The Ojibwa Indians of Parry Island, Their Social and Religious Life

126 Pages·1935·16.305 MB·English

by  Diamond Jenness

Oct
5
1959
i
CANADA
DEPARTMENT OF MINES
Hon. T. A. Crerar, Minister; Charles Camsell, Deputy Minister
NATIONAL MUSEUM OF CANADA
W. H. Collins, Acting Director
BULLETIN No, 78
Anthropological Series, No. 17
The Ojibwa Indians of Parry Island,
Their Social and Religious Life
BY
Diamond Jenness
OTTAWA
PATENAUDE,
J. O. I.S.O.
PRINTER TO THE KING’S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTfY
1935
Price 25 cents
,

CANADA
DEPARTMENT OF MINES
Hon. T. A. Crerar, Minister; Charles Camsell, Deputy Minister
NATIONAL MUSEUM OF CANADA
W. H. Collins, Acting Director
BULLETIN No. 78
Anthropological Series, No. 17
The Ojibwa Indians of Parry Island,
Their Social and Religious Life
BY
Diamond Jenness
LIBRARY
•'v-,.
NATIONAL MUSEUM
OF
CANAJQlA
PATENAUDE,
J. 0. I.S.O.
PRINTER TO THE KING’S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY
1935
Price 25 cents
,
*
CONTENTS
Page
Preface v
CHAPTER
I
Social organization 1
CHAPTER
II
Economic life 10
CHAPTER
III
Man and nature 18
CHAPTER
IV
Beings of the supernatural world 29
CHAPTER V
Man's contact with the supernatural world 47
CHAPTER
VI
Medicine-men and their practices 60
CHAPTER
VII
The grand medicine society 69
CHAPTER
VIII
Taboos, medicines, and witchcraft 79
CHAPTER IX
The cycle of life and death 90
Appendix 112
—H
4294

