Cultural Learning & Consultation

Aaniin/ Boozhoo/Hello

Welcome to our Cultural Learning and Consultation page. We hope you enjoy the content provided. Please check back for more info as we navigate our website for Maamwi Anjiakiziwin.

Would you like to learn more? Email Sherrill

7 Grandfather teachings

To cherish knowledge is to know WISDOM.

To know LOVE is to know peace.

To honour all of Creation is to have RESPECT.

BRAVERY is to face the foe with integrity.

HONESTY in facing a situation is to be brave.

HUMILITY is to know yourself as a sacred part of Creation.

TRUTH is to know all of these things.

The Mishomis Book. Edward Benton-Banai

Click here for more information on Anishinaabe worldview you can visit.

Illustration of the seven grandfather teachings. It is a blue circle with different animals and words within it. The animals are turtle, wolf, bird, bear, bison, bird, beaver. The words are truth, humility, love, bravery, respect, honesty, and wisdom. — Illustration: Aura and Chief Lady Bird

Additional resource for 7 Grandfather Teachings

Selena Mills shares how these principles help remind us of our responsibilities to the world, to others around us and to ourselves. She shares how she weave these lessons into everyday life with her kids.

https://www.todaysparent.com/family/parenting/the-seven-grandfather-teachings-have-become-the-foundation-of-my-daily-parenting-practices/

For more information on Anishinaabeg world view listen to Eastern Doorway Chief Onaubinisay Jim Dumont speak about spirit and our human experience to relate and care for all of creation.

About the Ojibwe Language

Ojibwe has been called by many names including Anishinaabemowin, Ojibwe, Ojibway, Ojibwa, Southwestern Chippewa, and Chippewa. It is a Central Algonquian language spoken by the Anishinaabe people throughout much of Canada from Ontario to Manitoba and US border states from Michigan to Montana. It is centered around the Great Lakes homeland of the Ojibwe people.

The variety of Ojibwe used in the Ojibwe People’s Dictionary is the Central Southwestern Ojibwe spoken in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Canadian border lakes communities. Today, it is spoken mainly by elders over the age of 70. Ethnologue reports 5,000 speakers of Southwestern Chippewa (Lewis, 2009), but a 2009 language census by language activists Keller Paap and Anton Treuer shows approximately 1,000 speakers in Minnesota and Wisconsin, with most located in the Red Lake community of Ponemah (Treuer, 2009).

The UNESCO Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger lists Ojibwe in Minnesota as “severely endangered” and defines it as a language “spoken by grandparents and older generations; while the parent generation may understand it, they do not speak it to children or among themselves,” (UNESCO, 2010).

Revitalization efforts are underway, with immersion schools operating in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Ojibwe has a growing number of second-language speakers, and the language is taught in many secondary and post-secondary classrooms throughout Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Ontario. The Ojibwe People’s Dictionary is part of that greater project.

Treaty Knowledge Resources

Wampum Belt

Underlying Importance of Wampum Belts, Alan Ojiig Corbiere

The Royal Proclamation of 1763

Click here to view the Georgian Bay Biosphere’s Indigenous knowledge resource list.