Ojibwa

By Jennifer S.H. Brown and John Beierle

Anishinaabe; Ojibway, Ojibwe; Chippewa (U.S.); Mississauga or Southeastern Ojibwa (southern, central Ontario), Nipissing, Algonquin, Plains Ojibwa (sometimes known as Bungi); Northern Ojibwa; Saulteaux or Sauteurs (Manitoba); Ojicree or Oji-Cree, Southwestern Chippewa (Goddard 1978: 583)

The Ojibwa comprise numerous communities ranging mainly from southern and northwestern Ontario, northern Michigan and Wisconsin, and Minnesota, to North Dakota and southern and central Manitoba and Saskatchewan. The most usual explanation of the name, "Ojibwa," relates it to a root meaning "puckered up," a reference to a distinct style of moccasin (Goddard 1978: 769). Ojibwa speakers commonly refer to themselves as ANISHINAABEG, a term meaning humans (as opposed to non-humans) or Indians (as opposed to whites) (Nichols and Nyholm 1995: 10).

The Ojibwa homeland before European contact extended at least along the eastern and northern shores of Lake Huron, up the northeastern shore of Lake Superior, and probably into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (Rogers 1978: 760). In the 1600s and 1700s, the Ojibwa expanded along fur trade water routes to the north and west. Those with ancient connections to Sault Ste. Marie, named after the French mission founded there in 1668, carried with them the name Saulteaux (people of the rapids), a term still widely used in Manitoba. Numerous other local group names have gone out of use or have lost their reference to a specific place. For example, in the 1600s, the Mississauga (now an alternate term for the Southeastern Ojibwa) were a band residing near the Mississagi River on the north shore of Lake Huron (Goddard 1978:769).

Estimates of Ojibwa population at European contact are speculative. Alfred Kroeber, following James Mooney in an effort to allow for groups both known and unknown to European visitors, suggested a figure of 30,000 for the Northern Great Lakes, plus 2,000 for the Plains Ojibwa and 3,000 for Ojibwa in Wisconsin. The Algonkin and Ottawa he grouped separately, at 7,300 (Kroeber 1953: 139-141). By comparison, E.S. Rogers estimated all the Ojibwa-speaking groups in the Great Lakes homeland in the 1600s at about 3,000-4,000 (Rogers 1978: 760), while Laura Peers has noted a lack of evidence for Ojibwa presence on the Plains before the late 1700s (1994: 5-6). From the 1630s onward, epidemics periodically reduced native populations severely, smallpox, measles, and influenza being the most deadly (Dobyns 1983: 14-19). The combined Canada-United States. Ojibwa population in 1912 was reported to be 38,000-41,000 (Mooney and Thomas 1913: 98). As of 1986, the United States. and Canadian populations registered as members of Ojibwa bands (Canada) or tribes (U.S.) totaled about 80,000 (Bishop 1988: 1562). This does not include people categorized as Ottawa or Algonkin; nor does it count non-status Indians or persons of mixed descent who may self-identify as Anishinaabeg. In Canada, Bill C-31 (1985), which amended the Indian Act to allow recovery of Indian status by women who had lost status by marrying out, and by their children (Krosenbrink-Gelissen 1991: 170-171), has led to a considerable increase in the numbers of registered Ojibwa.

The Ojibwa language is a member of the Algonquian language family. It subsumes several dialects. Southern Ojibwa speakers include the Ottawas and Chippewas of southern Ontario, Manitoulin Island, and the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. To the east, the Nipissing and Algonquin represent another speech community, while western and northern Ojibwa speakers again represent perhaps three dialectal variants (Goddard 1978: 583). The Northern Ojibwa of the Severn River region (neighbors of the Swampy Cree) speak a dialect increasingly known as Ojicree or Oji-Cree; outsiders have often identified these communities as Cree, a label sometimes adopted by the people themselves when speaking English (Valentine 1995: 21, 57).

