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The subjects of this bulletin, the Ojibwe Indians, have probably been designated by more different spellings of their name than any other tribe in the country. The anglicized version is Chippewa, an adaptation of the Ojibway of Longfellow. Ojibway means “to roast till puckered up,” referring to the puckered seams on their moccasins, from “Ojib”, “to pucker up”, “ub-way”, “to roast”. In historic literature some of the more common ways of spelling their name have been: Achipoes, Chepeways, Chipaways, Odjibwag, Otchipwe, Uchipweys. Less familiar names applied to them have been: Baouichtigouin, Bawichtigouek, Dewakanha, Dshipowehaga, Estiaghicks, Hahatwawne, Khahkhahtons, Neayaog, Ninniwas, Saulteur, Santeaux, Wahkahtowah and at least fifty others.

The Ojibwe is one of the largest tribes in the United States and Canada, and lived originally along both shores of the Great Lakes as far west as the Turtle Mountains, North Dakota. They are of Algonkian stock and in the north are closely related to the Cree and Maskegon tribes. In the south, through Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota they have always been closely associated with the Ottawa and Pottawatomi. These three have been recently called the Three Fires Confederacy. Their languages were even similar, and Pottawatomi have often told the writer that their tongue was an abbreviated Ojibwe language,—“like it was a nickname”.

This numerous people lived far away from the frontiers of the colonial war period, hence are not often mentioned in the early history of the United States. The original habitation of the Ojibwe in Wisconsin is supposed to have been at La Pointe, a town no longer in existence, in Ashland County, near Lake Superior. The first reference to them in history is in the Jesuit Relation of 1640 when they resided at Sault Ste. Marie. It is thought that Nicolet met them either in 1634 or 1639. Father Allouez found them at Superior, Wisconsin, in 1665-67. According to Perrot,[89] in 1670-99 those Ojibwe on the Lake Superior shore of Wisconsin cultivated corn and were living peaceably with their neighbors, the Sioux. About this time they first obtained fire-arms, and pushed their way westward fighting with the Sioux and the Meskwaki. The French established a trading post at Shangawawmikong, afterwards La Pointe, in 1692, which was the most important Ojibwe settlement in Wisconsin.

In the early years of the eighteenth century, the Ojibwe succeeded in driving the Meskwaki from northern Wisconsin, when the Meskwaki joined forces with the Sauk Indians. The Ojibwe then turned their attention to the Sioux, driving them across the Mississippi and as far as the Turtle Mountains in North Dakota. The Ojibwe took part in frontier settlement wars up to the close of the war of 1812. Those living within the United States made a treaty with the Government in 1815 and have since remained peaceful, with the exception of a minor uprising among the Pillager Band of Ojibwe on Leech Lake, Minnesota. Most of them live on reservations or allotted land in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and North Dakota. There was a small band of Swan Creek and Black River Ojibwe who sold their lands in Michigan in 1836 and went to live with the Munsee, in Franklin County, Kansas.

It was represented to the writer that the Pillager Band of Ojibwe should be quite interesting and primitive since they were the only unsubdued Indians left in the United States. They are supposed to have revolted during the Civil War, when Government attention was concentrated on determining whether or not, the Union should be preserved. They pillaged a small town, killed the inhabitants, took all of the food stores and fled to Bear Island in Leech Lake, Minnesota, shown in plate 60, fig. 1. Again, while the United States was at war with Spain in 1898, the Ojibwe complained bitterly about certain irregularities in regard to the disposal of the dead and fallen timber on Leech Lake Reservation. They accused white speculators of firing the woods to create a class of timber known as dead and down timber, thus depriving them of their winter livelihood in logging operations.[90]

Rather indiscriminate arrests of the Pillager Indians by United States marshals caused resentment and the actual warfare was caused by the attempt of a deputy marshal to arrest certain Indians accused of selling whiskey on the reservation. On September 15, 1898, two Indians were arrested by deputy marshals and rescued by their comrades. Warrants were issued for the arrest of the more than twenty Indians who had assisted in the rescue. Since the marshals feared the Indians, they asked for the assistance of troops. It was thought that a show of force by regular troops would be sufficient. Twenty men of the Third Regiment U. S. Infantry were sent, but since the Indians showed no sign of yielding eighty more left Fort Snelling for Walker, Minnesota. Major M. C. Wilkinson and General J. M. Bacon were in charge.

