Pimachiowin Aki World Heritage Nomination
Cultural Landscape Study
Cultural Documentation Summary
Author: R. Michael O'Flaherty
Prepared for: Gord Jones (Project Manager, Pimachiowin Aki Corporation)
Date: October 7, 2011
Pimachiowin Aki Cultural Documentation Summary October 7, 2011
Table of Contents
Introduction to the Cultural Documentation Summary ...... iii PURPOSE...... III APPROACH ...... III SOURCES...... IV ORGANISATION ...... IV A. Anishinaabeg of Pimachiowin Aki in a Wider Context...... 1 A1. ETHNOLOGY & LINGUISTICS ...... 1 A2. THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL RECORD ...... 1 TABLE 1 - SIMPLIFIED CULTURAL CHRONOLOGY ...... 3 A3. CONTINUITY AND CHANGE IN RECENT HISTORY ...... 4 A HISTORY OF REMOTENESS ...... 4 ADAPTATION AND SYNCRETISM ...... 6 B. Relationship to Aki – Worldview...... 9 B1. INTRODUCTION TO THE ANISHINAABE WORLD OF SPIRIT...... 9 B2. LANGUAGE AS A WINDOW TO THE ANISHINAABE WORLDVIEW...... 11 INDETERMINACY...... 11 ANIMACY & PERSONHOOD...... 13 B3. ORAL TRADITIONS AND CULTURAL CONTINUITY ...... 14 MEMORY ...... 14 HISTORY IN THE LAND...... 14 BIRCH SCROLLS ...... 15 ORAL TEACHINGS ...... 16 B4. RELATIONS WITH OTHER BEINGS ...... 17 SPIRIT BEINGS | OTHER-THAN-HUMAN BEINGS...... 17 BEMAADIZIWAAD | ‘THOSE WHO HAVE LIFE’ ...... 20 AGENCY AND SPIRIT ...... 21 RESPECTFUL BEHAVIOUR ...... 22 ONJINEWIN...... 23 B5. CONCLUSIONS | THE GOOD LIFE...... 24 C. Relationship to Aki – Livelihood...... 25 C1. CUSTOMARY LIVELIHOOD PURSUITS ...... 25 FIGURE 1. HYPOTHETICAL SEASONAL ROUND ...... 26 A DESCRPTION OF THE SEASONAL ROUND ...... 27 NOTE ON THE RELATIVE PERSISTENCE OF CUSTOMARY LIVELIHOOD ACTIVITIES ...... 32 TABLE 2. ESTIMATED POPULATIONS OF FIRST NATIONS IN PIMACHIOWIN AKI...... 33 INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE...... 33 SHARING & RECIPROCITY...... 35 PARTICIPATION IN THE MARKET...... 36 C2. CUSTOMARY GOVERNANCE ...... 39 LAND TENURE - FAMILY HUNTING AND TRAPPING AREAS ...... 39 CUSTOMARY AUTHORITY AND DECISION-MAKING ...... 42 GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION ...... 44 C3. CONCLUSIONS | SURVIVAL ON THE LAND...... 47
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D. Pimachiowin Aki Anishinaabe Cultural Landscape...... 49 D1. THE CULTURAL LANDSCAPE CONCEPT...... 49 BOUNDARIES & TERMINOLOGY ...... 50 THE UNESCO CONTEXT...... 51 D2. PIMACHIOWIN AKI – THE LAND THAT GIVES LIFE...... 51 MATERIAL EVIDENCE OF CHANGE OVER TIME...... 51 INTANGIBLE ASSOCIATIONS WITH THE LAND...... 52 LIVING CULTURAL LANDSCAPE...... 53 D3. JOURNEYING THE LAND ...... 54 E. Authenticity...... 55 E1. SOURCES OF INFORMATION ...... 55 ORAL TESTIMONY ...... 55 COMMUNITY DOCUMENTATION...... 55 ACADEMIC LITERATURE ...... 55 E2. ATTRIBUTES OF AUTHENTICITY ...... 56 AUTHENTICITY IN USE AND FUNCTION...... 56 AUTHENTICITY IN TRADITIONS, TECHNIQUES AND MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS ...... 56 AUTHENTICITY IN LOCATION AND SETTING...... 57 AUTHENTICITY IN LANGUAGE, AND OTHER FORMS OF INTANGIBLE HERITAGE ...... 57 AUTHENTICITY IN SPIRIT AND FEELING...... 58 F. Works Cited...... 59
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Introduction to the Cultural Documentation Summary
PURPOSE The Pimachiowin Aki Statement of Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) provides a proposed justification for a cultural landscape nomination, using criterion (v): ‘Pimachiowin Aki fully represents the tangible and intangible elements of a living Anishinaabe cultural landscape’. The Cultural Landscape Study is therefore a very significant part of the background research for the Pimachiowin Aki nomination. The purpose of this Cultural Documentation Summary is to provide a more plain- language summary of the cultural landscape features and values in Pimachiowin Aki that provide support for the Statement of Outstanding Universal Value. In this way, the Summary will facilitate the writing of the following sections of the nomination document: Section 2.A Description Section 2.B History and Development Section 3.D Authenticity and Integrity
APPROACH This Cultural Documentation Summary was prepared according to the following principles: 1. The Summary has been prepared as a thematic discussion paper so that related materials are consolidated and the specific relevance of documentation details to the various needs of the nomination document is more evident. 2. Summary is provided only for those portions of the Cultural Landscape Study and other documentation directly relevant to the Pimachiowin Aki Statement of OUV and the culture and geography of the Pimachiowin Aki area. Documentation that addresses Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) society beyond the First Nations of Pimachiowin Aki is not addressed here. 3. Discussion of documentation is centered on and takes direction from the Cultural Landscape Study (i.e. Macro-, Meso- and Micro-level Reports); other materials are brought in to provide additional detail or explanation, where needed. At the time of writing, the Micro-level Report is in draft form so the March 21, 2011 version of the draft Micro-level material is addressed in this Summary.
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SOURCES The Macro-, Meso- and Micro-level Reports that make up the Cultural Landscape Study, and are the central focus of this Documentation Summary, are as follows:
• Petch 2010. ‘Pimachiowin Aki Cultural Landscape - Macro Scale Document’ • Hamilton 2010. ‘Recent Aboriginal History in Pimachiowin Aki’ • Deutsch 2010. ‘Land Tenure Report for Pimachiowin Aki Nomination’ • Steinbring 2010. ‘Rock Paintings in the Eastern Lake Winnipeg Watershed’ • Robertson 2010. ‘Woodland Art as a Tool of Decolonization’ • Lytwyn 2010. ‘The Anishnaabeg in the Fur Trade of the Petit Nord’ • Brown 2010. ‘A. Irving Hallowell on the Berens River in the 1930s’ • Matthews, Roulette & Valentine 2010. ‘Anishinaabemowin: The Language of PA’ • Matthews & Roulette 2010a. ‘Mapping the Ojibwe Universe, Giishkaanadong’ • Matthews & Roulette 2010b. ‘Aajitaawinan Izhiitwaawining: Material Culture’ • Davidson-Hunt & Miller 2011. Cultural Landscape Atlas (draft)
Additional documentation addressed in this Documentation Summary includes: the planning and management documents of Pimachiowin Aki Corporation (PAC) partners; documentation and reports produced by PAC partners; and, where needed, other professional literature. A list of all sources addressed in this Summary is provided in the Works Cited.
ORGANISATION This Documentation Summary is divided into five main Parts: A. Anishinaabeg of Pimachiowin Aki in a Wider Context B. Relationship to Aki – Worldview C. Relationship to Aki – Livelihood D. Pimachiowin Aki Anishinaabe Cultural Landscape E. Authenticity
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A. Anishinaabeg of Pimachiowin Aki in a Wider Context In this Part, the Anishinaabeg of Pimachiowin Aki are situated in wider contexts of: A1. Ethnology and Linguistics; A2. The Archaeological Record; and, A3. Recent Aboriginal History.
A1. ETHNOLOGY & LINGUISTICS We can begin by situating the Anishinaabeg of Pimachiowin Aki in non-Anishinaabe ethnological and linguistic categories however since these categories are not a significant part of the Pimachiowin Aki Statement of OUV, the discussion here will be very brief. The Aboriginal peoples of Pimachiowin Aki refer to themselves as Anishinaabeg (‘the people’) and their language as Anishinaabemowin (Matthews et al. 2010: 2). Anishinaabeg are referred to, by non-Anishinaabeg, as the Ojibwe and, in the past, as Ojibway or Ojibwa (Matthews et al. 2010: 2). Linguistically, the Ojibwe language (Anishinaabemowin) is part of the broad Algonquian language family (also referred to in the past as Algonkian) which forms a continuum of languages and dialects from Newfoundland to British Columbia (Steinbring 1965) and includes the northern portions of Michigan and Montana (Matthews et al. 2010: 3). Other non-Algonquian language families include Iroquoian, Siouan, Dene, and Eskimo-Aleut (Matthews et al. 2010: 3). Other Algonquian languages include Cree, Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Delaware, Shawnee, and Mi’kmaq (Matthews et al. 2010: 3). Regional variants or dialects of Ojibwe include Algonquin, Nipissing, Mississauga, Ottawa, Odawa, Chippewa, Saulteaux, and Oji-Cree (Matthews et al. 2010: 3). According to Steinbring, ‘with the exception of a few Plains Ojibwa west of Lake Winnipeg, and the southeastern Ojibwa who have been close to the Iroquois, the Ojibwa territory lies mainly in northern Ontario and eastern Manitoba’ (Steinbring 1965). According to Matthews et al., Ojibwe, along with Cree and Inuktitut, are thought to be the only languages with enough speakers to remain viable into the future (2010: 3). Matthews et al. go on to suggest, citing Patricia Ningewance, roughly one quarter of all people who speak Ojibwe as their first language reside in the communities of Pimachiowin Aki (2010: 3). In addition to oral fluency, the Anishinaabe of Pimachiowin Aki are highly literate in syllabic script, originally introduced into Ojibwe and Cree communities by a Wesleyan missionary over 150 years ago (Matthews et al. 2010: 3-4). Today there are many local varieties of syllabic writing, ‘some of which are distinctive to particular communities’ (Matthews et al. 2010: 3-4); moreover, exact pronunciation of the script depends on the local dialect.
A2. THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL RECORD Pimachiowin Aki is an outstanding example of traditional land use continuously adapted for over 6000 years to meet social, cultural and livelihood needs in a harsh subarctic boreal shield environment. Pimachiowin Aki Statement of Outstanding Universal Value (October 1, 2010) Petch states the objective of her report ‘is to convey a sense of antiquity and character of Anishinaabe occupation as is derived from the existing archaeological record’ (2010: 2). Given the lack of large scale developments requiring excavation and the limited extent of formal archaeological excavation, the archaeological record for the Pimachiowin Aki area as a whole is very incomplete — 201 archaeological sites are currently recorded for Pimachiowin Aki (Petch 2010: 3). While lack of funding for such research is certainly an issue, Steinbring suggests the
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Pimachiowin Aki Cultural Documentation Summary October 7, 2011 nomadic life of Anishinaabeg in the sub-arctic meant ceramic pots were eschewed for more portable and less durable (i.e. less likely to be preserved in the archaeological record) containers made of birchbark, rushes, nettle fibre, hide, and lake sturgeon skin (Steinbring 1965). Nevertheless, Petch feels the archaeological record ‘provides a compelling yet incomplete history of Aboriginal land use and occupation’ (2010: 2). Petch's use of the term ‘history’ is situated within an archaeological perspective on the periodization of Anishinaabe occupation in the Pimachiowin Aki area (and in the wider region). Archaeologists use the term ‘culture history’ to describe a sequence of occupations marked by characteristic material remains (i.e. material culture1) such as tools, pottery types, or habitation patterns which persisted for a long period of time within a region (also referred to as a ‘tradition’). A ‘culture history’ is not a historical description of changes in a particular culture; it is not a history of Anishinaabe culture in the Pimachiowin Aki area; it is a generalised series of occupation types that archaeologists generally agree (ideally) are associated with specific cultural practices that can be identified in material culture and therefore provide a means for discussing the archaeological evidence in broader range of areas. Therefore, what Petch provides for the Pimachiowin Aki area is a chronological account of cultural occupations characterised largely by the specific design features of projectile points, pottery and habitation patterns. Table 1 presents a detailed but simplified chronology of Aboriginal cultural occupation relevant to the Pimachiowin Aki region, based on the details provided by Petch (all page references refer to Petch 2010). The macro-scale report by Petch contains some confusion in the specific dates provided, in part the result of there being different kinds of evidence being drawn upon; this is a common issue in archaeology, making it difficult to be too definitive about dates. In addition, some of the dates refer to environmental changes while others refer to cultural changes identified by archaeologists, so there are in fact two different chronologies being discussed in the report; dates in table 1 refer only to the cultural chronology. In sum, the chronology of early aboriginal occupation in the Pimachiowin Aki was shaped strongly by environmental factors, and especially the impact of a retreating Laurentide (or Wisconsinan) ice sheet. The origins of aboriginal occupation in the Pimachiowin Aki area can be dated to Paleo-Indian (Plano) traditions some 9,000 years ago (Petch 2010: 16), but this occupation should only be seen as the precursor or distant relative to the Anishinaabe cultures of Pimachiowin Aki (Petch 2010: 12-13).2 While Petch draws a direct line of descent from Paleo-Indian (Plano) traditions, through (northern) Archaic Plano Culture, to Boreal and Shield Archaic Culture, and finally the Algonquian Woodland Tradition, the contemporary culture of the Anishinaabe of Pimachiowin Aki is most firmly rooted in the Late Woodland Culture, dating back some 1,300 years ago. According to Steinbring, the Anishinaabe pictographs found in the Lake Winnipeg watershed provide a tangible connection between the present — in which Anishinaabeg can recall and interpret the production and use of pictographic symbols — and an ancient past associated
1 Although the term ‘material culture’ is ordinarily part of the archaeological lexicon, Matthews and Roulette make good use of the term, in a slightly different way: ‘material culture is not the evidentiary base of a taxonomic project but a reflection of the multiple ways that objects, large and small, are being constructed by the interaction of humans and their environment and the changing role of these objects as actors in the emerging lives of people (2010b: 5). While archaeologists are now less likely to engage with ‘taxonomic projects’, their methods continue to rely on the use of material culture to construct taxonomies (i.e. culture history) in order to provide a meaningful basis for discussion across much larger geographic scales than cultural anthropologists are accustomed to working at. 2 Migrations of Anishinaabeg in and out of the Pimachiowin Aki area (Petch 2010:30-31, 33, 38; Deutsch 2010: 6; Steinbring 2010: 2) are not discussed in this Summary. page 2 of 65
Pimachiowin Aki Cultural Documentation Summary October 7, 2011 with Shield Archaic traditions dating back some 5,000 years (2010: 3-5). In fact, ‘no area of North America more perfectly demonstrates such continuity from early times down to the contemporary residents of the Central Canadian Shield’ (Steinbring 2010: 5).
TABLE 1 - SIMPLIFIED CULTURAL CHRONOLOGY time environmental associated specific significance (years ago) changes cultural features for Pimachiowin Aki Paleo-Indian (part of the Clovis tradition, the earliest phase of human settlement in North America generally agreed upon by archaeologists, associated with fluted points first found at Clovis, New Mexico) 9,000-5,000 • warming leads to • Plano cultures focus on specialised • archaeological evidence for grasslands replacing big game (megafauna) hunting habitation of PA area dates
coniferous forests • late Paleo-Indians (ca. 10,000- to 9,000 ya in boreal forest south of PA (13) 8,000 ya) hunting smaller herd zone (Rowdy Lake) (16) • by 7,500 ya Lake animals (bison & caribou) down to • suggested as only a distant Agassiz drained northern limits of plains (14) pre-cursor to the Aboriginal
leaving Lake • developed own regional tool kits inhabitants of Pimachiowin Winnipeg, Manitoba (and presumably language and Aki (12-13) & Winnipegosis (13) knowledge traditions) (14) • extinction of mega- fauna followed into North America by first people (Clovis) Archaic Culture (period of diversification of technology and subsistence base, in part a response to extinction of megafauna that supported the highly specialised big game hunting associated with paleo-indian cultures) 5,000-2,200 • climate stabilises and • people develop new subsistence • record is sparse but PA area boreal forest takes patterns: a more diversified and likely very habitable by this shape as a patchy localised seasonal round (8,19) time (17-18)
mosaic of land, • Archaic Plano culture, associated • PA at an intersection of water, wetland and with plains, developed into Shield biomes so both Shield and rock (8) and Plains Archaic (16) Plains cultures could have
• Shield Archaic (ca. 6,500 – 3,500 been found there (23) ya) consistent pattern of tools, • Shield Archaic suggested to subsistence, settlement patterns be ancestral to present-day and cosmology across broad swath Algonquian cultures, of boreal forest (22) including Ojibwe (22-23) Algonquian Woodland Tradition (characterised by a generalised subsistence pattern based on a seasonal round of winter dispersal for hunting and trapping, and summer coalescence for fishing and gathering (12,23)) 2,200-300 • detailed knowledge of survival in • establishes outline of extreme cold (23-24) hunting-gathering economy
• associated with the introduction that persisted ‘into the of (hand formed) ceramics (24) early 20th century’ (24)
2,200-1,300 Middle Woodland Culture • associated with Laurel ceramic • widespread evidence in tradition and finely crafted tools Pimachiowin Aki area (27)
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made from animal products (e.g., bone, antler, shell) (25)
• bow and arrow introduced (27) 1,300-300 Late Woodland Culture • pottery styles change but tools • ‘This cultural period is change little, suggesting a stable important because it subsistence economy (28) signifies economic stability
• one of four discrete pottery that continued into the traditions (Blackduck) perhaps historic Anishnaabeg directly associated with period’ (28) Ojibwe/Anishinaabeg (29)
• time of population expansion (30) Historical Period (the historic Anishinaabeg period is addressed in the next section) 350-50 • late incorporation into fur trade due to geographical isolation
A3. CONTINUITY AND CHANGE IN RECENT HISTORY Traditional land use practices possess continuity and resilience, while remaining vulnerable to irreversible change from outside social, economic, and political forces. Pimachiowin Aki Statement of Outstanding Universal Value (October 1, 2010)
Petch establishes, broadly, the continuity of hunting and gathering traditions from Late Algonquian Woodland culture (approx. 1,300 years ago) to the early 20th century (2010: 24). In his report on recent Aboriginal history, Hamilton (2010) describes a history of change, both self- and externally-directed, in Pimachiowin Aki and the surrounding areas between the mid 1800s to the present. In this section, a history of continuity through adaptation is described for the Pimachiowin Aki area.
A HISTORY OF REMOTENESS Hamilton identifies a period of comparative autonomy lasting up to the 1940's (2010: 1 & 31) and characterised by a seasonal round of livelihood activities adapted to the patchiness and seasonality of resources (Hamilton 2010: 3). In contrast to the present in which people spend much of their time in a centralised settlement, the traditional seasonal round had people dispersed out on the land between fall and spring (Quill 2004); only during the summer months did people coalesce into larger ‘summer fishing settlements’ (Hallowell 1992: 46), when there ‘interludes of resource plenty’ based on fish spawns, waterfowl and caribou migrations, ripening of wild rice and berries, and moose mating cycles (Hamilton 2010: 3-5; see also Petch 2010: 24; Hallowell 1992: 43-52; Dunning 1959: 24-31; Davidson-Hunt & O'Flaherty 2011: 6-7). Hallowell described his journey from the shores of Lake Winnipeg to the upper Berens River as a passage along a ‘cultural gradient’ (ranging from authentic to acculturated values): ‘The
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Pimachiowin Aki Cultural Documentation Summary October 7, 2011 farther inland I travelled … the more I found of the old ways surviving’ (Hallowell 1992: 8)3. This experience led Hallowell to entitle one of his chapters in his 1992 ethnography of the Berens River, ‘The Living Past in the Canadian Wilderness’ (Brown & Matthews 1993: 73). According to Petch (2010: 1), Isolation from mainstream Canada has, until recently, sustained an autonomous economy in which traditional subsistence activities were supplemented with commercial fishing and trapping. Remoteness also acted as a filter for social change; and while contact with the larger Canadian population continues to affect some aspects of life, the Anishinaabeg of Pimachiowin Aki are among the last people on earth to retain core cultural values, traditions and relationships with the land. This ‘isolation from mainstream Canada’ is largely a result of geography (Petch 2010: 1; Hamilton 2010: 1, 9; Lytwyn 2010: 17-18). Much of the Pimachiowin Aki area is in the headwaters of several major rivers: the Berens, Poplar, Bloodvein and Winnipeg Rivers, all flowing into Lake Winnipeg, and the Severn, flowing northward to Hudson Bay. These rivers are for the most part convoluted and routes upriver are difficult to find without the aid of experienced Anishinaabe guides (Hamilton 2010: 7; Lytwyn 2010: 7). Travel upriver is particularly difficult owing to the numerous rapids encountered. At the same time, being at the headwaters of several rivers would have provided access to several routes for the diffusion of new goods and new ideas. At the same time, because of Pimachowin Aki’s ‘unique geographic position in the centre of the continent and at the intersection of several major biomes there appears to have been technological and perhaps cultural influence from all directions [including] the sharing, rejection or acceptance, and adaptation of new information and technologies’ (Petch 2010: 23). Therefore, exposure to and adoption of new technologies and ideas has been part of Anishinaabe culture from ancient times; through trade and warfare/diplomacy especially, distant groups were brought together (Petch 2010: 8, 36). Hamilton also suggests the Anishinaabeg adopted trade goods when they were affordable and easy to integrate into the seasonal round (Hamilton 2010: 9-12). Communication and travel routes were also maintained to carry people and ideas for medicinal and ritual purposes. Matthews and Roulette, for instance, explain how people from other communities travelled to Pauingassi to receive medicinal and ritual treatments from Fairwind (Brown & Matthews 1993: 63; Matthews & Roulette 2003); Elder Oliver Hill of Pikangikum remarked, ‘our people travelled as far south as Grassy Narrows to acquire herbal medicines’ (PFN & OMNR 2006: 32). Perhaps the most compelling story of communication between distant groups is provided by Brown and Matthews (1993) explanations for the new drum dance given to Fairwind by a spirit helper (Mathews & Roulette, 2010b: 15, note 7). The drum dance, introduced into Little Grand Rapids in the 1930s, had its origins in Anishinaabe people of Minnesota and Wisconsin, where dream drum ceremonies began to spread in the 1870s (Brown & Matthews 1993: 64). These ceremonies are said to have been related to a peace pact between the Chippewa (southern Ojibwe) and the Sioux (Matthews 1993). In the version of the drum dance associated with Fairwind, drums were expected to pass from community to community, with considerable ceremony; the transmission of the drums included learning songs, dances and proper use of paraphernalia (Brown & Matthews 1993: 69-70). An example of the regalia associated with the drum dance is the tinkling capes worn by senior women — ‘the gichi-ogichidaakweg, the ‘grand warrior women’ of the community …
3 Following his work in the Pimachiowin Aki area, Hallowell embarked on an ambitious project to identify a larger acculturation gradient between the ‘remote Ojibwa communities of northwestern Ontario to the Ojibwa of Lac du Flambeau, Wisconsin’ Brown (2010: 10-11). page 5 of 65
Pimachiowin Aki Cultural Documentation Summary October 7, 2011 women past child-bearing age who held significant roles in ceremony (Brown & Matthews 1993: 10). Into the 1970s, these capes specifically associated with Fairwind's drum ‘were still being guarded in spite of the fact that it has been nearly 65 years since [these] ceremonies have been held in Pauingassi and Poplar Hill’ (Matthews & Roulette 2010b: 7-8). Similarly, when George D. Strang of Poplar Hill sang some of the songs from the ceremony for Matthews some twenty years ago perhaps, they were identified by an ethnomusicologist as the same songs recorded in Menominee, Wisconsin in the 1950's and even back to wax cylinders over a hundred years old (Matthews 1993). Matthews et al. also provide detailed interpretation for the Anishinaabe birch bark scrolls (see page 15 in this report) collected along the Berens River by Hallowell. Some of these scrolls are song scrolls, made up of ‘pictographs’ used to recall the music and words (Matthews, et al. 2010: 37). Another scroll recounts ‘The Travels of the Bear’ from Europe, across ‘the salt water, up the mooniyaang river (Montréal River - St. Lawrence River), through various Great Lakes … past gaakaabikaa, cliff falls (Kakabeka Falls near Thunder Bay) and with increasing precision, up the Rainy River to Leech Lake [Minnesota]’, a thousand kilometres away (Matthews & Roulette 2010b: 30-31). If such distances seem significant to us, ‘mobility across vast distances was of no consequence to Aboriginal people’ (Petch 2010: 39). As Matthews & Roulette remind us, ‘these were well-travelled and well-taught individuals and birch bark scrolls played a role in this sharing and recording of various kinds of knowledge’ (2010: 8). As Jennifer Brown has remarked, ‘it's quite amazing to see how far the connections reach, and that really there was a kind of indigenous cosmopolitanism about these people. Their links reached very, very far, and these were not links that the white people knew very much about or even understood in the least’ (in Matthews 1993). Anthropologist Bruce White elaborates, people often believe that Indian communities, especially in the nineteenth century and earlier, were somehow sort of these little enclaves that had no contact with each other — which is completely untrue, even back in the earliest period. There was a lot of contact between communities and between even groups that were at war with each other … There's a lot of fluidity in the spread of ideas throughout this north- central part of the U.S. and up into Canada (in Matthews 1993). Thus, although the geographic isolation of Pimachiowin Aki enabled Anishinaabeg to exercise a comparative degree of autonomy with respect to outside forces of change, as Hamilton has concluded, Anishinaabeg ‘carefully maintain a larger social universe through broad-based kinship and clan linkages, ritual activities, and alliances in trade and war. In this sense, the supposed isolation of individual hunting groups is something of a fiction’ (2010: 3).