Recorded Ojibwa contacts with Europeans began in the 1640s in the Great Lakes region; French Jesuit missionaries first preached at Sault Ste Marie in 1641. Iroquois warfare against the Huron and their Algonquian allies led to the destruction of the Huron confederacy in 1649 and to wide dispersal of affected communities. By the 1690s, however, the Mississauga, Ottawa, and others had defeated the Iroquois in several battles, and Mississauga villages began to occupy old Iroquois sites along the northern shores of Lake Ontario (Tanner 1987: 30-34).

Meanwhile, French fur traders began actively to pursue contacts with Algonquian communities around and beyond the upper Great Lakes, to meet European demands for beaver felt for hats. French trade goods, especially kettles, knives, awls, and axes, drew strong Ojibwa interest for their convenience and durability and tended to replace or supplement bark and pottery containers and stone tools; cloth, trade beads, tobacco, and alcohol were also in demand. Dependency on European goods should not be assumed, however; guns of the 1600s, for example, were unwieldy, inefficient, and dangerous to their users (Peers 1994: 13, Given 1994). The fur trade fostered specialization; Ojibwa winter hunting and trapping began to focus more on securing the desired furs. The Ojibwa in turn increasingly expected French traders to advance goods and provisions as "debts" to support fur production. Ojibwa women were essential as processors of leather and furs; their workload in this sphere increased as the trade grew, although metal tools eased many of their customary tasks.

By the late 1700s, Ojibwa groups spread into Manitoba, Minnesota, and beyond. Montreal-based Canadian traders were moving westward to compete with the English Hudson's Bay Company which was extending its trade into the interior of the vast Hudson Bay watershed known as Rupert's Land, which it had claimed by royal charter since 1670. Many Ojibwa had long associated with the Canadians and frequently intermarried with them "according to the custom of the country," as these unions were styled. From the Great Lakes to the far northwest, a sizable population of mixed descent had arisen by the mid-1800s. Depending on circumstances, these offspring might remain with maternal relatives and identify as Ojibwa; or they might be connected with the growing number of Metis who began in this period to see themselves as ethnically distinct. The rise of the Plains Ojibwa dates to this period (Peers 1994).

Ojibwa communities diverged in several other directions by 1850. Those who traveled with the fur trade into the subarctic regions above Lake Superior adopted a lifestyle closer to that of their northern neighbors, the Swampy Cree. Meanwhile, Ojibwa communities in southern Ontario were displaced first by Loyalists who streamed into the region after the American Revolution, and later by thousands of immigrants from the British Isles. Governmental policy oscillated between the encouraging of Indian reserves and agricultural mission settlements in the south, and the removing of Indians to more northern localities such as Manitoulin Island (Schmalz 1991).

The Ojibwa communities that spread into Wisconsin and Minnesota by the early 1800s did so in good part by means of intermittent warfare with Dakota and other groups, and by allying themselves with Ottawa, Potawatomi, and increasingly, Metis associates and relatives. By the 1850s, their land base and population had been severely reduced by United States removal policies, by disease, and by the overall pressures of heavy white settlement, especially in more southern areas (see, e.g, Hickerson 1988; review essay by Brown and Peers in Hickerson 1988).

Ojibwa settlements were at their largest during summer, when people gathered at choice fishing and trading spots such as Sault Sainte Marie. The more southerly groups established durable villages on lakes and rivers where they practiced small-scale agriculture, growing corn and other domesticates; stands of wild rice and sugar maple trees also attracted seasonal settlement (Tanner 1987: maps). In fall, smaller kin groups consisting of, for example, two brothers and their wives and children, left the bigger lakes and rivers to canoe and portage inland, setting up winter camps in hunting and trapping lands their families might have used for generations (Hallowell 1992: 44-45).

Dwellings varied seasonally. Conical or dome-shaped structures made of saplings bound together and covered with birch or elm bark or hides (depending on the region), later supplemented by canvas, were standard. Polygynous men and their families might occupy a peaked-roof long lodge with doors at both ends. Log or frame houses became common in more southern areas during the 1800s, but indigenous dwelling types were common along inland rivers and lakes in northern Ontario and Manitoba through the 1930s (Hallowell 1992: Appendix).

