Religion

The Algonquians believed that a Great Spirit called Gitche Manitou, or simply Manitou or a variation, pervades all existence. Manitou has many manifestations; the Great Spirit is found in all things—animals, plants, water, rocks, and other natural phenomena, such as the Sun, Moon, weather, or sickness. Lesser individual manifestations of the Great Spirit may also be called manitous or may have other names, such as Thunderbird, Bringer of Rain.

Shamans were supposed to be able to control these spirits, found in all living and nonliving things. Some tribes also had secret medicine societies, such as the Midewiwin Society of the Great Lakes whose members all supposedly could make contact with the spirit world.

The belief in Manitou was common to Algonquian peoples. Different tribes had different mythologies and legends, with varying supernatural beings. Some of these beings were heroes or guardian spirits, such as Mani-bozho (or Manabush), the Great Hare, who, according to the Chippewa and other Great Lakes peoples, remade the world after bad spirits destroyed it with a flood. Others were demons, such as windigos of the northern forests who, according to the Montagnais and other Subarctic peoples, ate people.

Although Algonquian tribes had varying rituals and festivals, they all celebrated with singing, drumming, and dancing. Some rituals had to do with hunting; others, such as the Green Corn Festival, related to farming; others concerned peacemaking or warfare; others were to cure illness; still others were for rites of passage, such as a boy passing to manhood.

As a rite of passage into adulthood, both boys and girls were sent into the woods to fast and pray for a

Algonquian beaded medicine bundle, used to hold personal talismans

Vision. If the child were fortunate, a spirit, usually in the form of an animal, would come to promise protection and to give the child his or her own special identity.

For a fuller sense of Algonquian culture and history, see those tribes indicated earlier as having their

Own entries.

See SOUTHWEST CULTURES