the Ojibwe

Nokomis and the spider: the story of the dreamcatcher

Picture of Ojibwe dreamcatcher

“I spent over 10 years traveling to Native American pow wows across the United States, visiting a different reservation almost every week. Dreamcatchers were everywhere, from grandmother-made heirlooms to commercial versions sold at gift shops. Understanding the difference matters. This article tells the real story.” — Raven SiJohn, AAANativeArts.com (Est. 1999) The dreamcatcher comes from the Ojibwe people, one of the largest Native American nations in North America, and the story behind it is more beautiful than most people realize.…

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Louis Cook (1737-1814) was a chief and warrior of the Seven Nations

Picture of Louis Cook, Seven Nations chief

The Seven Nations, also known as the Seven Fires Council, was a confederation of seven Algonquin-speaking tribes that lived in the northeastern region of North America. The member tribes were the Anishinaabe (Ojibwe), Odawa (Ottawa), and Potawatomi, who were known as the Three Fires, as well as the Nipissing, Mississaugas, Algonquin, and Wendat (Huron). Together, these tribes formed a powerful political and military alliance that helped them to resist colonial forces and maintain their sovereignty over their traditional lands.

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Clyde Bellecourt, Cofounder of AIM

clyde bellecourt. 2jpg

Clyde Bellecourt or Nee-gon-we-way-we-dun which means “Thunder Before the Storm.” White Earth Ojibwe (born May 8, 1936) was a cofounder of AIM in 1968.  He was the group’s first chairman. He continues to direct national and international AIM activities, is a coordinator of the National Coalition on Racism in Sports and the Media, and leads Heart of the Earth, Inc., an Interpretive Center in Minneapolis.

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Regaining The Mdewakantons Mille Lacs ancestral homeland

By Thomas Ivan Dahlheimer

On a Mille Lacs Kathio State Park interpretive sign, Leonard E. Wabasha is quoted as saying: "My people are the Mdewakanton Oyate. Mdewakanton means the People of Spirit Lake. Today that lake is known as Mille Lacs. This landscape is sacred to the Mdewakanton Oyate because one Otokaheys Woyakapi (creation story) says we were
created here. It is especially pleasing for me to come here and walk these trails, because about 1718 the first Chief Wapahasa was born here, at the headwaters of the Spirit River. I am the eighth in this line of hereditary chiefs." (reference 1.)

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