The Ojibwa economy was mixed, combining the seasonal harvest of wild resources (fish, game, birchbark, berries, plant medicines, and other local products) with gardening (in the south) and trade. Management of these resources by fire and other methods enhanced productivity; wild rice, for example, was reseeded where old beds had declined, and was introduced to new locations where crop conditions were promising (Moodie 1991: 71). The rise of the fur trade brought increased emphasis on beaver, muskrat, and other pelts, and encouraged production of maple sugar and wild rice as provisions valued by traders. Fish, notably whitefish, and more specialized products such as sturgeon isinglass acquired commercial value, leading to competition in several areas between Ojibwa groups and outside entrepreneurs; overfishing by the latter led to massive depletions in several areas by 1900 (see, e.g, Holzkamm, Lytwyn, and Waisberg 1991). The Plains Ojibwa turned more to bison hunting, although they maintained mixed seasonal u se of other resources and did not become as oriented toward horses as did other Plains groups (Peers 1994: 50-51).

The processing of leather, bark, plant fibers, wood, stone, clay, and to a lesser degree, native copper from around Lake Superior, yielded a diverse material culture, while for the Ojibwa residents of the Plains, the bison furnished hides, pemmican, and other useful products. On arrival, European traders in the northeast and subarctic found canoes, snowshoes, and moccasins essential to travel and increased the demand for these manufactures. In turn, their introduced metal goods greatly facilitated woodcutting, cooking, and sewing, while glass trade beads, silk thread, and such recycled materials as snuffbox lids made into tinkling cones, augmented traditional decorative materials such as porcupine quills. By the later 1800s, basketry and beadwork production became a significant source of income for Ojibwa women in areas frequented by tourists, sports fishermen, and cottagers.

The Europeans found Ojibwa already engaged in trade with the Huron to the south and the Cree to the north; such goods as cornmeal and Iroquoian pottery moved north while furs for winter clothing traveled south along old trade routes that reached from the southern Great Lakes to James Bay (Trigger 1990: 42-25). The French fur trade cast Ojibwa, Nipissing, and Algonquin groups into middleman roles, as conveyors of high-quality Cree beaver pelts to Montreal and Quebec. By the 1700s, French forts and missions on the Great Lakes became magnets for trade, and to some extent settlement, fostering the rise of an Ojibwa-Metis population. In the north, trapping remained important through the mid-twentieth century and it still augments income from other sources.

Most hunting, trapping, and trading was done by men, while women's work centered on childcare, the gathering of firewood and berries and other plants, and the processing of leather, clothing, and food. Older men assumed the most prominent leadership and ceremonial roles.

Land tenure was established by continued use and habitation, as of village sites, and by local consensus about which family groups frequented specific lakeshores and streams in the winter hunting season. Patterns of water travel and watersheds shaped land use in most areas, and concepts of trespass and respect for occupancy rights reinforced the stability of use patterns, except where disruptive rivalry with other groups occurred, as in the upper-Midwest "debatable zone" between the Ojibwa and Dakota in the late 1700s and early 1800s (Hickerson 1988, chapter 6). By the late 1800s, land cessions and the creation of reservations, along with fish, game, and migratory bird laws, damming of rivers, and other changes had undermined Ojibwa land use patterns in all but their most northerly communities.

Patrilineal, exogamous clans structured Ojibwa kin relations in most areas, though clan solidarity and functions were more visible in southern regions (see, e.g, Warren 1984). The Southwestern Ojibwa of Minnesota possessed twenty-three clans (Reid, 270) while fifteen or twenty were reported for the Lake Superior Chippewa in the 1800s (Danziger 1978: 11). Among the Berens River Ojibwa in the 1930s, seven clans were represented (Hallowell 1992: 23). The Northern Ojibwa, in contrast, developed regional bands traceable to a remote genealogical ancestor, for example, the Cranes in the area of Weagamow and Big Trout lakes (Rogers and Rogers 1982).

Ojibwa kinship follows a bifurcate collateral pattern with Iroquois-type cousin terminology, distinguishing cross from parallel cousins, aunts, and uncles, and merging parallel cousins with siblings (Hallowell 1992: 59n4).

