Ojibwe in Minnesota

Ojibwe Origins and Migration to Minnesota

the Ojib we  5 Ojibwe Origins and Migration to Minnesota Cultures and languages change far faster than most people realize. If you’ve ever tried to read Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, you realize that the English language as it was written six hundred years ago is barely discernible to a literate English speaker today.Ojibwe culture,language, and homeland have also undergone rapid transformation. Only three to four thousand years ago there were no people who called themselves Ojibwe. The ancestors of the Ojibwe werenotlivinginwhatisnowMinnesotabutcouldbefound throughout the northeastern part of North America and along theAtlantic Coast.2 Sometimes referred to by historians and linguists as Algonquian or Algic, this indigenous people eventually spread out and diversified throughout the continent.Today, twenty-seven different tribes trace their origins to this mother group.All of those tribes still share some common features of language and culture, but just as the differences between Romanian and French are significant within the Romance language family, so too are the differences between Ojibwe and Blackfeet, for example, within the Algonquian language family. The Ojibwe, Cree, Ottawa, and Potawatomi have long shared an intertwined economic and political history, and even today those languages remain very similar (as close as Spanish is to Portuguese). Other groupsintheAlgonquianlanguagefamilysuchastheCheyenne are so divergent from Ojibwe that a fluent speaker of one language can barely recognize a root word in the other. The emergence of the Ojibwe as a distinct subgroup is hard to pinpoint but most likely happened around fifteen hundredyearsago.Eventhen,theOjibweneverfunctioned as one nation politically, economically, or even militarily but rather as a group of autonomous villages with many language and culture commonalities. Although there are many theories about the exact deeper meaning of the word 6  pe Ople Of minnes Ot a Ojibwe, it most likely comes from either the puckered seam of the Ojibwe moccasin or the Ojibwe custom of writing on birch bark.3 One key feature of Ojibwe culture was a very strong, deeply ingrained clan system. The English word totem is derived from the Ojibwe word for clan, doodem. Ojibwe clans were patrilineal, passed on through the father.When the Ojibwe first emerged as a distinct group,clan was probably the single most important factor in determining a person’s place in society. Clan determined what kind of positions a person would be groomed for—politics, medicine , or military, for example. Marrying someone of the same clan,even if that person was not a blood relative,was strictly taboo in Ojibwe culture and the only wrongdoing that was considered a capital offense.4 ChiefBuffalocarriedabirch-barkversionofthisimagetoWashington,DC,in1849todemonstratethe authoritypossessedbythechiefdelegation.Thelinesconnectingthebullhead,merman,andmartin clanstothecranearemeanttoshowthatthechiefsareinmentalandspiritualagreementwithone anotherandwiththecrane(ChiefBuffalo)astheirspokesman. the Ojib we  7 Originally, all Ojibwe civil chiefs were of the loon or crane clans. However, as the Ojibwe moved west in the eighteenth century, warrior clans (bear, martin, lynx, and wolf)begantodominate.InwhatwouldlaterbecomeMinnesota , entire villages were settled with no representation at all from traditional chieftainship clans.But those villages did have chiefs. They were simply elected from the local clans.At Red Lake in northern Minnesota,for example,the tribal flag today carries an image of the original clans that settled there—bear, turtle, bullhead, otter, eagle, martin, Did You Know . . . that there are many ojibwe words in the english language? They include totem, toboggan, muskeg,papoose,wigwam,moose,chickadee,moccasin,kinnikinnick,andmuskellunge.The english words for several tribes in north america—including Sioux, Assiniboine, Eskimo, and Winnebago—also come from the ojibwe language words for those groups. numerous placenames in north america are also derived from the ojibwe language, including Mississippi, Michigan,andWisconsin.ii Redlake veteransJohn Barrettand RobertDesjarlait holdingtheRed lakenation flag,Ponemah Traditional Powwow,2009 8  pe Ople Of minnes Ot a and kingfisher—but no loon or crane. Although it has often been claimed that contact with Europeans changed and devalued the importance of clan for the Ojibwe,it was in fact the Ojibwe themselves who began to challenge and change traditional clan and leadership structure, long before Europeans arrived.5 The Ojibwe primarily lived in dome-shaped, barkcovered wigwams. The abundance of tamarack, maple, cedar, basswood, and birch throughout Minnesota made this type of dwelling the most practical to construct and keep warm. The Ojibwe also made several other types of lodges for ceremonies,maple sugar harvest,and travel. Ojibweculturerevolvedaroundtheconceptof reciprocity .Tobacco,food,and other gifts were offered with any harvest of plants or animals from the natural world for food, lodges...