PREFACE
• * ,.*.>• , ‘
This report on the Social and Religious Life of the Parry Island
Indians is the product of seven weeks’ investigation on that island during
the summer of 1929. The principal Indians consulted were:
Francis Pegahmagabow: an Ojibwa of about thirty-seven years of age,
apparently full-blood, whose father and grandfather had been chiefs
at Parry island. His father died when he was a child, and he was
raised by a relative at Shawanaga reserve, 18 miles farther north,
but later attended a school in Parry Sound. He enlisted in a local
battalion at the beginning of the Great War and served until the
armistice, winning the military medal, with two bars, and other decora-
tions. During the two years preceding the war, and for two years
afterwards, he cruised around the Great Lakes as a seaman on a
vessel belonging to the Department of Marine and Fisheries that
was inspecting the lighthouses, and during this period he came into
contact with other Ojibwa bands. Being of profoundly meditative
temperament, he began to write down the lore of his people, but later
lost the notebooks in which he had jotted down their customs and
traditions. He was elected chief of the Parry Island Indians after
he returned from the war and held the position for two years, when
he stirred up some opposition by urging the old men and women to
narrate in the council house the earlier customs of the people.
Although comparatively young, and more travelled than most of the
Indians, he was more saturated with their former outlook on life than
the majority and more capable of interpreting the old beliefs.
Occasionally his interpretations may have been a little more advanced
than the average Indian would have given, yet they were a logical
development of the lay beliefs such as were possible to any philo-
sophically minded Ojibwa before the coming of Europeans.
John Manatuwaba: also an Ojibwa, native to Parry island, about seventy
years of age and apparently full-blood.
Jonas King: a Potawatomi Indian whose grandfather, a French-Canadian
half-breed, had fought in the war of 1812, and had then led a band
of his tribesmen into Canada, where they settled in the neighbourhood
of lake Simcoe. Later they moved to Christian island, and about
fifty-five years ago some of them moved again to Parry island. Jonas
himself was bom at Angus, near Barrie, but resided on Parry island
from his youth upward. He was a frank pagan, very keen and active,
although in 1929 he was over eighty years old. He and his cousin,
Tom King, a man of about fifty-five years, were the only surviving
Indians on the island who had been initiated into the Midewiwin or
VI
Grand Medicine Society. Both of them had participated in a celebra-
tion held on Parry island about fifty years ago. Tom King was known
to most of the whites in the vicinity as the Indian medicine-man.
Jim Nanibush: an Ottawa Indian born in the United States, although his
parents moved to Parry island when he was five years old. He was
said to be the oldest Indian on the reserve, possibly about ninety, but
still very active and in possession of all his faculties.
Mary Sugedub: a woman of about fifty years of age, crippled since child-
hood and in consequence unmarried. It was understood that she
was an Ojibwa, native to Parry island.
James Walker: a man of about seventy-five years of age, born, it was
understood, on Parry island. He knew comparatively little about
the old customs of his people, for all his life he had tried to adopt
European habits.
,
THE OJIBWA INDIANS OF PARRY ISLAND,
THEIR SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS LIFE
CHAPTER
I
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
The Ojibwa of Georgian bay appear to have no name for the whole
of Parry island, but call that part of it that has been converted into
W
an Indian reserve Wasoksing and its inhabitants asoksivmnini. The
present population numbers ab,out two hundred and fifty, of whom nearly
a hundred consider themselves Potawatomi Indians, descendants of some
bands that migrated to Canada over a hundred years ago from Michigan.
Many of their relatives still reside on Christian island, 30 miles to the
south, but a number of families moved north to Parry island around the
year 1865. The Ottawa tribe has a few representatives on the island, but
the majority of the inhabitants call themselves simply Djibive, i.e. Ojibwa,
although some of them state that their original name was Kitchibuan,
“ Great Medicine Men.” There are two groups among them, families that
migrated recently from farther north and west, and older families who
consider themselves the earliest inhabitants of the district. Since this part
of Georgian bay belonged to the Ottawa tribe when the French first
penetrated to the Great Lakes in the seventeenth century, the older group
also must have migrated from the west within the historical period, and
in fact it still preserves a tradition of its western origin as follows:
Originally the Indians all came from another part of the earth in the west.
They came in bands one behind another at intervals of two or three weeks, following
the leadership of a man who had received a ble&sing from the 'Great Spirit. During
the journey the leader placed his boy inside a stump to gain a blessing from some
manido or spirit; other Indians placed their children in specially built huts. One
night a girl received a vision that instructed her to bid her people move camp on
a certain day and travel in a certain direction, when they would reach a great
expanse of water. If they built boats there and paddled out, the Great Spirit would
guide them quickly to a new land1 on the other side.”
Partly through their earlier wanderings, partly through education and
travel, the Parry Island Indians are acquainted with several surrounding
tribes. The Cree Indians in the north they call nokmitchini “ Inland
people,” and they have heard that beyond the Cree dwell Eskimo, aishime
“Eaters of raw food.” To the east they have met Algonkins, whom some
call seshkwagami “People of the bog land,” others yaskwagami or dask-
wagami “Musk-rat people.” They know that the hated Mohawks, nodawe
“People who pursue in canoes,” still linger to the southward, and that the
Menomini “Rice people,” live at the bottom of lake Huron, in the territory
of the United States. In the west they have heard of the Rlackfoot, whose
name they translate as makadeuzide “Black sole of foot”; and some of
their forefathers encountered and acquired medicine power from the Assini-
boine, sinebuan “Stone medicine-men.”
,
The entire population of the island constituted a single band
(kwinoak) nominally governed by a chief (ogimma). Now that they are
confined to the reserve, and the position carries little authority, the Indians
elect their chief annually; but formerly he held his position for life, and
in the usual course of events was succeeded by one of his sons, generally
the eldest. His power depended on his character and ability; an unpopular
chief often wielded less influence than one of the medicine-men, and at his
death the band might follow the leadership of another family, preferably
one that was closely related. As his powers were limited, so his duties too
were not onerous. He was expected to take the initiative in all public
matters, to receive delegations from neighbouring bands or tribes, and to
summon and preside over council meetings of all the adult hunters of his
band, or of such families as were directly concerned in the matter at issue.
He had no means of enforcing his wishes unless the principal men in the
band endorsed them and the remainder were content to acquiesce. Council
meetings were held out of doors in summer; but in winter, when th—e band
scattered into small groups, the chief often erected a large wi—gwam using
for corner posts, sometimes, two large trees cut off at the tops that would
not only house his immediate family, but enable him to entertain the other
households in his group. The people demanded from their chiefs liberality
above all things. If a family were in need the chief had to provide for it
from his own resources, as well as levy contributions from other families in
the band and in times of plenty he maintained his popularity and prestige
;
by a bountiful distribution of the fish and game that he secured through
his own exertions.
“ Every spring my father sent my brothers and myself to gather crayfish enough
to till two quart pails. Using these as bait he fished all one night, and in the morning
bade the official messenger of our band divide up his catch among the different families
of our group. In the autumn he cut a lane through the ripe fields of wild rice and
shot large numbers of ducks that came to settle there; these too he distributed among
our group” (James Walker).
The chief naturally assumed the command when the entire body of
hunters went on the warpath; but this happened apparently only in times
of extreme danger, as when an invasion of the Iroquois imperilled the lives
of all the community. More often all the bands of Ojibwa within a certain
area contributed a number of volunteers to a combined expedition, and
each selected a leader meyosi for its own contingent. One old Indian,
( )
Jim Nanibush, stated that before its departure the contingent held a dance
lasting four days and four nights, and that the chief of the band, the
medicine-men, and the warriors chose the leader at its conclusion. Another
informant, Pegahmagabow, said that the medicine-men sometimes appointed
the leader; the Great Spirit, they would declare, had ordained that a cer-
tain man should lead the warriors into battle. The region has not been
troubled by wars for over a century, and the memories of the Indians have
grown dim in the interval. Probably there were different ways of selecting
a war-leader according to circumstances. Certainly a pusillanimous or
inefficient chief would obtain few followers, whereas the Indians would
voluntarily follow a warrior who had distinguished himself on previous
occasions.