Although parents commonly arranged the marriages of offspring, liberal courtship customs allowed eligible mates (ideally classificatory cross-cousins) to form relationships that were then sanctioned as marriages (Hallowell 1992: 56-57). A man's presentation of gifts to the woman's parents and their acceptance allowed marriage to go forward. Temporary matrilocal residence was common and might be lasting if the wife's parents lacked other male hunters. Polygyny was not usual but men who achieved power and prestige might have two or three wives, or rarely, more. Divorce was permitted, as was remarriage after divorce or death of a spouse (Hallowell 1992, Danziger 1978).

Residential units consisted of long lodges occupied by extended families often comprising three generations, or in summer, clusters of smaller dwellings occupied by related families who dispersed into smaller groups for winter hunting (Hallowell 1992: 48-49). By the early 1900s, log and frame nuclear-family housing prevailed in most areas. Nuclear family units, however, still often house one or more grandparent as well as children adopted or fostered because they need a home, or because the home needs children, or both (Black-Rogers 1990: 59, 68).

Clear distinctions in gender roles led to women's property being passed down to female descendants, and men's down to males. Ceremonial properties, religious powers, and leadership roles usually passed down the male line but were also legitimated by appropriate vision experiences and demonstration of suitable personal qualities (see, for example, Matthews and Roulette 1996).

Children learned their gender and adult roles largely by experience, observation, example, and listening to stories and legends rather than through formal teaching or discipline. Boys at puberty sought gifts and blessings from dream visitors by fasting in isolation for several days. Thunderbirds or other beings might bestow powers which helped men throughout life if respected and obeyed. Girls at first menstruation were secluded; but vision experiences, while they might occur and confer special powers, were not sought or needed by females to the same degree. Women after puberty observed various taboos on the handling of men's tools and products of the hunt; and all children learned customary patterns of respect, avoidance, or joking relationships toward various classes of relatives (see, for example, Hallowell 1992, Hilger 1992).

Ojibwa communities consisted of local autonomous bands of interrelated families, often known by a name reflecting a geographical feature of their territory (rapids or a river mouth, for example). More southerly bands ranged upward to several hundred people; those living on the Canadian Shield comprised perhaps 50 to 150 persons. By the late 1800s, many bands, especially on the Plains, comprised an ethnic mix of Ojibwa, Ottawa, Cree, Metis, and Dakota or others (Peers 1994: 144-145).

Leadership in Ojibwa bands commonly passed down the male lines of large, successful families.The men (and more rarely, women) who gained leadership were respected for their abilities, knowledge, and evidence of spiritual powers in hunting, healing, or other domains.Younger leaders might be successful warriors, while older men might demonstrate shamanic powers which attracted allegiance from members of their own families or communities but which appeared fearful and evil to outsiders (missionaries, for example, who became their rivals in some respects), or to potential enemies. By the late 1800s, outside pressures fostered more formalized chiefly roles, notably in Canada where the Indian Act of 1876 required the election of chiefs and councils (Hallowell 1992). Elections and majority rule at least nominally replaced older, more consensual political processes. Tensions between young and old, Christian and non-converted, "progressive" and "conservative," grew; and while generational and civil-chief/warrior rival ries were not new, factionalism was exacerbated by social and economic stress (Kugel 1985).

Ridicule, gossip, and ostracism were principal means of social control. Persons who manifested the threatening behavior of a cannibalistic WIINDIGOO or a "bear-walker" who pursued others with bad medicine might be executed. It was also expected that wrongdoers, breakers of taboos, and the like, would bring penalties from offended spiritual beings upon themselves or their children (ONJINEWIN, punishment for a moral wrong), obviating need for human intervention (Matthews and Roulette 1996:359).

Strong sanctions controlled overt expressions of conflict and anger in Ojibwa communities. Direct conflict was usually deflected through avoidance or silence; if not defused, antagonists might resort to indirect warfare, "throwing bad medicine" through sorcery. The introduction of alcohol evidently decreased inhibitions on physical abuse and violence. Stresses in modern reservation communities have exacerbated generational conflicts. Old mechanisms of control have broken down, and high youth suicide rates in northern Ontario, for example, testify to widespread problems in parent-child communications and to drastic changes in values surrounding individual behavior, agency, and responsibility (Bennett 1992).

