For example, birch bark was used for almost everything: utensils, storage containers, and canoes. Birch bark was also used as a building material to cover the wigwam.
It was an excellent building material because it was sturdy, lightweight and portable so that when the family moved it was easy to disassemble their wigwam and re-assemble it in their new location. Clothing and moccasins were made from the hide of animals, particularly deer and moose, which also served as their food sources.
During the winter months, the Ojibwe spent much of their time inside the wigwams. The winter was a time of storytelling and for working on their clothing. The women would decorate their moccasins with quill and moose hair designs, often taking designs from the environment such as floral patterns that are distinctive to the woodland people. Ojibwe life was centered around the land and the seasons. The social and economic life of all Ojibwe groups was affected by the fur trade.
Traditional items were replaced by European-manufactured materials and certain natural resources became depleted. As Ojibwe dispersed in search of furs for trade, a major shift in subsistence activities took place. While hunters focused on trapping the more lucrative fur-bearing animals, traditional self-sufficiency through hunting suffered. As such, many Ojibwe people became partially reliant on traders for staple goods; and the ever-present threat of starvation weighed heavily.
Most Ojibwe did not sign treaties with the government until after Ojibwe chiefs in Ontario and Manitoba agreed to the Robinson and other pre-Confederation treaties as well as the post-Confederation numbered treaties , which granted colonial governments vast tracts of land in exchange for reserves , payments, and hunting and fishing rights.
In many instances, the circumstances surrounding these agreements cast doubt on their legitimacy. The extinguishment of Aboriginal title and rights under these treaties is a continuing source of debate and the focus of much activism within Ojibwe and Anishinaabe communities.
With the decline of traditional, subsistence ways of life, Ojibwe people became dependant on wage labour and government assistance for survival. In addition, Ojibwe people struggled with economic dependency, territorial encroachment and cultural dislocation brought about by residential schools. As local governance shifted from traditional models to those administered by the Indian Act , Ojibwe political autonomy diminished significantly. Nevertheless, Ojibwe people remain politically and culturally active.
In the cultural sphere, the vibrant, pictograph-inspired Woodlands School of art, typified by the spiritual work of the late Norval Morrisseau , gained prominence for Anishinaabe artists in the s and s. Contemporary Anishinaabe artists have entrenched themselves in the mainstream of the international art community and often use traditional imagery in installations, performance, sculpture and painting to make overt political statements about contemporary Indigenous realities.
Ojibwe communities have a strong history of political and social activism. Long before contact, they were closely aligned with Odawa and Potawatomi people in the Council of the Three Fires. From the s to , the Grand General Indian Council of Ontario attempted to reconcile multiple traditional models into one cohesive voice to exercise political influence over colonial legislation. Ojibwe political and social activism has continued throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.
Founded in , the union advocates for the political interests of its approximately 55, member citizens. He opposed the Accord because it had been created without consultation or recognition of Indigenous peoples.
In , the Batchewana First Nation of the Ojibways filed, along with 20 other bands in Ontario, launched a lawsuit against the governments of Ontario and Canada for not fulfilling certain clauses in the Robinson Huron Treaty.
Did You Know? Autumn Peltier, a year old Indigenous girl from the Anishinabek Nation, has been fighting for water rights since the age of 8. It is difficult to estimate current the population of Ojibwe people living in Canada, as some people may identify as Ojibwe, but may not be registered with a specific First Nation. In terms of registered population, Ojibwe people including Saulteaux and Mississauga are among the most numerous in Canada.
As of , approximately , people make up about First Nation bands. The ancestors of the Ojibwe lived throughout the northeastern part of North America and along the Atlantic Coast. Due to a combination of prophecies and tribal warfare, around 1, years ago the Ojibwe people left their homes along the ocean and began a slow migration westward that lasted for many centuries.
Ojibwe oral history and archaeological records provide evidence that the Ojibwe moved slowly in small groups following the Great Lakes westward. By the time the French arrived in the Great Lakes area in the early s, the Ojibwe were well established at Sault Ste.
Marie and the surrounding area. An Ojibwe prophecy that urged them to move west to "the land where food grows on water" was a clear reference to wild rice and served as a major incentive to migrate westward. Eventually some bands made their homes in the northern area of present-day Minnesota.
The name "Ojibwe" may be drawn from either the puckered seam of the Ojibwe moccasin or the Ojibwe custom of writing on birch bark. The Ojibwe have always hunted and fished, made maple sugar and syrup, and harvested wild rice.
Prior to the 20th century, the Ojibwe lived in wigwams and travelled the waterways of the region in birch bark canoes. Ojibwe communities were historically based on clans, or "doodem," which determined a person's place in Ojibwe society. Mary's River, and the French began to refer to the Ojibwe there as "Saulteaux," derived from the French word sault , or rapids. In , French Jesuits first visited the area of Sault Ste. Marie as they called the rapids of the St. Mary's River , and by had established a Christian mission there.
Like other Indian groups, the Ojibwe were forced westward beginning in the s when the League of the Iroquois began to attack other tribes in the Great Lakes region to monopolize the fur trade. The Ojibwe did not suffer as much as other tribes, however, and by the s they had won some impressive victories against the Iroquois.
Because of this the League of the Iroquois sued for peace with the French and their Indian allies in Like other Indian tribes, the Ojibwe allied themselves to the French militarily and economically.
They traded with the French who entered the Great Lakes in the s, and their desire to obtain European trade goods drove the Ojibwe to expand westward into Lake Superior to find richer fur-bearing lands. Soon, they came into contact with the Eastern, or Santee, Dakota commonly known as the Sioux.
During the s, the Ojibwe and Dakota began to fight over the region around the western point of Lake Superior and the headwaters of the Mississippi River in Minnesota and this war lasted until the 's. The Ojibwe were generally successful, and they managed to push the Dakota farther west into Minnesota and North and South Dakota. In , the Ojibwe of Lake Superior began to move inland into Wisconsin, with their first permanent village at Lac Courte Oreilles at the headwaters of the Chippewa River.
Later, the Ojibwe expanded into other parts of northern Wisconsin, particularly Lac du Flambeau. The name of this village in French means "Lake of the Flames" because the Ojibwe speared fish at night using torches attached to the end of their birchbark canoes. The Ojibwe sided with the French during the wars that France and Britain fought between and When France lost Canada and the Midwest to the British between and , the Ojibwe did not trust their new colonial overlords.
Unlike the French, the British treated the Indians with contempt and disdain, causing an Ottawa chief at Detroit named Pontiac to lead a pan-Indian rebellion against the British in The Ojibwe at the Straits of Mackinac participated along with some Sauk by massacring the entire British army garrison there.
However, the Ojibwe of northern Wisconsin and the southern shore of Lake Superior did not join the uprising; Jean Baptiste Cadotte -- a trader of French-Canadian and Ojibwe descent -- urged them not to fight the British. Their participation would probably not have done much good anyway, since the British suppressed the revolt by
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