ADAPTATION AND SYNCRETISM In closing this discussion of recent Aboriginal history in Pimachiowin Aki, we can return to Petch's assertion that the history of Pimachiowin Aki ‘is one of movement and mobility, ingenuity and survival, compromise and adaptation. The strength of the Anishinaabeg character is built on these age-old attributes which are illustrated in the dynamic culture that today distinguishes the Anishinaabeg of Pimachiowin from all others’ (Petch 2010: 2). Hamilton also notes, ‘the integration of new innovations into pre-existing social and economic systems’ is a recurring theme in the research relevant to Pimachiowin Aki (2010: 6). A few examples will suffice to illustrate how the Anishinaabeg of Pimachiowin Aki have brought their past into an ever-changing present in ways that continue to ground the Anishinaabeg in a culturally unique view of the world. Brown and Matthews (1993: 64-68) and Matthews and Roulette (2003) provide a detailed and compelling account of how in the early twentieth century Fairwind, a renowned leader at
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Pauingassi, created a new drum dance ceremony that blends the traditions from other Anishinaabeg outside of his area with the traditions of his own people. The new dance was likely inspired by similar ceremonies that created by Anishinaabeg in Minnesota and Wisconsin in the 1870s, and likely first performed in Pauingassi in 1912. Fairwind (Naamiwan) created this new dance within the worldview and customary practices of his people, taking direction from a spirit being who directed Naamiwan, in a dream, to take personal leadership over the transformation of an existing custom in order to help both himself and his fellow Anishinaabeg. According to Matthews and Roulette (2003): The dream and the drum not only gave Naamiwan unusual access to the land of the dead; they also gave him access to new healing powers and the right to conduct a new ceremony. As Robert Brightman has pointed out, the dream legitimated Naamiwan's theological innovation in the eyes of the community. Since they understood the drum and Naamiwan's ability to hear it speak as gifts from which they would all benefit, they were willing to participate in his new ceremony. For Hallowell, the innovation illustrates extremely well how diverse strands of belief and practice can be welded together under the influence of a strong personality, and yet still kept within the framework of the Saulteaux [Ojibwe] interpretation of the universe. To my mind, the dance indicates the dynamic character of the syncretic processes (cited in Matthews & Roulette 2003; Brown & Matthews 1993: 68). Another illustration of the ability of Anishinaabeg of Pimachiowin Aki to bring the past into the present, creating a new understanding that enables people to adapt to changing circumstances while maintaining a sense of authenticity, is the integration of Christianity with customary practices. Fairwind's new drum dance, like the original dream dance of Anishinaabeg in Minnesota and Wisconsin, readily incorporated references to Christianity. Fairwind also held ceremonies on Sunday that he initiated with the ringing of a bell; According to Adam Owen of Pauingassi (in translation), ‘on Sundays they would have a church but he [Adam] never understood what kind of a church it was. They just followed him [Fairwind]. They just called it church. It's all in the same gift from that drum’ (in Matthews 1993). Upon hearing this story, Roger Roulette remarked, ‘as I understand it, usually there was a clean border [between Aboriginal and Christian faiths] … For instance, Christianity has its place and traditional native culture has its own, and it seemed like never shall the two meet. But for some reason, here they are connected — connected so much so that people can't tell the difference’ (in Matthews 1993). Hamilton, citing Susan Gray (2006), provides the example of adoption of Christianity within a traditional, animist worldview in the conversion story of Betsy Patrick of Berens River (outside of Pimachiowin Aki) (2010: 18-19). When she was a girl, Betsy Patrick had a dream in which she was being offered the gift of healing but was frightened and ran back to the world of the waking, in which she embraced Christianity. As Hamilton explains, she understood that she had declined a gift of power which she (at least implicitly) acknowledged as real; she made a conscious choice that did not involve a denial of that parallel world, but rather, a decision to follow a different path. This offers a valuable metaphor for us to understand how some Ojibwe people accepted and integrated aspects of a foreign culture, but in a characteristically Ojibwe frame of reference (2010: 19). This is an illustration of how ‘Christianity appears to have been an addition to [people’s] operating Ojibwe cosmology rather than a negation of it’ (Matthews & Roulette 2010a: 35).
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A final example of the syncretic possibilities in the Anishinaabe worldview is found in the woodlands art tradition, most often associated with Norval Morrisseau4 (Robertson 2010). The ‘pictographic style’ of woodlands art, widely known within Anishinaabe communities (Robertson 2010: 12), is associated with petroglyphs and pictographs (including birch scrolls) dating back some 5,000 years or more to the early Shield Archaic tradition (see pages 2-3 of this report) and especially the ritual practices of the Midewiwin, or ‘Grand Medicine Society’ (Steinbring 2010: 3, 5). Morrisseau, born at Sandy Lake in the 1950s, was raised in the oral traditions of Anishinaabe culture and the ritual practices of the Midewewin society; his style reflects the aesthetic of (sacred) Midewewin scrolls (see p.6 above & p.15 below): heavy black outline, interior segmentation of forms revealing interior forms (so-called ‘X-Ray’ style), and ‘power lines’ linking the spirits of different beings in an image. Morrisseau is also associated with the ‘signature split circular forms that represent the sun and moon and relate to the Anishinaabe creation story of Megis or cowrie shell’ (Robertson 2010: 6) — see Matthews and Roulette (2010: 44-47) for this story. Woodland art has been recognised internationally since the late 1960s, with numerous exhibitions mounted in the United States and Europe, Japan and South America (Robertson 2010: 17-18). Morrisseau and Carl Ray, a colleague from Sandy Lake, worked together on a mural commissioned for the ‘Indians of Canada’ pavilion at Expo '67 (Robertson 2010: 10), a landmark in Canadian history. Formalisation of the woodland art tradition began in 1973 with the formation of the Professional Native Indian Artists Incorporated (or ‘Indian Group of Seven’) which included, among others: Morisseau, Daphne Odjig (Wikwemikong), Carl Ray (Sandy Lake), Alex Janvier (Alberta), Jackson Beardy (Garden Hill) (Robertson 2010: 13). Also in 1973, the Triple K Cooperative was opened in Red Lake. Named after the last names of three brothers (Joshim, Henry and Goyce Kakegamic), the Triple K Cooperative was established to produce high-quality, limited edition silk screen prints ‘in the belief that Aboriginal artists should control all phases of their art production, from the design conception through to the marketing of the final product’ (Red Lake Regional Heritage Centre 2008). Triple K members included Paddy Peters, Barry Peters (both of Pikangikum), and Norval Morrisseau. Mario Peters, son of Barry Peters, and Christian Morrisseau, son of Norval Morrisseau, are examples of youth carrying on the traditions of the Woodland style today (Robertson 2010: 20-21). The Woodland style continues to be a source of pride (healing) and income for young Anishinaabe artists in Pimachiowin Aki; it has become ‘integral to Anishinaabe popular culture’ (Robertson 2010: 19-20). While originally motivated by ancient teachings, the woodlands art tradition is used today to express ‘sacred teachings, express colonial ills, and offer a commentary on issues facing Indigenous peoples today’ (Robertson 2010: 1). In closing, the recent Aboriginal history of the Pimachiowin Aki area is marked by constant change and adaptation originating in both the creative capacity of Anishinaabeg and the pressure of influences outside of Pimachiowin Aki. Dunning, speaking of Pikangikum in 1959, remarked how, in spite a myriad of external influences, ‘Pekangekum society — unlike any other Ojibwe society recorded in the ethnographic literature — has not been overwhelmed by the foreign milieu. Rather, the social structure has become adjusted to these changes’ (1959: 20). Hamilton too remarks how ‘Aboriginal culture continues to flourish despite escalating assimilative pressures, in large measure because of an enduring relationship with the land’ (Hamilton 2010: 1). The specific nature of this ‘enduring relationship with the land’ is the subject of the remainder of this Documentation Summary.
4 Much of the report by Robertson (2010) focuses on the life and career of individual artists, which is not within the scope of this Summary and is therefore omitted. page 8 of 65
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B. Relationship to Aki – Worldview Anishinaabe spirituality, language, beliefs, traditional knowledge and customary governance provide holistic connectedness to the land (Aki ). Pimachiowin Aki Statement of Outstanding Universal Value (October 1, 2010)
The organisation of content in this Part of the Documentation Summary is based on key themes/topics identified in the Cultural Landscape Study: B1. Introduction to the Anishinaabe world of Spirit (in which certain aspects of the spiritual outlook of Anishinaabeg are presented in order to provide background to the more detailed aspects that are covered in subsequent sections); B2. Language as a Window to the Anishinaabe Worldview (in which is discussed how certain aspects of the Anishinaabe language reflect a unique Anishinaabe worldview); B3. Oral Traditions and Cultural Continuity (in which is discussed the ways knowledge is carried forward in an oral culture); and, B4. Relationships with Other Beings (in which the preceding sections are brought together to explain Anishinaabe perspectives on how people fit within a world shared by and negotiated with a whole range of other beings).
B1. INTRODUCTION TO THE ANISHINAABE WORLD OF SPIRIT An introduction to the Anishinaabe worldview can begin with understanding the term ‘sacred’, which gets very much use in writing about Aboriginal peoples (but does not appear at all in Matthews and Roulette 2010a). From an anthropological point of view, the term ‘sacred’ denotes the separation of life into sacred and profane spaces; being sacred does not mean ‘spiritually important’ but something that is, for spiritual reasons, set apart from the day-to- day understanding and practice of life [sacred < Latin sacrare, ‘to set apart as holy’]. During the land use planning phase for the Whitefeather Forest, Pikangikum elders resisted identification of various places as ‘sacred sites’ since although they were associated with special spiritual understandings of the land, it was the traditional processes associated with people's engagement with the site that explained why a site was considered important, not the inherent qualities of the site itself (if indeed sites on an Anishinaabe cultural landscape could be said to have any inherent qualities without reference to people and other spiritual beings). This is why the elders had trouble accepting inclusion in protected areas of places they identified as important to them would validate or maintain their importance; the importance of the places was in their role in spiritual/cultural processes understood by Pikangikum people, not in the places being set aside to be either unused (their understanding of a Park) or in being enjoyed (for recreation and tourism) by others who don't understand the traditional processes associated with the places. There certainly are sites where people are not supposed to go, or are only to go, for reasons that are associated with what we can reasonably understand as being part of a spiritual order. Matthews and Roulette mention a hilltop in Pauingassi where some animate (sacred?) stones were located and therefore the site was only to be used for purposes associated with the stones (2010b: 37 fn. 18). In such cases, where the reason for setting the site apart from normal activities is to reserve the site for specific ceremonial activities, it is not unreasonable to use the term ‘sacred site’. However, it is not correct to call all places associated with what we see as spiritual processes or phenomena, ‘sacred sites’ since very many of such sites (e.g., living thunderbird nests or grandfather stones) are not marked off only for ceremonial
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Pimachiowin Aki Cultural Documentation Summary October 7, 2011 activities that occur only at certain times. As Matthews has suggested, ‘We are not talking about sacred places, really … “Sacred” is just one of those English words that stereotypically leaps to mind’ (1995: 9). This issue of sacred sites is raised here specifically because of its relevance in the World Heritage context. Another, related, issue fundamental to understanding the Anishinaabe world of spirit is that the Anishinaabe worldview ‘cannot be comprehended in terms of a natural-supernatural dichotomy of being because these categories are inseparable in Ojibwe thought … The core of their religion lies in the characteristic forms taken by the interpersonal relations they seek to maintain between themselves and other than human beings’ (Hallowell 1992: 81, cited in Brown 2010: 15-16; see also Hallowell 1992: 64). Much of Part B of this report is devoted to unpacking this dense statement by Hallowell. As Matthews and Roulette explain, ‘mythic beings are not confined to another or an ancient world’; they appear in dreams and visions, in rituals, and even in ‘everyday’ encounters, although they may appear in a variety of forms which makes it difficult to know their true nature (Matthews and Roulette 2010a: 6). For the Anishinaabeg, dreams are an important context in which people are given guidance and special powers by other beings. Matthews and Roulette provide an example from Jacob Owen of Pauingassi who recounted a dream in which he met a memegwesi (a semi-human rock-dweller) whom he regularly observed sitting at a certain rapids; the memegwesi instructed Jacob to offer tobacco to a Thunderbird, introducing him to the Thunderbirds (controllers of rain, thunder and lightening/fire) in general and one in particular that would become his personal spirit-helper (Matthews and Roulette 2010a: 24- 26). Interaction with these kinds of spirit beings is ordinarily accompanied by some ceremony, although perhaps something as procedurally simple as lighting tobacco for Thunderbirds or leaving gifts for memegwesi and grandfather stones. Smoke is particularly important in communicating with spirit-beings since, ‘when smoke dissipates in the air it is thought to be passing into the other sphere and is thus used to send messages and is offered as a gift in order to direct the attention of the spirits to those who make the offering’ (Matthews and Roulette 2010a: 8). Offering of tobacco smoke is therefore an important element in highly formalised ceremonies as well since it ‘[marks] out the space into which the spirit beings [are] invited … when the smoke drifts up and disappears it is thought to have crossed the barrier between planes of existence, whereupon the spirits receive it as a formal invitation to attend the ceremony’ (Matthews & Roulette 2003 [3]5). In sum, there are, in the Anishinaabe world of spirit, ceremonies that are highly formalised and set aside in ritual spaces reserved (or created) for such occasions.6 The example of Fairwind's drum dance, discussed in Part A (pp. 5-6), is one such ceremony; as are the ceremonies described by Matthews and Roulette (2010b: 18-23) in which ‘a particular place was claimed by a spirit being on behalf of a clan for a ceremonial institution. The land is thus designated permanently for ceremonial activity’ (Matthews and Roulette 2010b: 33). But these are not the only places where the lives of spirit beings intersect with the lives of Anishinaabeg; these other beings might be encountered at any time on the land or in one's dreams. Since the form of ceremony has varied and continues to vary considerably throughout the Pimachiowin Aki region, the focus of the remainder of Part B of this Documentation Summary will be on the
5 The document provided through the Pimachiowin Aki Corporation did not have page numbers. The number in square parentheses is the page number once page numbers are inserted but pagination may vary in other people's copies so this number should be taken as an approximation for the location of material cited in Matthews & Roulette (2003). 6 In this Documentation Summary no attempt is made to list or distinguish between the various historical or contemporary ceremonies. page 10 of 65
Pimachiowin Aki Cultural Documentation Summary October 7, 2011 qualitative attributes of Anishinaabe worldview, not the specific details of ritual practices that reveal this worldview. This introduction to Part B cannot be closed without some mention of the Creator, a topic which gets almost no treatment in the Pimachiowin Aki Cultural Landscape Study. Matthews and Roulette suggest, citing Hallowell (1934), that the Creator, ‘the owner of all’, is very infrequently mentioned by Anishinaabeg in part because it is considered inappropriate to use a person's name in their presence, which for the Creator is everywhere, all the time (2010a: 7). While this may have been true in 1934, there are certainly today very many direct references to the Creator that are important to understand. In the First Nations Accord (PRFN et al. 2002), the vision of the five First Nations ‘is based on an acknowledgement that the Creator, the maker of all, placed us on our ancestral lands where we have lived since time immemorial … The Creator has given us the responsibility to protect and care for the lands on which we were placed’. Similar statements can be found in the Pikangikum land use plan: ‘The Creator made this land, the water and everything living and non-living. Nothing living can be sustained without the Creator; we have been given the very life we possess as well as our Aboriginal way of life as a precious gift from the Creator’ (PFN & OMNR 2006: 3); and in the draft Pauingassi land use plan: ‘The Creator gave us a responsibility to protect and care for the lands that have sustained us for hundreds of years’ (Pauingassi F.N. 2010: 13).
B2. LANGUAGE AS A WINDOW TO THE ANISHINAABE WORLDVIEW In this section there will be no discussion of topics that are more strictly within a linguist's frame of reference and are therefore beyond the scope of this Documentation Summary; for example, details of Ojibwe grammar such as the use of animate and inanimate noun classes (genders) or other aspects of Ojibwe/Algonquian syntax (as in Matthews et al. 2010: 10-16). Neither will the Summary consider the causal inter-relationships between language and worldview, including how the specific form of a language structures the way people think (broadly referred to as linguistic relativity). The focus here will be only on how certain key cultural principles in the Anishinaabe worldview are expressed in the Anishinaabe language (Anishinaabemowin).
INDETERMINACY Anyone who has worked in the Anishinaabe communities of Pimachiowin Aki will understand the statement by Matthews et al. that ‘the Anishinaabeg are particularly cautious about being categorical about the course of events or the nature of things … In Ojibwe it is natural to speak conditionally or speculatively rather than categorically, thus leaving the future contingent’ (2010: 9-10). As a kind of linguistic precautionary principle, ‘Ojibwe speakers are often surprisingly conditional even when describing events they have witnessed first hand given the possibility of encountering dream spirits’ (Matthews & Roulette 2010a: 8). As Brown & Brightman suggest, ‘familiar entities animate or inanimate (stones, for example) may prove to have surprising properties. It is unwise to make up one’s mind too soon about any object of perception; it may have hidden attributes and could later reveal itself to be quite different’ (1988: 120, cited in Matthews & Roulette 2010a: 9). The example of stones that ‘prove to have surprising properties’ is treated in some length by Matthews & Roulette (2010a: 22-28); see also the discussion of ‘Rocks and Stones’ by Hallowell, reproduced in Brown (2010) as Appendix 2. Citing Hallowell's discussions with a medicine man at Little Grand Rapids, Matthews et al. describe how the man had observed, in a page 11 of 65
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Midewiwin ceremony, a stone that rolled around the tent, following the path of the ceremony leader; the movement was not, however, of the stone's own volition but ‘a demonstration of magic power on the part of the Midé’ (2010: 26).7 Other kinds of stones do have volition, notably those known as grandfather stones, that are often found perched on stone outcrops along waterways. Matthews et al. make reference to grandfather stones (2010: 22) but there is insufficient detail to be clear on the meaning of this kind of stone. In Pikangikum there is a story of how a grandfather stone was once pushed into the water by an unbelieving non-Aboriginal man and later returned to its original resting place; the stone is described as having the ability to move of its own volition. Given the uncertainty about the true nature of stones, and their potential ability to act of their own volition, the following account by Elder Matthew Strang of Pikangikum (in translation8) is a good illustration of why Anishinaabeg tend to avoid being categorical: When I was young, the area across the lake had been burned and we used to go over there to collect blueberries. The women would collect berries and we boys would go up the stream where we found a cliff. We made a game of taking big rocks and throwing them off the cliff. We got in a lot of trouble about that from those women. They said that those rocks one day would surprise us by getting even with us (Miller 2010: 112). Hallowell suggests that this understanding of stones having the potential for agency does not mean Anishinaabeg believe all stones are alive, or invested with spirit; that is, that Anishinaabeg are animist (Matthews et al. 2010: 14-15). Rather, ‘the Ojibwa recognize, a priori, potentialities for animation in certain classes of objects under certain circumstances. The Ojibwa do not perceive stones, in general, as animate, any more than we do. The crucial test is experience’ (Hallowell 1960: 25 cited in Matthews et al. 2010: 26). In sum, as Matthews et al. suggest, ‘Ojibwe beliefs and concomitant communicative conventions prescribe more cautiousness than speakers of English typically show’ (2010: 8). Speakers of English often tend toward over-certainty since self-assuredness is cultural valued more than caution and hence our questions are often phrased in ways that demand categorical answers, making it difficult for Ojibwe speakers to formulate a satisfactory answer. This cautiousness, it should be stressed, reflects an appreciation of the ambiguity of reality and therefore the importance of specificity in speech, not an inability to be precise. As Roger Roulette reminds us, among Anishinaabeg ‘one ought to be very meticulous in speech which designates something’ (Matthews et al. 2010: 45). See also Matthews et al. (2010: 7-8) on the use of qualifying phrases that indicate the importance of precision in speech. Additional illustration will be provided for how ‘in Ojibwe it is natural to speak conditionally or speculatively rather than categorically’ (Matthews et al. 2010: 10), especially when it comes to dealing with other beings on the land or in the spirit realm, since there is always ‘the possibility that anything might really be something else’ (Matthews et al. 2010: 9).
7 The subject of the Midewiwin (Grand Medicine Society) is touched on only briefly in several places in this report but receives more sustained discussion both explicitly and implicitly throughout Matthews & Roulette (2010a), Matthews & Roulette (2010b) and Matthews et al. (2010). 8 All of the quotations from Pikangikum elders presented here, whether the quotations have been published or not, are based on oral translations made during interviews and meetings. They are not the result of detailed consideration of recordings or transcripts to obtain the kind of precision and nuance in meaning that is found in work that has benefited from consideration by trained linguists (e.g., Matthews et al. 2010). page 12 of 65
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ANIMACY & PERSONHOOD Much time is spent, in both Matthews et al. (2010) and Matthews & Roulette (2010a), discussing the importance of grammatical animacy for reflecting the worldview of Anishinaabeg of Pimachiowin Aki; the ‘possibility that anything might really be something else’ is reflected in a grammar that directly expresses an understanding of the ability of a multitude of entities that possess life (i.e. are ‘animate’, a term not defined in the Pimachiowin Aki Cultural Landscape Study). However, as suggested by the case of the stones mentioned in the previous sub-section, not all entities that are considered animate have agency; that is, they cannot all act of their own volition or ‘cause events to happen’ (Matthews & Roulette 2010b: 15, fn. 7). Those objects such as stones, ‘that are typically grammatically inanimate’, become animate when ‘they are imbued with spiritual power in association with an animating manidoo, spirit’ (Matthews et al. 2010: 11); that is, it is the spirit being which, in a particular context, animates the object, not that the object itself has life. The significance of animacy, apart from the issues of indeterminacy already discussed, is the way in which treating certain entities as grammatically animate requires Ojibwe speakers to then consider the animate entity as having qualities of personhood similar in certain ways to those held by Anishinaabeg (Brown 2010: 12,17). Hallowell provides the example of a man in Little Grand Rapids who was reported to have spoken with a stone; for Hallowell, the man’s ‘use of speech as a mode of communication raises the animate status of the boulder to the level of social interaction common to human beings’ (Matthews et al. 2010: 25-26). In other words, objects that are considered to have the status of personhood require being addressed using patterns of speech common between Anishinaabeg, including the use of kinship terms to address the object. The stone in question was suspected to be associated with the Midewiwin, which is why it was questioned, and as such was potentially a ritual helper or relative, wiikaanan (Matthews & Roulette 2010b: 18). The status of ritual helper is qualitatively different from that of other animate entities that are part of ritual; both the pipe and tobacco used to invite the spirits ‘would be categorically alive. They play a ceremonial role and are linguistically animate, while the smoke (bate[wan]) is a decidedly separate entity and is not animate’ (Matthews & Roulette 2003: [3]). However, the pipe is brought to life by the user and does not have agency independent of the person using it; it is animate but not possessing the capacity for volition (or agency) and therefore not attributed with personhood. Drums, on the other hand, when they are ritual relatives, wiikaaniwag, ‘are treated socially as though they are alive. A form of personhood and a degree of agency is attributed to them’ (Matthews et al. 2010: 19). Personhood is also reflected in the term ‘wiikaanan’, which connotes a personal relationship between two beings, similar to or the same as the relationship between two people who participate in ritual together (Matthews & Roulette 2010b: 15-16, 19). The mythic beings, aadizookaanag, such as Thunderbirds, are considered to ‘participate in the social and mental life of ordinary human beings’ and hence ‘may be thought of as persons and classificatory relatives. Such beings are often referred to as “our grandfathers” and they may address human beings as “grandchild” or “younger sibling”’ (Matthews and Roulette 2010a: 6; Matthews & Roulette 2003: 8). As ‘persons’, these other-than-human beings (Hallowell’s term for the aadizookaanag), are also associated with a general Anishinaabe ‘reticence to use names in direct address, since to know someone’s name is to potentially have power over him or her’ (Matthews et al. 2010: 9). This is why Anishinaabeg, ‘as an act of respect and caution’, avoid the use of a person’s name in favour of an expression such as ‘my friend’ or ‘my younger sibling’, or a nickname (Matthews et al. 2010: 9). In recounting his dream of the memegwesi who introduced him to the Thunderbirds (page 6 above), Pauingassi Elder Jacob Owen described how he made a grave error in using the term page 13 of 65
Pimachiowin Aki Cultural Documentation Summary October 7, 2011 for Thunderbird, binesii, in the presence of the Thunderbird (Matthews & Roulette 2010a: 24- 26): ‘at that point I didn’t know what to say; I didn’t know what was happening, I didn’t know what was going on. So I made an error … I called him Binesi. And this Binesi got very angry with me. He says, “I don’t like to be called Binesi. Don’t you know me?”’ (Matthews 1995: 5). In Section B4, more will be said about the aadizookaanag and the importance of appropriate behaviour in addressing and interacting with other beings.
B3. ORAL TRADITIONS AND CULTURAL CONTINUITY This Section covers the ways knowledge is transmitted through the generations in the context of an oral culture. Emphasis will be placed on outlining the processes and techniques of knowledge transfer rather than trying to detail the specific content of Anishinaabe oral traditions in the Pimachiowin Aki area.
MEMORY One of the most remarkable traits possessed by people from oral cultures is their ability to recall details from memory. As Matthews & Roulette explain, ‘the subject of memory (minjimendamowin) is a vital one for Ojibwe speakers and centres on a concern about accurate renditions of maps, stories, history and essential news’ (2010b: 28). In Anishinaabe culture, one of the ways children get an early training in memory forming is to be taught or told things only once, and then chastised when forgetting. Especially important to aiding memory formation and recall is the attachment of memories to specific places on the land so that specific elements of the landscape are able to evoke specific teachings which have some association with the place (Matthews & Roulette 2010b: 27); such teachings may be about navigation, animal behaviour or habitat, the activities of legendary figures, personal or family history, or moral precepts. In this way, ‘the mention of a particular place becomes a kind of verbal shorthand for the story, an oblique way to refer to the moral lesson which derives from the telling of a particular story’ (Matthews & Roulette 2010b: 27). Anishinaabeg are trained from a young age to recall sites associated with specific teachings through a memory exercise called mikawiwin, in which children are ‘taught to fix particular landscapes in their mind. They stand in one spot and rotate 360 degrees while focussing their attention on the sights, sounds, smells and feel of the place. These observations become vivid multi-dimensional memories that can be brought to mind on demand’ (Matthews & Roulette 2010b: 27). In addition, when people are travelling in the bush they will tell stories as they pass particular sites and in this way, ‘the sites themselves provide the impulse to relate the story and thus in their way ensure the survival of the story which gives the site social meaning’ (Matthews & Roulette 2010b: 27). Matthews & Roulette go on to suggest that, by linking sites with cultural knowledge, ‘the landscape becomes a social actor, in this case, evoking memories and eliciting stories’ (2010b: 28). Knowledge in this context is therefore necessarily tied to the land, as understood within Anishinaabe culture; it cannot be abstracted out of the context in which the personal and collective memories were formed (see Part A, p. 10). This is why the late Pikangikum Elder Jake Kejick said that research on Pikangikum indigenous knowledge must be done on the land: ‘We must go on the land to learn, to bring into light our knowledge so that it can be seen at work’ (O’Flaherty et al. 2008).
