Owls: Images and voices in the ojibwa and midewiwin worlds

American Indian Culture and Research Journal

Volumn 26, Issue 2, 2002, Pages 45-62

  Pomedli, Michael M ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF SASKATCHEWAN   (Canada)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 77449105195     PISSN: 01616463     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.17953/aicr.26.2.a710444r9r44804m     Document Type: Article

References (110)

1. There are several variant spellings of Ojihva and also several variant terms for the same people: Anishinabe, Anishinaabe, Chippewa.
2. Treaty Number Three comprises an area in Northwestern Ontario and a small part of Manitoba. It was signed between the Ojibwa and the representatives of theBritish Crown and the Federal Government in 1873. For a discussion on the first animal in the Midewiwin ritual.
3. Michael M. Pomedli, "The Otter: Laughter and Treaty Three," Trente-deuxieme Congrh des Algonquinistes (Winnipeg: Universite de Manitoba, 2001), 359-373.
4. Robert E. and Pat Ritzenthaler, The Woodland Indians of the Western Great Lakes (Garden City, New York: Natural History Press, 1970), 87. The Ritzenthalers list snake and fox, or wildcat claw, as a third-degree bag.
5. Fred K. Blessing, The Ojibway Indians Observed (St. Paul: Minnesota Archaeological Society, 1977), 111;
6. Julia Harrison, "'He Heard Something Laugh': Otter Imagery in the Midewiwin," in David W. Penney, ed. , Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts 62 (1986): 51.
7. W. J. Hoffman, "Notes on Ojibwa Folk-lore," The American Anthropologist 2 (1889): 218.
8. Thunderbird or thunder god played a major role for both the Mide and the Jiissakid. It was in charge of the first-degree lodge of the Midewiwin as well as the Jiissakid's Shaking Tent
9. see W. J. Hoffman, "The Midewiwin or 'Grand Medicine Society' of the Ojibwa," Bureau of American Ethnology, Seventh Annual Report, 1885-1886 [Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1891], 157, 176, Plates III and IV.
10. Ruth Landes, Ojibwa Religion and the Midewiwin (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1968), 145.
11. Tim Osborne, The OWL Pages, [www. owlpages. com], 1994.
12. Edward A. Armstrong, The Folklore of Birds, an enquiry into the origin and distribution of some magico-religious traditions (London: Collins, 1958), 113.
13. Osborne, OWL Pages.
14. Osborne, OWL Pages. The Boreal owl is similar to the Saw-whet owl but is somewhat larger.
15. John Sparks and Tony Soper, Owls, Their Natural and Unnatural History (New York: Facts on File, 1989), 7.
16. Sparks and Soper, Owls, 12-14.
17. Osborne, OWL Pages.
18. Osborne, OWL Pages; Sparks and Soper, Owls, 23, 27, 29.
19. Ritzenthaler and Ritzenthaler, Woodland Indians, 34.
20. Howard Corbiere, Ko-ko-ko: The Owl, an Ojibwe-Odawa Legend, ed. Mary Lou Fox, illus. Martin Panamick (Manitoulin Island: Ojibwe Cultural Foundation, 1977), 2.
21. I will use the spelling Nanabozho as employed by the Northeast and Subarctic Ojibwa. Other terms used for the same being include Nannebush, Nanabush, and Winabojo. Michigan and Wisconsin Ojibwa use the name Manabozho and Menapus (Big Rabbit). Nanabozho is a complex trickster figure, often powerful and benevolent, but also deceitful and stupid (see Sam D. Gill and Irene F. Sullivan, Dictionary of Native American Mythology [New York: Oxford University Press, 1992], 340-341).
22. Howard Corbiere, Ko-ko-ko, 2-24.
23. Walter James Hoffman, "The Travels of Manabush," The Menomini Indians (New York: Johnson Reprint, 1970), 173.
24. Hoffman defines the thunderbirds as "deities of the air, who cause the spring rains to come to produce vegetation" (Hoffman, Menomini, 296).
25. Sister Bernard Coleman, Ellen Frogner, and Estelle Eich, Ojibwa Myths and Legends (Minneapolis: Ross and Haines, 1971), 39.
26. Coleman, Ojibwa Myths, 41. See Theresa Smith, The Island of the Anishnaabeg: Thunderers and Water Monsters in the Traditional Ojibxve Life-world (Moscow, Idaho: University of Idaho Press, 1995), 41 n10.
