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Consult Books
Lawrence D. Bobo and Mia Tuan. Prejudice in Politics: Group Position, Public Opinion, and the Wisconsin Treaty Rights Dispute, 2006. Written for academics, this interesting study of the treaty rights struggle argues that prejudice—that is, negative feelings and beliefs about Native Americans—entered politics as part of the struggle for group position. This struggle was occasioned by an upset to prior patterns of group relations when Ojibwas challenged the state, as well as the long-standing ethno-racial divide between Whites and Native Americans, and the courts affirmed Native rights. There was a perceived status and resource loss among most White Wisconsin residents, especially those from the North Woods. The hostility diminished when non-Indians did not actually lose access to resources. The researchers also found that prejudice was supported by low levels of understanding of treaty rights by White Wisconsin residents. The book also discusses how conflict becomes racialized in the United States generally.
Frances Densmore. Chippewa Customs. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 86. Washington, DC, 1929.
Densmore began her field study in 1905. She obtained information from Ojibwa people about their own and their ancestors’ experiences and included in her research biographies of several elderly individuals. A large part of this manuscript deals with technology, including the manufacture of dwellings, clothing, and tools, as well as food preparation. She delves into the work of children, women and men and discusses the relationship between religion and the subsistence quest. This work is written in the style of a report, but it contains a great deal of information and photographs.
Robert Doherty. Disputed Waters: Native Americans and the Great Lake Fishery, 1990.
The author provides a history of the U. S. v. Michigan fishing rights case and explains how resources have been allocated in Michigan historically and how allocation changed after the recent court decisions in favor of Indian fishing rights.
Wendy Makoons Geniusz. Our Knowledge Is Not Primitive, 2009. The author argues that Ojibwa knowledge of botany has been distorted and trivialized by non-Native researchers, so this research needs to be done from an indigenous point of view. Geniusz discusses how Anishinaabe knowledge can be reclaimed and incorporated into cultural revitalization efforts.
Ruth Landes. The Mystic Lake Sioux: Sociology of the Mdewakantonwan Santee, 1968.
This work actually is Landes’s field study of 1935. She interviewed Dakota people about hunting, fishing, gathering, and work generally, among other subjects. Dakotas gave personal accounts as well as stories that they heard from their elders. In 1935 the Dakotas still were gathering wild plants, tapping sugar, ricing, trapping, fishing, and hunting some animals.
Ruth Landes. The Ojibwa Woman, 1997 [1938].
Landes wrote this book in 1932. She has a chapter devoted to women’s work and the technology of making sugar, gathering, preparing food, and manufacturing household items. The work includes several life histories.
Nancy Oestreich Lurie. Mountain Wolf Woman, 1961.
Anthropologist Lurie recorded this life history of a Ho-Chunk woman born in 1884. She describes her family’s subsistence activities among other things. Mountain Wolf Woman was the younger sister of Crashing Thunder.
James M. McClurken et al. Fish in the Lake, Wild Rice, and Game in Abundance: Testimony on Behalf of Mille Lacs Ojibwe Hunting and Fishing Rights, 2000.
In this work, historians and anthropologists discuss the evidence used in the court cases that reaffirmed hunting and fishing rights. These are the reports prepared for the lawsuit filed by the Mille Lacs Band to stop the state of Minnesota from interfering with treaty rights. The discussion includes the effect of treaty violations on the Ojibwa and the different ways that Indians and non-Indians understood treaties. Helen Tanner’s report is published in this volume.
Larry Nesper. “Ironies of Articulating Continuity at Lac du Flambeau,” pages 98-121 in New Perspectives on Native North America, eds. Sergei A. Kan and Pauline Turner Strong, 2006. Written for academics, this is an excellent discussion of the history of hunting and fishing at Lac du Flambeau and the process by which the treaty rights struggle shaped cultural renaissance among the Ojibwa.
Larry Nesper. The Walleye War: The Struggle for Ojibwe Spearfishing and Treaty Rights, 2002.
This study examines the conflict manifested locally between Natives and non-Natives and the process by which the violation of state regulations and litigation to defend treaty rights, as well as fishing with spears, came to be associated with cultural identity. The author documents the meaning of hunting and fishing to the Ojibwa prior to intensive contact and the origins of conflict over hunting and fishing subsequent to the arrival of large numbers of settlers. This work is an excellent example of what anthropologists study today in contrast with the reconstruction ethnography of scholars such as Radin, Landes, and Densmore.
Patricia K. Ourada. The Menominee, 1990.
Chapter one of this book, written for a general audience, discusses housing, clothing, subsistence technology and activity, and the interconnection between religion and subsistence.
Paul Radin. Crashing Thunder: The Autobiography of an American Indian, 1926.
This work is based on anthropologist Radin’s interviews in the Winnebago [Ho-Chunk] language with an elderly Ho-Chunk Man in 1909. Much attention is given to the relation between religion and subsistence activity.
Erhard Rostlund. Fresh Water Fish and Fishing in Native North America. University of California Publications in Geography 9, 1952.