HISTORY IN THE LAND Memory and oral history are also closely tied to the way in which memorable acts link people and places. As Matthews and Roulette explain, ‘a memorable act creates a social identity for a page 14 of 65
Pimachiowin Aki Cultural Documentation Summary October 7, 2011 particular place and instantiates a shared social understanding of clan or ceremonial associations. The place becomes both a known, stable geographic reference point and a mnemonic prompt. These are the types of places which are committed to memory in the mikawiwin exercise’ (Matthews & Roulette 2010b: 31-32). Further, recitation of stories involving memorable acts at specific sites provides a way of ‘confirming the history of a territorial claim … [including] … territorial hunting and gathering rights. Thus stories about the remarkable things that deceased family members might have done at particular places constitute a claim for present and future hunting access and control’ (Matthews & Roulette 2010b: 34). In sum, Ojibwe place names (toponymy) invest the land with the personal and collective histories of the Anishinaabeg who travel through and make use of the land; landscape features are rarely if ever given names to commemorate individuals (as in the Berens River) but to recall the actions and experiences of people, including spirit beings invested with personhood, as a way of documenting the history and experience of the people associated with the area, which may be as simple as describing the topography or plant life found in the area (see Brown 2010: 19-26). For example, Nungesser Lake in the Whitefeather Forest is called by Pikangikum people ‘New Trees Lake’ (.Zhghmn0hmhU), it seems, in reference to a post-fire landscape observed there by Anishinaabeg; in contrast, it seems French aviator Charles Nungesser had never travelled through northwestern Ontario and therefore had no tangible association with the lake named after him. By investing the land with memorable names, Anishinaabeg in effect create a ‘mental map’ that describes the natural and cultural features of the land (Brown 2010: 7-8); they are creating an Anishinaabe cultural landscape. A Pikangikum elder, in a planning meeting for the Whitefeather Forest, related why a certain lake was called Shining in the Distance Lake (.bn9fa7mnoH): someone had come across the north portage, on his way to Red Lake, and when paddling across the lake saw something on the far shoreline, shining in the distance; when he paddled closer he discovered that it was in fact another man’s penis, shining in the distance. The lake’s name is translated in the Whitefeather Forest cultural landscape atlas as ‘Shining Lake’ and registered with the OMNR as ‘Shining in the Distance Lake’ (see PFN & OMNR 2006: 88), presumably in both cases out of modesty, but the elder who related the story said the lake was in fact called ‘Shining Penis in the Distance Lake’. The ‘memorable event’ associated with the lake, although only related in bare detail, no doubt made for a great story that when retold served to fix an image of something important in the minds of the listeners.
BIRCH SCROLLS Although ‘it would be hard to overstate the importance of landscape in Anishinaabe memory practice, there are also evocative Ojibwe objects which were specifically about remembering, and were part of the process of passing along knowledge to others over distance and time’ (Matthews & Roulette 2010b: 30). Among these objects are birch bark scrolls, now no longer used in the Pimachiowin Aki area. These scrolls had images inscribed into the bark that cued the reader to recall details of navigation, history, ritual practice, the lyrics and music of ceremonial songs, and other practices (Matthews & Roulette 2010b: 30). An example of the content and purpose of a scroll is ‘The Travels of the Bear’ scroll which tells the history of the Midewiwin and in so doing, the geography of the Bear’s route: originating in Europe, across the salt water, up the St. Lawrence River and through the Great Lakes (including Lake Michigan), past Kakabeka Falls near Thunder Bay and, with increasing precision, up the Rainy River to Leech Lake, Minnesota (Matthews & Roulette 2010b: 30-31; see 43-47 for the more full version).
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Birch scrolls are among those sacred objects that are considered alive and are able to speak to people, even after they have been buried and are no longer in use (Matthews & Roulette 2010b: 37; Matthews et al. 2010: 39); this suggests they have agency outside their use by people since they ‘have the same kind of concrete personhood which marks them out as animate and communicative’ (Matthews & Roulette 2010b: 37). Birch bark scrolls are interesting, in part because ‘orality has been so emphasised for the aboriginal people of the northern boreal forest that written communication is unexpected (Matthews et al. 2010: 40).9 Matthews, et al. even suggest there may be a link between the proficiency for reading syllabics developed among elders in Pauingassi and Pikangikum, and a pre-existing experience with literacy in the mnemonic scripts of the birch bark scrolls (2010: 4). In the Pimachiowin Aki context, the scrolls are interesting as material evidence of an evolving Anishinaabe cultural landscape and can be linked to the practice of painting pictographs (Steinbring 2010: 6). The scrolls, like the stories of memorable acts, express attachment to land in ways that are historical and personal; they guide understanding of how people are to survive on the land in ways that respect the land as a social landscape inhabited by a multitude of beings with varying degrees of personhood (Matthews & Roulette 2010b: 35, 37-38).
ORAL TEACHINGS Oral traditions are an important means of carrying forward teachings on everything from land use knowledge, to history, appropriate behaviour and moral precepts. For example, Matthews, et al. refer to a story by late Pikangikum Elder Normal Quill of a counsel of the animals convened by the culture hero Wiiskejaak to determine how many moons/months there should be in a single winter. One of the lessons of the story is the dangers of vanity: the caribou, for example, wishes to have as many moons as s/he10 has ‘hundreds of hairs’, which is met with derision by the other animals who remind caribou s/he ‘would be so weakened over such a long winter that even the mindimooyeg, “the old women,” would be able to hunt him down and club him to death’ (Quill 1965, cited in Matthews et al. 2010: 41-43). Another late Pikangikum elder, Whitehead Moose, told a story of a boy who was kidnapped and raised by a bear family, only to have his human father hunt down and kill the bear father, in effect the boy’s real father (adoption is common in Ojibwe society and the kinship system does not over-stress the importance of blood-relatedness as we do); when the boy who was raised by bears, now a full-grown man, returned to human society he shared what he had learned from the bears (in O’Flaherty et al. 2009: 30-31). Through this story there is a description of details on bear behaviour, an explanation of human kinship with bears, and an understated admonition to exercise humility in acknowledgement of human debt to bears; not to mention a reminder that ‘anything might really be something else’ (Matthews et al. 2010: 9). As Roger Roulette has explained, ‘in Anishinaabe philosophy we don’t believe in luck nor do we believe in coincidences … Everything is supposed to have a purpose. And stories, legends and little expressions all lend to the idea of understanding theses rules of conduct, protocol and even laws’ (Matthews & Roulette 2010a: 29). For this reason, Matthews & Roulette describe stories concerning medicine and healing as ‘essentially forms of preventive medicine’ since
9 It seems fair to note that the scrolls are mnemonic devices for oral presentations, not works of writing, and therefore, for the purposes of this Summary, are a part of the oral traditions of Anishinaabeg. 10 This is not an attempt to be politically correct but an observance of Ojibwe grammar, which does not distinguish between male and female pronouns (Matthews et al. 2010: 13); in this story there is no gender attributed to the caribou. page 16 of 65
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‘the breaking of moral rules is thought to be the principle cause of illness and misfortune’ (Matthews & Roulette 2010a: 29). One of these moral rules already mentioned is not speaking about a person, which includes spirit beings, or using their name in their presence; this moral rule accounts for why much of story telling takes place in winter: two key figures in Anishinaabe oral tradition are the frog, omakakii, who hibernates during the winter, and the Thunderbird, which migrates south with the ‘other birds’11; it is therefore only during the winter that the frog and Thunderbird are unable to hear the stories being told about them (Matthews et al. 2010: 43). Stories and legends remain an important part of the oral traditions and worldview of Anishinaabe people in Pimachiowin Aki; moreover, many of the ‘subtle, traditional literary features [that] have been lost in less robust dialects of Anishinaabemowin … remain a rich part of the rhetorical art of the Anishinaabeg in the Pimachiowin Aki area’ (Matthews et al. 2010: 43).
B4. RELATIONS WITH OTHER BEINGS In this Section we can begin to bring together the various matters already discussed in this Part B of the Documentation Summary to better understand how Anishinaabeg in the Pimachiowin Aki area situate themselves within a network of beings with whom they share the land. These relations are formed and reproduced most notably in the context of livelihood and ceremonial practices. In this Section we will review the principle spirit beings discussed in the Cultural Landscape Study, their role in the lives of the living, both human and non-human, and the forms of behaviour required of Anishinaabeg, by virtue of their relations with other beings, in order to ensure Anishinaabeg survival on the land.
SPIRIT BEINGS | OTHER-THAN-HUMAN BEINGS The other-than-human beings, or the spirit beings of legend, have been around before there were Anishinaabeg (Matthews & Roulette 2007: 5). They have the ability to help or harm Anishinaabeg and as such are central to Anishinaabe survival and the Anishinaabe achievement of a good life (see p. 24). There is no need, or space, to discuss all mythic beings but we can summarise details in the Cultural Landscape Study related to the interactions between mythic beings and Anishinaabeg. In Ahishinaabemowin, spirit beings are known as aadizookaanag; the ‘general term for divine beings or those who have qualities of divinity, including the animal spirits, and for the mythic characters of the winter legends’ (Matthews & Roulette 2003: [17] notes). Matthews and Roulette note that ‘it is possible for a person, given a remarkable life and the passage of time, to become one of the aadizookaanag (Matthews & Roulette 2003: [17] notes) but these people, among whom can be included Fairwind, will not be discussed here. Discussed briefly are: Thunderbirds, Wiisakejack, memengwesiwag and the ‘animal bosses’. Binesiwag (Thunderbirds) are, apart from the Creator, ‘the most powerful spirit-entities in the Ojibwe pantheon’ (Matthews & Roulette 2010a: 10). While Thunderbids are known to all Anishinaabeg in Pimachiowin Aki through the telling of legends and explanations for rain, lightening storms and fire, ‘most Ojibwe people do not expect to see a Thunderbird, even in their dreams’ (Matthews & Roulette 2010a: 36). To be visited by a Thunderbird in ones dreams is associated with the bestowal of great powers; for example, the renowned healing powers of Fairwind (Naamiwan) were attributed to a dream visit by a Thunderbird that offered to act as Fairwind’s ritual partner (see Part C, pp. 43-44).
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According to Petch, certain petroforms (and presumably she is referring to Thunderbird nests) in the Pimachiowin Aki area are understood by Anishinaabeg to have been built by spirit beings (Thunderbirds) ‘for the purpose of instruction to the people and were used in ceremonies related to the Midewiwin’ (2010: 34). There are many legends about Thunderbirds; one, in part an epic love story, explains how Anishinaabeg married Thunderbird women (Matthews & Roulette 2010a: 14-15; see also Miller 2010: 152-154 for a more complete version). This legend teaches of the kinship between Thunderbirds and Anishinaabeg and explains the affinity and affection Thunderbirds have for Anishinaabeg. It is this affection that is appealed to in ceremony: when tobacco smoke is offered to Thunderbirds during a violent storm, for example, it is accompanied by words such as ‘that’s enough, you scare the children’ (Matthews & Roulette 2010a: 21,23). According to Roger Roulette, ‘without the Thunderbirds there wouldn’t be life as we know it. Without them caring for the earth, without them caring for the people, I think—according to Ojibwe tradition—humanity wouldn’t be as we know it without this life force’ (Matthews 1995: 11). That ‘life is a gift of Thunderbirds’ is evident in the way healing (in Midewiwin ritual, under the guidance of Thunderbirds) is spoken of as ‘the gift of life’ and ‘to be saved from death’ (Matthews & Roulette 2010a: 18). In Pikangikum, Thunderbirds (binesiwag) are primarily described as the bringer of rains and fire/lightening, both important sources of life on a boreal landscape. As Miller notes (2010: 130, fn. 3), this view contradicts Hallowell’s claim that ‘the Saulteaux [Anishinaabe] resist the notion advanced by the whites, particularly by the men of the Forestry Service, that lighting causes forest fires … Pinesi would not do that’ (cited in Brown and Gray 2009: 189). Jennifer Brown (in Miller 2010: 130, fn. 3) suggests this may be a case of syncretism in which the traditional understandings of lightning recorded by Hallowell have been integrated with the perspectives of foresters, fire managers and ecologists with whom they have come into contact since the time of Hallowell. This would be in keeping with the assertion by Matthews and Roulette that ‘contemporary Ojibwe people have shown a tremendous aptitude for apprehending modern ecological concerns and have thus adapted and incorporated [into their worldview] scientific understandings of nature which complement their existing ecological ideas’ (2010a: 36-37). Wiisakejack, written Weeskayjahk in Pikangikum’s Roman orthography (OMNR & PFN 2010), is a cultural hero of tremendous significance in Anishinaabe oral history. Stories about Wiisakejaak, set in ancient times, describe the actions (often comical), misfortune, wisdom and shrewdness of Wiisakejaak in his/her interactions with the land and other beings. These stories/legends refer to, and are therefore used to recall, teachings about the landscape, animal behaviour, Anishinaabe cultural practices, and the like. In this respect, as Matthews and Roulette explain, the creative powers of Wiisakejaak parallel those of the Creator (2010a: 8). The legend telling of how Wiisakejaak helped to rescue the world from a great flood by having the muskrat get earth from the depths of the water to create an island of mud that became the very land on which Anishinaabeg would inhabit (Matthews & Roulette 2010a: 4), is an illustration of Wiisakejaak’s creative powers. A more mundane illustration of Wiisakejaak’s creative powers is found in the story explaining the origins of a certain lichen that grow on large rocks, especially on shorelines, and is referred to in Pikangikum Anishinaabemowin as Weeseekayjahk ohtoomeekeeteeyahn, or ‘Weeseekayjahk’s scabs-on-ass’ (‘rock tripe’ in English, Umbilicaria mammulata). The story, as told by the late Elder Whitehead Moose of Pikangikum (February 15, 2006), is only a small part of a very long story (typical in tales of Weeseekayjahk’s antics); the part that concerns us is how Weeseekayjahk had burned his ass (translator Paddy Peters’ term) : in frustration over
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Pimachiowin Aki Cultural Documentation Summary October 7, 2011 conflict with some grouse chicks who, in retaliation, scared Weeseekayjahk from his sleep on a large stone, causing him to skid ass-first down the stone, scraping the scabs off along the way. Memegwesiwag are another class of spirit being that features very prominently in Anishinaabe oral traditions, from legends to stories of personal experience. The memegwesiwag are semi-human beings, typically described as having an appearance similar to Anishinaabeg but much shorter, and perhaps having a snout instead of a nose (Matthews et al. 2010: 32). They have a specific association with water, herbal medicines (mashkiki, which is separate from the ritual healing/medicine/‘life’ associated with the Midewiwin (Matthews et al. 2010: 28, 30, 32; Matthews & Roulette 2010b: 29)) and especially stone. In Pikangikum they are sometimes called, in English, ‘little rock people’; they are said to live within large smooth rocks and the tall rock cliffs on the edges of waterways (Matthews & Roulette 2003: 1). According to Matthews et al., the memegwesiwag taught Anishinaabeg how to make pipe stems and arrow heads from stone, and are responsible for the manufacture of ‘unusually shaped’ stone arrow heads found on the land (2010: 28). According to Percy Owen of Pauingassi, the memegwesiwag were more numerous in the ancient past, before Anishinaabeg inhabited the land, but ‘when the Anishinaabeg began to populate the world, they [memegwesiwag] started to migrate as the Anishinaabe came to inhabit areas where they formerly lived. That’s what the old men used to talk about’ (Matthews & Roulette 2007: 5). Unlike Thunderbirds, which are very rarely seen, even in dreams, memegwesiwag are more commonly seen by Anishinaabeg; or perhaps heard more commonly than seen (Matthews et al. 2010: 32). They have been seen paddling their (stone) canoes up to the rock face where they either disappear suddenly (inside) or are seen to open the rock face and enter (Matthews et al. 2010: 29-34; Matthews & Roulette 2010a: 24-6). According to Matthews et al., the memegwesiwag ‘apparently carve the cliffs to enhance their beauty and … the old ochre drawings on cliffs are attributed to memegwesiwag artistry’ (2010: 28). Petch explains that red ochre, ‘an oxidized clay pigment that was crumbled and mixed with sturgeon or other fish oils to make paint paste’, is considered a powerful medicine by the Anishinaabeg; the purpose of the pictographs, says Petch, are to act as a ‘veil through which … manitous [spirit beings] and medicine people [Midewiwin] passed into each other’s worlds’ (2010: 33-34). Indeed, there is a pictograph on Berens Lake that Pikangikum elders have described as a kind of ‘portal’ (or veil) that memegwesiwag use to travel in an instant to Mikaiami Falls (Davidson-Hunt & O’Flaherty 2011: 14). Animal bosses are those spirit beings associated with the control of specific kinds of animals (‘species’ perhaps, in our worldview). Although the term ‘boss’ does not, in English, adequately signify the kind of control these beings exercise over animals, it seem preferable to Hallowell’s ‘owners’ since their relationship to other beings has nothing to do with the English- language conceptions of property (cf. Matthews & Roulette (2003: [12]) for an Ojibwe ‘concept of ownership’). The English term ‘animal bosses’ is here used because these ‘beings are not distinguishable by proper names of their own’ (Hallowell 1992: 62). Animal bosses, as spirit beings, are said to control, among other things, the abundance of a certain animal, the incidence of their appearance on the land in the presence of Anishinaabe hunters and trappers — or as Matthews & Roulette say, more correctly, ‘arrange that their physical manifestation be made available to humanity’ (2003: [12]) — as well as other behavioural attributes. This control parallels the way medicine men, together with their spirit helpers in the Midewiwin, are said to animate objects in ceremony, such as the stone that was observed to roll around (pages 11-12 above) or pipes used to offer smoke (page 13 above).
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Animal bosses are of special significance to Anishinaabeg, following Hallowell (1992), in that hunting (and presumably trapping) success depends on maintaining appropriate relations with the animal bosses. According to Hallowell, use of an animal by any human being involved an obligation to the controller of the species. Consequently, there was an implicit social relationship between the hunter and the hunter and the 'owners' of animal species … This relationship was far more vital to a man, in terms of world view, than the knowledge and skills he possessed as a hunter (Hallowell 1992: 62). This social relationship between hunter and animal boss, based as it is on ‘an obligation’, can be considered a relationship of reciprocity. There is no discussion of this reciprocity in the Cultural Landscape Study but there are some details in documentation associated with Pikangikum First Nation. In the Pikangikum context, no clear obligation to animal bosses has been expressed and documented. There is an understanding of control over animals that is outside of human hands, but in the Pikangikum view, this control is exercised by the Creator (see O’Flaherty et al. 2009: 27): ‘No one owns the animals; the Creator owns them. The Creator put them here for our livelihood. The animals were put here for us to eat’ (Quill 2004: 103). The Creator is, after all, ‘the owner of all’ (Matthews & Roulette 2010a: 6) so it is not a contradiction that the Creator is seen to ‘own’ the animals. In any event, Pikangikum elders still see other spirit beings operating underneath the Creator, although there are no documented references to animal bosses in the way Hallowell describes: ‘the Creator has to care for all animals so he sends Thunderbird to earth to make food for rabbit. We like to eat rabbit too. So he burns for us too’ (late Pikangikum elder Whitehead Moose, quoted in O’Flaherty et al. 2009: 23).
BEMAADIZIWAAD | ‘THOSE WHO HAVE LIFE’ Bemaadiziwaad are primarily the living animals and humans. In Pikangikum, the term has been written out paymahteeseewahch, as in ‘Beekahncheekahmeeng Paymahteeseewahch (“all the living ones in the past, present and future”)’ (PFN & OMNR 2006: 97). Bemaadiziwaad does not include spirit beings, which are of an entirely different order of being; bemaadiziwaad are merely ‘those who have life’ (Matthews & Roulette 2010b: 15). However, as was suggested in the introduction to this Part B, it is not appropriate to interpret the distinction between the (merely) living (bemaadiziwaad) and the spirit beings (aadizookaanag) as marking a ‘natural/supernatural’ divide since that distinction is not made in the Ojibway worldview (Hallowell 1992: 64, 81). Within the class bemaadiziwaad there is, according to Hallowell, a division between humans and animals. Human beings share with other-than-human beings the capacity for ‘intelligence, will and speech’ however plants and animals ‘do not have the attribute of speech. This is one of the reasons why the “owners” of plants and animals fall into the person class, whereas the concrete animals and plants they control do not’ (Hallowell 1992: 64). Pikangikum views, altogether more generous than Hallowell’s—who’s words above sound a little like the European worldview dating at least to the scientific rationalism of René Descartes, if not back to the Bible (2 Peter 2:12, ‘unreasoning animals’)—, grant animals a level of intellect (potentially) equivalent to that of humans: ‘I believe the caribou has knowledge … The caribou has a mind to think. Like us humans, we have minds too’ (Oliver Hill, December 15, 2006, quoted in O'Flaherty et al. 2009: 26). Furthermore, ‘those who have life’ continue to have life after death; that is, they have a spirit, or manidoo/manitoo, that passes back into the world of the spirit beings after the death of its
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Pimachiowin Aki Cultural Documentation Summary October 7, 2011 corporeal form as a living being (Matthews & Roulette 2010a: 16).12 After death, the spirits (manidoo/manitoo) of ‘those who have life’ are capable of visiting the land of the living in a different physical form, as is attested to by the appearance of the deceased in the form of small birds (Matthews & Roulette 2010a: 15-16). It is also possible for the spirit of a deceased Anishinaabe to return to join the living as a new-born baby, in which case the baby will cry incessantly until the true identity of the spirit within is identified and acknowledged. As late Elder Norman Quill explained, There are people who passed away many years ago, and people who are with us today, and there are also people who have yet to be born. When Murray was born, for example, he would cry and cry all the time. I had a dream one night while I was out on my trapline; this dream was about a young man who died many years ago— this young man was related to my mother. This man said to me in my dream, “I’ve come to live with you, to be part of your family.” I accepted him in the dream, and after that Murray didn’t cry anymore (Dec. 15, 2005, from Shearer 2008, pg. 84). In Pikangikum at least, elders suggest that the capacity for life is attributed to a very wide range of entities and this life, because it is associated with the Creator, needs to be respected at all times (however it is unclear if the possession of manidoo/manitoo means a being is one of ‘those who have life’ since that term has not been recorded or explained in research done with Pikangikum elders): [caring for the land] means respecting what has been given to us; honouring manitoo. Everything that was on the land was, in itself, manitoo; everything that was created and they knew of as Anishinaabeg. Manitoo was in everything (Elder Oliver Hill, undated transcript ca. 2005). If a living thing is alive it will not die. This is how I know that every living thing can hear us when we talk. They listen to us wherever and everywhere we go, just as we listen to each other. This is what our elders from the past told us, what they knew … the little fish, s/he lives and never usually dies; if they [fish] die we would not have any fish (Elder Gideon Peters, undated transcript ca. 2003). Everything is alive because everything is connected to the Creator. Even the dead tree across the road is alive. For example auhwaycheekay, a dead head, a log in the water is actually alive. For this reason you never point at it. Deadheads are connected to the weather conditions. It will bring bad weather, a storm. You have to respect the dead head (Elder Matthew Strang, in Miller 2010: 111).
What is unclear from the statement about deadheads and weather conditions is if deadheads are themselves capable of agency (i.e. causing storms) or if the offence taken at being pointed at is felt by the Creator, who then brings a storm (through a Thunderbird?). No doubt the issues of agency in Anishinaabe worldview are highly complex but in principle at least, according to Matthews & Roulette (2010b: 15), the matter is simple: agency is only an illusion for those who have life.
AGENCY AND SPIRIT With all the fascinating detail considered here, it is surprising that perhaps the most profound unpacking of the issue of animacy and agency is tucked away in a footnote (Matthews & Roulette 2010b: 15 fn. 7):
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Animate objects simply live; there is no presumption of volition … Our acts, even those we feel we have initiated, are not really under our control. We are simply following our fate and we are vulnerable; we can be manipulated by medicine men and aadizookaanag. They have the power to make a mockery of our intentions. It is the aadizookaanag, the spirit beings or other-than-human beings, and the medicine men who share in the powers of their spirit helpers, who possess real agency; ‘they are bemaaji'iwemagak, “those who bring life into something.” (And naturally they can also take life out of someone, onisaan.)’ (Matthews & Roulette 2010b: 15 fn. 7). Only by taken on the transformative powers of aadizookaanag are medicine men able to take on the form of different animals (Matthews & Roulette 2010a: 16); that is, they can transform while living, which is unlike the ability of a manidoo/manitoo (spirit) to appear in different forms among the living. We have already introduced the understanding that special powers are obtained from spirit beings who visit a person in their dreams, bawaaganag (Matthews & Roulette 2003: [2] & [17, notes]). As Matthews & Roulette explain, the bawaaganag identify themselves, especially during a fast or dream, as a guide or helper, and to give a person particular gifts; all people may have a bawaagan, but only those who sacrifice and fast are likely to be given gifts by their spirit helpers (2003: [17] notes). Gifts from spirit helpers are spoken of as ‘divine gifts’, passed on in a context of divine intervention (Matthews & Roulette 2010a: 18-19), although some gifts can be associated with ‘bad medicine—the kind of medicine which interferes with fate and the autonomy of living beings. Hunting medicine is bad medicine because it draws an animal to you which might otherwise have escaped. Love medicine is bad medicine because it interferes with fate; it compromises autonomy, one’s ability to make choices’ (Matthews 1995: 7). So the agency we who (merely) have life possess is like that of the drum: it is not we who animate our own lives, but some other power (in Pikangikum they might say the Creator). As Matthews and Roulette explain, for the renowned medicine man Fairwind (Naamiwan): ‘Naamiwan was/is bemaaji'iwemagak. The water drum, his ally, is bemaadizid; it simply has life. The drum has dangerous capabilities but secondary agency, the sort we mere mortals possess’ (Matthews & Roulette 2010b: 15 fn.7). It is perhaps because of this dependence on other-than-human beings that humans, in contrast to animals, have an inherent need and therefore responsibility to conduct ritual. According to Black-Rogers (1977: 143), ‘non-human persons have inherent power to live, whereas human beings receive it from spiritual sources and retain it by “offerings” and “respectful behaviour”’ (Matthews & Roulette 2010b: 15 fn. 7).
