Doodem And-Council Fire

DOODEM AND COUNCIL FIRE
Anishinaabe Governance through Alliance

PATRONS OF THE SOCIETY
Professor Constance Backhouse, University of Ottawa

Blake, Cassels, & Graydon LLP
Chernos, Flaherty, Svonkin LLP
Gowling WLG
Hull & Hull LLP
McCarthy Tétrault LLP
Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP
Paliare Roland Rosenberg Rothstein LLP
Pape Chaudhury LLP
Torys LLP
WeirFoulds LLP
The Osgoode Society is supported by a grant from

The Law Foundation of Ontario.
The Society also thanks The Law Society of Ontario

for its continuing support.
DOODEM AND
COUNCIL FIRE
Anishinaabe Governance
through Alliance
HEIDI BOHAKER
Published for The Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History by

University of Toronto Press
Toronto Buffalo London
© University of Toronto Press 2020
Toronto Buffalo London
utorontopress.com
osgoodesociety.ca
Printed in Canada
ISBN 978-1-4426-4731-2 (cloth)

ISBN 978-1-4426-6786-0 (PDF)
ISBN 978-1-4426-6787-7 (EPUB)
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: Doodem and council fire : Anishinaabe governance through alliance /

Heidi Bohaker.
Names: Bohaker, Heidi, 1968– author.
Series: Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History series.
Description: Series statement: The Osgoode Society for Canadian
Legal History | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 2020028861X | Canadiana (ebook)
20200288814 | ISBN 9781442647312 (hardcover) |
ISBN 9781442667860 (PDF) | ISBN 9781442667877 (EPUB)
Subjects: LCSH: Indigenous peoples – Canada – Politics and government. |
LCSH: Indigenous peoples – Canada – Social life and customs. |
LCSH: Indigenous peoples – Canada – History. | CSH: Native
peoples – Canada – Treaties.
Classification: LCC E99.C6 B64 2020 | DDC 305.897/333071 – dc23
University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its

publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario
Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario.
Funded by the Financé par le

Government gouvernement
of Canada du Canada
For Naakwegiishigookwe
This page intentionally left blank
Contents
map viii
preface xiii
acknowledgments xxix
Introduction 3
1 The Doodem Tradition 41
2 Family in All Four Directions 70
3 Anishinaabe Constitutionalism 103
4 Governance in Action 135
5 Doodem in the Era of Settler Colonialism 170
Conclusion 199
bibliography 207
illustration credits 225
index 231
Colour photos follow page 112

Map of the Great Lakes region featuring place names discussed in Doodem and Council
Fire, along with present-day First Nations (Canada)/Tribal Councils (United States),
associated trust lands, hunting territories, and jointly managed lands
Language key: Anishinaabemowin-speaking Siouan-speaking