Two small lake steamers and a barge took the troops to Bear Island, and they anchored in shoal water just across from the island, proceeding by barge to the mainland. The battle took place at the house of Bujonegicig, who died only a few years ago. The troops were fired upon from the woods and Major Wilkinson, Sergeant Butler and four privates were killed. Ten were wounded. On October 6, 1898, 214 more troops came to assist, but no further firing was encountered and the uprising was over. The Commissioner of Indian Affairs, W. A. Jones, arrived from Washington, October 10. The next morning he and Father Aloysius, a priest with great influence over the Indians, held a long and friendly conference with the Pillager chiefs investigating and settling the timber complaints. Troops flooded that country and persuaded the Bear Islanders to respond to the warrants. They were duly tried, sentenced and fined, but the fines were remitted and after two months imprisonment the sentences were commuted and pardons granted.

The writer found but few who remembered the battle, for while there were over a hundred men able to bear arms in 1898, the Ojibwe could not successfully fight the influenza attack of 1919 and the present population consists of only fourteen persons: John Peper, wife, daughter and mother; White Cloud, shown in plate 59, fig. 2, wife and son; Moîckaˈwus and wife; John Smith, Frank Marshall, wife and two children. John Peper’s mother was said to be 106 years old and looked the part, as shown in plate 59, fig. 1. John, her youngest boy was past 70 years of age. Another very old resident, John Smith, had died the year before the writer arrived. His age was said to be 138 years. His recollections are said to have included George Washington as President of the United States.

All of our Ojibwe residents in Wisconsin and those in Michigan and Minnesota were forest Indians and, as such, great hunters, although they cultivated maize in a small way. They made very superior birch bark canoes and were at home on the many lakes of the northland, subsisting largely on fish and game. While at the present time, they dress themselves to satisfy the pre-conceived ideas of tourists, in the early days, their headdress consisted of otter skin caps, often embellished with eagle feathers, one for each enemy slain in battle and consequently for each scalp secured. The great feathered bonnet was not of their culture, but has been more recently borrowed from the Plains Indians. They never used the tepee of the Plains Indians, such as is shown in plate 46, fig. 2, and in plate 58, fig. 2, but built a wigwam. The wigwam was easily constructed in a half-day’s time. Poles were thrust into the ground in a circle of from twelve to twenty feet, their tips bent and securely tied in the center with basswood bark cord to form a hemisphere, about eight feet in height at the center. The whole was then covered with bark of balsam, or woven cat-tail mats, such as the one shown in plate 46, fig. 2, and roofed with birch bark. An entrance and smoke hole were left and mats thrown upon the ground. It was much warmer than a tepee and better adapted to the heavy snow fall of the north, and to low temperatures. All of their storage houses and their smaller sweat lodges were similarly made. Their medicine lodges followed the same construction though they were much longer: being eighty, a hundred and even a hundred and fifty feet in length.

We had occasion to see the medicine lodge in use several times during our stay at Lac du Flambeau. This lodge was in the old Flambeau village, just at the edge of the woods. It was a huge affair, about one hundred and fifty feet long, with a stout framework of saplings joined together and arched over at a height of eight feet. The framework was rigidly held together with other horizontal saplings secured by basswood bark cord at every junction of poles. It stood as a framework for several years. During use, the sides of this framework are covered with cat-tail mats and the top with sewed birch bark, as shown in figure 21, of the Museum’s 1923 Yearbook. By using a bone needle and nettle string the cat-tail mats are sewed together with an invisible stitch, that makes a windproof cover.

Down the center of the lodge is a long ellipse where countless dance steps have bared the earth of this otherwise grassy plot. The entrance of the lodge faces the east, and there is an exit to the west. A fire is usually burning just inside the eastern entrance, the smoke ascending through a smoke hole left in the roof. The medicine men are gathered to the left of the fire on the north while the patient is usually seated to the right of the fire on the south. The medicine drum in use during a treatment for healing is smaller than the dream dance drum, usually seen by tourists, and of a different shape. It is about eight inches in diameter and sixteen inches high. The buckskin stretched over the end is moistened from time to time by reversing the drum which contains water, and rubbing the skin to permit it to take up the liquid. The tone and volume are greatly enhanced by this procedure.

The medicine lodge members sit in groups around the lodge starting at the north side, and proceeding down to the west and back along the south side toward the east again. Every song and march around the lodge is repeated four times, this being their sacred number. The time needed in effecting a cure is varied but the writer has seen a woman carried in on a litter, recover in three hours time and take part in the dancing.

The Indian Service in the past has wished to discourage treatment by medicine men and on larger reservations has supplied a resident physician. It is a constant competition between the two, for naturally a white physician cannot cure every case any more than a medicine man can, and when the medicine man apparently effects cures after the physician has given up or appeared to produce no improvement, the credulous patients are going to continue to believe in the medicine men. Christianity has had but little effect upon the Ojibwe so far as the writer has been able to observe, largely because of the reputation of the medicine men among them.