RESPECTFUL BEHAVIOUR Hamilton has stated the general principle that ‘human worthiness [of the benevolent interest of other-than-human beings] is demonstrated by following supernatural instructions (imparted in dreams) and taboos, and respecting the self-sacrifice of animal spirits by taking no more than is needed' (2010: 2-3). Thus, for the Anishinaabeg, survival requires not only knowing the lay of the land and the way of the animals, but the appropriate kinds of respectful behaviour when interacting with the other beings that inhabit the land and on which Anishinaabeg depend. Here we shall focus on the need for respectful behaviour towards other living beings (bemaadiziwaad) since the topic of offence to spirit beings, especially through speaking about or using the name of a spirit being, has been touched on already. An example of the caution required in daily activities, lest an offence to another being be committed even inadvertently, is provided by Elder Colin P. Bruce of Poplar River First Nation: ‘long time ago the Poplar River rapids were a very sacred place where the people weren’t allowed to make any kind of noises when approaching the rapids where the men were setting sturgeon nets or any kind of fish nets because it was assumed that any type of disturbance page 22 of 65
Pimachiowin Aki Cultural Documentation Summary October 7, 2011 could scare away the sturgeons’ (PRFN 2010: 12). See also WFMC (2008: 16) for a similar comment. Another aspect of livelihood practices that demonstrates respect for animals being harvested is the observance of rituals that acknowledge the animal as a fellow being, including by speaking with the spirit of the animal. Elder Daniel Bruce, also of Poplar River tells of how after killing a bear in the winter, ‘the men would take the bear’s stomach out and slice it. Then they would prepare for a ceremony. They would sit in a circle and talk to it for guidance … They also danced all night to give what the bear has provided for them in terms of guidance’ (PRFN 2010: 26). Another common practice for Anishinaabeg in Pimachiowin Aki was to acknowledge the importance of harvested animals to Anishinaabeg survival, and therefore human debt to the animal’s spirit, by ensuring no part of a harvested animal was wasted; this demonstrates the animal was not killed in vain but to fulfil an important purpose among the living. As stated in the Bloodvein River First Nation draft land use plan, ‘according to the people who use the Land for their livelihood, they viewed the Land and all its contents as a necessity. Everything that was taken had a purpose, and was to be respected at all times; in other words nothing was wasted’ (BRFN 2010: 10). As Elder Matthew Strang of Pikangikum explains, when I go into the woods and I want to make a pot of tea I cut a small green tree to hold up my tea pot over the fire. I cut the tree for a reason. That is why it is there – for me to use it like that. Afterwards I will leave it and it will maybe go back into the ahkee [aki]. Or maybe the following year I’ll return and find the stick that is now dried out and I’ll break it up and burn it in my fire making ashes. I have not disrespected the tree. I used it for a reason and that is part of why the tree is there (Miller 2010: 111).
ONJINEWIN Failure to observe respectful behaviour can result in onjinewin, which Matthews & Roulette explain is the consequence of a past wrong catching up with someone (2010b: 24). Sometime referred to, in English, as a ‘curse’ or a ‘haunting’, it is ‘the condition in which one finds oneself when one has offended some powerful being, human or non-human, and is, or should be, anticipating the consequences’; these consequences can include death and may be visited upon not only the perpetrator of an offence but their loved ones, a child for instance, or any member of the extended family or community (Matthews & Roulette (2003): [7]). It is worth recalling here the comment by Roger Roulette that, ‘in Anishinaabe philosophy we don’t believe in luck nor do we believe in coincidences’ (Matthews & Roulette 2010a: 29). Although Matthews and Roulette (2010a) refer to the incidence of onjinewin only in association with offences committed against ‘powerful beings’ (i.e. spirit beings), Pikangikum people say one can expect ohncheenaywin (onjinewin) as a consequence of offence to any being; recall Pikangikum elder Matthew Strang’s warning about pointing at deadheads as well as the warning that rocks might get even with someone throwing them (without a purpose). Elder Matthew Strang makes the point about respecting animals to avoid ohncheenaywin/onjinewin: ‘We don’t laugh at or tease any animals, we hold them with much respect, because it is not proper in our culture to tease animals, whether they are large or small. They will hear you when you don’t respect them and they will come after you, get even with you’ (Matthew Strang, February 15, 2006 in WFMC 2006: 27). On another occasion, late Pikangikum elder Whitehead Moose explained how the bear takes a crap on a road or open area to let that crap, which still contains foods such as fish and blueberries, dry out so the bear can use it to feed itself during hibernation; to this Elder Matthew Strang added, any time that you see bear shit on the road, don't ever touch it because there is a bear out there waiting for you. If you mess around with that shit, that bear is going page 23 of 65
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to come after you. Even if you are with a group of people, that bear will recognise that you are the one who disturbed his shit and that bear will only come after you (May 3, 2006 in O’Flaherty et al. 2009: 29). In sum, onjinewin is specifically associated with a failure to observe the kinds of respectful behaviour already mentioned and thereby causing offence. However, as Paddy Peters of Pikangikum explains, offence need not be intentional but also the result of not being mindful or aware of ones actions (Miller 2010: 111); hence the need for constant vigilance.
B5. CONCLUSIONS | THE GOOD LIFE According to Matthews & Roulette, ‘mino-bimaadizi, to lead a good life, is the greatest ambition of Ojibwe people and the good life includes hunting success, economic stability, good health into old age and healthy, happy children’ (2010a: 35). Leading a ‘good life’ requires, according to Hallowell (1992: 81), dependence on other-than-human persons and appropriate (respectful) behaviour towards them. And, as Hallowell has suggested, ‘The “blessings” obtained from other than human persons were never free gifts. Benefits involved reciprocal moral obligations on the part of the recipient. In principal, the relationship paralleled social interaction between human beings where rights and duties were operative” (1992:92, cited in O’Flaherty et al. 2009: 29-30). According to O’Flaherty et al. (2009: 30), Pikangikum elders have spoken of acknowledging a personal responsibility for ensuring one's behaviour does not interfere, either directly or indirectly, with the ability of other beings to make choices or to maintain their relationship with the Creator. When this duty of non-interference is achieved, the elders say ohneesheesheen (‘everything is good’), which includes having ‘good relationships’ (cheemeenooweecheeteeyaung) with other people and a ‘reverence for all creation’ (cheekeechee'eenaytauhmung) (see Shearer 2008; Shearer et al., 2009). Within the Anishinaabe worldview, the uncertainty of perception and the possibility of creating offence through one’s actions or words require careful attention to norms of appropriate behaviour when living on the land, including an attention to the need for ritual to seek guidance and powers from spirit beings. Seen together like this, the various elements of Anishinaabe worldview, language and social practice substantially form what can be called customary stewardship; that is, an understanding of the place of Anishinaabeg within a field of (quasi-) social relations with other beings which share the landscape, and a set of behavioural norms that guide interaction with these other beings. Continuity of customary stewardship traditions in Pimachiowin Aki is maintained through the oral transmission of teachings, especially through storytelling, and demonstrated in practice through ceremonial and land- based livelihood activities.
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C. Relationship to Aki – Livelihood Pimachiowin Aki is an outstanding example of traditional land use continuously adapted for over 6000 years to meet social, cultural and livelihood needs in a harsh subarctic boreal shield environment. (Pimachiowin Aki Statement of Outstanding Universal Value, October 1, 2010)
There is a fair bit of writing, especially anthropological, in which non-Aboriginal observers describe the customary livelihood practices of Aboriginal peoples across the sub-arctic but very little on the Pimachiowin Aki area specifically. Details on customary livelihood practices are taken as much as possible from the draft Micro-level Report, recalling that the March 21, 2011 version is being used. This Part of the Summary has been divided into two main sections: C1. A description of customary livelihood pursuits, including the seasonal round of practices; C2. A description of customary governance (or stewardship) institutions, including land tenure and customary leadership; and, C3. Accommodation of New Sources of Livelihood.
C1. CUSTOMARY LIVELIHOOD PURSUITS Dunning’s description of the Anishinaabe diet, based on his fieldwork in 1954 and 1955, is a good entry point to understanding the seasonal round of livelihood practices required to furnish this diet: No single item of food is adequate or found in sufficient quantity to be a staple diet throughout the year. A combination of foods from fishing, hunting, and trapping is utilized in conjunction with some garden produce and store supplies. During the winter season beaver and muskrat are heavily relied on for the meat supply, in addition to hares when available. Larger game, at present mostly moose, are taken throughout the year except in midsummer when the meat is to stringy to be used. For a large part of the year, especially the warmer months, fish is relied upon almost entirely as the staple food. During recent years fairly large crops of potatoes have been grown, but there has been considerable variation in the supply because of early frosts and various scab diseases. In a good season berries are to be had in quantity, but they are not preserved for winter. For a number of years a large item of the diet has been flour and lard from the trading post. These are made into the favourite food, bannock (pukwaysegun), an almost unleavened bread, without which a person considers himself to be starving (1959: 24). While the basic outlines of this diet are present today, there has been an increasing shift towards a reliance on store-bought foods, something Dunning noted even earlier (1959: 47). This shift has resulted from an increasing availability of these foods (something we have all seen in our respective communities), of cash (especially in the form of Federal social- assistance payments), and of other resources provided by the state. Here we will not address subsidies or wages but only land-based livelihood activities, recognizing that there are existing and potential land-based waged labour activities in Pimachiowin Aki (e.g., guiding, eco-cultural tourism, forestry).
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As Petch has stated in her macro-scale report (2010), traditional livelihoods of Anishinaabeg are well adapted to the harsh subarctic environment of Pimachiowin Aki. Fundamental to the pursuit of customary livelihood activities in this context are: 1) a detailed knowledge of where season-specific resources can be found throughout the year in order to carry people through the whole year; and, 2) an ability to travel widely across the lands and waters in order to reach season-specific resources. This was especially true for the winter when ‘the long cold winters required our people to disperse widely across the land to hunt, trap and fish for our very lives. The imperative of winter survival required that we travel far and wide, using the full extent of the land provided to us by the Creator’ (PRFN 2010: 7). Hamilton has suggested, ‘successful foragers are intimately familiar with the seasonal resource cycle, and patterned resource variability within regions habitually used by each hunting group. Technology was light-weight and expedient and shelter was portable in order to facilitate mobility: a strategy involving moving people to the resources, rather than transporting widely dispersed resources to a permanent central place’ (2010: 3). Poplar River First Nation has explained it this way: We have … adapted ourselves to the land’s rhythms and cycles … Our people have learned about these things and our own patterns of movement and use are adapted to and respect the patterns of our fellow living beings with whom we share the land. Our ancestors followed a seasonal round of activities in concert with the distinctive seasons presented by the climate (PRFN 2010: 7; see also 11-12). Figure 1 shows this seasonal movement in a hypothetical and simplified illustration of three family groupings making their seasonal rounds on the land (c.f. Petch 2010: 12).
FIGURE 1. HYPOTHETICAL SEASONAL ROUND (Davidson-Hunt & O'Flaherty 2011: 7, adapted with permission from Petch 2005)
In the winter, ‘when subsistence was dependent upon much more diffuse and elusive prey’ (Hamilton 2010: 4), family groupings spent several months hunting and trapping out of their winter residences, which were generally well-established cabins, or clusters of cabins; winter residences often also had satellite camps within a day’s journey of the main winter camp. Summer gatherings were typically on the larger lakes with productive fishing resources that supported the multiple family groupings gathered there, along with their sled-dogs. Shelters
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Pimachiowin Aki Cultural Documentation Summary October 7, 2011 were usually temporary, consisting of tents and other traditional shelters (Hamilton 2010: 5). Spring camps were often made near fish spawning areas or waterfowl gathering sites, while fall camps were often made near wild rice patches and good hunting areas; spring and fall camps were usually temporary, lasting for a period of a few to several weeks in which people were harvesting a limited, seasonal resource (Davidson-Hunt & O'Flaherty 2011: 7). Late Elder Whitehead Moose of Pikangikum describes the differences between the main trapping cabins and temporary shelters used for short-term seasonal activities or for trapping and hunting farther out in the bush: At the camp where we were, we had cabins, they were good cabins, but when we went around our area we had spruce bough wigwams, this is what we used when we traveled from place to place. At the main camp we had nice cabins. So these spruce bough wigwams were very comfortable, you could build an open fire inside the wigwam, and you could hang up your wet clothing, your wet belongings, and in no time it would be dry. That’s just how comfortable we were’ (in Nikischer 2008: 69).
A DESCRPTION OF THE SEASONAL ROUND In Pikangikum today, elders will often say winter is their favourite season; it is a time when people are able to travel by snow machine on the frozen waterways that are so characteristic of Pimachiowin Aki; it is also a time when there are no pests or diseases in the bush. The winter was an especially important time during the period, lasting up to the nineteen seventies, when trapping was still the central source of income for most people in Pimachiowin Aki. As Elder Phillip Bruce of Poplar River has explained, in the past, ‘long before the traplines were even established’, the only way for the people to survive was to hunt and trap wild animals, therefore they would leave Poplar River in September and stay at various places all winter until the spring time’ (PRFN 2010: 11). In Bloodvien, ‘in the past, the trapper traveled by dog sled or walked to their trapline during the winter and returned to the community just before Christmas then returned to their trapline in January until April or May’ (BFN 2010: 12). Today it is less common for people to spend the whole winter on the land but some do; more commonly, people will visit for periods by snow machine and return to the community. Although fur prices are little incentive to trap, Anishinaabe continue to trap for beaver, marten and rabbit. Trapping is conducted in the winter and early spring, when pelts are thicker and the trails of animals are easier to identify. The pine marten is currently the most economically important fur species, contributing between 50 and 70% of all fur with harvests within Pimachiowin Aki (Dohan et al. 2010). The beaver is of particular cultural significance and details on trapping methods used for beaver, provided in the Pimachiowin Aki cultural landscape atlas (Davidson-Hunt & Miller 2011), can provide an example of a winter livelihood pursuit. Active lodges are known by the presence of steam and unfrozen mud at the top-center of the lodge, as well as by the presence of young saplings and branches that have been submerged in the water, prior to freeze-up. Because beaver activity around a lodge can keep the ice forming, trappers must be careful when approaching beaver lodges lest the ice be too thin to walk on (Davidson-Hunt & Miller 2011); according to Dunning, traps are only laid when ‘the ice has formed to a depth of 24 to 36 inches’ (1959: 25). Typically it is traps that are used although snares and even gill-nets were used in the past (Davidson-Hunt & Miller 2011; Dunning 1959: 26). Traps (and snares) are typically set attached to dry wood that the beaver is less likely to chew on and set in the water along the route used by the beaver to travel to and from the lodge (Davidson-Hunt & Miller 2011). Dunning also notes that the traps are set at a distance from
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Pimachiowin Aki Cultural Documentation Summary October 7, 2011 the lodge beyond which the young (and less valuable) beavers are likely to travel (Dunning 1959: 25). The exact place for setting the trap is marked prior to freeze-up (Davidson-Hunt & Miller 2011). Beavers can also be trapped on the surface, on trails leading out of the water or on a dam but not on a lodge directly since traps may be sprung by mud and sticks being moved by beavers in repairing and expanding their lodge (Davidson-Hunt & Miller 2011). Dunning also notes that trappers do not smash the lodges to get beaver since this would drive beaver away and deplete the supply for the following year (1959: 26). Similar methods of trapping are employed for muskrat although, according to Dunning, muskrats are easier to trap once the ice has broken up; Dunning also mentions that ‘many of the young boys and some widows, as well as the older men who have retired from regular trapping, take part in rat trapping’ (1959: 27). For all fur-bearing species trapped, women are responsible for fleshing and stretching the pelts brought back to the camp by men (Dunning 1959: 26), as well as cooking, maintaining the camp, tending to children and cutting firewood. As we are reminded in the Bloodvein First Nation draft land use plan, during the trapping season people are also hunting and fishing, ‘which is essential as trappers take only the necessary material such as flour, baking powder, salt, pepper, powdered milk, sugar and lard while they are trapping’ (BFN 2010: 12). Commercial fishing was also practised in the winter; Elder Solomon Turtle of Pikangikum recalled, we did a lot of moving around when we commercial fished the lakes. Once we were done with one lake, we would move to another area. The women and children traveled by airplane, while the men traveled by snowmobile to the different lake areas. If it was winter, we had to set up tent camp sites (November 10, 2006, in Nikischer 2008: 84). As the winter wanes and the sun is higher in the sky, the snow is melted off of the lakes and the ice becomes thinner. In the past, it was during this time that people who were employed in the commercial fishery cut ice out from the lakes and stored it in ice houses for packing fresh fish in the summer. According to late Pikangikum elder Whitehead Moose, ‘we had to harvest ice every springtime when there was still ice out on the lake and they would put all that ice into their ice houses and that ice would be preserved for commercial fishing in the summertime’ (in Nikischer 2008: 69). Late winter-early spring was also a time when muskrat were trapped in ‘rat pushups’, cracks in the ice through which muskrat find their way to the surface (1959: 27). It is also a time when woodland caribou can be found migrating to their calving grounds and caribou can be found in small groups standing on the ice. According to Pikangikum elders, the congregation of caribou on the lakes in spring is part of a predator-avoidance strategy (WFMC 2006: 15) but also because caribou at this time can suffer from ‘snow blindness’ which they get while in the bush looking out onto the ice; at this time the glare of the sun off the ice can be particularly intense. Elder William Strang remarked how one day he ‘found them out on the ice; maybe they got lost when the sun shines off the ice into their eyes. They will walk straight towards you in this state’ (December 10, 2003 cited in WFMC 2006: 14). This is reminiscent of the story of the moons of winter (Quill 2005) in which the caribou was warned that by the end of a winter with as many moons as the caribou has ‘hundreds of hairs’, ‘even the mindimooyeg, “the old women,” would be able to hunt him down and club him to death’ (see Part B, p. 16). Woodland caribou are still hunted when they are encountered on the land; which is rarely, especially in the early spring right before the ice has broken up since people do not travel at this time. Once the ice has melted from the lakes and rivers, Anishinaabeg in Pimachiowin Aki seek out waterfowl migrating back to the area and congregating on lakes and rapids. Also important at this time of year are the spring spawning fish, which includes lake sturgeon and walleye. As mentioned in the Poplar River land use plan, ‘in the short spring and fall periods, we adapted
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Pimachiowin Aki Cultural Documentation Summary October 7, 2011 and concentrated our locations and use of the land to where the fish were spawning; to where the geese, ducks and gulls were nesting and migrating’ (PRFN 2010: 7). Some very limited gathering was also done at this time in the past. In Poplar River, Elder Alex Mitchell had remarked ‘that people would use birch-bark baskets to collect sap, a very sweet drink from birch trees’ (PRFN 2010: 14); in Pikangikum, elders also speak of this practice, presumably conducted in the early spring when the sap was first running, but it is not known if this activity is currently practiced in Pimachiowin Aki. Historically, the spring time was an important time for the commercial lake sturgeon fishery13, and it was the concentration of fishing effort at spawning time that contributed to the decline of lake sturgeon populations (as discussed on p. 38 below). On the upper Berens River, for instance, the lake sturgeon fishery was operated by individuals and airline operators from outside the area, with some buying of fish from local residents (Carlson 1979: 5 cited in WFMC 2008:). It was only in 1950 that the MNR, then the Department of Lands & Forests introduced a commercial licensing system, however, the sturgeon fishery was already in decline, ‘perhaps due to excess commercial fishing pressure’ (Carlson, 1979: 6 cited in WFMC 2008: 19-20). As Pikangikum elder Matthew Strang has explained, our families would trap there all winter and we were there in the springtime when they arrived. They usually arrived by May the 10th. They did that for as long as I can remember … During the month of May when they were commercial fishing these sturgeon, it was the time of the spawning. It was spawning season (July 18, 2006 cited in WFMC 2008: 20). Elder George B. Strang also described how commercial fishers, ‘lived close to the rapids for two weeks in the spring, when sturgeon were spawning at Mikiaimi Falls. They never set a net on the lake, only at the rapids (Dec. 05, 2007 cited in WFMC 2008: 20). During the summer, fishing for commercial and subsistence needs was and is one of the most important livelihood activities for the Anishinaabeg of Pimachiowin Aki. The summer gatherings on key fishing lakes were particularly important nodes in the seasonal round for it was at these ‘gatherings of socially interconnected hunting bands at strategic places’ (Hamilton 2010:3) that people engaged in ritual activities, trade, maintained inter-group and inter-ethnic alliances; such sites were usually linked to leaders who were noted for their skills/gifts in leadership, whether political, economic, spiritual or healing (Davidson-Hunt & O'Flaherty 2011: 6). Summer gatherings also provided opportunity for socialisation (e.g., story telling, sharing, courtship and marriage), and for planning fall and winter subsistence activities (Hamilton 2010: 3-4). Since settlement in Reserve communities, the social and livelihood functions of summer gatherings has persisted, although these gatherings are now permanent and much fewer in number. Nevertheless, subsistence harvests of fish, and in particular walleye, Northern Pike, sauger and whitefish, continue to be a significant part of the local economy and diet in Pimachiowin Aki today. While there is no data for detailed comparison, it appears fish harvests are smaller in scale today than in the past ― in the past ish was also harvested to feed sled dogs but today people do not keep sled dogs. In 1975, for example, two canoeists travelling down the Berens river stopped at late Elder Whitehead Moose’s cabin and observed, Some 15-20 people were living here in the cabin and in tents. The men were catching and smoking fish while the women were sewing and working on crafts. The people were from Pikangikum, Poplar Hill and Berens River. The people only spoke Saulteaux; no English (Hirschmann & Milgrom 1975).
13 Documentation on the Lake Winnipeg commercial fishery is not available at the time of writing. page 29 of 65
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In addition, as Dunning notes, ‘statements about the past indicate that for several weeks at a time a summer camp would be occupied in netting fish and preserving them in large quantities against almost certain times of short or non supply of food’ (1959: 34). Dunning goes on to suggest ‘it seems reasonable to suppose that in the past, that is previous to large government subsidies, the preservation of perishable foods from the hunt was carefully and systematically carried on’ (1959: 34) and indeed Poplar River elders confirm the importance of smoking meats for preservation: ‘In the summer time, they would smoke and dry a variety of meats as preserves. Preserving any type of meat is a traditional process that continues to be the aspect for today as well’ (PRFN 2010: 27); Elder Alex Mitchell remarked, ‘pemmican was also another food that they ate. First, they would dry the meat and then they would mash or pound it, then afterwards they would mix it with oil and fat from the moose meat (PRFN 2010: 14). Fishing in summer (and winter) is done by line and gill net; in the past, Anishinaabeg also built fish traps (weirs) along the watercourses but these traps are no longer maintained; some fish trap locations are marked in the cultural values data. Also in the past only was the use of metal-tipped spears to hunt lake sturgeon that would feed along shoreline areas that were shallow and filled with vegetation (WFMC 2008: 16-17); now Anishinaabeg use only (9-inch mesh) gill nets, and lake sturgeon are only rarely caught in key sites known to harbour lake sturgeon. In the past there appeared to be much more effort focussed on drying fish to enable transportation and distribution. Commercial fishing is also an important livelihood activity in the summer, both in the past and present. In the present, commercial fishing is an especially important activity for those First Nations on Lake Winnipeg (i.e., Poplar River and Bloodvein); important fish species are walleye, whitefish and sauger (Dohan et al. 2010). In the Poplar River land use strategy we are reminded that, ‘in more modern times, many of our members have earned part of their living in the commercial fishery on Lake Winnipeg and along the river outlets on the lake … The Fishing Station is an important part of the local economy, packing and shipping fish harvested by over 56 commercially licenced [sic] fishers (PRFN 2010: 25, 32). For inland communities, commercial fishing was more important in the past, especially between the nineteen fifties and nineteen seventies. As Matthew Strang of Pikangikum also recalled, during the time we were commercial fishing, we made good money … So everybody was happy during that time because they were commercial fishing. I think pretty well everybody in the community was commercial fishing, they had their own lakes to go [to] and they were having a good prosperous time (in Nikischer 2008: 63). This was a time when, in the words of Indian Affairs Superintendent Clifford Swartman (Sioux Lookout), ‘in recent years commercial fishing has replaced trapping as their major source of income’ (1959 cited in Nikischer 2008: 73). Today in Pikangikum there are still some commercial licences but no-one is actively commercial fishing; the demise of commercial fishing is related to a number of issues including transportation costs, instable markets, government intervention (e.g., licensing), and concerns over mercury contamination. Being the growing season for plants, summer was a time when Anishinaabeg in Pimachiowin Aki spent time growing and gathering plants. In Poplar River, elder Alex Mitchell remarked ‘that there used to be a lot of Indian carrots that grew in certain places. They would use the carrots for cooking stews and soup. After picking the carrots people would replant them near their homes for future use. Another delicacy called lichen (Ateinewackunuck) that they would use for fish soup and moose stew’ (PRFN 2010: 14). Also, ‘during the summer season the women and children would gather and pick wild berries such as strawberries, raspberries, and saskatoons for winter use. In order to preserve them, the women would dry and can the berries and then store them in homemade cellars. Also, the people had big gardens which they would share with other families’ (PRFN 2010: 12).
