERS IN CANADA 1998 The Ojibwa head chief's father was non-Native, his identity today being totally unknown. One story held that he was an English soldier; another legend told to Chute by Dan Pine, Sr, contended that he was French, a son ofNapoleon Bonaparte! In any eventShingwaukonse'5 genetic background had no effect whatsoever on his loyalty to the community now known as the Garden River Ojibwa. Culturally and politically, he identified entirely with his mother's people. Throughoutthe 18405he worked, unsuccessfully, to found a homeland in Canada, near Sault Ste Marie, for American Ojibwa bands threatened with removal west of the Mississippi River. In the late 18405 and early 18S0S he fought to obtain Ojibwa control of mineral and timber resources in their traditional territories. He enlisted the support of an idealistic non-Native lawyer, Allan Macdonnell from Toronto, to help them in this struggle. Chapter 5 chronicles their struggle for aboriginal rights, one complicated by narrow legal interpretations of the terms of the Robinson Treaties of 1850. The study extendsbeyond Shingwaukonse's death in 1854 to include, in chapters 5 to 8, a review of his successors' attempts to fight for his goal of self-government. Shingwaukonse's successors, who included, in turn, his two sons - Ogista (18oo--go) and Buhkwujjenene (1811-19°0) - battled the federal and provincial governments' efforts to assimilate the community into the mainstream society. Chapter...