Anishinaabe
The Anishinaabe are a group of culturally related Indigenous peoples in the Great Lakes region of Canada and the United States. They include the Ojibwe, Odawa, Potawatomi, Mississaugas, Nipissing, and Algonquin peoples. The Anishinaabe speak Anishinaabemowin, or Anishinaabe languages that belong to the Algonquian language family.
At the time of first contact with Europeans they lived in the Northeast Woodlands and the Subarctic, and some have since spread to the Great Plains.
The word Anishinaabe means. Another definition is, meaning those who are on the right road or path given to them by the Creator Gitche Manitou, or Great Spirit. Basil Johnston, an Ojibwe historian, linguist, and writer, wrote that the term's literal translation is or. The Anishinaabe believe that their people were created by divine breath.
The word Anishinaabe is often mistakenly considered a synonym of Ojibwe, but it refers to a much larger group of Nations.
Name
Anishinaabe has many different, Romanized spellings. Different spelling systems may indicate vowel length or spell certain consonants differently ; meanwhile, variants ending in -eg/ek come from an Algonquian plural, while those ending in an -e come from an Algonquian singular.The name Anishinaabe is sometimes shortened to Nishnaabe, mostly by Odawa people. The cognate Neshnabé comes from the Potawatomi, a people long allied with the Odawa and Ojibwe in the Council of Three Fires. The Nipissing, Mississaugas, and Algonquin are identified as Anishinaabe but are not part of the Council of Three Fires.
Closely related to the Ojibwe and speaking a language mutually intelligible with Anishinaabemowin is the Oji-Cree. Their most common autonym is Anishinini, and they call their language Anishininiimowin.
Among the Anishinaabe, the Ojibwe collectively call the Nipissings and the Algonquins Odishkwaagamii, while those among the Nipissings who identify themselves as Algonquins call the Algonquins proper Omàmiwinini.
Not all Anishinaabemowin-speakers call themselves Anishinaabe. The Ojibwe people who migrated to what are now Canada's prairie provinces call themselves Nakawē and call their branch of the Anishinaabemowin Nakawēmowin. Particular Anishinaabe groups have different names from region to region.
Clans
The Anishinaabe use of the clan system represents familial, spiritual, economic and political relations between members of their communities. Often an animal is used to represent a person's clan or dodem but plants and other spirit beings are sometimes used as well. The word dodem means. There are different teachings about how many clans there are and which are clans in leadership positions. This is due to the decentralized mode of governance that the Anishinaabe practice. Each person is a self-determining authority, and it is their duty to uphold their own roles and responsibilities for the wellbeing of all our relations. This is understood as the "Law of Non-interference". Nobody can interfere with another being's path unless they are causing great harm to another or themselves.Within the Anishinaabe governance structure there are seven leader clans that each facilitate a specific role and have responsibilities within the community and to the rest of Creation. Within each grouping of clans are seven clans. This means there are a total of 49 total Anishinaabe clans.
- Waawaakeshi
- * Zaagi'idiwin
- Maang
- * Debaadendiziwin
- Migizi
- * Debwewin
- Makwa
- * B'Maadziwin
- Ajijaak
- * Mnaadendimowin
- Waabizheshii
- * Aakedhwin
- Mshiikenh
- * Nbwaakaawin
History
Origins
In Anishinaabe cultural tradition it is believed that human beings were created on the earth in four distinct places, in their own way. This is what Gizhe Mnidoo or the Creator intended. There are many versions and parts to the Creation story that tell about the creation of the cosmos, the earth, the plants, the animals and human beings. To Anishinaabe all life contains the sacred breath of life that was given by Gizhe Mnidoo and all things are animated through this sacred breath. The Anishinaabe give thanks for this gift of Creation through the burning or offering of tobacco.Anishinaabe oral tradition and records of wiigwaasabak are still carried on today through the Midewewin society. These oral and written records contain the Anishinaabe creation stories as well as histories of migration that closely match other Indigenous groups of North America, such as the Hopi. Before the Anishinaabe became Anishinaabe the people migrated from Waubanaukee, an island of the East Coast, which may have been what is now called New England, as the great ice sheet receded at the end of the last ice age. This migrating group split in many different directions as they headed towards the land of the rising sun and became the many Indigenous populations that now exist on North America. After reaching the East Coast seven prophets came to the people. Each prophet delivered a specific prophecy to the people that are known as the seven fires prophecies. After the prophets delivered their messages, groups of people began to migrate westward to find the land where food grows on the water. The fulfilment of this prophecy is understood as when the Anishinaabe found the wild rice or that grew on the lakes in the Great Lakes region. This is where the Anishinaabe became Anishinaabe. To the Anishinaabe, the land they encompass is still recognized as Gitchi Mikinaak or Turtle Island.