27. A similar Carrier story concerns a petulant boy whose father uses the owl as a way of forcing him to go to bed on time. Like one of the above stories, the owl feeds him rabbit meat. The story accounts for the reason that owls hunt for rabbits and why they have very little down and feathers under their wings and inside their legs (Bernadette Rosset, The Owl, a Carrier Indian Legend, ed. Edward John Vanderhoof [Vancouver: Yinka Dene Language Institute, 1991], 4-34).
28. Frances Densmore, Chippewa Customs (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1979), 114.
29. Frances Densmore, Chippewa Music, Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 45, "No. 88. Song of the Owl Medicine" (Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1929), 105-106.
30. Thanks to Lawrence Martin, Ojibwa, Eau Claire, Wisconsin, who shared with me a Michigan Ojibwa owl song which speaks of the spirits of the woods and waters.
31. Victor Barnouw, Wisconsin Chippewa Myths and Tales, and their Relation to Chippewa Life (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1977), 141.
32. Barnouw, Wisconsin Chippewa, 141.
33. Frank A. Myers, "The Bear-walk (Muck-wa-bim-moo-say), A Witchcraft Belief Still Current Among the Great Lakes Indians," Inland Seas 9 (1953): 17.
34. Frances Densmore, Handbook of the Collection of Musical Instruments in the United Stales National Museum, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 136 (Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1927), 121.
35. Sylvie Berbaum, Ojibwa Powwow World, ed. and trans. Michael M. Pomedli (Thunder Bay: Northern Institute Press, 2000), 74.
36. Molly Loonsfoot, Ojibwa Elder, Assinins, Michigan, referred to the owl as protector (personal communication, July 8, 2001).
37. David Morris, "The Man with an Owl Skin," trans, from Ojibwa by Jimmy Morris, in Emmanuel Desveaux, La mythologie des indiens de Big Trout Lake, Ethnographie analyse des mythes (Paris: Ecoles des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 1984), 2: 178.
38. Volume 1 of this work is Desveaux's commentary; volume 2 contains Ojibwa stories. Throughout this article, I have translated the Ojibwa accounts from French.
39. Barnouw, "The Village of Animals," Wisconsin Chippewa, 141.
40. Truman Michelson, ed. , The Owl Sacred Pack of the Fox Indians, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 72 (Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1921), 47 and passim.
41. Michelson, The Owl, 49.
42. Michelson, The Owl, 55 and passim.
43. Michelson, The Owl, 59.
44. William Jones, Ojibwa Texts, Part II, ed. Truman Michelson (New York: American Ethnological Society, 1919), 547-559; see also 531-547.
45. For several treaty perspectives involving the spiritual and political.
46. Jill Oakes, Rick Riewe, Kathi Kinew, and Elaine Maloney, eds. , Sacred Lands, Aboriginal World Views, Claims, and Conflicts (Edmonton: Canadian Circumpolar Institute, University of Alberta, 1998). For an account of the relationship among healing, the Midewiwin, and Treaty Three, see in this same volume, Michael Pomedli, "Ojibway Healing and Ordering in Treaty Number Three," 77-86.
47. Joseph Morris, "Owl Man," trans, from Ojibwa by Rudy Morris, in Desveaux, La mythologies. 180.
48. Claude Levi-Strauss confirms the symbolic importance of grouse in The Naked Man, trans. John and Doreen Weightman (New York: Harper and Row, 1981), 393-395.
49. Joseph Morris, "Grouse Man," trans. Rudy Morris, in Desveaux, La mylhologie2: 181-182.
50. The story is from "Old Times, before human years - a time of great balance. " According to the Rock Cree in the neighboring area of Manitoba, the "good-hearted" share meat and fish while the "bad- hearted" hoard it; the latter is a violation of trust in the Great Spirit (Robert Brightman, Grateful Prey, Rock Cree Human-Animal Relationships [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993], 158, 377).
51. John-George Morris, "Mingesowash (Eagles' Nest)," trans. Jimmy Morris, in Desveaux, La mylhologiel: 183.
52. Coleman, Ojibwa Myths, 81.
53. "How the Sapsucker got his Colours," Wawatay Nezvs 15 (1989): 20.
