History of the Ojibway People, Second Edition

appendixes

  The Meaning of “Ojibwe” Like many names,the original meaning of “Ojibwe” (outchibouec) has been lost in antiquity, and the word may have undergone various linguistic changes since it was first used.Numerous explanations for the word’s origins have been given. George Copway (Kah-ge-ga-gah-bowh) wrote in : “I have heard a tradition related to the effect that a general council was once held at some point above the Falls of St. Anthony, and that when the Ojibways came to this general council they wore a peculiar shoe or mocassin, which was gathered on the top from the tip of the toe, and at the ancle. No other Indians wore this style of foot-gear,and it was on account of this peculiarity that they were called Ojibway, the signification of which is gathering.”
Henry R. Schoolcraft wrote in  that the meaning was “lost in antiquity.” In ,he wrote: “The term itself is clearly from Bwa,a voice; and its prefix in Odji,was probably designed to mark a peculiar intonation which the muscles are,as it were,gathered up, to denote.” Warren offered yet another explanation in his article “A Brief History of the Ojibwa,” relating the name to the time of the Ojibwe’s separation from the Ottawa and the Potawatomi at the Straits of Mackinac: “It is barely possible that the name Ojibwa may be derived from this event in their past history,Lakes Michigan,Huron and Superior being here ‘puckered ’ into a small compass or channel,the Ojibwas apply the term Oje-beje -wun to waters meeting or running through a compressed channel.” 287 1. George Copway, The Traditional History and Characteristic Sketches of the Ojibway Nation (London: C.Gilpin,),. 2. Philip P. Mason, The Literary Voyager (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press,),. 3. Henry R. Schoolcraft, Personal Memoirs of a Residence of Thirty Years with the Indian Tribes on the American Frontiers (Philadelphia,PA: Lippincott,Grambo and Company , ),. 4. Minnesota Democrat,  February . Schenck bk p i-xxiv 1-318_Layout 1 5/13/11 10:54 AM Page 287 Lewis Henry Morgan believed that the original form was ojibwauk, and that it signified “root or stem of peoples.” Scholar Harold Hickerson saw a relationship between “Chippewa” and the Ojibwe word for “crane,” the original totem of the Sauteurs. “Outchibous, or Ouchipoë, is probably derived from Ojeejok plus the suffix/bwa/connoting ‘voice’ and referent to the Crane, hence Voice of the Crane.” In The Chippewas of Lake Superior Edmund Danziger Jr. proposed that “Ojibwa” may be a corruption of o-jib-i-weg, meaning “those who make pictographs.” 288 · history of the ojibway people 5. Lewis Henry Morgan,Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family (,repr.,Netherlands: Anthropological Publications,),. 6. Harold Hickerson, The Chippewa and Their Neighbors (Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press,),. 7. Edmund Jefferson Danziger Jr., The Chippewas of Lake Superior (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press,),. Schenck bk p i-xxiv 1-318_Layout 1 5/13/11 10:54 AM Page 288   The Legend of Getube Deep in the forest—at one time,there lived an old man with his  sons and daughters-in-law. All lived in one long lodge. They seldom saw human beings,and they lived by the chase.The Father of the family was confined to his seat by a foot which swelled to an enormous size,so he never went out. One winter the youngest of the ten brothers left the wigwam one day intending to travel to a certain town of the human race that he had heard his father tell of. He travelled westward and in the course of the first day he came to the lodge of an old woman who invited him to enter, calling him grandson. After learning his destination, she kindly advised him as follows— “My grandson,” said she, “You are going on a dangerous road, Your way is full of trouble. When you leave my lodge you will come to a hill within sight of a large lake. Stop there and smoke until you are contented (but do not smoke again) then go to the lake which is frozen over and which lies directly in your path. You will see before you a narrow strait in the Lake. Start on a run, and endeavor to reach it as quick as possible, for when you shall have started...