Ojibwe Dialect and Culture Differences

Anton Treuer shares the historical and cultural contexts that gave birth to a wide array of cultural and linguistic variance within Ojibwe language dialects and cultural patterns. Topics covered include the emergence of the Ojibwe as distinct from other tribes in the Algonquian Language Family, migration throughout the Great Lakes and Plains, key cultural concepts around Ojibwe leadership and authority, intermarriage with the French, and the Ojibwe experience with oppression, all of which impact cultural variation in Ojibwe communities today.

[@maximbudnick]

You are a talented communicator. Thank you.

[@JimBairdAdventurer]

You are the man.

[@JimBairdAdventurer]

Only 2000 years ago. That’s a while my man.

[@dawnwood4203]

Now I know why I've always hated being told what to do since I was little

[@TioKeats]

For the first couple years of college I thought I was going to be an Anthropology major so learning about cultures have always fascinated me. Politically I identify most with the Libertarian party and since learning about Ojibwe and Anishinaabe traditional governance/diplomacy I find it amazing how many parallels there are between the two when it comes to fundamental principles. Not forcing your beliefs on others and not accepting the beliefs others try to force on everyone else. Also the not interfering with what other people are doing as long as they aren’t committing acts of violence against others. It’s very different than the classic European narrative of a “savage” lifestyle lived by indigenous peoples. I feel like these old narratives tried to convince the uninformed or ignorant that indigenous people weren’t capable of sophisticated government systems. Thank you for sharing your culture and heritage even with us outsiders.

[@krissipowell9358]

I grew up on a Rez lake and its so old it will become a marsh. So its hard to put memory that long ago together today. You are amazing with memories.

[@focoriders]

❤

[@2nmo]

Loved that you referenced Paolo Freire. I had the good fortune of working w 2 women who worked alongside him in Recife in the 60s. All 3 had to flee when the military took power and the women ended doing community work in my city. Also thanks for the history and education on cultural variation among the Ojibway. In my family, despite my name, my mother's people are black/ Ojibway intermarried from Michigan from over 100 years ago. Very helpful.

[@JohnnyAlmost]

Miigwech My Brother Anton. Your videos have broadened the depth of my learning experience and my understanding of my Chippewa/ Ojibwe lineage and the dynamics of our diversity.

[@betrisherninox2865]

Thank you very much! I'm in Australia, where we learn only a token amount about Native American culture. This video has been a wonderful eye-opener to the culture of the Ojibwe people and I'll certainly be looking out for more!

[@wednesdaygirl13]

I love these videos so much. I've been learning a lot about Ojibwe culture in a class with Dr. Willmott and it's awesome to fill in the details that we can't get to in class.

[@abbagel779]

Fascinating. So enlightening. Thank you. 🙏

[@larisguzman9632]

Good morning my brother and God bless you and family from dunseith ND

[@sabsg3361]

Between your books and these videos, you have brought a lot of joy to my learning. I found your work in part after doing a lot of personal study with the Gaidhlig revitalization community. Thankful to find my KZbin recommended page now as full of your videos as Gaidhlig teachers. Thank you for all you do!

[@anton.treuer]

That's awesome!

[@rachaellafriniere9349]

This is so prevalent in the area I am living in. It makes it difficult.

[@autumnlheureux4231]

This was very helpful! I’m a Pembina Chippewa/Turtle Mountain/Little Shell band descendant. Im still getting to know us...I’m also Red River Metis/Cree....my family was all the blend of the fur trade...several ‘marriages by custom’ in my family...I’m glad I know whom I descend from. Are there resources for ND Ojibwe dialect? I hear tell it’s a bit different then Minnesota Ojibwe.

[@anton.treuer]

Yes. I'll some videos on the Métis and more on language dialect details soon. And there are ND speakers of both Ojibwe and Michif who have been recorded and published.

[@heatherwehrmann5070]

I, too, am Pembina, Little Shell, with Turtle Mountain affiliations! Miigwech!

[@williamreely3455]

Love learning about the history of this country - and this state - that sadly is not taught in most schools. We all need to decolonize. Love your videos ♥️

[@TheSjdeagles]

Loving the 20 minute videos

[@averagesavage8367]

Wow. Better than Jordan Peterson there at the end, I felt that, it hit a little different. Miigwech. Also, I couldn't help but comment in your excellent hand gestures, now that's skill. I am going to use this video for extra credit in one of my classes. Chi-Ed izhinikaazo. Nazhikewigaabaw nindigoo.