54. Densmore, Chippewa Music, 105-106.
55. Solomon Begg, "Kwokwokwo and the Warm Wind," trans. Allan Brown, in Desveaux, La mylhologie 2: 195.
56. Desveaux, La mythologie 1: 270.
57. Desveaux, La mylhologie 1: 272.
58. Michelson comments on the directions: "The animikig were associated with the four cardinal directions, and they were said to control the four winds" (quoted in Jones, Ojibwa Texts, 102).
59. Desveaux, La mythologie 1: 271.
60. Berbaum, Ojibwa Powwow World, 47.
61. Basil Johnston, Ojibway Heritage (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1976), 161.
62. Solomon Begg, "Kashkejabish (Boreal Owl)," trans. Allan Brown, in Desveaux, La mythologie 2: 196.
63. Billy Morris, "Kakabish and the Rapids," in Desveaux, La mythologie 2: 196.
64. In Montagnais accounts, Kukukeshis (Kwokwokwo) engages in a loud, protracted, vocalized seesaw battle with the rapids. In those accounts, Hawk Owl loses his part, as in our story Boreal Owl of Big Trout Lake loses. However, a parallel exists, for in both accounts the competitive owl song and the continuous noise of the river form a consonance of voices (Rémi Savard, Conies indiens de la Basse Cote Nord du Saint Laurent, National Museum of Man Mercury Series, Canadian Ethnology Service Paper No. 51 [Ottawa: National Museum of Man, 1979], 33-37).
65. Desveaux, La mythologie 1: 269.
66. Berbaum, Ojibwa Powwoxu World, 45.
67. Beverly Diamond, M. Sam Cronk, and Franziska von Rosen, Visions of Sound: Musical Instruments of First Nations Communities in Northeastern America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 68.
68. Johnston, Ojibway Heritage, 85.
69. Johnston, Ojibway Heritage, 84.
70. Johnston, Ojibway Heritage, 84.
71. Berbaum, Ojibwa Powwow World, 46.
72. Hoffman, "Notes on Ojibwa Folk-lore," 218-219. The transformative possibilities of all beings are evident here. In other accounts, the sacred pole can be \iewed as a person. Reviving such sacred emblems as the pole can lead to a recreation of tribal identity, for the pole spanned many generations, and Aboriginals revering the pole may come to know past traditions, their deceased elders who cared for them, and may rediscover a common center. Through the person of the pole, present generations "may carry a blessing forward to their children and grandchildren" (Robin Ridington and Dennis Hastings, Blessing for a Long Time, the Sacred Pole of the Omaha Tribe [Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1997], 240).
73. Ahmoo Angeconeb, Blake Debassige, and Roy Thomas, The Art of the Anishnawbek, Three Perspectives (Toronto: Royal Ontario Museum, 1996), n. p.
74. "But the owl's song . Manitou's telling of a coming death, speaking with the owl's voice. Manitous don't change their minds, or make mistakes!" (Janet Campbell Hale, The Owl's Song [New York: Doubleday, 1974], 147).
75. A film, I Heard the Owl Call My Name, A Tomorrow Entertainment Production, 1973, based on Margaret Craven's novel, I Heard the Owl Call My Name (New York: Doubleday, 1973).
76. Stan Cuthand, Cree Academic Elder, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, confirms this link between owl and death (personal communication, August 16, 2001).
77. "The Wenebojo Myth from Lac du Flambeau," in Barnouw, Wisconsin Chippewa, 15, 17.
78. "Wenebojo's Brother Makes the Road to die Other World," in Bamouw, Wisconsin Chippewa, 18. In two other stories, "Wenebojo Myths from Lac Court Oreille," and "An Old Man in the Form of a Bear," owl is swallowed by a big fish and sings near a boy's burial plot (Bamouw, Wisconsin Chippewa, 78-79, 139).
79. Barnouw, Wisconsin Chippewa, 141.
80. Thanks to Joan Lovisek, researcher, Vancouver, British Columbia, for these thoughts.
81. Hoffman, Menomini, 91, 171.
82. Selwyn Dewdney, The Sacred Scrolls of the Southern Ojibway (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1975), 103, fig. 96.
83. Johann G. Kohl, Kitchi-Gami: Life among the Lake Superior Ojibway (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1985), 215.
