Chapter 3
There are a few people in each of the tribes that have survived to this day who have kept alive their teachings, language, and religious ceremonies. Although traditions may differ from tribe to tribe, there is a common thread that runs throughout them all. This common thread represents a string of lives that goes back all the way to Original Man.
Edward Benton-Banai,
The Mishomis Book, The Voice of the Ojibway
When the Anishinaabeg lived along the coast of the Great Salt Water there came to them Seven Prophets that warned of the future and the coming of a ‘New People’ from across the water in the East.
When the seven prophets came to the Anishinaabe, the nation was living somewhere on the shore of the Great Salt Waters in the East. There are many opinions about where this settlement was. It is generally agreed that the Ojibways and other Algonquin Indians were settled up and down the eastern shores of North America. We have some idea of the size of the nation from these words that were handed down: “The people were so many and powerful that if one was to climb the highest mountain and look in all directions, they would not be able to see the end of the nation.”
There was an active exchange and communication among all the groups of people. They used the waterways of the land to travel by canoe. They had a system of overland trails. They used sleds and dog teams to travel in the winter. Life was full for the people here. The Clan system and its government were strongly enforced. There was ample food from the land and sea, and there were fish from many rivers. [1]
The Prophets that had come to the people brought seven predictions of what the future would bring. The First Prophet told them “If you do not move you will be destroyed.”[2] Many people did not want to move their families on a migration to the West. Others where ready to do as the Prophets had advised them. And others decided to remain in the East to protect the Eastern doorway of the Anishinaabe Nation from the Newcomers.
They were called the Wa-bun-u-keeg’ or Daybreak People. Today, it is speculated that these were the people living on the East Coast of Canada that the French called the Abenaki. … It would come to pass that most all those who stayed behind, including the Daybreak People, were destroyed or absorbed by the Light-skinned Race at the coming of the Fourth Fire.[3]
The Migration of the Anishinaabe from the Great Salt Waters in the East (the Atlantic Coast from the Canadian Maritimes down through the Carolinas) to the Great Lakes region began long ago.[4] As the people spread west along the St. Lawrence River into what is now Southern Ontario throughout the northern and southern parts of Lake Superior and into present day Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Montana, they moved about and began their lives in new territories. Some people moved into Northern Québec and Ontario as far as Hudson Bay and others as far south as present day Oklahoma and some west to present day British Columbia, and south-west into Northern California and Northern Mexico.
The Anishinaabe language family is the largest in North America. It includes many Nations with a common history who speak a similar language with linguistic roots which can be traced back to the Atlantic Coast.[5]
Spiritual History
The Anishinaabeg that lived along the East Coast had been there since the time of the Great Flood. It is difficult to put a time frame on how long ago this was. It is possible to say that they were there for thirty thousand or even one hundred thousand years, or much more, but ultimately this temporal quantification only leads to a misunderstanding of the reality of the Anishinaabeg. With reference to an Aboriginal sense of history, Vine Deloria, Jr. (Sioux) explains that:
… even the closest approach to the Western idea of history by an Indian tribe was yet a goodly distance from Western historical conceptions. What appears to have survived as a tribal conception of history almost everywhere was the description of conditions under which people lived and the location in which they lived. Migrations from one place to another where phrased in terms of descriptions of why they moved. Exactly when they moved was, again, “a long time ago.”[6]
The Anishinaabe Creation Story with the lowering of the First Good Being to Turtle Island, the Great Flood and subsequent migration is beyond the constraints of space and time. By this I mean to say that the Creation Story is spiritual in nature. This idea of spirituality with reference to history is something that is misunderstood by non-Aboriginal peoples.
When the Anishinaabeg speak of their history they include both temporal and spiritual aspects. Using my own life as an example, I have been alive for 36 years but my spirit has no age since my spirit exists outside of the constraints of time and space. This is a very difficult concept to grasp since we experience life mainly from a spatial-temporal perspective. It is 9:00 a.m. as I write this. I have worked on this project for nearly three years. This, and more, is my temporal reality, but ultimately there is no time, no before, now and after. These terms are used to quantify physical reality in order to provide us with the impression that we understand the world around us. Spirit is not spatial or temporal. And ultimately any understanding of this is beyond any linguistic description and perception.
