The Chippewa of the Northeast

Tribe: The Chippewa, also known as the "Ojibwe" and as the "Saulteaux" in Canada.

Meaning of Names: The name "Chippewa" is a rather sloppy Americanized version of the same tribe in Canada tribe known as the "Ojibwe," which means "Those who stammer" in Cree. The French in Canada refer to this same tribal brotherhood as the "Saulteaux," which roughly means "People of the Rapids." The Chippewa, Ojibwe and Saulteaux refer to themselves as the "Anishinaabe," meaning "Original People."

Location: Canada, and across the northeastern US from New York to Montana. Specifically, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. According to their sacred birch-bark scrolls, the original Anishinaabe came from northeastern Asia (Siberia) to the "Turtle Islands" of what is now Alaska and traveled by canoe across the top of Canada over a period of thousands of years.  After they had been on the east coast for a while, they backtracked west until they got to the area around the Great Lakes, and then spread out from there.

Original Language: Anishinaabemowin, a branch of the Algonquin language family.

Tribal Affiliations: Ottawa, Potawatomi, the French

Traditional Enemies: Iroquois, Sioux, Lakota, Fox, the British, the American colonists.
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Traditional Style of Housing: Wigwams made of birch bark, juniper bark, willow saplings, with either pointed or rounded roofs, and sometimes covered in animal hide. They looked a bit like igloos made of wood or skins with a diameter of between six and ten feet.

Traditional Attire: The men wore deer-skin long tunics, breech-clothes, leggings and cloaks. The women wore long deer-skin skirts, tunics and cloaks, until they met the French traders at which time they changed to ruffled broadcloth or woolen dresses with panels decorated with beadwork or appliqued silk ribbons.

Traditional Foods: Since they have lived in somewhat settled communities for thousands of years, the men engage in trapping, hunting and fishing, and the women engage in farming and harvesting maize, squash, wild rice and gathering maple sap for sugar and syrup. They are also skilled herbalists, which goes along with cooking.

Position of Women: The Chippewa were and are mostly patrilineal, with a great premium placed on the children of Chippewa fathers. The children of white fathers were considered outside the clan unless they were adopted by a Chippewa male. Most major decisions were made by men. The men did the hunting, waged war, and built the wigwams, and the women did the food production, the clothing production, the housework, the childcare, and owned the wigwams.  There was/is an open acceptance of Two-Spirits, whom they call/called "Iron Woman" and "Half Sky."

Chippewa Courtship: You could not marry a member of your own clan. However, there are almost 150 bands distributed over a wide geographic territory, so young people had lots of choices. These clans originally were the Bear, Bird, Catfish, Crane, Deer, Loon and Marten, but more clans have been added over the years. Courtship and marriage were similar to the Paiute. If a couple liked each other and he was a good hunter, there was no wedding ceremony; he simply moved in with her and her parents for a year. If during that year she failed to conceive, he could go back to his parents' house. A separation was as good as a divorce, and both parties would be free to marry again. If she did conceive or if they did not wish to separate, he would build her a house. Intermarriage and multiple wives for the men who could afford it were considered acceptable.

Interesting Tidbits: The Chippewa are known for their use of birch-bark and cowrie shells, copper arrowheads, and cultivation of wild rice.... Many of the place-names in "The Song of Hiawatha" are Anishinaabe place-names....They were the ones who, for all intents and purposes, invented the Dream-catchers, to catch and entangle the nightmares of children.... They did not have an alphabet or written language, but used pictures to convey their histories, stories, concepts, geometry and mathematics.

Traditional Religion: Midiwewin, Catholicism, Methodism

Slavery and the Chippewa: If and when the Chippewa participated in slavery, it was likely to capture prisoners from enemy tribes in order to replace those who had been lost in war, or to sell them to other tribes and white people, or for use as slave-laborers.

Current Population: As one of the largest tribes in North America, there are more than 220,000 Chippewa, Ojibwe and Saulteaux.

Current Sources of Tribal Revenue: Wild ricing, tourism, casinos, small businesses.

Famous Chippewa: The singer Buffy St. Marie is the only Ojibwe that I have heard of.