[@rachaellafriniere9349]

So helpful to put this into words. It is real.

[@mnparrothead]

Lateral oppression, yes. This video really spoke to me. Thanks.

[@jasonbaines3371]

This is video is incredible

[@larisforschen1500]

I got tick tock too my brother 🤟🙏

[@rocky_fs6558]

Aanii Anton I would love to learn my traditional language which is anishinaabemowin but I'm stuck because I dont know where to start and how to learn this beautiful language. If you can help me that'd be a real lifesaver😊

[@anton.treuer]

www.bemidjistate.edu/airc/community-resources/ojibwe-language-resources/ free resources here to get you started!

[@bigchief70]

Anton could you please do a video discussing Jack Fiddler? Your insight would be much appreciated!

[@ambercarroll5421]

Great video! My ancestors are French Canadian fur traders (sir name Martin)and Ojibwe (Kiishkenum).

[@quisigitur6983]

One thing that I never knew about the New England Puritans - and this is wild but predictable enough - is that a lot of them had already left England well before the Mayflower, because all they had to do was cross the Channel over to the Dutch Republic and, bingo. You don't have to be Anglican or anything because one thing that was explicitly left out of the Union of Utrecht was a state religion. But such as went there soon found that Leiden was a bit too licentious for them, so they met up with a group of others setting out from Plymouth and went on over to Massachusetts Bay, where they could harrass and ultimately execute all the Quakers they wanted, which unfortunately pretty much continues to be what "religious liberty" means in the Anglo-USian context so much of the time - plenty for me and none for thee. And that's why Barclay's Apology for the early Friends where he went and Thou'd King Charles II - the absolute madman - was first published at Amsterdam (in Latin!) and Spinoza was grinding lenses there while the Mathers were off on their ergotism and wacky names across the ocean. There's a good piece out on this - Roger D. Congleton, "America's (Neglected) Debt to the Dutch: An Institutional Perspective" - which can be accessed for free online. IIRC it was Kim TallBear in her talk (also on KZbin) "A Sharpening of the Already Present: Settler Apocalypse 2020" who characterized Euro-North American culture as basically amnesiac, and she's absolutely right. The generation who fought the revolutionary war was very much conscious of all this history and the Articles of Confederation were modeled explicitly on the Union of Utrecht, but willing ourselves to forget it all happened very, very early on - make a clean and total break with the European past, even though it's impossible, and present ourselves as the First, Number One, the Elect, whatever. Annuit coeptis and all that, and the Latin on the seal of the old Northwest Territory - still on the lintel of my university library - is just blatant and awful and blatantly awful. (I say "ourselves" in the sense of niinawind here, being broadly Anglo-USian myself - even if the ancestors I actually know about came out of the old Kurpfalz that isn't exactly relevant to my enculturation) Even just growing up at the base of what is now Michigan and being surrounded by largely Algonquian / some Iroquoian place names (see also: Michigan) they were all just sort of hand-waved in that Schoolcraft/Longfellow kind of way as being, eh, y'know, some or another Native word that means beautiful river or something, but who can dig up their true significance out of such a remote and hazy past? Never did it occur to anybody that the languages are still spoken despite a good century and change of policy specifically intended to eradicate them, nor that the people speaking them are still here. The Mathers had ergotism, so what's our excuse? There may be no more deracinated people on the face of the earth than this one, and ultimately we've done it to ourselves and everybody else we enslaved and stole from along the way, and we still remain completely ignorant of the greater portion of all of it - even the greater portion of the story of our own colonizer ancestors - and Abigail Thorn on ignorance as something intentionally enforced and maintained is very much apposite here. Really, we *know*, but not nearly enough as we might. The possibility of learning has to be staved back out of total dread of what we might learn about ourselves if we did, and thus all these desperate, bad-faith scrambles to erase and occlude undeniable truths. Hence the generally prevailing dread in the Anglo-USian world about - letting anybody else exist? Ack, sorry, but as always, thanks for this. Starting from some of those weird disconnects and also learning how many Michigan place names were literally just made up by Henry Schoolcraft, like "Leelenau" when /l/ does not exist (to my knowledge) in any of the languages spoken there, I took to learning Anishinaabemowin with the resources I could find, starting with Living Our Language. Always learning something new from your videos - had no idea about that semantic shift in doodem and the historical dynamics that made it possible.