I first became aware of this a few years ago when I began attending Sweat Lodge ceremonies. It is invariably explained that the present, the ‘now’, is circular, that is, that there is neither beginning nor end. Circularity ¾ what James Dumont (Ojibwe) describes as a 360-degree view of the world[7] ¾ extends beyond the limitations of space-time in such a way that it reveals the “seven directions of the present.”[8] Time, as a circular reality, does not have a linear construction; i.e., past in the past and future in the future. Paul Bourgeois (Ojibwe) explains that:
Being outside space-time is not necessarily a new concept (theory) for Anishinaabe people. This understanding is in the Teachings and practices of the Anishinaabe people. For example, the Vision Quest [Fasting], which marks the transition from boyhood to manhood in traditional Anishinaabe societies, is a place where young men have gone since time immemorial. The vision quest, for the Anishinaabe, is travelling into another realm or dimension, that is outside of ordinary space and time as we understand it, within our ordinary life experience. This realm for Anishinaabe people is understood as the “spirit world.” An example of this understanding relates to time. The Anishinaabe understand that in the spirit world one-half second could be one-year in the ordinary physical realm, and one-minute could be a week, and so on. Spatiality and temporality do not exist in the spirit world. The spirit world, which is outside space-time, as we ordinarily understand it, is not the purpose, in itself, or the destination of a Ceremony.[9]
Manidoo and the Great Mystery
Spirit, although spoken of as individual spirits or Gzhe-mnidoo, is neither many nor one. “How is this possible,” you may ask? If there is neither many nor one then there must be none. Essentially this is the answer. This is the Great Mystery of Creation. I am able to speak about Creation and all those created, I am able to speak of Mino-Bimaadiziwin, knowledge and identity but I speak of nothing. The first man, the one that was called Anishinaabe, came to be from nothing.[10] He exists as a non-being and gives existence and meaning to everything. It is true that he was created from a union of the four parts of Mother Earth,[11] yet this spiritual reality exists within a non-temporal, non-spatial dimension. He is still with us today and yet never existed at all in the conventional sense of space-time. Ultimately, an Anishinaabe ontology does not exist; neither does a definitive metaphysics, epistemology or axiology. These are my conceptual projections on the non-existence of reality. At this point I am sure that you are scratching your head thinking: “What is this guy talking about?” To tell you the truth, I’m not too sure myself. In essence, I am trying to describe a reality that is non-describable based on my personal experience.
The idea that spirit precedes culture, language, thought, experience and even time is something that the Anishinaabeg hold as fundamental knowledge. When referring to Mino-Bimaadiziwin it is understood that the spirit is the essence and the way of being. I am a spirit having a human experience. It is, as Paul Bourgeois (Ojibwe) states, “onto-axiological.”[12] The term onto-axiology explains the quality of existence; i.e., the good. The Way of a Good Life is more than a process or way to live. It is the underlying reality of existence that the term onto-axiology attempts to express. The Anishinaabeg are the Good Beings and they trace their ancestry back to the First Good Being, created from nothing and lowered down to Turtle Island. But it is also a construct that does not refer to anything. The spiritual perception asserted here only comes from a physical apprehension of reality. It is outside the scope of possibility, from a static physical perspective, for me to describe this dynamic spiritual way.
When the Anishinaabeg began their migration they took everything with them. They carried their physical possessions (which were likely not many for ease of travel) but they also brought along their spiritual understanding of reality (their bundles, scrolls, Teachings, etc.) ¾ a wisdom which was indeed ancient and firmly rooted in the Original Instructions given to the people before they were placed on Earth. These Instructions are not codified lists of ‘do’s and don’ts’ ¾ they are ‘the good’ that is, the essence of the spirit of the people. But even ‘the good’ is still my static way of describing reality. There is just no other way of expressing it.
Chinshinabe
In the Anishinaabe tradition there is reference to an ancient people: the Chinshinabe[13]. The Chinshinabe were and are the wise people. They are the ones who trace their wisdom to the spirit of reality. They are the philosophers and the spiritual leaders. What follows is my attempt to present Anishinaabe philosophy as explained by the Chinshinabe tradition.
In the following pages, I endeavour to isolate what I see as three possible main components of Anishinaabe philosophy: Kendaaswin (knowledge), Aazhikenimonenaadizid Bemaadizid (the study of the way of life), and Eyaa’oyaanh (identity). Kendaaswin, because of the importance of knowledge in Anishinaabe philosophy, sets out a foundation for the remaining sections. Aazhikenimonenaadizid Bemaadizid is the study of the way of life that I am attempting to describe. I will examine various aspects of Anishinaabe Mino-Bimaadiziwin beginning with cultural stories and traditional Teachings and what living in an Anishinaabe world means. Finally, Eyaa’oyaanh discusses issues pertaining to a person’s journey through life. It is a personal discussion of the ideal path of life and how this path is actualized through Nwenamdanwin (choice-making) and N’dendowin (personal responsibility-taking).