Ojibwa cosmology, reinforced by language, presents a universe filled with beings and forces conceived of as animate and capable of interacting with human beings. To speak of thunder, for example, is to speak of the Thunderers or Thunderbirds (ANIMIKIIG, PINESIWAG), beings who require respect and offerings and may help humans and visit them in dreams. Objects and animals may not be what they seem; certain stones may speak and have powers, or a seemingly ordinary creature may be a spirit visitor in human or animal form. Debate exists over whether the Ojibwa had a pre-Christian concept of a supreme god (GICHI-MANIDOO, Great Spirit), but along the Berens River, non-Christians told A.I. Hallowell of a remote, ungendered, unseen power, GAA-DIBENDJIGED, from whom powers emanated to all other beings in varying degrees (Hallowell 1934: 391). Animals, plants, the four winds, and other natural phenomena had spiritual "owners" or "bosses" who appeared in myths and dreams and controlled human relationships with the entiti es they represented.

In the nineteenth century, intensive missionization by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Methodists, and others began, particularly in more southern regions. Results varied widely. Churches and schools built within Ojibwa communities allowed children a degree of familial continuity and contact with elders, and gave the Ojibwa opportunities to assimilate aspects of Christianity on their own terms. When in the late 1800s, however, perhaps a third to one-half of the rising generation were sent to distant boarding schools, old belief systems were lost in many instances. Ojibwa traditionalists of the late 1900s often seek to revive religious beliefs of the past in a framework of a broader pan-Indian spirituality, while Christians commonly turn to the evangelical and pentecostal churches active on many reservations.

Those young people who received special gifts on their vision quests and support and teaching from powerful elder relatives, became shamans with various specialties, for example, healing, or divining future or distant events through the use of the shaking tent (a small structure in which the operator communed with visiting spirit beings and received answers to questions and problems), or conducting Midewiwin (Grand Medicine Society) ceremonies.

The Midewiwin, practiced by most southern and central Ojibwa until Christianization and other forces diminished it, and undergoing a revival in the late 1900s, was the most prominent ceremonial. Held in spring and/or fall in a long lodge built for the purpose, it was an occasion for reciting origin and migration myths, for healing, and for initiation of new members. More generally, individual and group ceremonies infused everyday life; the harvesting of game or roots, the naming of a child, or the passing of a thunderstorm were all occasions for prayers and offerings. Innovations occurred through dream messages which individual recipients received and promulgated. In the late 1800s, for example, a Dream Dance involving use of a large drum and transmission of an elaborate song cycle spread across Minnesota and Wisconsin and eventually to the Berens River in Manitoba (Vennum 1982).

Musical instruments included rattles, flutes, water drums, and large drums such as those of the Dream Dance and those used more recently in powwows. Songs were received by individuals from dream visitors who thereby conferred powers to heal, secure success in hunting, or conduct certain ceremonies. Inscribed and painted arts included the migration stories and song notations on birchbark Midewiwin scrolls and pictographs on rock faces above water, as at Agawa on Lake Superior. In the 1960s, Ojibwa artists led by Norval Morrisseau created the pictographic or "Woodland" school of Native painting. On leather and cloth, Ojibwa women have a long tradition of porcupine quillwork, silkwork, and beadwork, most commonly using floral motifs; birchbark basketry has also been a widely used medium for quillwork.

Serious illness was ascribed to personalized causes: retaliation from offended spirit beings or by sorcery for improper behavior or for having done wrong to another party, animal or human. Curing could involve a specialist's use of medicinal plant remedies, the sweat lodge, the Midewiwin ceremony, and a shaman's aid in soliciting the victim's confession of past taboo breaches or other acts that might have brought about the ailment (Hallowell 1992: 92-96).

The deceased were dressed in fine clothes, wrapped in bark, and buried (or in older times when the ground was frozen, placed on high scaffolds) with goods needed on the journey to the afterworld. Southern Ojibwa groups placed the land of the dead or of ghosts (JIIBAYAG) to the west; Berens River Ojibwa placed it in the south (Danziger 1978: 15, Hallowell 1992: 74). A small log house or picket fence was placed over the grave, and relatives left offerings such as tea or tobacco for the deceased or for the use of others who might visit and pay their respects. Reincarnation was seen as possible though rare; clues would be a few gray hairs on a baby's head, or a person's recollection of experiences while in the womb or before (Hallowell 1992: 76-78).

