OJIBWE

Ojibwe: translation

Also known as Anishinaabeg, Ojibwa, and Chippewa. ANativeAmericanpeople now living in the Midwest of the United States and south-central Canada. Their Algonquian language makes a grammatical distinction between animate and inanimategenders; that is, it marks persons and personal actions differently to objects and impersonal events. While this indigenous people’s preferred self-definition, Anishinaabeg, identifies them as human persons, they speak of a wide range ofother-than-human persons(e.g., rock-persons, treepersons, and thunder-persons). Honorific terms likegrandparentare used to indicate respectful relationships not only with human relatives but also with honored rocks and other personal beings. Research among one band of Ojibwe byIrving Hallowellhas been influential among more recent scholars ofanimismand shamans such asNuritBird-David. Within the broader animism of the traditional Ojibwe worldview and lifeways, there are specific ceremonial practices that may be considered shamanic, for example, theMidewiwin.JohnGrim’s bookThe Shamanfocuses on different types of shamans among traditional Ojibwe:diviners, healers, dreaminterpreters, seekers and repositories of knowledge, andmediatorswith otherthanhuman persons, among others.