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Today gardening is in general no longer practiced14 likely because the difficulties of growing in a short climate on poor soils, and an associated increase in risk of plant disease, are not worth the low prices now paid for potatoes in stores (this is a change seen in communities across the country, even in the south). Gathering of berries, and to a lesser extent medicinal plants, is still widely practiced. In Poplar River, elder Alex Mitchell remarked that ‘people used to collect red leaves or in Saulteaux terms (Kakegaypugoon)15 … which the people would pick from the muskeg to make tea as this was their tea long ago’ (PRFN 2010: 14). As the summer comes to a close and the sun rises lower on the horizon, Anishinaabeg prepare for their return to the seasonal camps out on the traplines. For instance, ‘in early September before leaving for their traplines the men would dig up their gardens, bag and store their potatoes for winter storage (PRFN 2010: 12). Wild rice is also ready to harvest in the fall. For the Anishinaabeg of Bloodvein First Nation, among others, wild rice ‘was an important and necessary ingredient to their diet and used for ceremonial feasts. It would be harvested by using two sticks. One to hold weeds [plant] in the canoe and the other was used to hit the weed which made the ripe rice to fall into the canoe. Ripeness was determined by the way the rice felt to the touch, the color of the roots or picking just before the rice started falling’ (BFN 2010: 13). Conditions for growing wild rice are ‘optimal’ in Pimachiowin Aki and wild rice is an important food source not only for Anishinaabeg but also ‘a variety of animals, including millions of migratory and resident birds that permanently and temporarily live in the boreal’ (Davidson-Hunt & Miller 2011). Wild rice, although it is able to sustain its own reproduction under the right conditions, and is therefore deserving of the adjective ‘wild’, is found throughout the Pimachiowin Aki area because it has been planted/spread by Anishinaabeg (Chapeskie personal communication). Wild rice is apparently harvested for commercial sale, but not necessarily across the whole of the Pimachiowin Aki area. Pikangikum people for instance do not report harvesting of wild rice for personal use in the present. Commercial harvest is said to continue today by members of Bloodvein and Little Grand Rapids First Nations, with a conservatively estimated annual value of approximately $223, 600 to $600, 000 (Dohan et al. 2010); however, the Bloodvein First Nation draft land use strategy states that ‘lately the rice is harvested for personal consumption only, as there are not many young people interested in harvesting wild rice for commercial sale’ (BFN 2010: 13). In the autumn, when the waters are still open but there is a noticeable chill in the air, and perhaps even a light snow on the ground, perhaps the most significant livelihood activity is hunting. In Poplar River, for instance, the shorter, cooler days of autumn and the leafless fall forests provided ideal conditions to hunt moose, migrating waterfowl and upland birds. These animals become more concentrated along the rivers, lakes and forest openings during their mating or migration rituals (PRFN 2010: 7). According to Pikangikum elders, autumn is not a good time for hunting woodland caribou since at this time ‘they have an unpleasant smell (weeshuhgooseetay). The only way to describe that smell is when a person has a bad armpit odour’ (George B. Strang, February 15, 2006); others said the meat is ‘soggy’ and ‘smells like piss’, perhaps because they are rutting at this time (workshop March 3, 2006). For moose hunting however, autumn is an especially important time because it is rutting season and they are easier to locate; this is, therefore, a more efficient time of year to focus reduced hunting efforts. Moose are hunted through most of the year, except mid-summer when the meat is less tasty. In Pikangikum it
14 I know of no gardens in Pikangikum only. 15 This may or may not be the same as (or related to) Labrador tea: gaagigebag, or mashkiigobagoon in the Poplar River First Nation land use plan (2010: 59). page 31 of 65
Pimachiowin Aki Cultural Documentation Summary October 7, 2011 is said that by the time the seed pods of fire weed are fully developed in August, moose are good and fat and ready to hunt (Davidson-Hunt & Miller 2011). Hunting for moose is of special importance for the Anishinaabeg of Pimachiowin Aki today: so important is moose hunting to the Pimachiowin communities, that many children enjoy official breaks from school in order to accompany their families on fall moose hunts. This allows them to accompany their parents and other relatives into the bush to learn many skills associated with harvesting and preparing moose. These holidays are seen as important in an economic sense for putting food on the table as well as for passing on cultural traditions (Davidson-Hunt & Miller 2011). This importance is also affirmed in the Poplar River land use plan: Moose are an especially important animal in our culture and way of life. We have depended on the moose as a major and sustainable source of food and its hide and antlers have been important sources of material for shelter, clothing, equipment and handicrafts’ (PRFN 2010: 23). Dunning places the importance of hunting large game animals like moose within a cultural context: Although large game does not represent the major element of the year-round diet, high status accrues to the successful hunter … Killing a moose … presents a fortuitous opportunity for a feast of fresh meat, and to re-establish favourable gift exchange relations (menekowin or megewaynun). For the younger man it serves to demonstrate and for the older man to validate the status of independent hunter. It further serves to reinforce the ideal of a hunting society, one which accepts the radical cycles of surplus and want (1959: 31). Dried moose meat is also a good food to carry (with bannock) on the journey back out to the trapline as people renew their customary relations with the land through the winter.
NOTE ON THE RELATIVE PERSISTENCE OF CUSTOMARY LIVELIHOOD ACTIVITIES In general it seems reasonable to suggest that the seasonal round is to some extent still practised in the present but in a modified form; there is little data to provide details but the basic process of summer aggregation (on reserve) and fall-spring dispersal to traplines is apparently still in place only now with fur prices so low there is little incentive to trap commercially. It is also important to bear in mind Dunning’s emphasis that settlement has had a significant impact on Anishinaabe land use practices even if it is entirely unclear what is the impact of government subsidies on the Anishinaabe acceptance of ‘radical cycles of surplus and want’. One point to bear in mind when trying to understand the comparison of scale of participation in customary livelihoods today as compared to the past is the significant increase in population that has occurred over the last hundred years. 16 Table 1 provides a sense of the scope of population increase, although accurate estimation of population has always been confounded by a number of issues (see Dohan et al. 2010). For example, band boundaries recognised by government have changed over time and in some cases new bands have been created by fission: prior to 1978 Poplar Hill was a part of Pikangikum and, prior to 1991, Pauingassi was a
16 Bear in mind also that although Dunning concluded that ‘there is a close correlation between the rise in population and the increase of subsidies in the form of rations, and later direct cash subsidy’ (1959: 52) he did not find the provision of per capita family allowance payments, starting in 1946, had an influence on the birth rate in Pikangikum (1959: 53). Therefore, there must be a number of complex issues at play in understanding population increase associated with settlement. page 32 of 65
Pimachiowin Aki Cultural Documentation Summary October 7, 2011 part of Little Grand Rapids. Some population changes are also the result of transfers between bands, which in the case of Poplar Hill, is outside of the Pimachiowin Aki area.
TABLE 2. ESTIMATED POPULATIONS OF FIRST NATIONS IN PIMACHIOWIN AKI Dunning (1959: 7) Dohan et al. 2010 (using various sources) (on-Reserve StatsCan data) 1917 1949 2006 Poplar River 148 178 643 Little Grand Rapids 203 413 796 Pauingassi n/a n/a 352 Pikangikum 153 342 2100 Bloodvein 74 124 640
Given the enormous population increase over the last one hundred years, it is possible that the absolute level of customary land use is much more constant than if considered on a per capita basis (i.e., relative to overall population). It is in this context that we can better understand the comment by Elder Philip Bruce of Poplar River First Nation that ‘there were about seven families at a time that would leave from the reserve long before the traplines were even established’ (PRFN 2010: 11).
INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE Indigenous knowledge is too large a topic to cover here in any detail; the purpose of his section is to provide some examples of how Anishinaabeg are ‘intimately familiar with the seasonal resource cycle, and patterned resource variability’ (Hamilton 2010: 3) of Pimachiowin Aki. For, as Miller has noted, ‘both people and animals adjust their activities to take advantage of seasonal resource abundances. Resource abundance also corresponds to specific stages of ecological succession’; therefore, Anishinaabeg need to be aware of ecological cycles that shift the kinds of season-specific resources that are available at a specific site (Miller 2010: 84-85). In addition, it is critical that Anishinaabe harvesters maintain detailed knowledge of animal behaviour; ‘observation of animal’s behaviour was a continual task as the animals became more cunning’ (BFN 2010: 12). Late Pikangikum elder Whitehead Moose explained it this way: the teachings that I got from my father [was] to recognize and to understand the different animals on the land, you know I used those teachings to catch the animals. It’s not just going on the land and you think you are going to catch all these animals, you have to know the animal … you have to have that instinct to know the animals … I applied myself to understand the teachings of my father … this is how I was able to understand the animals on the land (in Nikischer 2008: 67-68). In hunting moose, for example, Anishinaabeg of Pimachiowin Aki account for how the moose makes use of different parts of the landscape over the course of the year, reflecting seasonal abundances of food, climate and ecological succession (Davidson-Hunt & Miller 2011). During winter, moose are said to browse in early seral/successional stands with young poplar and willow trees; in the spring, moose are said to be found in dense, lowland black spruce stands where they rub against trees and eat spruce needles to help them get rid of the ticks; in summer, moose can be found in bays and streams feeding on aquatic plants; during autumn, bull moose can be found along the shore lines of lakes where they bugle to attract mates (Miller 2010: 85-86). Anishinaabe hunters also report that recently burned areas are especially good places to look for moose because of the abundance of new growth, including deciduous trees such as willow and poplar, that moose feed on; moose can even be seen in
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Pimachiowin Aki Cultural Documentation Summary October 7, 2011 recent burns when the smoke is still rising (Pikangikum elders say that moose like the taste of smoked leaves in the same way that people like smoked fish) (Davidson-Hunt & Miller 2011). In locating moose, Anishinaabeg in Pimachiowin Aki will also work with other animals such as ravens and whiskey jacks (Gray Jays), which will indicate the presence of a moose by specific behaviour intended for the hunter. Ravens, for example, are said to do a barrel-roll to indicate the presence of a moose underneath because, as Pikangikum hunter John-Pierre Kejick explained, ‘it knows it will eat’ (Miller 2010: 78-79). Dunning speaks about moose hunting techniques, based on his fieldwork in Pikangikum in the nineteen fifties, and mentions two different forms of hunting: 1) the most common, which is to surprise the moose on the shoreline while in a canoe; ‘this is the best way to make a kill as it requires no chase in the bush, and no long trek out with the meat’; and, 2) the stealthy tracking by not following the tracks since, ‘because of heavy undergrowth and deadfalls, it is impossible to follow the tracks, so a roundabout trail is taken towards the place where the hunter thinks the animal will be. When close to the animal’s resting place, he stalks it up wind until close enough for a shot as it rises, or, if he is lucky, before it can do so’ (1959: 29). Dunning concludes: ‘A man who can stalk a moose in this [latter] way is the ideal hunter of the Ojibwe and I suspect such skill is rare’; none of the moose Dunning recorded killed in Pikangikum during the 1954-1955 season were killed by stalking but were caught by surprise on the trail (1959: 29). Today in Pikangikum, people continue to focus on the practice of hunting along the shoreline, including by paddling motor boats when approaching coves that have potential to harbour moose feeding on the shoreline. Given that people hunt especially in the autumn, when moose are often found on the shore, this strategy is sensible; also, people are disinclined to go deep into the bush during summer time because of mosquitoes and other biting insects (Miller 2010: 86). Autumn is also said to be a good time to hunt moose since they should be fat from a summer of feeding on aquatic plants (Davidson-Hunt & Miller 2011). Although there is no data on the relative number of moose killed by using various hunting methods, there certainly are elder who have explained some of the techniques required to track moose (as well as other prey). The blustery days of autumn are said, in Pikangikum, to have moosooaniman, ‘moose wind’, and are therefore ideal for hunting because the sounds of branches moving in the wind hide the sound of an approaching hunter (Davidson-Hunt & Miller 2011). Moose are said to have a particularly keen sense of hearing and make use of that asset in clever ways to avoid hunters. Late Pikangikum elder Jake Kejick explained how moose lie down with their head against the snow to listen for the sound of approaching predators, including the sound of snowshoes; the wind will however help the hunter by making enough noise to disguise the presence of a hunter, especially important in the spring when the sound of the icy crust on top of the snow breaking is especially loud (October 13, 2006). At the same time, this icy crust is said to aid the hunter because the crust will support the weight of a hunter in snow shoes but will cut the shins of the moose, making the moose less inclined to run a great distance, especially if wounded (Davidson-Hunt & Miller 2011). When tracking moose it is said to be important to not cross or follow the path of a moose being tracked since, according to late Pikangikum elder Jake Kejick, moose will walk ‘in a circle, to come back to its own trail, to see its tracks. It will not cross its tracks but just [get close] to see them. This way it will know [if] it is being followed’ (October 13, 2006). These are just some of the kinds of teachings that Anishinaabeg learn when growing up. As in all customary livelihood activities, success in hunting is rooted in being attentive, focussed and purposeful. As late Pikangikum elder Jake Kejick has explained,
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If a person is good in tracking then they would be a successful hunter. To be successful you need to understand this process, to look for signs on the land [kuhsheenuhmaytoonk]. When you hunt a moose you must use the wind, to see that it is blowing in the right direction. You must also look in the right direction, to observe what is around you (October 13, 2006). This brief discussion of Anishinaabe Indigenous knowledge provides only a glimpse of the kind of knowledge associated with Anishinaabe customary livelihood practices in Pimachiowin Aki. This knowledge is intimate and personal; it is acquired through embodied experience and observation, often in the presence of others, drawing upon, when needed, a codified set of information passed through an oral tradition. Since stories are tied to geo graphic features, the landscape is both a repository of knowledge and a stage on which actors gain experience through the embodied activities of daily life (Andrews & Buggey 2008: 67).
SHARING & RECIPROCITY A description of livelihood practices adapted to seasonal and spatial variation would be incomplete without reference to the practice of sharing which is so central to the Anishinaabe worldview and their survival on the land. Redistribution of foods to other people not actively engaged in the procurement of these foods is an integral part of adaptation to a resource base that is subject to considerable geographic and seasonal variation. For example, as late Pikangikum elder Whitehead Moose explained, in the past ‘people were sent to get sturgeon for others, to bring sturgeon back for those who don't have any’ (October 2, 2007 cited in WFMC 208: 14); similarly, in Bloodvein First Nation, ‘if more than one sturgeon is caught portions of the fish are given to community members particularly the Elders’ (BFN 2010: 13). The seasonal shifting of residence associated with the seasonal round required that technology and shelter was portable; mobility also required the maintenance of extended kinship and sharing networks which formed a kind of social safety net, ensuring both people and resources are able to shift around the land base according to the availability of and need for resources (Hamilton 2010:3). As Brown points out in her Meso-scale report (2010: 9), following Hallowell, even those people who were not descended within the same patri-line (i.e. shared a common clan identity) could still be considered kin, extending the network of hospitality even further. As Elder Oliver Hill of Pikangikum has explained, Our people had relationships with other communities and because of these relationships there was trust there. They knew if there was trust there they knew there was a basis for survival. If they travelled they never took flour to make bannock, because they knew they could get what they needed along the way. Sometimes they took only a fishing net. When I look at the land as a whole, our traditional land planning area, I think about what our people did in the past. They had a kinship relationship with other people. By that kinship relationship they had help, and could help other people in the community. For instance, when someone killed a moose they would think about the whole community, they would try to give every person some meat, even if it meant to cut one shoulder into many pieces, just to make sure every person had something (PFN & OMNR 2006: 32). Hamilton notes there is ‘a strong social value is placed upon sharing resources with associates facing hard times in tacit recognition that reciprocal hospitality and support can be expected when they, in turn, inevitably face hardship’ (2010: 3). Although this explains the outcome of hospitality, the trust that was a ‘basis for survival’, this view is perhaps a little instrumental to fit within the Anishinaabe worldview, which perhaps more closely associates sharing with respect, ‘to make sure every person had something’. In other words, the imperative to share
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Pimachiowin Aki Cultural Documentation Summary October 7, 2011 can be understood as part of the teaching, in the words of Pikangikum Elder William Strang, ‘that we are to love one another, be in harmony with one another’ (December 15, 2004).
PARTICIPATION IN THE MARKET While the introduction of the fur trade is the subject of an extensive academic interest, trade and markets were an ancient feature of Anishinaabe livelihoods. As Petch explains, ‘long distance trade was a familiar activity to the Anishinaabeg; routine excursions to the south with maize-producing nations (Huron to the southeast and Mandan to the southwest) brought the Anishinaabeg into contact with a wide variety of exotic materials such as abalone shell, obsidian, Knife River Flint and catlinite’ (Petch 2010: 36). When European trade goods arrived in Pimachiowin Aki, likely in the early seventeenth century, they were traded through ‘long- established Native trade networks’ (Petch 2010: 36). THE FUR TRADE According to Hamilton, ‘the fur trade offered new opportunities for northern foragers by emphasizing the harvest of fur and food to supply an external market. While trade and exchange existed in the ancient past, the scale and magnitude of the fur trade was unprecedented, and its effect on the spiritually based Aboriginal approach to sustained-yield harvest is not well understood’ (2010: 6). This section is concerned with the expansion of commercial relations between the people of Pimachiowin Aki and wider outside markets. The history of trading companies, their personnel and the political and economic influences on the trade are not within the scope of the Pimachiowin Aki Statement of OUV and are therefore not discussed here (see Lytwyn (1986) for these details). This sub-section is concerned specifically with the area known to fur traders in the early 19th century as the ‘East Winnipeg Country’, covering the watersheds of those rivers flowing westward into Lake Winnipeg (Lytwyn 1986: i) and ‘whose general historic borders mimic those described for Pimachiowin Aki’ (Petch 2010: 37). The East Winnipeg Country formed the western portion of what was known as Le Petit Nord; that is, the boreal shield country north and west of Lake Superior, ending in the east at the shores of Lake Winnipeg and in the north at the Hudson Bay Lowlands (Lytwyn 1986: i; see also Petch 2010: 37).17 The geographic isolation of Pimachiowin Aki, mentioned earlier (p. 5), was particularly significant in the fur trade era because the isolation forestalled the expansion of fur trading networks into the area (Petch 2010: 37-38). As Lytwyn explains, The headwaters region separating Lake Winnipeg rivers from those flowing into Hudson Bay consisted of a myriad of twisting and turning waterways separated by ridges and swamps that could easily turn an inexperienced traveller in a different direction. This unique environment created a geographical buffer that helped to shield Pimachiowin Aki from fur trade development (1986: 7). Fur traders were already at a disadvantage relative to the Anishinaabeg because, although ‘the Anishnaabeg were able to travel throughout Pimachiowin Aki with relative ease in their light birch bark canoes, Euro-Canadian fur traders struggled with heavier canoes, boats and bales of goods (Lytwyn, 2010: 7). Pikangikum elder, Alec Suggashie, recalls When my great grandfather was working for the Hudson’s Bay Company, he wasn’t paid a salary. He never saw cash, all he got was a food ration. So before he retired, his final pay, he was told to come and pick it up in Little Grand Rapids in Manitoba. We went with him that time, we set off by canoe downriver to Little Grand Rapids to pick up his pay. And he was given a certain amount of food for his last pay. We paddled a large canoe to Little Grand Rapids. That time, there were three of us and a
17 Le Grand Nord included the vast area west of Lake Winnipeg to northern Alberta (Lytwyn 1986: i). page 36 of 65
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large canoe. So what he received was flour, lard, tea, tobacco, the main, main staple diet at that time. The canoe was just full, when we paddled back to Pikangikum. We were very capable of paddling all that distance heh? Even through all the portages. One of us could carry 400 pounds on our back (in Nickischer 2008: 54). In the late 18th century, Anishinaabe trappers from the Pimachiowin Aki area were trading furs down north to Albany Fort, Severn House and York Factory;18 This enabled Anishinaabeg to acquire new goods without the presence and intervention of European traders. Therefore, up to the late 18th century, ‘Anishnaabeg could decide how much fur they would harvest and where they would take it for trade’ (Lytwyn 2010: 10); they were able to hunt, fish, gather, and socialise as they moved across the land so the long journey was not a hindrance to trading. Trading was merely another ‘part of a seasonal round that provided more than economic benefits’ (Lytwyn 2010: 10-11). However, following the British conquest of New France in 1760, trade rapidly expanded as ‘British fur traders took over the French inland trade system’ (Hamilton 2010: 7). The period between 1760 and 1821 Hamilton refers to as the ‘competition period’ (2010: 9). In Le Petit Nord it was only after 1790 that traders sought to expand their trade routes up the Poplar, Berens and Bloodvein Rivers (Hamilton 2010: 7), following a new route to the Berens River shown by local guides (Lytwyn 2010: 8-9). Starting in 1796, competition between the Hudson Bay Company (HBC) and the North West Company (NWC) spurred the opening of trading posts within Le Petit Nord (Lytwyn 2010: 8): ‘Trading posts were built on every major lake and river in the region, and men were sent to the winter hunting lodges of Anishnaabeg families in order to secure every available pelt’ (Lytwyn 2010: 9). This period of intense trading activity, in which Anishinaabeg could trade furs for supplies and new trade goods, saw a marked increase in presence (and settlement) of Euro-Canadians which meant a greater proportion of trapping incomes were spent on non-necessities, including alcohol (Lytwyn 2010: 11). Equally important, the frenzy of harvesting and trading, coupled with disease, lead to rapidly declining returns, especially in beaver, in the first decade of the 19th century (Hamilton 2010: 7; Lytwyn 2010: 12-13). As Hamilton explains, ‘this appears to be part of a widespread pattern of resource collapse and crisis throughout the northwest that derived from the uncontrolled growth of trade operations and fierce competition for furs’ (2010: 7).19 After 1821, with end of the competitive frenzy in fur trading, the HBC and NWC merged and operations were restructured to increase profitability (Hamilton 2010: 16, Lytwyn 2010: 8). According to Petch, the majority of posts in Petit Nord were closed (2010: 38); Lytwyn says trading posts were withdrawn to the mouths of the main rivers (i.e. Poplar, Berens and Bloodvein) on the east shore of Lake Winnipeg (2010: 13; Hamilton 2010: 8). As Hamilton shows however, smaller HBC outposts were maintained in the interior of Pimachiowin Aki. An outpost was built at Little Grand Rapids in 1848, in Poplar Hill in 1895 and in Pikangikum several years later; these outposts were run informally, with a minimum of goods available and tighter controls over how credit was provided to trappers (Hamilton 2010: 8-9, working from Dunning 1959: 13-15; see also Lytwyn 2010: 16). Trading in furs, and provision of credit, was
18 Lytwyn also notes that in 1729, even trappers from the Lake of the Woods area were trading their pelts at Albany Fort (1986: i, footnote i). 19 Chapeskie et al., following Clapp (1998), refer to this kind of resource collapse as an integral part of the ‘Resource Cycle’ (2005: 27-28), in which non-residents are able to accumulate capital quickly in one sector and then invest the returns in other sectors that can provide returns in a shorter time than would be needed to renew the (now depleted) resource (see also WMC 2008: 26). In the case of the fur trade, as profitability declined controlling shareholders of HBC turned their attention to investing in emerging opportunities in land speculation and agricultural settlement (Hamilton 2010: 13). page 37 of 65
Pimachiowin Aki Cultural Documentation Summary October 7, 2011 largely conducted at full trading posts, not at the smaller outposts in the interior of Pimachiowin Aki. Pikangikum elder Charlie Peters describes how, when he was young, furs were shipped out by plane from the HBC post in Pikangikum to the post in Little Grand Rapids (Nikischer 2008: 54, 61; see also Dunning 1959: 14). With the restructuring of trading networks, and in the absence of competition, the HBC also began lowering prices for fur (Lytwyn 2010: 16). With a declining incentive to participate in the fur trade, dating back to the end of the competition period (circa 1821), Anishinaabeg increasingly relied on snaring smaller prey species and fishing; this time has been called the ‘fish and hare’ period (Hamilton 2010: 8). One observer at Albany Fort noted in 1825, with a little bitterness perhaps, that those Anishinaabe who had chosen ‘to live idly and easy at fishing stations, seldom are in want of food and warmly appareled [sic] in Furs’ (in Lytwyn 2010: 16-17). Hamilton suggests that the cultural changes resulting from declining participation in the fur trade can be seen as a return to ‘a more traditional mode of seasonally scheduled foraging’ in which Anishinaabeg largely abandoned now un-affordable European technology (Hamilton 2010: 8). COMMERCIAL FISHING As part of this ‘traditional mode’, fishing was a particularly important livelihood activity (unfortunately, for the Pimachiowin Aki area, much less has been written on fishing than on trapping). During the fur trade, fresh and dried fish was bartered to traders (Hamilton 2010: 27). Commercial fishing in Pimachiowin Aki began on Lake Winnipeg (when we don’t know because there is, at time of writing, no information in the existing documentation for Pimachiowin Aki). Hamilton only indicates that the fishery was dominated by non-Aboriginal interests and the fishery collapsed in mid-eighteenth century (Hamilton 2010: 9). In the interior of Pimachiowin Aki, the earliest known phase of commercial fishing started in the 1930s with the lake sturgeon fishery on the Berens River. Unfortunately, the early sturgeon fishery in Ontario was not well documented; however, it is clear that it was dominated by non-resident, non-aboriginal interests and, in the early days (1930s and 1940s), was largely an un-regulated ‘resource frontier’ (WFMC 2008: 18-19). In a 1979 report, Red Lake resident Enid Carlson described how lake sturgeon were hauled out by tractor train ‘in substantial amounts’ (cited in WFMC 2008: 18-19). To make matters worse for local lake sturgeon populations, fishing was concentrated in the spring, during spawning time, which had a significant impact on the ability of lake sturgeon populations to withstand the level of harvesting being done (WFMC 2008: 20). Like the collapse of the fur trade in the mid- nineteenth century, the lake sturgeon fishery along the Berens River followed a pattern of rapid resource exploitation leading to collapse. Dunning, who conducted his research in Pikangikum during the early 1950s, reported that ‘sturgeon is rarely caught today’ (1959: 30- 31), a situation that continues to this day (WFMC 2008). Documentation for commercial fishing on Lake Winnipeg is not considered here but it is clear that commercial fishing, especially for walleye and whitefish, provided significant incomes for Anishinaabeg of Pimachiowin Aki during the 1960's and 1970's. According to Carlson, for some First Nations (unspecified), commercial fishing incomes exceeded incomes from the fur trade (1979: 6; cited in WFMC 2008: 24). Elder Colin P. Bruce of Poplar River recalls how, People had to hunt, trap and fish in order to survive as there was no store in Poplar River. In the spring, the women would get ready to make sturgeon nets but it was the men who supplied the twine to the women. During the summer fishing season people would move their families to fishing stations that were either located at Poplar Point or Big Black River (PRFN 2010: 12).