Documents referred to in this section are included in the eHRAF collection and are referenced by author, date of publication, and eHRAF document number.

The Ojibwa file consists of fifty-five documents ranging in time coverage from approximately the late eighteenth to the late twentieth centuries. Historically the Ojibwa have occupied an enormous geographical area extending from southern Ontario to the Rocky Mountains. This has led to significant regional variations in both culture and dialect which is clearly reflected in the documents comprising this file, many of which focus primarily on specific communities or regions during a given time period. The file has been divided into four major geographical and temporal periods: the Central Ojibwa: "traditional" to ca. 1850; the Central Ojibwa: 1850-1950; the Northern Ojibwa: 1780-1950; and the contemporary Ojibwa of the period from 1950 to the 1990s.

The Central Ojibwa include the Ojibwa of Parry Island, southern Ontario, Michican, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. The Northern Ojibwa include those Ojibwa groups living around Lake Winnipeg as well as those of northern Ontario north of the Arctic watershed (e.g., Weagamow Lake, Berens River, etc.) and eastern Manitoba. Documents dealing with the Central Ojibwa of the traditional period to ca. 1850 are primarily concerned with history, migrations, material culture, warfare, the fur trade, social and political organization, religion, subsistence activities, and Ojibwa-white contacts. These are best represented by the works of Densmore (1929, no. 5), Hilger (1951, no. 15), Hickerson (1988, no. 29), Wheeler-Voegelin (1974, no. 31), Peers (1994, no. 36), Quimby (1962, no. 37), Rogers (1978, no. 38), Schmalz (1991, no. 39), and Warren (1885, no. 46). The studies relevant to the Central Ojibwa of the period from 1850-1950 also deal with many of the ethnographic topics mentioned above, but in addition provide much informa tion on the reservation period, treaties between the Ojibwa and the United States and Canadian governments, and the loss of native lands. The works by Kugel (1985, no. 50), Meyer (1994, no. 51), and Shifferd (1976, no. 53) present fairly representative accounts of this time period. The Northern Ojibwa for the period 1780-1950 are best represented in this file by the works of Dunning (1959, no. 22), Grant (1890, no. 19), Bishop (1974, no. 54), Greenberg (1982, no. 57), Hallowell (1991, no. 58), Rogers (1981, no. 60), and Steinbring (1981, no. 63). Topics discussed are basically the same as for the previous two divisions noted above, but with reference to a different geographical location. The contemporary Ojibwa of the period from 1950 to the 1990s are best described in Hodgins (1989, no. 69), Johnson (1988, no. 70), LaDuke (1987, no. 71), Longclaws (1980, no. 72), Minore (1991, no. 73), Ross (1992, no. 74), and Shkilnyk (1985, no. 75). These documents focus on Ojibwa problems of adaptation to "modern" socie ty, such as in the development of native resources (e.g., land use), court litigation suites, community development, various social problems (e.g., drug and alcohol use, adolescent suicide), and labor organizations such as the marketing collectives, and education.

For more detailed information on the content of the individual works in the file, see the abstracts in the citations preceding each document.

The culture summary was written by Jennifer S.H. Brown in April 1997. The synopsis and indexing notes were written by John Beierle in January 1999. The Human Relations Area Files wishes to acknowledge with thanks the suggestions offered by Laura Peers on file organization and bibliographical selection.