The ethnic identities of the Ojibwa, Odawa, and Potawatomi did not develop until after the Anishinaabe reached Michilimackinac on their journey westward from the Atlantic coast. Using the Midewewin scrolls, Potawatomi elder Shop-Shewana dated the formation of the Council of Three Fires to 796 AD at Michilimackinac. In this council, the Ojibwa were addressed as the "Older Brother", the Odawa as the "Middle Brother", and the Potawatomi as the "Younger Brother". Consequently, when the three Anishinaabe nations are mentioned in this specific order: Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi, it implies the Council of Three Fires as well. Each tribe had different functions: the Ojibwa were the "keepers of the faith", the Odawa the "keepers of trade," and the Potawatomi are the "keepers/maintainers of/for the fire". This was the basis for their exonyms of Boodewaadamii or Bodéwadmi . Through the totem system and promotion of trade, the Council generally had a peaceful existence with its neighbours. However, occasional unresolved disputes erupted into wars.
The Odawa are a Native American and First Nations people. Ojibwe, Ojibwa, Chippewa is the third most commonly spoken Native language in Canada, and the fourth most spoken in North America behind Navajo, Cree, and Inuktitut. Potawatomi is a Central Algonquian language. It is spoken around the Great Lakes in Michigan and Wisconsin, as well as in the U.S. state of Kansas. In southern Ontario in Canada, it is spoken by fewer than 50 people. Though the Three Fires had several meeting places, they preferred Michilimackinac due to its central location. The Council met for military and political purposes, and maintained relations with other indigenous peoples, including both fellow Anishinaabe: the Ozaagii, Odagaamii, Omanoominii, and non-Anishinaabe: Wiinibiigoo, Naadawe, Nii'inaa-Naadawe, Naadawensiw, Wemitigoozhi, Zhaaganaashi and the Gichi-mookomaan. The Anishinaabe communities are recognized as First Nations in Canada.
Relations with European settlers
The first of the Anishinaabe to encounter European settlers were those of the Three Fires Confederation, within the states of Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania in the territory of the present-day United States, and southern Ontario and Quebec of Canada. There were many interactions between the Anishinaabe and the European settlers; the Anishinaabe dealt with Europeans through the fur trade and as allies in European-centered conflicts. Europeans traded with the Anishinaabe for their furs in exchange for goods and also hired the Anishinaabe men as guides throughout the lands of North America. The Anishinaabe women occasionally would intermarry with fur traders and trappers. Some of their descendants would later create a Métis ethnic group. Explorers, trappers, and other European workers married or had unions with other Anishinaabe women, and their descendants tended to form a Métis culture.Relationship with the French
The first Europeans to encounter Native Americans in the Great Lakes region were French explorers. These men were professional canoe-paddlers who transported furs and other merchandise over long distances in the lake and river system of northern America. Such explorers gave French names to many places in present-day Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin. French settlers in the region were primarily trappers and traders and rarely established permanent settlements due to the harsh North American climate. In 1715, French military officer Constant le Marchand de Lignery constructed Fort Michilimackinac, in part to regulate relations with nearby Anishinaabe Indians.Relationship with the British
The Anishinaabe came into contact with British colonists in the 17th and 18th centuries as they gradually expanded into the Great Lakes region as well. Since the Iroquois had allied with the British Empire, the Anishinaabe fought numerous conflicts against them in conjunction with their French allies. During the French and Indian War, the majority of the Anishinaabe fought with France against the British and their Indian allies, though after Britain's victory most of them sought peace with the British. However, dissatisfaction resulting from new British policies, in particular the cancellation of the annual distribution of gifts to the Indians, led to the formation of a pan-tribal confederation, composed of several Anishinaabe peoples, to counter British control of the Ohio Country. The resulting conflict, known as Pontiac's War, resulted in a military stalemate that saw the British eventually adopting more conciliatory policies, issuing the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which forbade further white settlement across the American frontier.After Pontiac's War, the Anishinaabe gradually established the same relationship with the British that they had with the French. During the American Revolution, which partly resulted from opposition in the Thirteen Colonies to the 1763 proclamation, the Anishinaabe mostly sided against the rebelling colonists. Fighting in conjunction with British and Loyalist forces, the Anishinaabe fought in the Northern and Western theaters of the American Revolutionary War. After the British defeat in the Revolutionary War, the Anishinaabe mostly sought peace with the new United States, though lingering tensions resulting from encroachment by American settlers continued to spill into frequent outbreaks of violence in the frontier.