Lifeways

Anishinabe lifeways varied according to the environment. Southern bands can be classified in the Northeast Culture Area and northern bands in the Subarctic Culture Area (see NORTHEAST INDIANS and SUBARCTIC INDIANS). Or they can all be referred to as Great Lakes ALGONQUIANS. Other bands adopted the Plains Indian lifestyle in the southern part of what now is Manitoba and came to be known as Plains Ojibway (see PLAINS INDIANS).

Although they sometimes relocated if wildlife became scarce, the Anishinabe generally maintained year-round villages (other than the Plains Ojibway). They used birch bark for their wigwams, canoes, and containers. They usually dressed in buckskin. They were farmers who grew corn, beans, pumpkins, and squash in small patches. They also were hunter-gatherers who sought the mammals, fish, shellfish, fowl, and wild edible plants of the forest, lakes, and rivers.

A staple food of the Anishinabe was wild rice. This plant, found along the edges of lakes, streams, and swamps, is a tall grass with an edible seed resembling rice. The Anishinabe harvested it in the summer months. While the men hunted ducks and geese from their sleek and swift birch-bark canoes, the women, also in canoes, drifted beside the clumps of the lush plants and collected the seeds in the bottoms of the boats.

Like certain other Indian peoples of the Great Lakes and the prairies flanking the Mississippi River, the Anishinabe participated in the secret Midewiwin Society, also sometimes called the Grand Medicine Society. In early times, entry into this club (or sodality) was very difficult to achieve. A man or woman normally had to have a special visitation by a spirit in a dream to be considered for membership. A secret meeting to initiate those accepted was held only once a year in a specially constructed elongated

Anishinabe cone-shaped birch-bark wigwam

Lodge. One member recorded the events of the meeting on bark scrolls, using a bone implement for carving and red paint for coloring. The members might sing, “We are now to receive you into the Midewiwin, our Mide brother.” And the initiate might reply, “I have the medicine in my heart and I am strong as a bear.”

Members in the Midewiwin Society wore mide, or medicine bags, made from mink, weasel, rattlesnake, hawk, or owl skins, or from wildcat or bear paws around their necks. The Anishinabe believed that all living and nonliving things had spirits that could be tamed to help the sick or to harm one’s enemies. And like other Algon-quians, the Anishinabe believed in one all-pervasive spirit from which lesser spirits drew their power—the Manitou. Manabozho, the central culture hero of the

Anishinabe Midewiwin water drum (The water inside adds resonance.)

Anishinabe, a trickster figure, is considered the provider of medicine for the Midewiwin Society. Nowadays, the society has incorporated elements of Christianity and is no longer so difficult to join.