This study offers a detailed description of the fish common to the Great Lakes and other regions in North America. The biological characteristics of the fish and the pattern of their distribution is given regionally. The author also discusses Great Lakes Native fishing methods including the use of the spear, harpoon, nets, trap, hook and line, and torches for night fishing.
Ronald N. Satz. Chippewa Treaty Rights: The Reserved Rights of Wisconsin’s Chippewa Indians in Historical Perspective. Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters, Transactions, 79, 1, 1991.
An excellent history of the relevant treaties, the curtailment of treaty rights, and the court cases that dealt with the struggle for the affirmation of those rights. The author also discusses tribal contributions to the rehabilitation of wildlife and habitat. The work has appendices that contain the treaties and the treaty proceedings.
Huron Smith. “Ethnobotany of the Ojibwe Indians.” Bulletin of the Public City of Milwaukee 4, no. 3, 1932. Number 2 of this bulletin is Smith’s study of Fox ethnobotany (1928) and number 1 is his study of Menominee ethnobotany (1923).
Smith’s studies include descriptions and photographs of the indigenous plants used by Ojibwa people.
Huron Smith. “Ethnobotany of the Forest Potawatomi Indians.” Bulletin of the Public City of Milwaukee 7, no. 1, 1932
This study has information about the Potawatomi community and detailed discussion of the uses of indigenous plants.
Helen Hornbeck Tanner. The Ojibwa, 1992.
Chapter two of this book, written for a general audience, gives a good overview of the yearly subsistence cycle in the late seventeenth century. Subsequent chapters discuss changes through time.
Thomas Vennum. Wild Rice and the Ojibway People, 1988.
A thoroughly researched and very readable account covering the characteristics, nutritive value, and harvest technology of wild rice, as well as a historical review of wild rice in the American economy. Particularly interesting is a description of the rice camp and social interaction there. The author reviews state regulations about ricing, Indian rights, and non-Indian competition.
View Videos
Honoring the Maple Sugar. 1998. 30 mi. Produced by Lorraine Norrgard/WDSE-TV. In this video, Norrgard demonstrates cultural continuity by juxtaposing archival footage of maple sugar harvesting techniques with contemporary ways of harvesting. Featured is John Henry MacMillan (Fond du Lac Band of Chippewa). This video can be ordered from WDSE-TV, Duluth, MN: https://www.wdse.org/shows/album/collection/season-7
Lighting the Seventh Fire (Upstream Productions, 1995)
Native American filmmaker Sandra Osawa shows how the Chippewa [Ojibwa] Indians of Northern Wisconsin have struggled to restore the centuries old tradition of spearfishing and examines the heated opposition they have encountered. See www.pbs.org/pov/pov1995/lightingthe7thfire
Ojibwe: Waasa-inaabidaa “We Look in All Directions,”2002. This series features the Ojibwa culture in six hour-long programs, each of which spans nearly five hundred years of history, from pre-contact to contemporary times. Episode 1 focuses on the Ojibwa’s relationship with the natural world and episode 3 examines the seasonal subsistence cycle of the Ojibwa. There are teacher guides for each topic. See www.ojibwe.org
Traditional Ojibwe Ice Fishing. 1998. 30 mi. Produced by Lorraine Norrgard/WDSE-TV. In this video, Ben Chosa (Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa) demonstrates traditional ice fishing techniques. This video can be ordered from WDSE-TV, Duluth, MN: https://www.wdse.org/shows/album/collection/season-7
The Wild Rice Harvest (Parts 1 and 2). 1997. 56 mi. Produced by Lorraine Norrgard/WDSE-TV. This video explores the importance of traditional wild rice harvesting to Ojibwa people. The first part features interviews with elders who share their perspectives on the importance of wild rice to Ojibwa culture. The second part also features interviews with elders as well as archaeologists’ perspectives and visits to tribal wild rice research stations. This video can be ordered from WDSE-TV, Duluth, MN: https://www.wdse.org/shows/album/collection/season-7
Use Online Sources
http://www.cnie.org/NAE/index.html
Native Americans and the Environment. The objective of the site is to educate the public on environmental problems in Native American communities, explore the values and historical experiences that Native Americans bring to bear on environmental issues, and promote conservation measures that respect Native American land and resource rights. The site contains a database on topics including ethnobotany, the impact of development, traditional environmental knowledge, traditional foods, and land and treaty rights.
http://glifwc.org
Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission. GLIFWC is an agency of eleven Ojibwa nations in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan, with off-reservation treaty rights to hunt, fish and gather in treaty-ceded lands. GLIFWC assists its member bands in the implementation of off-reservation treaty seasons and in the protection of treaty rights and the natural resources. The site has maps, lists of publications, and reports of management activity, and activities for children.
http://www.honorearth.org
Honor the Earth is a Native-led organization established in 1993 to support the Native environmental movement. The site has excellent information on farming and ricing in the context of supporting sustainable economies on tribal lands based on indigenous knowledge.