According to the late Dr. William Jones, the ethnologist mentioned in “Ethnobotany of the Meskwaki Indians”, Part 2 of this volume, the Pillager Band of Bear Island occasionally practiced cannibalism ceremonially, and even as late as 1902 ate human flesh on the Rainy River during a famine. He cites the fact in 1905 that polygamy was once common and even still occurred among wandering bands.

Many visitors to the northland think of the country in terms of sand, and consider it unfit for use agriculturally. While sandy soil is common, it is also easy to find very good productive soil and in some cases even clay. The Indian settlements and homesteads were never extensive and four or five acres of land seem to suffice them for growing hay and garden crops. The agency Indian farmer maintains demonstration garden plots, such as the one shown in plate 46, fig. 1, and also more extensive farms, and constantly advises with those who are trying to farm. The Indian women even grow some cultivated flowers. At Lac du Flambeau, the Ojibwe take great pride in their annual Indian fair and display farm animals, horticultural products, and native arts and crafts for premiums. It is a pity that more do not follow agriculture because they have sufficient farming land and have also good examples to follow. Most of them like the quick returns made in selling Indian art work, or made acting as guides for fishing and hunting parties. The easy money is too soon spent and they suffer considerably before the winter is over.

The native flora is about the same at both Lac du Flambeau and Leech Lake, and the species are by no means as varied as on the Menomonie Reservation. They make full use of everything that occurs with them except the adventive or introduced plants. They recognize regular types of soil as sources of their medicinal plants. Sandy meadows, sandy wastes, lakes, still ponds, swamps, upland swamps, rocky openings in the forest, evergreen forests, and hardwood forests all are searched for distinctive plants. The greatest number of species of native plants are found in the composite family and we find the Ojibwe making more use of these than any other tribe. The heath family contributes many species and is important to them. Grasses and sedges, while numerous in species are not so well known to them, although here again they use more species than the neighboring tribes.

John Whitefeather, of the Couderay Ojibwe, who adopted the writer into their tribe, related their origin myth. Briefly it is as follows: There has always been a controversy among the whites as to whether such an Indian as Hiawatha ever lived. Hiawatha is the name that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow gave to their cultural hero, Winabojo. Hiawatha or Winabojo was never seen by man, although sometimes both names have been used for proper names among the Ojibwe. Their great spirit or ruler of the universe was named Dzhe Manido.

According to Whitefeather, Winabojo was the one who caused the deluge that covered the world and was responsible for building it again. Winabojo was sitting at the mouth of a big river and noticed a stick bobbing up and down near the middle of the stream. He thought it was curious that it was not carried on down stream to the big lake and further thought that it would be fun to sit on the stick. So he swam out and sat on it. Dzhe Manido had told him two phrases, one of which he might sing to himself, which is translated “Lake must close in” and the other was “Lake should spread out”, and he must not say that. Winabojo became curious to see what would happen if he repeated the second of these phrases. He said it. Immediately the stick sank and he fell under. He swam back to the top but could discover no land. Other animals were swimming around, so he requested muskrat to dive down and get him some mud from the bottom of the lake. Muskrat dived down but it was too far and he drowned. The martin tried it and drowned. The otter tried it and drowned. Then beaver tried it and obtained some mud, but died as he reached the surface. Winabojo took the mud that remained between the claws of beaver and rolled it into a little ball. Winabojo made this ball grow as he rolled it around in his hands, while the animals swam around him. Finally the ball grew large enough for the fox to jump upon it and run around. Then it grew larger until all the animals could get upon it.

So Winabojo and the animals were the first inhabitants and Winabojo put the plants upon the world. Winabojo lived in a little valley with his grandmother, Nokomis. Against her wishes, he went on a voyage of exploration, leaving his valley to climb a hill. In the next valley he saw a lot of people all dancing and he wanted to dance with them. So he went down and danced all day, though none of them spoke to him or said a word to each other. When the wind died down at sunset, he discovered them to be only cattails, so he started back home. On his way he was approached by Cumpa. No one knows who sent Cumpa there, but we think that it was Dzhe Manido. Nokomis had told him that there were inhabitants somewhere on the earth. Winabojo sat down with Cumpa and they talked over the matter of how to regulate the world. In their conference they developed the medicine lodge idea and the Ojibwe count Winabojo as its founder. The painted post that they erect in their medicine lodge represents Winabojo. It is carved to resemble a human form, but not too closely, as they wish it to be understood that Winabojo is a god and not a human being.

Winabojo started during the month of July to hunt for the inhabitants of the earth and finally found them in the latter part of December or early January. Then he stayed with them for several months, teaching them the secrets of the medicine lodge. He told them how they must gather roots and what songs they must sing. A specimen song and its meaning is here given.