INDEXING NOTES

Bennett, Jo Anne. Changing Concepts of Self in Northern Ontario Communities and Some Implications for the Future. IN: William Cowan, ed., Papers of the Twenty-Third Algonquian Conference, pp. 12-21. Ottawa: Carleton University, 1992

Bishop, Charles A. Ojibwa. IN: The Canadian Encyclopedia -- Vol. 3: 1562. Edmonton: Hurtig, 1988

Black-Rogers, Mary. Fosterage and Field Data: The Round Lake Study 1989. IN: William Cowan, ed., Papers of the Twenty-first Algonquian Conference, pp. 51-71. Ottawa: Carleton University, 1990

Brown, Jennifer S.H., and Laura L. Peers. The Chippewa and their Neighbors: A Critical Review. IN: Harold Hickerson, The Chippewa and their Neighbors: A Study in Ethnohistory . Prospect Heights, Illinois: Waveland Press, 1988

Danziger, Edmund J., Jr. The Chippewas of Lake Superior. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1978

Dobyns, Henry F. Their Numbers Become Thinned: Native American Population Dynamics in Eastern North America. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1983

Given, Brian J. A Most Pernicious Thing: Gun Trading and Native Warfare in the Early Contact Period. Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1994

Goddard, Ives. Central Algonquian Languages. IN: Handbook of North American Indians -- Vol. 15, Northeast: 583-587. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution

Hallowell, A. Irving. The Ojibwa of Berens River, Manitoba: Ethnography into History, ed. by Jennifer S.H. Brown. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace College Publishers

Hickerson, Harold. The Chippewa and their Neighbors: A Study in Ethnohistory. Prospect Heights, Illinois: Waveland Press, 1988 (2d ed.)

Hilger, M. Inez. Chippewa Child Life and its Cultural Background. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1992

Holzkamm, Tim E., Victor P. Lytwyn, and Leo G. Waisberg. Rainy River Sturgeon: An Ojibway Resource in the Fur Trade Economy. IN: Abel, Kerry, and Jean Friesen, eds., Aboriginal Resource Use in Canada: Historical and Legal Aspects, pp. 119-140. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1991

Kroeber, Alfred L. Cultural and Natural Areas of Native North America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1953

Krosenbrink-Gelissen, Lilianne Ernestine. Sexual Equality as an Aboriginal Right: The Native Women's Association of Canada and the Constitutional Process on Aboriginal Matters 1982-1987. Saarbrucken: Breitenbach, 1991

Kugel, Rebessa. Factional Alignment among the Minnesota Ojibwe, 1850-1880 IN: American Indian Culture and Research Journal, vol. 9(4): 23-47

Matthews, Maureen, and Roger Roulette. Fair Wind's Dream: NAAMIWAN OBAWAAJIGEWIN. IN: Brown, Jennifer S.H., and Elizabeth Vibert, eds., pp. 330-360. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 1996

Moodie, D. Wayne. Manomin: Historical-Geographical Perspectives on the Ojibwa Production of Wild Rice. IN: Abel, Kerry, and Jean Friesen, eds., Aboriginal Resource Use in Canada: Historical and Legal Aspects, pp. 71-79. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1991

Mooney, James, and Cyrus Thomas. Chippewa. IN: Handbook of Indians of Canada, pp. 96-100. Ottawa: Geographic Board of Canada, 1913

Nichols, John D., and Earl Nyholm. A Concise Dictionary of Minnesota Ojibwe. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995

Peers, Laura. The Ojibwa of Western Canada 1780 to 1870. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1994

Reid, Gerald F. Ojibwa. IN: Encyclopedia of World Cultures. MacMillan Reference and HRAF.

Rogers, Edward S. Southeastern Ojibwa. IN: Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 15, Northeast, pp. 760-771. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution

Rogers, Edward S., and Mary Black Rogers. Who Were the Cranes? Groups and Group Identity Names in Northern Ontario. IN: Hanna, Margaret G., and Brian Kooyman, eds., Approaches to Algonquian Archaeology, pp. 147-188. Calgary: The University of Calgary Archaeological Association, 1982.

Schmalz, Peter S. The Ojibwa of Southern Ontario. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991.

Tanner, Helen Hornbeck. Atlas of Great Lakes Indian History. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987

Trigger, Bruce G. The Huron Farmers of the North. Fort Worth: Holt Rinehart Winston, 1990 (2d. ed.)

Valentine, Lisa Philips. Making it Their Own: Severn Ojibwe Communicative Practices. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995

Warren, William W. History of the Ojibway People. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1984 (2d. ed.)

Vennum, Thomas. The Ojibwa Dance Drum: Its History and Construction. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press