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According to Hamilton, the growth of (more affordable) airplane traffic in the 20th century helped Anishinaabeg of Pimachiowin Aki to participate in commercial fishing; fresh fish was stored in ice houses, built by Anishinaabeg in the winter, and planes picked up the fish when it was ready to send to (non-Aboriginal) buyers (2010: 27; see also Nikischer 2008: 69). The return to prosperity in the mid-twentieth century is reflected in the archaeological record: an archaeological reconnaissance conducted by Hamilton and Taylor-Hollings in the Berens and Bloodvein headwaters found older cabin sites (early to mid 20th century) associated with very few manufactured goods, although some were cached for repeated use; newer sites (post 1960s) were associated with more manufactured goods (2010: 11-12). Hamilton notes that settlement on good fishing locations, coupled with an interest in living close to HBC posts at key summer gathering places, likely encouraged increasing settlement (or sedentariness) of Anishinaabeg and therefore a reduction in time spent on the land trapping (Hamilton 2010: 9). This trend to permanent settlement at a smaller number of traditional summer settlement sites was also likely supported by the introduction of snowmobiles, which made it easier for Anishinaabe trappers to go out and return to a central community (Hamilton 2010: 12). In contrast, their earlier participation in the fur trade encouraged dispersal in the winter and was easily integrated into the traditional ‘seasonal round’ (Lytwyn 2010: 10-11). SUMMARY In sum, commercialisation of traditional livelihood activities was readily practiced by Anishinaabeg of Pimachiowin Aki, especially during times when markets for fur and fish were good. At present, both of these markets have largely dried up and reliance on government subsidies has become integral to the economies of Pimachiowin Aki. International markets for fur went into steep decline in the 1980s as a result of international anti-trapping campaigns (Chapeskie et al. 2005: 15; Hamilton 2010: 28; Berezanski 2004: 6). The decline of commercial fishing occurred for several reasons, including: rising cost of transportation, conservation concerns (Hamilton 2010: 27) and reports of mercury contamination, at least in Pikangikum's area (Nikischer 2008: 63). Pikangikum still holds commercial fishing licenses but there are no fishers using those licences (WFMC 2008; Nikischer 2008). In Poplar River, by contrast, ‘the Fishing Station is an important part of the local economy, packing and shipping fish harvested by over 56 commercially licenced fishers’ (PRFN 2010: 32).
C2. CUSTOMARY GOVERNANCE By using the term ‘customary governance’ I mean to include those institutions that are associated with Anishinaabe stewardship of the land and in particular those associated with the regulation of access to and use of the land (land tenure) and other forms of decision- making about the use of land (customary authority).
LAND TENURE - FAMILY HUNTING AND TRAPPING AREAS Deutsch (2010: 4-7) raises the issue of totems, and their role in defining clan boundaries, only to undermine the consideration of their importance to Pimachiowin Aki. Although the study of ‘localised clan (segments)’ have been a focus of much anthropological interest in land tenure, much of this interest is rooted in the study of settled, agricultural societies in which totems are used to define residential groups and assign rights to resources (c.f. Dunning 1959: 80-83). However, as Deutsch admits, totems (and therefore clans) ‘took on different organizational forms and meanings for Algonquian groups of the northwestern boreal’ (2010: 6), by which he presumably means the area of Pimachiowin Aki. Amongst the Anishinaabeg of Pimachiowin Aki, totems were important in defining rules for marriage (WFMC 2006: 23), solidifying
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Pimachiowin Aki Cultural Documentation Summary October 7, 2011 relations between paternally-related men (‘brothers’, including what we might call ‘cousins’), and providing a basis for establishing (‘fictive kinship’) relations with people from other groups (Dunning 1959: 80-83; see also Petch, 2010: 33 and Brown 2010:9). The composition of residential groupings — who lived and worked together — was generally quite fluid although the core members of a family grouping were typically close relatives, perhaps even comprising a ‘nuclear family’. However, Dunning makes it clear that the extended family, and not the nuclear family, is the core social and economic unit of Anishinaabe society (1959: 63-64). In consideration of the seasonal round, a livelihood- focussed group, such as a winter hunting and trapping group, typically consisted of the friends and family who chose to work together for personal reasons (Davidson-Hunt & O'Flaherty 2011: 6-7). Hamilton, following Hallowell, states the composition of a winter hunting and trapping group was highly variable but usually consists of at least two married couples and their children (2010: 4-5). This composition supported the ‘important work partnerships traditionally associated with northern hunters and trappers’; that is, the men travelled out by day on snowshoe and/or dogsled while women maintained the camp (Hamilton 2010: 5). Dunning also identifies that it was typically a pair of men who would go out by day and return at night (1959: 25). This routine is significant because it sets the extent of a hunting/trapping area, or ‘family harvesting area’ (Deutsch 2010), as the aggregate of areas covered by one day's journey out by dog team and/or foot and back to the camp site20 (Quill 2006; Deutsch, 2010:17). In Pikangikum at least, there was generally more than one family harvesting area in what would later be identified as a trapline, especially where the trapline was large; people, generally ‘brothers’, agreed among themselves where they would be trapping in each year (Quill 2006; see also Hamilton, 2010: 4). Dunning alludes to the role of personal relations (and perhaps choice) rather than strict kinship terms defining who lives and works together in the bush; he states the registered traplines were drawn in 1947 by the provincial government, ‘on the basis of the customary trapping grounds occupied during the winter season by groups of persons who considered themselves trapping partners’ (1959: 105, emphasis added). There is a general stewardship principal in Anishinaabe culture that specific groups are associated with the stewardship of specific areas, and these areas have boundaries that are known both within the group and among their neighbours (Chapeskie in Quill 2004). Although the boundaries of such areas may change, ‘their approximate boundaries could be easily traced by the Indians themselves’ (Hallowell, 1992: 45 cited in Deutsch 2010: 9). According to Matthews & Roulette, families become known as holders of specific areas by leaving a visible mark, such as a carved mark on a tree along a path, or by committing a memorable act that is relived through stories, a topic introduced in Part B, page 16 (2010b: 32-34); stories (i.e. oral history) ‘about these memorable events attach the family or clan to a particular place and have the effect of confirming territorial hunting and gathering rights’ (Matthews & Roulette 2010b: 34) by keeping alive the memory of the specific location of trapping areas (Matthews & Roulette 2010b: 37).21
20 This raises the question if the adoption of snow machines, which would have enabled travel over larger areas, had an impact on the size hunting and trapping areas and how people negotiated with one another for access to these areas. 21 The late Elder Whitehead Moose of Pikangikum extends this principle to the Whitefeather Forest as a whole to assert the attachment of Pikangikum people to the area currently under their stewardship: When you look at the territory on that map of the Pikangikum People, I can say this for a fact that this is our land. We have lived on these lands and we will continue to live on these lands, we have made a livelihood on these lands … Nobody can take this land away from us. It’s our land, this is our right. This is our right, and we have to maintain that page 40 of 65
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At one level, then, rights to hunt and trap were vested in control of family harvesting (or trapline) areas;22 however, notwithstanding that extended family groupings occupied their family harvesting areas for a large portion of the year, not all livelihoods activities were conducted in these limited areas: gathering of plants (especially medicines), fishing (including commercial), and hunting required movement over larger and more diverse a range of lands than were contained within a single family harvesting area (Deutsch 2010: 10). Dunning noted that ‘a man may hunt and fish over any part, as well as gather berries and cut timber both for firewood and for building logs’ (1959: 105; see also Lytwyn 2010: 16). In fact, the residents of Pimachiowin Aki say before the registered trapline system was imposed in 1947, people could hunt and trap anywhere, as long as they had permission of the person who was in charge of that area. Elder Tom Quill, Sr., of Pikangikum, stated ‘before there were boundaries, we trapped anywhere’ (Deutsch 2010: 16-17; see also Norman Quill 2006 and Nikischer 2008: 82, 86). The late Samuel Mason of Poplar River also stated, ‘before any traplines were established, any trapper was allowed to trap anywhere they felt like trapping’ (PRFN 2010: 26). The same point is made by Elder Oliver Hill of Pikangikum First Nation: ‘Long ago, there wasn’t any trapline areas like what you see on the map. They went all over the land and we had no boundaries. They didn’t stay in one place. With the areas now where the place to trap, only the people that are listed can trap there now and it wasn’t like that long ago’ (October 31, 2006, in Nikischer 2008: 82). The one exception to the customary practice of allowing people to hunt and trap freely, with the consent of the families associated with the area being hunted or trapped in, was rights of first use (‘ownership’) to beaver lodges. Rights to harvest beavers at their lodges were vested in the person considered one of the trappers for a given family harvesting area and who is said to have found the lodge, or who inherited the lodge (Deutsch 2010: 17; Dunning, 1959: 105- 107). Transfer of leadership over family harvesting areas also provides insight into the flexibility inherent in customary land tenure. The position as head trapper in a given area was generally transferred from father to son (Dunning 1959: 107) but was also open to any arrangements that the senior trapper may make, often in consultation with the other trappers on ‘his’ line (Deutsch 2010: 13). For example, the late Elder Norman Quill of Pikangikum explained how the northern portion of his trapline, centered on Zeller Lake, was transferred to him through a customary kin-based arrangement (aanaypahngoomish) by the late Elder Marten (Wahbeeshayshee) of North Spirit Lake. Norman's father moved his family to North Spirit Lake to keep the mission house there and became very close to elder Marten. When it came time for elder Marten to pass on his line he assigned Norman as the head trapper since Norman was the most knowledgeable and active trapper for that area at that time (Quill pers. comm.). In sum, the strong personal and family influence over trapping resources was customarily balanced with more collective interest in a wider array of resources for hunting, fishing and gathering. Arising from ‘customary use, these [family] harvest territories were recognized and respected as being associated with specific hunting groups, but resource sharing was possible when guests sought and received permission to harvest in another group's territory’ (Hamilton 2010:5). It is this permission that is the cornerstone of the customary decision-making process regarding land use in Pimachiowin Aki.
right … our people still use the land, our people still move on the land (in Nikischer 2008: 70-71). 22 The assumption of a strict relationship between the holding of a trapping area and rights to fur resources, something akin to ‘ownership’, is at the heart of a debate about origins of the ‘hunting territory’ (i.e. trapping area or trapline) system to which both Hamilton (2010: 6) and Deutsch (2010: 7-9, 20) refer (see also Berkes et al. 2009: 40). page 41 of 65
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CUSTOMARY AUTHORITY AND DECISION-MAKING Leadership, but not hierarchy, is an important part of Anishinaabe society and is understood to be central to the survival of not just human beings, but all beings. As Pikangikum elder Charlie Peters explained, ‘There is Oohneekuhneeseeg [“renewed/strong leadership”] with animals, the wolves have a leader … geese follow the ones who know the way — they depend, on leadership for the whole to succeed’ (Shearer 2008: 89). Examples of historically significant leaders in Pimachiowin Aki that are discussed in the literature include Great Moose and his son, Fairwind,23 both from Pauingassi (Brown and Matthews 1993, cited in Deutsch 2010: 12), and Birchstick (Wigwaasatik) in Poplar Hill/Pikangikum24 (Dunning 1959: 181, 184-185, cited in Deutsch 2010: 12). Fairwind was a particularly well known leader whom people from all around the area would visit to receive his medical/spiritual treatments (Brown & Matthews 1993: 63). Unfortunately, by the time trained observers wrote about Anishinaabe leadership and authority in the Pimachiowin Aki area, leadership had become more formalised through interactions with the Crown Chartered Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), and later the Canadian state. As Deutsch explains, the HBC dealt only with Anishinaabeg as trading groups, through a leader assigned by the group (2010: 11; see also Brown & Matthews 1993: 57). Nevertheless, some principles of (customary) Anishinaabe leadership and authority are seen as having historical continuity and relevance by the people of Pimachiowin Aki. Although the transfer of leadership over family harvesting areas was, and still is, generally transferred from father to son, authority to lead decision-making is not hereditary. Neither was leadership customarily vested in those who ‘controlled’ land (i.e. as head trappers in family harvesting areas) but rather in those who demonstrated success in stewardship of land and people, and in particular their skills in trade, hunting and ritual (Deutsch 2010: 11, 14). From an Anishinaabe perspective, possession of leadership skills, or the gift of leadership, is itself dependent on gifts from the Creator and other spirit beings, as well as direct experience and intimacy with a particular place or set of resources such as medicinal plants (Davidson- Hunt & O'Flaherty 2007: 294). Late Elder Whitehead Moose of Pikangikum expressed the experiential basis of authoritative knowledge in direct terms: ‘There are two different types of people: those who live off of the land, that can experience the land, and those who just talk about what they haven’t experienced’ (in O'Flaherty et al. 2008). However, there is a finer distinction made between those who have land-based knowledge (Ahkeeweekeekaytuhmuhweeneeng) rooted in personal experience and the authoritative knowledge held by esteemed elders (Keecheeauhneesheenaubay weekeekaytauhmuhween) (Davidson-Hunt et al. 2006); anyone can have knowledge about the land, but only respected elders are considered to hold the specialized knowledge associated with the stewardship responsibilities of a senior keeper of the land (O'Flaherty et al. 2008; see also Shearer 2008: 64-66). In the Pikangikum First Nation land use strategy, Alex Peters explains: Who are the keepers of our lands, the ones with authority to protect them? Those of our people who know them best, the ones who were born and raised on them; those
23 Brown and Matthews (1993) provide a detailed account of Fairwind (Naamiwin). 24 Before the mid-twentieth century, Poplar Hill and Pikangikum were merely two summer settlements which, along with another at Barton (Duck) Lake, were closely affiliated. People in Pikangikum still recognise a close kinship with their relatives at Poplar Hill, respecting that Poplar Hill is able to make decisions about their own future as a separate community. page 42 of 65
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of our people who have been responsible for caring for them, the ones who have been custodians of them; those of our people who know the teachings of our ancestors about each place on the land on how to take care of these places. Who are these people? Most importantly, they include the Elders of Pikangikum. Our Elders are our primary capacity … These people also include all of the people of Pikangikum who go out and make their livelihood on the land. They include our hunters, our trappers, our basket makers, our fisherman, our medicinal plant gatherers, our guides, our outpost camp operators, everyone who goes to the land to work. All these people have authority ― the responsibility ― to protect and care for our land (PFN & OMNR 2006: 12). A particularly important kind of knowledge and experience is that which is passed on to people, and especially through dreams, by the Creator and other spirit beings (esp. ‘other than human’ beings, (Brown and Matthews 1993: 59; see also Dunning 1959: 176-177) about which more is said in Part B). For example, success in hunting was closely tied to a person's spiritual powers (Brown & Matthews 1993: 57) and in particular, a close relationship to spirit entities ‘said to “own” various animals and arrange that their physical manifestation be made available to humanity’ (Matthews & Roulette 2003). As anthropologist Rob Brightman has explained, ‘the idea that sacred procedures — forms of prayer, songs — the idea that these are either originally revealed to an individual in dreams, or that an individual acquires legitimate rights to perform or use such sacred practices in dreams, I think is a very fundamental aspect of Salteaux [Ojibwe] theology’ (Matthews 1993). As Matthews & Roulette explain further, ‘a gift from one's bawaagan [spirit helper in a dream] had to be paid for with deliberate personal suffering such as prolonged fasting and isolation or by foregoing certain things in life, but it could also be earned at times of real grief and desperation’ (2003). Two examples of this process are described in the literature for the Pimachiowin Aki area. Dunning describes how Birchstick's power (‘spirit strength’) was said to originate in a puberty dream/vision (1959: 101). A more detailed description is provided for Fairwind (Naamiwan) by Matthews (1993; see also Matthews and Roulette, 2003): Naamiwan became very weak, sad, lonely; he cried a lot. He put down his gun, took off his mitts, and he sort of knelt down and he had his back towards the sky, so it was there when, while he was crying, tears were just pouring, pouring down. And it was during this time that he got this dream, and somebody spoke to Naamiwan and said, “Don't be lonely anymore.” And it seemed to come from the direction of the east. And he said, “I'm going to give you a gift and with this gift you will become a healer. You will help many, many people of this gift that I'm giving you.” And he got the instructions on how to make the drum (Margaret Simmons translating for Elder Charlie George Owen of Pauingassi, quoted in Matthews 1993). As was already mentioned in Part B, p. 19, that ‘somebody’ who spoke to Naamiwan was in fact a Thunderbird (Binesi); it was a Thunderbird, appearing as a dream visitor (bawaagan), who bestowed upon Fairwind the powers of healing but the name of the visitor was not used in retelling the story out of respect for that ‘somebody’ (see ‘Respectful Behaviour’, pp. 22-23). Having great powers enabled Anishinaabe leaders to ‘apply sanctions through the fear of magical power’ (Deutsch 2010: 12). Fairwind, for instance, was said to demand that all those who passed his home, including by boat, were expected to stop and pay their respects (Brown & Matthews 1993: 66-68). The late Elder Jacob Owen of Pauingassi explained how people were very fearful of Fairwind, who received what he demanded; he also explained how Fairwind could kill people with his powers: he killed a man and woman who had tried to kill
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Pimachiowin Aki Cultural Documentation Summary October 7, 2011 him; ‘with a helper, he stayed up all night. He used a water drum. All night he worked, till they were all dead. He used the shaking tent as his weapon, and he wouldn't stop until they were all dead’ (Matthews 1993). Balancing the great powers of leaders such as Fairwind were the underlying values of Ohnunshoowayweeneeng: inclusion, participation, egalitarianism, and cooperation (Shearer 2008: 90). In present-day Pikangikum, ultimate authority for planning decisions over the whole of the Whitefeather Forest rests with the community as a whole: ‘Final community decisions are made at Ohnahshohwayweeneeng, our plenary assembly, which is announced on the community radio and all Pikangikum people are invited to attend’ (PFN & OMNR 2006: 15). Similarly, in Poplar River today, land use ‘decision-making will be by consensus, consistent with our cultural traditions’ and made accountable to the community as a whole (PRFN 2010:44).
GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION According to Hamilton, territorial expansion [and governance] by the newly formed Dominion of Canada, including the 1869 purchase of Rupert's Land (the HBC Charter area), required treaty-making between the British Crown and Aboriginal peoples (2010: 13). Treaties were designed to have Aboriginal peoples cede their rights to land in order to facilitate Euro- Canadian settlement’; however, given the basis of land stewardship discussed earlier, in which land was held in common and rights to use land (not hold/own) were established through agreements with stewards associated with particular tracts of land, it is likely that Aboriginal people viewed treaties as ‘nation-to-nation’ agreements of friendship and cooperation (Chapeskie et al. 2005: 14-15; Hamilton 2010: 13-14). The Aboriginal people of Pimachiowin Aki were covered by Treaty #5 (1875), even though the people living on the upper Berens (i.e. those people now living in Poplar Hill and Pikangikum) did not sign the Treaty; Jacob Berens, of Berens River, signed the treaty on behalf of these upriver communities (Hallowell 1992). Under the Treaty, the federal government drafted band membership lists, established a new system of elected chiefs25 and, some years later, designated tracts of land as Indian reserves for the settlement of Aboriginal people and delivery of Federally funded services (Davidson-Hunt & O'Flaherty 2011: 7; Hamilton 2010: 14-15). As Hamilton explains, the early days of the Treaty focussed on the annual presentation of annuities by the treaty party but over time the presence and influence of external agents increased; as Hamilton argues, Dunning's observations in Pikangikum during the 1950s ‘reflect an increasingly pervasive and sometimes coercive element in the relationship between the Indian Agent and the resident Ojibwe community’ (2010: 17). FEDERAL SUBSIDIES Hamilton describes the period following the mid-nineteen forties as a period of great change for the Anishinaabeg of Pimachiowin Aki as ‘external agencies exerted steadily growing influence upon local Ojibwe communities, in large measure because of step-wise dependence upon external services and resources gradually introduced into the local economy’ (2010: 23). This ‘pull’ to year-round settlement, and corresponding decline in time spent on the land, is particularly associated with centralised provision of heath care and (compulsory) education, which drew women and children to remain on Reserve while only the men went out on the land, increasingly by snow mobile (Hamilton 2010: 12); perhaps most important however was the provision of state subsidies.
25 The identification of leaders assigned to maintain a register of people within defined tracts of land was central to the ‘Indirect Rule’ of the British Crown in all of her colonies. page 44 of 65
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Provision of relief supplies to qualified (i.e. ‘destitute’) recipients began in early Treaty period but was greatly expanded in 1946 when the Federal government authorised the HBC to distribute relief directly and bill the costs back to the government (Hamilton 2010: 23). Also in 1946, Aboriginal families became eligible for Family Allowance payments, providing their children were sent to reserve schools and then only in a state of cleanliness; payments could be suspended if children were found to be truant (Dunning 1959: 13; cited in Hamilton 2010: 20). In 1966 additional subsidies were made available to First Nation members through the Canada Pension programme (Hamilton 2010: 23). Dunning, who suggests ‘the importance of a subsidy to a hunting and collecting society cannot be emphasised too strongly’, calculated that for 1954-1955, subsidies made up 41.6% of incomes in Pikangikum; such subsidies allow for and even encourage population increase as well as decreasing reliance on customary livelihood activities (1959: 47). Acting at the same time as the ‘pull’ of federal services, there was a ‘push’ (off of the land) created by a decline in land-based livelihoods, itself the result of population increase, ‘externally imposed systems of resource allocation’ (Hamilton 2010: 23-24) and declining prices and/or markets for commercially traded goods such as fish and fur.
PROVINCIAL RESOURCE REGULATION Although Provincial control of resources derived from earlier periods, it was not until after World War II that the Provinces were able to assert effective power over natural resources in Pimachiowin Aki; in large part this change was due to improved transportation networks as the resource frontier was expanded northward (Hamilton 2010: 24-25). Prior to 1947, in Pikangikum at least, trapping activities were ‘supervised’ by the Indian agent, through the local HBC trader (Dunning 2010: 13). In Pimachiowin Aki, the Ontario Ministry of Lands and Forests (now the Ministry of Natural Resources) imposed beaver quotas and established a trapline registry in 1947; a similar process was initiated at the same time in Manitoba (Hamilton 2010: 25). In Pikangikum (and perhaps the Ontario portions of Little Grand Rapids and Pauingassi), ‘government registration of trappers and territories was based on the 1947 groupings of trappers and their own definition of existing trapping areas as drawn from large-scale maps’ (Dunning 1959: 27).26 According to Berezanski, the underlying principle for registration of traplines in Manitoba was all lines be ‘drawn by Chief and Council or concerned trappers (never by an officer)’ (2004: 4). Berezanski also suggests that Aboriginal people in Manitoba saw the creation of a registered trapline (RTL) system as akin to a Treaty-making process in which lands were being set aside for their exclusive use (2004: 4). In other words, Aboriginal people viewed the creation of traplines as a confirmation of their stewardship responsibilities over all resources on their traplines, not just fur resources. The late Pikangikum elder Whitehead Moose expressed his understanding of Anishinaabe land stewardship, and in particular the need to consult head trappers on any activity proposed for their area: I think about the words the Beaver Boss [OMNR] said to us when they introduced the trapline system; they told us that nobody can come and do whatever they want on your land, in your areas, they told us. That’s why I question the fact where these [tourist] camp[s], these people that built those camps on those lakes where they got the permission, because we never gave them permission (in Nikischer 2008: 69).
26 Both Hamilton (2010: 6) and Deutsch (2010: 8, 10) raise the question of the origins of the trapline system, and largely leave the question unanswered. Perhaps there is no answer; or it doesn't matter since the current interpretation within Pimachiowin Aki is what is important, especially as it influences contemporary management activities. page 45 of 65
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In the early days, the overlay of registered traplines on the mosaic of customary family harvesting areas had little impact (Deutsch 2010: 16-19), provincial trapping regulations would soon be seen as ‘a new era of coercive fur management’ (Deutsch, in Davidson-Hunt & O'Flaherty 2011: 8). In addition to fossilising the contemporary network of family harvesting areas into a fairly rigid set of registered traplines, the new trapline system formalized leadership roles related to trapping (Deutsch 2010: 16). Formalization of rights to trap allowed trappers to sell and trade their licences, including to outsiders, which led to the affective loss of access to lands for customary livelihood pursuits (Berkes 2009: 42).27 The new system also led to new forms of conflict as conservation officers attempted to enforce exclusivity of trapline boundaries by requiring trappers to remove traps from their lines if they belonged to other trappers (Deutsch 2010: 16). Elder Alec Suggashie of Pikangikum recalls, one time, we had the treaty people visit our community and an MNR official came along at that time. That’s when they wanted to talk with the people to introduce the trapline system. That’s when the boundaries were established, the different trapline areas. And it was quite restrictive the way that they put it, no one could go into another area or cross a boundary. You would be breaking the law we were told (in Nikischer 2010: 53). According to late Elder Norman Quill of Pikangikum, when the trapline system was introduced by MNR, that created a lot of friction. For instance, these people that trapped in Pikangikum [Lake] area here would not even let anybody cross the area. Part of the beaver boss [MNR] policy was that if you find a trap in your area from a different party, a different group, you were told to seize that trap, to take away that trap (2006). The same experience was expressed by the late Elder Samuel Mason of Poplar River, before any traplines were established, any trapper was allowed to trap anywhere they felt like trapping. However, when Trapline No.6 was allocated to Roderick and Percy Douglas, nobody was allowed to trap on that trapline unless he/she was a member [i.e. registered] (PRFN 2010: 26). Also in the post-war period, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC), at that time Indian Affairs, initiated a programme supporting Aboriginal commercial fishing, including by providing nets and paying for charter flights out to the various lakes (Nikischer 2008: 62-63). It was only in 1950 that the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, then called the Department of Lands & Forests, introduced a commercial licensing system (WFMC 2008: 18). However it is unclear when issuance and regulation of licences began in Ontario; initially, licences only specified equipment to be used, not quotas, but harvest records do begin in 1958 (WFMC 2008).28 As the late Pikangikum elder Whitehead Moose recalled, during these times when we had a good prosperous commercial fishing, there was no MNR presence around whatsoever … But things changed and MNR came into the picture again … before that, we had no quotas. We could catch as much fish as we
27 While loss of a trapline should only concern the commercial rights to fur, the de facto consequence was often for people to discontinue use of areas transferred outside of their community or kin group (Berezanski 2004: 7). A similar process occurred with the creation of parks and protected areas in Ontario; even though OMNR told (and continue to tell) Aboriginal harvesters that their Aboriginal and Treaty rights are not (in theory) affected by the creation of Protected Areas, people nonetheless perceive their rights to have been removed and hence they discontinue harvesting in Protected Areas (see for example, Nikischer 2008: 54-56, 94-95, 118). 28 In the documentation considered in this review, there is no similar discussion of commercial fishing in the down-river communities. page 46 of 65
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could ... MNR I believe affected commercial fishing. It went down from there, when MNR took over (in Nikischer 2008: 79). Sometime in the 1960s or 1970s, support for Aboriginal commercial fishing began to falter for a number of reasons, including rising fuel costs, unsteady market demand, and elevated (natural) mercury levels. In Ontario, faced with pressure to develop fly-in tourism for sport fishing, and ‘growing resource conservation concerns’, the Province transferred licences to largely non-Aboriginal tourism operators (Hamilton 2010: 27). The experience with the decline of commercial fishing, and subsequent re-allocation to non-Aboriginal tourism operators, has to this day been a source of conflict between government and Anishinaabeg of Pikangikum. The same can be said for the creation of Atikaki and Woodland Caribou Provincial Parks, which were established with little or no input from Aboriginal people in Pimachiowin Aki (Hamilton 2010: 29). Underneath these conflicts between Anishinaabeg and government, there are some fairly fundamental differences in worldview and stewardship values. Given a long history of conflict and misunderstanding between Anishinaabeg of Pimachiowin Aki and provincial government, Hamilton notes with some optimism, ‘in the comparatively recent past that these relationships of power have begun to shift, with First Nations becoming key players in northern land use planning and resource development’ (2010: 29-30). In Ontario, the policy and legislative basis for enabling First Nation participation in planning land management activities in their traditional areas is: the Northern Boreal Initiative (2001), the Community-based Land-Use Planning policy (2002), and the Far North Act (2010). In Manitoba, the policy and legislation relevant to Pimachiowin Aki is Wabanong Nakaygum Okimawin (‘East Side of the Lake Governance’, formerly known as the East Side Planning Initiative) and the East Side Traditional Lands Planning and Special Protected Areas Act in Manitoba (2009) — detailed discussion of these processes is outside of the scope of this Documentation Summary.
