Band Member Voices
August Culture Column - Should We Forget…
By Nazhike, Mille Lacs Band Member
As Anishinaabe, we have a very special way of life granted to us by the spirits themselves. We have been taken care of by those Manidoog as they were the ones that have given us practices, customs, ceremonies, and the very language we speak. If Anishinaabe people were to completely assimilate, such as, if no one remembers the language, the ceremonies, the customs or the relationships with the spirits, then something far greater than cultural practices would be lost. A unique energy would be gone and a wonderful people may not even be remembered for who they really were.
The loss would not simply be that no one speaks Ojibwemnowin. It would be losing a worldview that teaches responsibility over ownership, relationship over hierarchy, gratitude over entitlement, and reciprocity with Creation rather than control over it. Those teachings have shaped Anishinaabe societies for generations.
Without the language, many concepts become difficult or impossible to express in English to their original depth. Without ceremonies, the community loses the practices that renew relationships with one another, with the land and for those who hold those beliefs of the spirit world. Without customs, identity can become based primarily on ancestry rather than lived responsibility and energy source.
A physical people may still carry Anishinaabe ancestry, enroll in a Tribal Nation and honor their family history. Those things remain meaningful. While if the language, teachings, and ways of life disappear entirely, then Anishinaabe identity risks becoming something read or talked about rather than lived. There are already Anishinaabe that have made a name for themselves talking about our way of life rather than living it.
Around the world, including here in the United States especially, languages have disappeared, ceremonies have been interrupted and cultures have been absorbed into dominant societies. It is estimated that 85-90% of the indigenous population died from 1492-1776, and of those that survived, there was a 60-70% population drop until 1900 due to living conditions and genocidal practices and policies. Often what remains is genealogy, historical records, museums and stories about who people once were. The descendants still exist, but much of the inherited knowledge and spiritual practices that made their civilization distinct is no longer accessible except through fragments.
Yet, Anishinaabe history also teaches something else: cultures are remarkably resilient. There have been times when people believed the language would disappear, there were times when ceremonies were outlawed, children were punished for speaking Ojibwe, and communities were forced from their lands. And still, Elders and knowledge holders carried the teachings forward through the generations.
If no one remembers the spirits, what becomes of the relationship? Different Anishinaabe people answer that according to their own beliefs. Many would say the spirits do not cease to exist because people forget them; rather, it is people who lose awareness of those relationships. Others may understand this differently. Either way, the loss is not only intellectual, it is spiritual energy being no longer available in a physical world, it is a loss of connection to a way of living.
Every child who learns a greeting, every family that harvests wild rice together, every person who speaks with an elder, every ceremony conducted in the language and every new speaker of Ojibwemowin pushes that future farther away. The future is predetermined and contingent on actions. It is shaped by the choices made in each generation.
Miigwech.