84. Dewdney, Sacred Scrolls, 103-104, fig. 97.
85. Dewdney, Sacred Scrolls, 104-105; 112, fig. 111.
86. Jeremiah Winter, "Kwokwokwo (Hawk Owl)," trans. Mark Chapman, in Desveaux, La mythologie 2: 191-194.
87. In a more complex Swampy Cree story by Joby Maskunow, "Why Owls Die with Wings Outspread," Horned Owl is both a provider and prophet of the future. The story also involves urinating and spitung as means to determine paternity (David M. Guss, ed. , The Language of the Birds [San Francisco: Net Point Press, 1985], 24-30).
88. Stories from the Montagnais on the northern shore of the St. LawTence River also recount the events of Boreal Owl, named Kukukueshish. While the narratives are more complex than those of Big Trout Lake, they also feature die test for paternity (Savard, Conies Indiens, 37).
89. Jacob Nibenegenesabe gives two variations on the popular story, "Wiry Owls Die with Wings Outspread," in Howard A. Norman, The Wishing Bone Cycle, narrative poems from the Swampy Cree Indians (Santa Barbara: Ross-Erikson Publishing, 1982), 186-197.
90. "The Rabbit and the Saw-whet," in Hoffman, Menomini, 200-203.
91. Thomas D. Thompson, Anishinabe, Torrance, California (personal communication, February 2, 2002).
92. Hoffman, "Midewiwin," 157, 176.
93. George Copway (Kahgegagahbowh), The Traditional History and Characteristic Sketches of the Ojibway Nation (London: Charles Gilpin, 1950), 127.
94. In writing about the Ottawa, Claude Allouez notes: "and some other birds are genii, and speak just as we do; and that there are even people among them who understand the'language of birds, as some understand a little that of the French" (Reuben G. Thwaites, ed. , The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents [Cleveland: Burrows Brothers, 1896-1901], 50: 289).
95. John D. Nichols and Earl Nyholm give the Ojibwa terms gookooko'oo for owl and gaakaabishiinh for screech owl (A Concise Dictionary of Minnesota Ojibwe [Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995], 224).
96. Grace Rajnovich, Reading Rock Art, Interpreting the Indian Rock Paintings of the Canadian Shield (Toronto: Natural Heritage/Nature History, 1994), 82, fig. 60.
97. Kohl, Kitchi-Gami, 141.
98. Rajnovich, Rock Art, 110.
99. Sister Bernard Coleman, Decorative Designs of the Ojibwa of Northern Minnesota (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1947), 68.
100. Coleman, Decorative Designs, 6. Coleman displays the swastika design on a child's moccasins suggesting the protection of the four winds (Decorative Designs, 19, fig. 9).
101. Coleman, Decorative Designs, 7.
102. Coleman, Decorative Designs, 29, Plate 6. Carrie Lyford notes such designs on an Ojibwa woven bag and bark bags (The Crafts of the Ojibwa [Washington, DC: US Office of Indian Affairs, 1942], Plates 43, 46, 83, 86).
103. Coleman, Decorative Designs, 56.
104. Coleman, Decorative Designs, 70.
105. Coleman, Decorative Designs, 71.
106. Coleman, Decorative Designs, 82.
107. Vine Deloria, Spirit and Reason, the Vine Deloria, Jr. , Reader, ed. Barbara Deloria, Kristen Foehner, and Sam Scinta (Golden, Colorado: Fulcrum, 1999), 147.
108. J. A. Lovisek makes a credible case for the political influence of members and leaders of the Boundary Waters Midewiwin around the time of Treaty Three. An otherwise egalitarian society tolerated an integration of leadership, rank, wealth accumulation, and social control. Boundary Waters Ojibwa thus developed a more organized socio-political system than the northern Ojibwa ("The Political Evolution of the Boundary Waters Ojibwa," Papers of the Twenty-fourth Algonquian Conference, ed. William Cowan [Ottawa: Carleton University, 1993], 300-301).
109. James Redsky notes that a chief had to be a member of the Midewiwin "to gain the respect from his people" (Great Leader of the Ojibway: Mis-quona-queb, ed. James R. Stevens [Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1972], 43-44).
110. I am adapting a conclusion that Harold Cardinal made concerning the spiritual stewardship the Cree people had toward timber, and the spirit they brought to the treaties: "Our pipes are an integral part of our religious ritual. The pipe stem is made of wood. Our elders would never have agreed to give away the forests because they would have been giving away part of the responsibility they had to their religious ceremonies" (Harold Cardinal, The Rebirth of Canada's Indians [Edmonton: Hurtig Publishers, 1977], 149).