C3. CONCLUSIONS | SURVIVAL ON THE LAND I kill the caribou to eat. This is an honour to take this caribou for my survival. Late Pikangikum elder Jake Kejick (February 15, 2006 in WFMC 2006: 30)
In closing the Part C discussion of livelihood, we return to the importance of understanding the Anishinaabe worldview, and in this particular context, the aspects of worldview that help to understand the Pimachiowin Aki Statement of Outstanding Universal Value (October 1, 2010): ‘Our well-being and very survival depend upon our use and care of the land’. As we are reminded in the Poplar River land use plan, ‘the Elders of Poplar River First Nation have stated: The Creator has given us life, he has given us land to live from, without that land our people will die’ (PRFN 2010: 2). For the Anishinaabeg of Pimachiowin Aki, the plants and animals upon which people depend are gifts from the Creator. Without these gifts, people would perish since before the advent of social assistance in the post-war era, it was the land that provided food, shelter, medicine and income. As Pikangikum elder Lucy Strang remarked, ‘the Creator gave us these animals to live on. We survived by what we killed in the bush (Apr. 29, 2008, in WFMC 2008: 32); Pikangikum elder Lizzie Turtle also explained, I have always been living on the land, most of my life. We would stay there all winter. There were times when we would have no food and no socks [sic]. Our dad took care of us. We would eat when he killed our food. This was long before there was any financial assistance (January 19, 2005, emphasis added).
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Pikangikum elder William Strang expressed his understanding of survival on the land as a physical, relational and emotional whole: I love the land because I live; you can only love something when you are alive and it is the land that makes me alive. The teaching we have is that we are to love one another, be in harmony with one another. We live on his land and we will get everything we will need from the land. What I know today was passed down to me from my parents (December 15, 2004). Thankfulness for the gift of life is shown by appropriate behaviour in land use practices and through ceremonial practices, but also through the very act of harvesting plants and animals for survival. As late Elder Jake Kejick’s opening quotation suggests, harvesting, in the Anishinaabe worldview, is a demonstration of dependence on other beings that is acknowledged through respectful and appropriate behaviour (as discussed in Part B, pp. 22- 23). Therefore, while success in Anishinaabe livelihood practices requires an attentive and purposeful mind equipped with a detailed (indigenous) knowledge of animal behaviour and ecology, continued success requires careful attention to respectful behaviour that demonstrates thankfulness for the gift of survival. Pikangikum elders have explained this issue in the following way: Elder Gideon Peters: ‘if we quit harvesting they will disappear. Only if you harvest will they come back’; Elder Solomon Turtle: ‘we used to work the traplines, harvest its abundance and it would return again. This was the Creator’s way of looking favourably upon us. But now we don’t harvest as much so there is no increase, only decline. Why should the Creator give us more when we don’t harvest as much anymore?’; Elder Ellen Peters: ‘it is as Solomon says, we were giving these things to use but we haven’t been using them. They were given for our survival, for people to enjoy in their meals’ (all on December 11, 2003, cited in WFMC 2008: 32). These comments were made in response to discussions about woodland caribou and the concern from within the science- based worldview that woodland caribou are disappearing from the land. When asked to comment on how such issues, including specifically the concept of ‘Species at Risk’, should be presented to their children in school, Pikangikum elders had very clear opinions about the importance of having the Anishinaabe worldview represented. Elder Sam Quill, for example, remarked, ‘the Anishinaabe have a different view of teaching and training our youth about these animals’ (Apr. 29, 2008, in WFMC 2008: 31). This is why the Anishinaabeg of Pimachiowin Aki, the five Accord First Nations (PRFN et al. 2002), have embarked on a variety of initiatives, including this World Heritage nomination, aimed at ensuring the cultural survival of their people. Continued survival on the land, as a people, will require continued adaptation, which the Anishinaabeg in Pimachiowin have already demonstrated a great capacity for. Each First Nation shares a desire to see new opportunities for employment rooted in land-based activities that allow Anishinaabe youth to remain in contact with the land, keeping the cultural traditions of their ancestors alive on the land. New economic opportunities, including in tourism, are especially important given the rapidly increasing population of these First Nations (see Part C, pp. 32-33). Bloodvein First Nation has expressed their concerns in clear terms through their adhesion to the First Nations Accord: ‘It’s always been a simple request from our community members: we just want to take control over our own destiny’ (PRFN et al. 2002).
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D. Pimachiowin Aki Anishinaabe Cultural Landscape Pimachiowin Aki fully represents the tangible and intangible elements of a living Anishinaabe cultural landscape. Pimachiowin Aki Statement of Outstanding Universal Value (October 1, 2010)
The purpose of this section is to explain the cultural landscape concept as it relates to the Anishinaabe ‘Relationship to Aki’ outlined in Parts A through C. The discussion assumes some familiarity with the cultural landscape concept and does not attempt to reconcile the diversity of definitions and understandings of the term. This Part of the Summary has been divided into two main sections: D1. The Cultural Landscape Concept ― a brief overview of the term and its meaning in the Pimachiowin Aki context; D2. Pimachiowin Aki – The Land that Gives Life ― a brief discussion of the tangible and intangible aspects of the nomination area as a cultural landscape; and, D3. Journeying The Land ― concluding remark on the importance of travelling to the Pimachiowin Aki cultural landscape.
D1. THE CULTURAL LANDSCAPE CONCEPT Definitions for the term ‘cultural landscape’ are varied, and no single definition is general enough to be representative of the global diversity of relations between people and land; nor is any definition likely to capture the complexity of any particular relationship between a people and their land. In general, the term is used to refer to ‘the physical expression of the complex and dynamic sets of relationships, processes and linkages between societies and environments’ (Davidson-Hunt 2003). A more detailed definition for Aboriginal cultural landscapes is provided by Susan Buggey, through Parks Canada: An Aboriginal cultural landscape is a place valued by an Aboriginal group (or groups) because of their long and complex relationship with that land. It expresses their unity with the natural and spiritual environment. It embodies their traditional knowledge of spirits, places, land uses, and ecology. Material remains of the association may be prominent, but will often be minimal or absent’ (Parks Canada, 2010). Behind most current definitions is a desire to begin moving beyond what Brown has referred to as ‘the venerable “man and nature” dualism’, and ‘the pervasive English-language concepts of nature, land, and landscape’ (Brown 2010: 16). Even if the English language has so far been inadequate to the task of describing the kinds of relations between people and land expressed by the Anishinaabeg of Pimachiowin Aki, two of the Accord First Nations have made explicit use of the term ‘cultural landscape’ in their land use plans29, perhaps because the term helps to address, in part, the Anishinaabe understanding of how land, worldview and livelihood form a coherent whole. The Whitefeather Forest land use plan of Pikangikum First Nation (PFN & OMNR 2006: 24) refers to their planning areas as, a holistic network of natural and cultural features that results from the relationship between Pikangikum people and our ancestral lands (Ahneesheenahbay ohtahkeem).
29 The Woodland Caribou Provincial Park management plan also makes use of the term ‘cultural landscape’ (Ontario Parks 2007).
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This relationship (kahsheemeenoweecheetahnahnk) expresses a closeness that comes from our knowledge of the land, but also from a spiritual and emotional connection to the land … Our Ahneesheenahbay ohtahkeem is not merely a landscape modified by human activity but a way of relating to the land, a way of being (on the land). In the draft Pauingassi First Nation land use plan, cultural landscapes reflect both the personal, or intimate, and the historical relations between people and territory: Anthropologists describe the imaginative and emotional relationship of the Ojibwe with particular places as a real life example of a ‘cultural landscape’. Most people think about a landscape as a physical and natural backdrop for life, a sort of stage upon which life happens. But in the Ojibwe way of thinking, the landscape is alive; it is full of human and non-human beings that engage with the people who know a certain place thoroughly (2010: 24). The draft plan also asserts that ‘what is important is that the culture, way of life, and the relationship of the people to these lands have evolved to be unique and specific to this landscape – the land and the people have shaped one another and continue to do so’ (2010: 23). In sum, the cultural landscape concept finds its way into the Pimachiowin Aki context because it helps to articulate, however imperfectly, the Anishinaabe understanding that the people are as much a part of the land as any of the other beings put there by the Creator: ‘We believe and assert that we are part of the land. We are both in and upon the land … and the land is part of us of who we are’ (PRFN 2010: 2); ‘The people of Little Grand First Nation have been part of the land from time immemorial as long as the oldest elder of our community remembers. We believe and assert that we are part of the land’ (LGRFN 2010: 3); ‘People, air, land, water, wildlife, heritage and resources are all part of our environment … We are as much a part of the land as the land is part of our values, traditions and culture’ (BRFN 2010: 6).
BOUNDARIES & TERMINOLOGY It is not within the scope of this Documentation Summary to provide advice on any boundary definitions but a few comments are worth bearing in mind regarding how cultural landscapes can be delimited on the land. Identification of Pimachiowin Aki as a single cultural landscape (‘The Pimachiowin Aki Cultural Landscape’) may be more misleading than helpful since there are five First Nations that can be associated with unique cultural landscapes, as well as other First Nations that have cultural landscapes that may overlap with the Pimachiowin Aki planning area. Cultural landscapes can be associated with historic use and intangible meanings and therefore are not necessarily the same as a defined traditional territory over which a First Nation is currently exercising resource management responsibility (in concert with a provincial government); further, a given piece of land can be part of more than one cultural landscape (i.e., can have meaning to more than one society). Thus, Pimachiowin Aki can be seen as an amalgam of overlapping cultural landscapes, both Aboriginal and non- Aboriginal. By the same token, the areas that each of the five Accord First Nations may understand as being within their cultural landscape are not necessarily contained within their current management planning areas, let alone the Pimachiowin Aki nomination area. As Davidson-Hunt has suggested, ‘a world heritage site may be representative of a cultural landscape but should not be confused with a cultural landscape that transcends the purposes and boundaries of a site’ (Davidson-Hunt & Miller 2011, emphasis added). Given the foregoing, it will be the custom in the remainder of this report to refer to the Anishinaabe cultural landscapes of Pimachiowin Aki in the plural, with the understanding that
page 50 of 65 Pimachiowin Aki Cultural Documentation Summary October 7, 2011 it is still possible to speak of Pimachiowin Aki as being representative of a set of features common to these, and perhaps other, Aboriginal cultural landscapes.
THE UNESCO CONTEXT According to the World Heritage Operational Guidelines, Cultural landscapes are cultural properties and represent the “combined works of nature and of man” designated in Article 1 of the Convention. They are illustrative of the evolution of human society and settlement over time, under the influence of the physical constraints and/or opportunities presented by their natural environment and of successive social, economic and cultural forces, both external and internal (UNESCO 2008, Annex 3: 85). There is no need here to debate the meaning of specific words used; all that is needed is to note that the UNESCO definition conforms to the general outlines of the definitions given earlier. Although the language of ‘evolution over time’ is potentially hazardous, the definition nevertheless allows for an understanding of cultural change over time which is helpful. The specific categories of cultural landscape nomination that interest Pimachiowin Aki are 1) the ‘organically evolved landscape’, and in particular the ‘continuing landscape … which retains an active social role in contemporary society closely associated with the traditional way of life, and in which the evolutionary process is still in progress. At the same time it exhibits significant material evidence of its evolution over time’ (UNESCO 2008, Annex 3: 86); and 2) the ‘associative cultural landscape’ which are characterized by ‘powerful religious, artistic or cultural associations of the natural element rather than material cultural evidence, which may be insignificant or even absent’ (UNESCO 2008, Annex: 86).
D2. PIMACHIOWIN AKI – THE LAND THAT GIVES LIFE From the two UNESCO definitions of cultural landscape given above (i.e., ‘continuing’ and ‘associative’ cultural landscapes) we can extract three themes that can be used to discuss the Pimachiowin Aki material considered in Parts A through C:
• Material Evidence of Change over Time: ‘exhibits significant material evidence of its evolution over time’;
• Intangible Associations with the Land: ‘powerful religious, artistic or cultural associations’; and,
• Living Cultural Landscape: ‘retains an active social role in contemporary society closely associated with the traditional way of life, and in which the evolutionary process is still in progress’. Each of these will be discussed, in turn.
MATERIAL EVIDENCE OF CHANGE OVER TIME While the scale of archaeological investigations, including research on pictographs, is relatively small for Pimachiowin Aki, the material evidence shows a progression of Algonquian, if not Anishinaabe, occupation dating at least to the Shield Archaic, some 5,000 years ago (Petch 2010: 22-23, Steinbring 2010: 2-3). When considered together with the indigenous knowledge of historical habitation sites such as cabins, seasonal harvesting sites, and summer gathering sites that date back as far as living memory can go, farther with the aid of oral history, the material evidence of Anishinaabe lives in Pimachiowin Aki tells a story of a people on the land, surviving in and through successive periods of environmental and cultural change. This story reaches back to post-glacial Lake Agassiz, a time when the muskrat was said to help
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Wiisakejaak save the word from a giant flood through the creation of earth/Aki on which Anishinaabeg would come to depend for their survival. The story of Anishinaabeg in Pimachiowin Aki also reaches out across the land to describe a history of interaction with other peoples near and far. The birch bark scrolls associated with the Midewiwin speak of knowledge of passage by water from Leech Lake, Minnesota to the Atlantic Ocean, and to ‘another word across the ocean’; the scrolls are also material testimony to a time when the songs, drums, dances, prayers, and regalia associated with the Midewiwin tied Anishinaabeg in Pimachiowin Aki to more distant Anishinaabeg, including as part of the emergence of new ritual practices that helped Anishinaabeg further south adapt to dispossession and settlement. The material traces of Anishinaabe lives can also be seen in the land itself. Anishinaabe have built seasonal travel routes that consist of portages, cleared-out channels, dog-sled and snow- mobile trails that enable people to travel widely across the land. Harvesting activities also leave their traces on the land, although they are often fairly short-lived or soon disguised by the bush; there are, for example, food processing sites (e.g., for cleaning and smoking fish or other meat), fish traps, and manomin (‘wild rice’) fields. The material evidence of Anishinaabe lives on the land can be seen by an outsider but the meaning of the modifications to land can only be fully understood within the Anishinaabe worldview.
INTANGIBLE ASSOCIATIONS WITH THE LAND Since the natural and cultural features of a landscape are always changing, ‘the key to the heritage value of aboriginal cultural landscapes lies in a people's relationship with the land’ (Andrews & Buggey 2008: 65). Yet, as Anishinaabe elders in Pimachiowin Aki have pointed out in meetings, terms such as ‘interaction’, ‘relationship’ (which raised eyebrows in Pikangikum at the thought of having ‘relations’ with caribou), ‘interconnection’, are ill-fitted garments borrowed for the task of giving form to a worldview so different from that of mainstream society; a worldview in which Anishinaabe are as much a part of the land as any other inhabitant or feature we term, in shorthand, ‘natural’. Meaning in the Anishinaabe cultural landscapes of Pimachiowin Aki is at once highly personal, based on lived experience, and at the same time part of much wider networks of cultural meaning, as shown through the shared history and practices revealed in language, song, ceremony, and legends, among other such things. Meaning and memory are forged while on the land, through practice and use, through interaction with the other beings with whom Anishinaabeg share the land. Within the shared cultural experience of Anishinaabeg in Pimachiowin Aki, the land speaks of a history of Anishinaabe lives that guides the living to recall memorable events, moral instructions or other information needed to navigate and make use of the land for the survival and well-being of Anishinaabeg, both personally and as a people. To describe the meaning-embedded features of an Anishinaabe cultural landscape as ‘intangible associations’ seems misleading since it is precisely their tangible form on the landscape that provides the impetus for the re-affirmation (or perhaps re-negotiation) of their meaning. Such meanings can range from profound cosmology to practical lessons on how to live a ‘good life’, but it is most notably in the every day personal experience of the mysterious and the mundane that life on the land is made meaningful. For the Anishinaabeg of Pimachiowin Aki, worldview is part of a lived experience which is why late Pikangikum elder Jake Kejick said people need to be on the land to see Anishinaabe knowledge at work. In short, the Pimachiowin Aki nomination will not find the path to a holistic cultural landscape perspective if the meaning of either the tangible or intangible aspects of the Anishinaabe cultural landscapes is considered more self-evident than the other.
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LIVING CULTURAL LANDSCAPE The Anishinaabe cultural landscapes of Pimachiowin Aki continue to play ‘an active social role in contemporary society’ while also exhibiting the capacity for constant change and adaptation. As Petch asserts, this ‘active social role’ has ancient root: ‘the sites that have been positively identified to date provide evidence of a long-standing relationship with the land over the millennia. That many of these same areas continue to be used by the Anishinaabeg is testimony to the value of the land in sustaining a people not only for subsistence but also culturally and spiritually’ (2010: 39). Continuity in the way Anishinaabeg in Pimachiowin Aki make use of the land and describe their place in the land can be seen in how people negotiate with one other over access to the land (tenure); in how customary decision-making processes respect the wisdom that comes with age and experience while also validating the importance of consensus and non- interference; in the forms of appropriate behaviour that are prescribed for interacting with the land and its various inhabitants, including both ‘those who have life’ and the other-than-human beings; in the continued practice of seasonal land-based livelihood pursuits, even if for briefer, more focussed episodes; in the way these various practices are expressed in language and indigenous (ecological) knowledge. Certainly there have been changes in how much time people, and in particular youth, are spending on the land; the concerns for cultural survival within the communities that make up the Accord First Nations are a major driving force behind the Pimachiowin Aki World Heritage nomination. From a cultural landscape perspective, continuity of traditions should not be seen as the sameness of practice being repeated, almost passively, among the bearers of a culture. As Andrews and Buggey suggest, ‘Aboriginal cultural landscapes are living landscapes that change as time progresses’ but ‘only the landscape of today is available to us: the others can only be conceived in our imagination … [and so] … to seek a sense of authenticity in the past is to search for an artificial construction’ (2008: 70). Anishinaabeg in Pimachiowin Aki have actively forged the cultural landscapes of Pimachiowin Aki through their living on the land, which they have physically modified and given meaning to through time to suit their contemporary cultural needs. Meaning continues to be emergent from practice; it is formed within and formative of an emerging Anishinaabe cultural landscape. It is the continuous adaptation to the needs of today that is part of how Anishinaabeg have demonstrated they are alive, that they are making good use of the life gifted to them by the Creator. Recalling that ‘Pimachiowin means the wholeness and goodness of life’, it is the land which is the source of bimaadiziwin, ‘the good life’, in which everything is oneesheesheen (‘good, as it is supposed to be’). In other words, health and well-being emerge from the relations between Anishinaabeg and Aki/land. First Nation efforts to achieve well-being in all its physical, mental and spiritual dimensions, is being expressed not only in a desire to protect the lands on which their future as a people depends, but a desire to ensure the youth of today value the teachings passed down through their elders. Perhaps one of the ways to see the (re-)emergence of the cultural landscapes of Pimachiowin Aki in the present, including the place of the Pimachiowin Aki nomination, is to look at the community-based processes of education and healing that Anishinaabeg are initiating to overcome legacy of social problems associated with, for example, residential schooling, permanent settlement, acculturation to mainstream society, and the influx of alcohol and drugs. Insofar as a successful World Heritage nomination can support the maintenance or expansion of opportunities for Anishinaabe youth to get out on the land, engage in customary pursuits and learn the ways of their elders, the process will have been a beneficial addition to the living Anishinaabe cultural landscapes of Pimachiowin Aki.
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D3. JOURNEYING THE LAND Humans engage with other organism-persons and places through travel, and therefore movement, or mobility, lies at the heart of aboriginal cultural landscapes. Andrews & Buggey (2008: 66) In her tribute to Hallowell (and William Berens), Brown criticizes Buggey (1999) for achieving only an ‘adequate rendering’ of the Anishinaabe understanding of the land (2010: 13), yet nowhere in the literature for Pimachiowin Aki is there really an ‘adequate rendering’ of the issue. Relations with other beings are covered extensively in the documentation for Pimachiowin Aki; livelihood practices are addressed only in bare detail, likely on the assumption they vary little from other boreal Anishinaabe sites where they have already been well documented (and still we know little of the contemporary livelihoods of Anishinaabeg in Pimachiowin Aki). However, no one it seems has seriously investigated Anishinaabe travel in any detail, including how Anishinaabeg perceive the land as they travel through it. The one potential exception is Hallowell’s description, in his ‘Cultural Factors in Spatial Orientation’ (1955 cited in Brown 2010: 8), of how landmarks ‘mark the nodal points in a geographical progression in space’. In this case, Hallowell was speaking of how during travel along waterways, Anishinaabeg constantly discussed the names for rapids, which ‘function as anticipatory signs of the features of the country to be encountered between them’ (1955: 196 cited in Brown 2010: 8). As Andrews and Buggey have asserted elsewhere, these ‘anticipatory signs’ are essential to the reproduction and transmission of indigenous knowledge among a travelling peoples such as the Anishinaabeg: The key for gaining knowledge is through the direct experience of travel. By moving from place to place an individual can collect the stories resident along the way, as the physical form of a named geographic feature triggers memory recall (2008: 66). So, while travel routes and toponyms have been widely documented for Pimachiowin Aki, and these can be understood within the discussion by Matthews & Roulette on how place names are associated with memorable events (2010b: 31-34, discussed in Part B, pp. 14-15), we still do not have an Anishinaabe perspective of the land which is more linear — a series of ‘nodal points in a geographical progression in space’ — rather than the cartographic view of mainstream society. Inasmuch as Anishinaabeg of Pimachiowin Aki are a travelling people who have a deep understanding of the myriad waterways that are so important to the character of the land in Pimachiowin Aki, our inability to understand Anishinaabeg perspectives of journeying through the land points to a significant gap in the available documentation.
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E. Authenticity According to the World Heritage Operational Guidelines, ‘the ability to understand the value attributed to the heritage depends on the degree to which information sources about this value may be understood as credible or truthful’, recognising ‘that cultural heritage must be considered and judged primarily within the cultural contexts to which it belongs’ (UNESCO 2008, paras. 80-81). To assist with the completion of Section 3.D Integrity and Authenticity in the Nomination Document, this Section provides a brief overview of details on: E1. Sources of Information on cultural values in Pimachiowin Aki; and, E2. Attributes of Authenticity in the Pimachiowin Aki context.
E1. SOURCES OF INFORMATION Sources of information for the evaluation of Authenticity of cultural values in Pimachiowin Aki are discussed here under separate headings, grouped according to their origin. For the most part, these sources have been addressed in the background reports that make up the Cultural Landscape Study as well as in this report; Part F ‘Works Cited’ therefore provides a representative, but not comprehensive, list of sources of published documentation on cultural heritage values in Pimachiowin Aki.
ORAL TESTIMONY The specific characteristics and meaning of the cultural heritage values found in Pimachiowin Aki are principally expressed through the culture of Anishinaabeg and especially their language and oral traditions, which continue to thrive as the primary means for transmitting cultural teachings across the generations. Anishinaabeg of the five First Nation communities of Pimachiowin Aki have shared these teachings with external researchers over time so oral testimony forms the primary source for most of the documentation considered under the following two sub-headings.
COMMUNITY DOCUMENTATION As part of their land use planning processes, the five First Nation communities in Pimachiowin Aki and the two provincial Parks have begun to document landscape-based cultural values within a GIS database; this data has been used to produce mapping found in the Nomination Document. In addition, each of the five First Nations has presented narrative descriptions of cultural values within their respective community-based land use plans (BRFN 2010; LGRFN 2010; PRFN 2010; PFN & OMNR 2006; Pauingassi FN). Pikangikum First Nation and Poplar River First Nation have also sponsored research reports that support their planning processes and that addresses indigenous knowledge on topics such as history, ecology and language (e.g., PRFN 2002a; PRFN 2002b; WFMC 2006; WFMC 2008).
ACADEMIC LITERATURE The Pimachiowin Aki nomination area has been the site for the early ethnographic researches of two respected anthropologists, A.I. Hallowell and R.W. Dunning. Hallowell, who’s work is well-reviewed in Brown (2010), made an especially significant contribution to the documentation of Anishinaabe culture in the region and this work was influential in the field of Anthropology as a whole (Wallace 1980). In addition to being grounded in an earlier generation of anthropological writing, information on the cultural values of Pimachiowin Aki is being documented by a number of contemporary scholars, many of who are assisting with the
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Pimachiowin Aki nomination and are cited in this report. The professional literature on cultural heritage values in Pimachiowin Aki includes peer-reviewed articles, Masters and PhD theses, conference papers and reports intended for more general audiences.
