Anishinaabe traditional beliefs cover the traditional belief system of the Anishinaabeg peoples, consisting of the Algonquin/Nipissing, Ojibwa/Chippewa/Saulteaux/Mississaugas, Odawa, Potawatomi and Oji-Cree, located primarily in the Great Lakes region of North America.
The Ojibwe are an Anishinaabe people whose homeland covers much of the Great Lakes region and the northern plains, extending into the subarctic and throughout the northeastern woodlands. Ojibweg, being Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands and of the subarctic, are known by several names, including Ojibway or Chippewa. As a large ethnic group, several distinct nations also consider themselves Ojibwe, including the Saulteaux, Nipissings, and Oji-Cree.
The Council of Three Fires is a long-standing Anishinaabe alliance of the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi North American Native tribes.
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.
The Great Spirit is an omnipresent supreme life force generally conceptualized as a supreme being or god. The Great Spirit is a central component in many, but not all, indigenous cultures in Canada and the United States, and interpretations of it vary between cultures.
George Copway was a Mississaugas Ojibwa writer, ethnographer, Methodist missionary, lecturer, and advocate of indigenous peoples. His Ojibwa name was Kah-Ge-Ga-Gah-Bowh, meaning "He Who Stands Forever". In 1847 he published a memoir about his life and time as a missionary. This work made him Canada's first literary celebrity in the United States. In 1851 he published The Traditional History and Characteristic Sketches of The Ojibway Nation, the first published history of the Ojibwa in English.
Gitche Manitou means "Great Spirit" in several Algonquian languages. Christian missionaries have translated God as Gitche Manitou in scriptures and prayers in the Algonquian languages.
Petroforms, also known as boulder outlines or boulder mosaics, are human-made shapes and patterns made by lining up large rocks on the open ground, often on quite level areas. Petroforms in North America were originally made by various Native American and First Nation tribes, who used various terms to describe them. Petroforms can also include a rock cairn or inukshuk, an upright monolith slab, a medicine wheel, a fire pit, a desert kite, sculpted boulders, or simply rocks lined up or stacked for various reasons. Old World petroforms include the Carnac stones and many other megalithic monuments.
Birch bark or birchbark is the bark of several Eurasian and North American birch trees of the genus Betula.
Selwyn Hanington Dewdney was a Canadian writer, illustrator, artist, activist and pioneer in both art therapy and pictography.
A wiigwaasabak is a birch bark scroll, on which the Ojibwa (Anishinaabe) people of North America wrote with a written language composed of complex geometrical patterns and shapes.
Seven fires prophecy is an Anishinaabe prophecy that marks phases, or epochs, in the life of the people on Turtle Island, the original name given by the indigenous peoples of the now North American continent. The seven fires of the prophecy represent key spiritual teachings for North America, and suggest that the different colors and traditions of the human beings can come together on a basis of respect. It contains information for the future lives of the Anishinaabe which are still in the process of being fulfilled.
An underwater panther, called Mishipeshu or Mishibijiw in Ojibwe, is one of the most important of several mythical water beings among many Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands and Great Lakes region, particularly among the Anishinaabe.
Birchbark biting is an Indigenous artform made by Anishinaabeg, including Ojibwe people, Potawatomi, and Odawa, as well as Cree and other Algonquian peoples of the Subarctic and Great Lakes regions of Canada and the United States. Artists bite on small pieces of folded birch bark to form intricate designs.
The Anishinaabe, like most Algonquian-speaking groups in North America, base their system of kinship on clans or totems. The Ojibwe word for clan was borrowed into English as totem. The clans, based mainly on animals, were instrumental in traditional occupations, intertribal relations, and marriages. Today, the clan remains an important part of Anishinaabe identity. Each clan is forbidden from harming its representation animal by any means, as it is a bad omen to do so.
Woodlands style, also called the Woodlands school, Legend painting, Medicine painting, and Anishnabe painting, is a genre of painting among First Nations and Native American artists from the Great Lakes area, including northern Ontario and southwestern Manitoba. The majority of the Woodlands artists are Anishinaabeg, notably the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi, as well as the Oji-Cree and the Cree.
The Wabunowin is the "Dawn Society", also sometime improperly called the "Magical Dawn Society", a distinct Anishinaabeg society of visionaries, practiced among the Anishinaabeg peoples, consisting of the Algonquin/Nipissing, Ojibwa/Chippewa/Saulteaux/Mississaugas, Odawa, Potawatomi and Oji-cree, located primarily in the Great Lakes region of North America. Like the Midewiwin, the Wabunowin is a secretive animistic religion, requiring an initiation, thus early non-indigenous writers lumped the information on the Wabunowin with the Midewiwin. But unlike the Mide, the Waabano have sometimes two levels, and sometimes four. This variation is dependent on the particular lodge.
A wiigwaasi-makak, meaning "birch-bark box" in the Anishinaabe language, is a box made of panels of birchbark sewn together with watap. The construction of makakoon from birchbark was an essential element in the culture of the Anishinaabe people and other members of the Native Americans and First Nations of the Upper Great Lakes, particularly in the regions surrounding Lake Superior. Birchbark makakoon continue to be crafted to this day as heritage heirlooms and for the tourist trade.
Watap, watape, wattap, or wadab is the thread and cordage used by the Native Americans and First Nations peoples of Canada to sew together sheets and panels of birchbark. The word itself comes from the Algonquian language family, but watap cordage was used and sewn by all of the people who lived where the paper birch tree grows. The cordage was usually manufactured from the roots of various species of conifers, such as the white spruce, black spruce, or Northern whitecedar, but could originate from a variety of species that sprouted root fibers with sufficient tensile strength for the required purpose. In a typical manufacturing process, the roots would be debarked, subjected to a lengthy soaking process, and then steamed or boiled to render them pliable for sewing. The roots could be left whole and used as cords, or divided into smaller fibers for twine.
Ojibwe religion is the traditional Native American religion of the Ojibwe people. It is practiced primarily in north-eastern North America, within Ojibwe communities in Canada and the United States. The tradition has no formal leadership or organizational structure and displays much internal variation.
