Anishinaabemowin

My grandfather was named Mskwibikoking, which translates to Blood on the Arrow. My grandfather was given this name when he was young, in honor of the sacrifices that he would one day make for his people as seen in a premonition. Non-Indian people called him Red Arrow. He was a life-long educator and instructor. Every summer, holiday break and weekend, my brother, Naawikwegiizhig, and I would be at his home. All our time there was occupied with the arts, crafts, customs, traditions, and language of our Anishinaabe heritage. It was all we knew, it was who we were. Along the way, the passion that was my grandfather's then became my mother's and finally was engrained in my brother and I as well. It is now an inseparable part of who we are as Anishinaabe. 

My great-grandparents were both fluent speakers, but refused to speak Anishinaabemowin with their own children, or teach them the language. A result of having attended the Industrial Indian Boarding School in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan. However, if they were fighting with one another, or were mad about something, or if you were an especially naughty little boy, then they would speak only in Ojibwa.  Thankfully, I was often there to benefit from my brother Naawikwegiizhig's bad behavior.  

That was my first introduction to Anishinaabemowin and I will never forget it. I was also very fortunate that my mother had ten brothers and sisters, and that many of them had an interest in learning to speak themselves. A number of my aunties had gone to college and actively pursued instruction in Ojibwa Language. I stole all of the class materials I could get my hands on and began my first library. When I became an adult, I too went to college and primarily focused my education on Native Studies, which included five semesters of Ojibwa Language.  One of the happiest days of my life was the first time I dreamed in Anishinaabemowin.

My mother, WaawaasgonaNs, was the head-cook at the Saginaw Chippewa Academy and I would often times stop by the school around lunchtime to visit. During these visits I would read to the children and work with them. On one such visit I had noticed that there was an activity on the shelf that was written in a language I did not recognize. I pulled it off the shelf and looked over it, before asking the Director what language it was. She told me, "it was Indian, and that she had found it on-line." Turns out it was Sioux. In her mind, being non-native, it was Indian and that was all that mattered. Never mind that the children in this school are for the most part Saginaw, Swan Creek & Black River Bands of Chippewa. I developed my own Anishinaabemowin classroom materials, took a job shortly after that in the Education Department and stayed with the school for fourteens years. After that time, I worked as the Director of an Anishinaabemowin Immersion Child-care Center. I did that another two years, developing the minimum standards guide for the staff and parents, whose children were participating in the program.

Over the years I have worked as an Ojibwa Language Teacher, been a TA for Ojibwa Instructors at tribal colleges, developed Ojibwa curriculum and support materials, evaluated Ojibwa Language Programs at pre-primary, lower elementary and elementary levels, as well as held a Director's Position at the Oshki'minowa Baamoozhegamig.  I have also been admitted as an Expert Witness in the areas of Genealogy and Ojibwa Language in tribal forums.

My background in Anishinaabemowin has also been an indispensable tool in my genealogical toolbox. I can't tell you how many times a family has come to me having researched a person for years or decades and found nothing, when the answer was sitting right in front of their nose the whole time, but they didn't know it. Or how many times families have mistakenly included an individual whose name may be similar in some aspect to the name of an ancestor that they are researching. Tribes have made these mistakes too.  I could go on and on with stories of these types of genealogical errors. It happens quite frequently, in part because most people do not have a knowledge of the language that these names are written in, or what the the names mean.

Sometimes I will be called upon to identify a person whose name has been badly butchered by non-native speakers attempting to write an Anishinaabe name in a non-native language (English, French, or German typically in the Great Lakes). This was usually compounded by the fact that the Anishinaabeg speakers at the time most of the earlier records were created often only spoke Anishinaabemowin and/or spoke in broken English/French/German. For the most part, Anishinaabeg of the 17th century could not read or write themselves and therefore offered limited input beyond that of the spoken word at the time of a records creation. Because of this fact, they would have had little capability to correct any errors that may have been recorded. Other times I am called upon to translate some passage written in Anishinaabemowin, perhaps in a newspapers, or some other historical record. Most times, people just want to know what their ancestors' names mean, or maybe what their clan was. I do not name people, places, or things. I am not Midewiwin and I cannot do that.