E2. ATTRIBUTES OF AUTHENTICITY The authenticity of cultural heritage values in Pimachiowin Aki is ‘truthfully and credibly expressed’ through information sources on the following attributes (following the Operational Guidelines 2008, para. 82): • use and function; • traditions, techniques and management systems; • location and setting; • language, and other forms of intangible heritage; and, • spirit and feeling.
AUTHENTICITY IN USE AND FUNCTION Authenticity is demonstrated through the continued use of Pimachiowin Aki by Anishinaabe residents for traditional land use practices, including associated transportation and ceremony. Anishinaabeg maintain their ancient travel routes on land and water to gain access to seasonal resource areas for hunting, trapping, fishing and gathering of medicinal and food plants. The material evidence of a hunting-gathering-fishing way of life is often limited, transient and not immediately intelligible to an untrained observer. As the Historical Sites and Monuments Board of Canada has suggested, material evidences of Aboriginal cultural landscapes may be largely absent, with the attributes primarily rooted in oral and spiritual traditions and in activities related to the place; traditional knowledge provides the primary sources of information about the interrelated cultural, natural and spiritual attributes that embody the site’s significance (HSMBC, ACL 3.18). Oral and written sources describe a long history of adaptation to new opportunities afforded by environmental change and historical development of wider society, but maintained within a uniquely Anishinaabe cosmology and customary stewardship system. The ethnographer Irving Hallowell, who worked in the area during the nineteen-thirties, wrote about the co-existence of both acculturation to European-introduced practices and continuity with Ojibway customs (Hallowell, 1992: 38). Trade brought many new goods to the area and over time many of these new goods replaced Aboriginal handicrafts: steel implements for those made from stone and wood, commercial twine for hand-made plant fibre twine, steel kettles for clay. More recently, portages have been adapted to the use of aluminum motor boats and winter trails have been widened for use by snowmobiles. These adaptations have made traditional land use more efficient but have not undermined a uniquely Anishinaabe understanding of relationship to land.
AUTHENTICITY IN TRADITIONS, TECHNIQUES AND MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS Authenticity is demonstrated through the continued importance of customary stewardship, including traditional ecological knowledge, ethical and spiritual teachings, land tenure relations and leadership institutions. Traditional ecological knowledge is maintained on a range of subject matters, including but not limited to: place names, local history, navigation, geography, resource locations, ecosystem dynamics, biological taxa, methods for harvesting and making use of natural resources, legends that explain creation, and teachings that direct certain kinds of behaviour, including appropriate ways of relating to other beings on the land. Some of this knowledge has been recorded in geo-referenced (GIS) datasets and in professional publications.
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Ethical and spiritual teachings continue to direct specific kinds of behaviour in specific contexts, as part of an Anishinaabe understanding of how the land must continue to sustain future generations. For example, people are taught the importance of taking only what they need, wasting nothing they take from the land, and acknowledge the gift of life by giving something back to the land such as an offering of tobacco or a traditional prayer. Sites associated with powerful spirit beings such as Thunderbirds and memegwesiwag are not to be approached or even pointed at, but appreciated at a respectful distance (Dreidger 2006; Matthews 1995; Matthews et al. 2010a). These practices are understood to demonstrate respect for other beings so they will continue to provide life for Anishinaabeg. In addition, customary processes for determining how people gain access to resources have been maintained within the context of a government-instituted registered trapline system, itself built upon the traditional Anishinaabe system of family trapping areas and customary leadership. Recognition of customary authority to make decisions about how specific areas of land are used continues to be centered on respect for those with the greatest experience of having used those areas: head trappers who hold the licence for the trapline area and other respected elders with personal and family histories in those areas (see Chapeskie 1995; Chapeskie 2001; Davidson-Hunt & O'Flaherty 2007; O'Flaherty, Davidson-Hunt & Manseau 2007).
AUTHENTICITY IN LOCATION AND SETTING Authenticity is demonstrated by the nomination area being within the historic extent of Anishinaabe occupation (see map) and being centered on and incorporating the traditional land use areas of Anishinaabeg of the five member First Nations. Anishinaabe residents of the five member communities are the primary year-round occupants and users of the nomination area. Pimachiowin Aki is an authentic representation of an Anishinaabe cultural landscape associated with this group of cooperating First Nations who continue to practice a traditional way of life in a healthy and whole boreal shield ecosystem. Historical Anishinaabe occupancy of the nomination area is demonstrated by cultural values and occupancy mapping (i.e. GIS data referred to earlier) and by the results of archaeological field work registered with the Ontario Ministry of Tourism and Culture and the Manitoba Ministry of Culture, Heritage and Tourism. Archaeological field work has been conducted under several initiatives, including: the West Patricia Land Use Plan field inventory program, 1978-1979 (Reid & Ross 1981); field survey work by Petch in Manitoba (2000; 1999; and see Petch 2010 for other sources); and preliminary surveys in Ontario, focussed on the Woodland Caribou Provincial Park and the Whitefeather Forest (Hamilton 2007; Hamilton & Taylor Hollings 2008a, 2008b; Taylor-Hollings 2010, 2006a, 2006b, 2006c).
AUTHENTICITY IN LANGUAGE, AND OTHER FORMS OF INTANGIBLE HERITAGE Authenticity is demonstrated by a thriving Anishinaabe language (anishinaabemowin) being spoken in nomination area, as well as by literacy in Oji-Cree syllabic script developed by Wesleyan missionaries over 150 years ago. Printed documents and signage in Pimachiowin Aki, including written communications from school to parents, are generally in both English and syllabic text. Oral traditions (presented in situ) continue to be the primary means for transmitting traditional ecological about the land, and ethical and spiritual teachings that guide how people behave on the land. The Ojibwe language therefore remains Sign at the Pikangikum airport
page 57 of 65 Pimachiowin Aki Cultural Documentation Summary October 7, 2011 vibrant and vital to expressing an authentic Anishinaabe relationship to the land (Aki) Authenticity is also demonstrated in other intangible aspects of Anishinaabe culture such as a cosmology that includes powerful spirit beings and attributes agency and even personhood to a range of entities that are regarded as merely inanimate objects by the larger Canadian society. A continuing Anishinaabe cosmology and understanding of dependence on other beings is also reflected in a vibrant Anishinaabe Woodland Art tradition that continues to find resonance among the youth of Pimachiowin Aki.
AUTHENTICITY IN SPIRIT AND FEELING Authenticity is demonstrated by the on-going attachment of Anishinaabeg in Pimachiowin Aki to the traditional lands on which their personal and collective histories have been Woodland Art showing power formed. The nomination area has been named Pimachiowin lines connecting spirits (Mario Aki (the “Land that Gives Life”) by its Anishinaabe members Peters, Pikangikum First Nation) in recognition that the nomination area is vital to the continued spiritual, emotional and physical survival of Anishinaabeg as a people.
First Nations Accord – a shared vision of protecting our ancestral lands and resources
In the First Nations Accord, which joins the five First Nations of Pimachiowin Aki in the cooperative pursuit of creating an internationally recognized and designated network of linked protected areas on their ancestral lands, the shared vision of the First Nations is explained as follows: “ Our vision is based on an acknowledgement that the Creator, the maker of all, placed us on our ancestral lands where we have lived since time immemorial: • The Creator made the lands on which we live and everything living and non-living on these lands. Nothing on the land can be sustained without the Creator; • The Creator placed us on our land. We have been given the very life we possess as well as our First Nation way of life as a precious gift from the Creator; • The Creator has given us the responsibility to protect and care for the lands on which we were placed. As First Nations people, we are to take care of our land and nurture everything that the Creator has given us as a trust and duty to future generations of our people” (PRFN et al. 2002: 7).
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F. Works Cited
Andrews, Thomas D. and Susan Buggey. 2008. ‘Authenticity in Aboriginal Cultural Landscapes’. Association for Preservation Technology International (APT) Bulletin, 39(2/3): 63-71. Berezanski, Dean. 2004. ‘Trapping Comes of Age: The Registered Trapline System of Manitoba’. Unpublished paper presented at the Rupert's Land Colloquium, Kenora, Ontario, May 26-30, 2004. Berkes, Fikret, Iain J. Davidson-Hunt, Nathan Deutsch, Catie Burlando, Andrew Miller, Charlie Peters, Paddy Peters, Richard Preston, James Robson, Matthew Strang, Adrian Tanner, Lillian Trapper, Ronald Trosper, and John Turner. 2009. ‘ Institutions for Algonquian Land Use: Change, Continuity and Implications for Sustainable Forest Management’. In Marc G. Stevenson and David Natcher (Eds.), Changing the Culture of Forestry in Canada: Engaging Canada’s Aboriginal Peoples in Sustainable Forest Management, pp. 35-52. Ottawa, Ontario and Edmonton, Alberta: Canadian Conservation Institute and Sustainable Forest Management Network. Black, Mary B. 1977. 'Ojibwa Power Belief System', in Raymond Fogelson and Richard Adams (eds.), The Anthropology of Power. New York: Academic Press, 141-51. Bloodvein River First Nation (BRFN). 2010. 'Pimitotah - To care for our Land', Bloodvein Draft Land Use Plan, version 3, September 13, 2010. Brown, Jennifer S.H.. 2010. ‘A. Irving Hallowell on the Berens River in the 1930s: Culture and Experience in Pimachiowin Aki’. Unpublished Report prepared for Pimachiowin Aki Corporation. Brown, Jennifer S. H., and R. Brightman. 1988. 'Orders of the Dreamed': George Nelson on Cree and Northern Ojibwa Religion and Myth, 1823. Winnipeg, Manitoba: University of Manitoba Press. Brown, Jennifer S. H., and S. Gray. 2009. Memories, Myths and Dreams of an Ojibwe Leader, William Berens, as told to A. Irving Hallowell. McGill-Queen's University Press. Brown, Jennifer S.H., and Maureen Matthews. 1993. ‘Fair Wind: Medicine and Consolation on the Berens River’. Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 4: 55-74. Chapeskie, Andrew, Michael O’Flaherty, Alex Peters & Norman Quill. 2005. ‘The Whitefeather Forest Initiative: indigenous wisdom guiding new community forestry opportunities in the boreal forest of Canada’. In H. YoungBear-Tibbetts, W. Van Lopik and K. Hall (Eds.), Sharing Indigenous Wisdom: An International Dialogue on Sustainable Development, pp. 7–37. Keshana, Wisconsin: College of Menominee Nation Press. Chapeskie, Andrew J. 2001. “Northern Homelands, Northern Frontier: Linking Culture and Economic Security in Contemporary Livelihoods in Boreal and Cold Temperate Forest Communities in Northern Canada,” in I.J. Davidson-Hunt, L.C. Duchesne and J. Zasada (Eds.), Forest Communities in the Third Millenium: Linking Research, Business and Policy Towards a Sustainable Non-Timber Forest Products Sector. Minneapolis: United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service (North Central Research Station), General Technical Report NC-217). [Online] URL: http://www.ncrs.fs.fed.us/searchtools/viewpub.asp?key=828. Chapeskie, Andrew J. 1995. “Land, Landscape, Culturescape: Aboriginal relationships to land and the co-management of natural resources”. Paper prepared for the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. Available on CD-ROM as part of: For Seven Generations: An Information Legacy of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. Ottawa: Libraxus Inc., 1997.
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Davidson, Malcolm. 1983. ‘The R. W. Dunning Papers at the University of Toronto’. The Canadian Journal of Native Studies, 3(2): 387-591. Davidson-Hunt, Iain J.. 2003. ‘Indigenous Lands Management, Cultural Landscapes and Anishinaabe People of Shoal Lake, Northwestern Ontario, Canada’. Environments 31(1):21-42. Davidson-Hunt, Iain J., and Andrew M. Miller. 2011. Pimachiowin Aki Cultural Landscape Atlas (early draft text as of March 21, 2011 that is to form the Micro-level portion of the Cultural Landscape Study). Davidson-Hunt, Iain J., and R. Michael O'Flaherty. 2011. Pikangikum Cultural Landscape Guide. Pikangikum, Ontario: Whitefeather Forest Management Corporation. Davidson-Hunt, Iain J., and R. Michael O'Flaherty. 2007. ‘Researchers, Indigenous Peoples, and Place-Based Learning Communities’. Society & Natural Resources, 20(4): 291-305. Davidson-Hunt, Iain J., Janene Shearer and Paddy Peters. 2006. ‘Keekeenuhwuhcheecheekun 'Reading the Signs': Constructing a Cultural Landscape Framework for Understanding Environmental Change Within the Whitefeather Forest’. In Proceedings of Sustainable Forest Management Network Fourth International Conference, Sustaining Canada’s Forests: Building Momentum. Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, June 20–22, 2006. Dreidger, C. Jane. 2006. A Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins with a Single Blueberry: Learning Journeys of the Whitefeather Forest, Pikangikum First Nation, Ontario. Master of Natural Resources Management Thesis. Winnipeg, Manitoba: University of Manitoba Deutsch, Nathan. 2010. ‘Land Tenure Report for Pimachiowin Aki Nomination’. Unpublished Report prepared for Pimachiowin Aki Corporation. Dohan, Rosemary, Christa Rust and Vivek Voora. 2010. ‘A Socio-Economic Profile of Pimachiowin Aki’. Report prepared by the International Institute for Sustainable Development for the Pimachiowin Aki Corporation, December 2010. 109 pp.. Dunning, R.W. 1959. Social and Economic Change among the Northern Ojibwa. Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press. Gray, Susan E.. 2006. I Will Fear No Evil: Ojibwa-Missionary Encounters Along the Berens River, 1875-1940. Calgary, Alberta: University of Calgary Press. Hallowell, E. Irving. 1992. The Ojibwa of Berens River, Manitoba: Ethnography into History. Edited by Jennifer S.H. Brown. Fort Worth, Texas: Harcourt Brace College Publishers. Hallowell, A. Irving. 1960. 'Ojibwa Ontology, Behavior and World View', in Stanley Diamond (ed.), Culture in History: Essays in Honour of Paul Radin. New York: Columbia University Press. Hallowell, A. Irving. 1934. 'Some Empirical Aspects of Northern Saulteaux Religion'. American Anthropologist, N.S. 36, pp. 389-404. Hamilton, Scott. 2010. ‘Recent Aboriginal History in Pimachiowin Aki’. Unpublished Report prepared for Pimachiowin Aki Corporation. Hamilton, Scott. 2007. ‘Archaeological Reconnaissance at the Rowdy Lake Portage Site (EdKo- 6), Kenora Region, North-western Ontario’. Report prepared for Mackenzie Ward Trust and Crow Rock Camps. Hamilton, Scott, and Jill Taylor-Hollings. 2008a. ‘Results of the Stage Two Archaeological Research Project at Larus and Murdock Lakes in the Woodland Caribou Signature Site,
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Northwestern Ontario’. Report prepared for Ontario Ministry of Culture, Ontario Parks (WCSS), Lac Seul and Pikangikum First Nations. Hamilton, Scott, and Jill Taylor-Hollings. 2008b. ‘A Short Archaeological Survey at Barton Lake’. Report prepared for Ontario Parks and Pikangikum First Nation. Hirschmann, Fred and Mark Milgrom. 1975. ‘Berens River Canoe Route – Stormer Lake to Lake Winnipeg via Kirkness Creek and the Berens River’. Hand-drawn map of a canoe trip from Stormer Lake to Lake Winnipeg taken in August, 1975. Little Grand Rapids First Nation (LGRFN). 2010. Little Grand Rapids First Nation Draft Land Use Plan (Manitoba Planning Area), version 13, September 20, 2010. Lytwyn, Victor P.. 2010. ‘The Anishnaabeg in the Fur Trade of the Petit Nord and Pimachiowin Aki’. Unpublished Report prepared for Pimachiowin Aki Corporation. Lytwyn, Victor P.. 1986. The Fur Trade of the Little North: Indians, Pedlars, and Englishmen East of Lake Winnpeg, 1760-1821. Winnipeg, Manitoba: Rupert's Land Research Centre, University of Winnipeg. Matthews, Maureen. 1995. ‘Thunder Birds’. Transcript for radio broadcast, Ideas, CBC Radio One May 15-16, 1995. Matthews, Maureen. 1993. ‘Fair Wind's Drum’. Transcript for radio broadcast, Ideas, CBC Radio One, May 11-12, 1993. Matthews, Maureen and Roger Roulette. 2010a. ‘Mapping the Ojibwe Universe, Giishkaanadong. Unpublished discussion paper prepared for Pimachiowin Aki Corporation, May 2010. Matthews, Maureen and Roger Roulette. 2010b. ‘Aajitaawinan Izhiitwaawining: Material Culture in the Pimachiowin Aki Region’. Unpublished discussion paper prepared for Pimachiowin Aki Corporation, August 2010. Matthews, Maureen and Roger Roulette. 2003. ‘Fair Wind's Dream: Naamiwan Obaawaagigewin’. In Jennifer S. H. Brown and Elizabeth Vibert (Eds.), Reading Beyond Words: Contexts for Native History, 2nd edition, pp. 330-359. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press. Matthews, Maureen and Roger Roulette. 2007. 'Memgwesiwag Appendices: Detailed Translations' for Memgwesiwag. IDEAS, CBC Radio One documentary [authorship is not attributed in the document made available through Pimachiowin Aki Corporation]. Matthews, Maureen, Roger Roulette and Rand Valentine. 2010. 'Anishinaabemowin: The Language of Pimachiowin Aki'. Unpublished discussion paper prepared for Pimachiowin Aki Corporation, April 2010. Miller, Andrew M.. 2010. Living with Boreal Forest Fires: Anishinaabe Perspectives on Disturbance and Collaborative Forestry Planning, Pikangikum First Nation, Northwestern Ontario. PhD Natural Resources Management Thesis. Winnipeg, Canada: University of Manitoba. Nikischer, Heather. 2008. History and Action in a Resource Planning Relationship: Pikangikum’s Whitefeather Forest Management Corporation and the Red Lake Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources. Master of Natural Resources Management Thesis. Winnipeg, Manitoba: University of Manitoba. O'Flaherty, R. Michael, Iain J. Davidson-Hunt & Andrew M. Miller. 2009. ‘Anishinaabe Stewardship and Forest Management on the Whitefeather Forest, Pikangikum First Nation,
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Ontario: An Ethno-Ecological Perspective’. In Marc G. Stevenson and David Natcher (Eds.), Changing the Culture of Forestry in Canada: Engaging Canada’s Aboriginal Peoples in Sustainable Forest Management, pp.19-34. Ottawa, Ontario and Edmonton, Alberta: Canadian Conservation Institute and Sustainable Forest Management Network. O'Flaherty, R. Michael, Iain J. Davidson-Hunt, and Micheline Manseau. 2008. ‘Indigenous knowledge and values in planning for sustainable forestry: Pikangikum First Nation and the Whitefeather Forest Initiative’. Ecology and Society 13(1): 6. [online] URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol13/iss1/art6/. O'Flaherty, R. Michael, Iain J. Davidson-Hunt, and Micheline Manseau. 2007. ‘Keeping Woodland Caribou (Ahtik) in the Whitefeather Forest’. Sustainable Forest Management Network Research Note Series, No. 27. [online] URL: http://www.sfmnetwork.ca/docs/e/E27%20Caribou%20in%20the%20Whitefeather%20fore st.pdf. Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Pikangikum First Nation (OMNR & PFN). 2010. Whitefeather Forest Cheemuhnuhcheecheekuhtaykeehn (Dedicated Protected Areas) Background Information. Ontario Parks. 2007. Woodland Caribou Signature Site Management Plan. Queen’s Printer for Ontario: Peterborough, Ontario. MNR 52106. [online] URL: http://www.ontla.on.ca/library/repository/mon/19000/275748.pdf Parks Canada. 2010. ‘An Approach to Aboriginal Cultural Landscapes’. [online] URL: http://www.pc.gc.ca/docs/r/pca-acl/index_e.asp. Pauingassi First Nation (Pauingassi F.N.). 2010. Pauingassi First Nation Draft Lands Management Plan (Manitoba Planning Area) – 'The Land of Fair Wind', July 21, 2010. Pikangikum First Nation and Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (PFN & OMNR). 2006. Keeping the Land: A Land Use Strategy for the Whitefeather Forest and Adjacent Areas. Ontario: Pikangikum First Nation, in cooperation with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources. Petch, Virginia. 2010. ‘Pimachiowin Aki Cultural Landscape - Macro Scale Document’. Unpublished Report prepared for Pimachiowin Aki Corporation, August 15, 2010. Petch, Virginia. 2005. ‘The Traditional Lands of the Fort Alexander First Nation Based on Oral Histories and Memory Mapping with Elders of the Fort Alexander First Nation’. Unpublished report prepared for Public Interest Law Centre, January, 2005. Petch, Virginia. 2000. ‘Ecoregion 90 Traditional Land Use and Occupancy Study’. Poplar River, Little Grand Rapids and Pauingassi First Nations and Parks Branch, Province of Manitoba. Winnipeg, MB. Petch, Virginia. 1999. ‘Archaeological Survey of the Poplar River from Poplar River First Nation to Weaver Lake’. Manuscript on file with author. Poplar River First Nation (PRFN). 2010. Asatiwisipe Aki Management Plan, Final Draft, December 2010. Poplar River First Nation (PRFN). 2002a. Poplar River Anishinabek Plant Guide. Edited by Bruce, V., Berens, E., Bruce, E., Mason, M. & Ruta, T. (compiler). Poplar River First Nation (PRFN). 2002b. Local moose habitat information session with Elders. Poplar River First Nation Archaeological Project: Poplar River and Weaver Lake, 1999.
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Poplar River First Nation, Pauingassi First Nation, Little Grand Rapids First Nation, Pikangikum First Nation, and Bloodvein River First Nation (PRFN et al.). 2002. Protected Areas and First Nation Resource Stewardship: A Cooperative Relationship – Accord. Quill, Norman (with Andrew Chapeskie). 2004. 'From Hunting Territory to Trapline to the Whitefeather Forest: Indigenous Perspectives on Adaptation and Innovation in the Registered Trapline System in Traditional Territories of Pikangikum First Nation in Northwestern Ontario'. Unpublished paper presented at the Rupert's Land Colloquium, Kenora, Ontario, May 26-30, 2004. Quill, Norman. 2006. Unpublished recorded interview, August 3, 2006. Orally translated by Paddy Peters during interview. Quill, Norman. 1965. ‘The moons of winter’. Red Lake Regional Heritage Centre. 2008. ‘Red Lake Arts Festival: A Tribute to Norval Morrisseau and the Woodland Artists, July 4-6, 2008, Red Lake, Ontario’, unpublished promotional material. Reid, C.S.(Paddy) & W.A. Ross. 1981. Studies in West Patricia Archaeology No. 2: 1979-1980. Historical Planning and Research Branch, Ontario Ministry of Culture and Recreation: Toronto, Ontario. Robertson, Carmen. 2010. ‘Woodland Art as a Tool of Decolonization’. Unpublished Report prepared for Pimachiowin Aki Corporation. Shearer, Janene. 2008. Reading the Signs in the Whitefeather Forest Cultural Landscape, Northwestern Ontario. Master of Natural Resources Management Thesis. Winnipeg, Manitoba: University of Manitoba. Shearer, Janene, Paddy Peters and Iain J. Davidson-Hunt. 2009. 'Co-producing a Whitefeather Forest Cultural Landscape Monitoring Framework'. In Marc G. Stevenson and David Natcher (Eds.), Changing the Culture of Forestry in Canada: Engaging Canada’s Aboriginal Peoples in Sustainable Forest Management, pp. 63-84. Ottawa, Ontario and Edmonton, Alberta: Canadian Conservation Institute and Sustainable Forest Management Network. Steinbring, Jack. 2010. ‘Rock Paintings in The Eastern Lake Winnipeg Watershed: with attention to the proposed Pimachiowen aki World Heritage Area’. Unpublished Report prepared for Pimachiowin Aki Corporation. Steinbring, Jack. 1965. ‘Culture change among the Northern Ojibwa’. Manitoba Historical Society Transactions, Series 3, 1964-65 Season. Taylor-Hollings, Jill. 2010. ‘Knox and Paishk Lakes in the Woodland Caribou Signature Site, Northwestern Ontario: Stage Two Archaeological Research Continued’. Research report submitted to Park Superintendent of Woodland Caribou Signature Site, ON Ministry of Culture, and Pikangikum and Lac Seul First Nations. Taylor-Hollings, Jill. 2006a. ‘Stage Two Archaeological Research at Knox and Peisk Lakes in the Woodland Caribou Signature Site, Northwestern Ontario’. Report submitted to the Park Superintendent of Woodland Caribou Signature Site, the Ontario Ministry of Culture, Pikangikum First Nation, Joe Keesic and Joe Paishk. Taylor-Hollings, Jill. 2006b.’Stage Two Archaeological Research at Roderick Lake in the Whitefeather Forest Planning Area, Northwestern Ontario’. Submitted to the Park
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Superintendent of Woodland Caribou Signature Site, the Ontario Ministry of Culture and Pikangikum First Nation. Taylor-Hollings, Jill. 2006c. ‘Stage Two Archaeological Research at Kirkness and Stormer Lakes in the Whitefeather Forest Planning Area, Northwestern Ontario’. Submitted to the Park Superintendent of Woodland Caribou Signature Site, the Ontario Ministry of Culture and Pikangikum First Nation. UNESCO World Heritage Centre. 2008. Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention. Paris: UNESCO World Heritage Centre. Usher, Peter J.. 1987. ‘Indigenous Management Systems and the Conservation of Wildlife in the Canadian North’, Alternatives, 14(1):3. Wallace, Anthony F.C.. 1980. ‘Alfred Irving Hallowell 1892—1974: A Biographical Memoir’. Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Sciences. Whitefeather Forest Management Corporation (WFMC). 2008. 'Collaborative Research on Lake Sturgeon in the Berens River (Red-Assiniboine Rivers-Lake Winnipeg populations)'. Final project report, June 16, 2008, 38pp.. Whitefeather Forest Management Corporation (WFMC). 2006. ‘Keeping Woodland Caribou on the Land: Cross-Cultural Research in the Whitefeather Forest’. Draft Report, June 16, 2006.
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