Related Algonquian-language family Iroquoian-speaking
Note: Some First Nations/Tribal Councils have multiple entries to reflect multiple reserves or
reservation lands. Many First Nations/Tribal Councils manage multiple distinct tracts of land
but where the lands are close together for the scale of the map only one number was used.
1 Buffalo Point First Nation 26 Nigigoonsiminikaaning (Red Gut) First
2 Buffalo Point First Nation Reed River Nation
Reserve 27 Couchiching First Nation
3 Northwest Angle #33 28 Seine River First Nation
4 Shoal Lake #40 First Nation 29 Eagle Lake First Nation
5 Animikee Wa Zhing 37 First Nation 30 Wabauskang First Nation
6 Anishinaabe of Naongashiing First Nation 31 Seine River First Nation
(Big Island Reserve) 32 Lac La Croix First Nation (Neguaguon
7 Mishkosiminiziibiing (Big Grassy River) Lake)
First Nation 33 Wabigoon Lake First Nation
8 Anishinaabe of Naongashiing First Nation 34 Lac Seul First Nation
9 Agency Reserve No 30 & No. 1 (shared 35 Lac Des Mille Lacs First Nation
territory)
36 Ojibway Nation Of Saugeen
10 Assabaka (shared territory: Onigaming &
37 Fort William First Nation
Mishkosiminiziibiing)
38 Kiashke Zaaging Anishinaabek (Gull Bay
11 Rainy River First Nation
First Nation)
12 Rainy River First Nation
39 Whitesand First Nation
13 Naotkamegwanning First Nation
40 Bingwi Neyaashi Anishinaabek First
14 Wauzhushk Onigum First Nation Nation
15 Obashkaandagaang Bay First Nation 41 Biinjitiwaabik Zaaging Anishinaabek
16 Ojibways of Onigaming First Nation 42 Red Rock Indian Band
17 Obabikong Reserve (Big Grassy First 43 Red Rock Indian Band
Nation)
44 Pays Plat First Nation
18 Anishinaabeg of Naongashiing
45 Animbiigoo Zaagi’igan Anishinaabek
19 Niisaachewan Anishinaabe Nation (Lake Nipigon)
20 Swan Lake First Nation 46 Ginoogaming First Nation
21 Wabaseemoong Independent Nation 47 Long Lake #58 First Nation
22 Wabaseemoong Independent Nation 48 Biigtigong Nishnaabeg (Pic River First
23 Asubpeeschoseewagong First Nation Nation)
(Grassy Narrows) 49 Netimizaagamig Nishnaabeg (Pic Mobert
24 Naotkamegwanning First Nation First Nation-South)
25 Rainy River First Nation (Manitou Rapids 50 Netimizaagamig Nishnaabeg (Pic Mobert
Indian Reserve No. 11) First Nation-North)
51 Constance Lake First Nation 85 Dokis First Nation
52 Constance Lake First Nation (English 86 Henvey Inlet First Nation (Reserve
River 66) No. 13)
53 Michipicoten First Nation (2 parcels) 87 Henvey Inlet First Nation (Reserve No. 2)
54 Missanabie Cree First Nation 88 Magnetawan First Nation
55 Chapleau Ojibway First Nation & 89 Shawanaga First Nation (Naiscoutaing)
Chapleau Cree First Nation (5 parcels) 90 Shawanaga First Nation (Reserve No. 17)
56 Brunswick House First Nation 91 Wasauksing First Nation
57 Brunswick House First Nation 92 Moose Deer Point First Nation
58 Batchewana First Nation of Ojibways 93 Beausoleil First Nation (Christian Island)
(Obadjiwan)
94 Chippewas of Georgina Island First Nation
59 Batchewana First Nation of Ojibways (Chippewa Island)
(Goulais Bay)
95 Neyaashiinigmiing First Nation
60 Batchewana First Nation of Ojibways
(Whitefish Island) 96 Neyaashiinigmiing Hunting Grounds
61 Batchewana First Nation of Ojibways 97 Saugeen First Nation (Chief’s Point)

(Rankin) 98 Saugeen First Nation
62 Ketegaunseebee (Garden River First 99 Saugeen First Nation Hunting Grounds
Nation) 100 Kettle and Stoney Point First Nation
63 Ojibways of Thessalon First Nation 101 Aamjiwnaang First Nation (Chippewas of
64 Zhiibaahaasing First Nation (2 parcels) Sarnia First Nation)
65 Sheshegwaning First Nation 102 Bkejwanong Territory, Walpole Island First
66 Mississaga First Nation Nation
67 Serpent River First Nation 103 Delaware Nation at Moraviantown
68 Sagamok Anishnawbek 104 Chippewa Of The Thames First Nation
69 Aundeck Omni Kaning First Nation 105 Munsee-Delaware Nation
70 Whitefish River First Nation 106 Oneida Nation of the Thames
71 Wikwemikong Unceded Territory 107 Six Nations of the Grand River
72 Taykwa Tagamou Nation 108 Woodland Cultural Centre & Mohawk

Institute Residential School (Glebe Farm
73 Taykwa Tagamou Nation (New Post) Reserve)
74 Flying Post First Nation 109 Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation
75 Mattagami First Nation 110 Wahta Mohawk Territory
76 Matachewan First Nation 111 Indian River Reserve (Chippewas of Rama
77 Wahgoshig First Nation First Nation and the Wahta Mohawk)
78 Wahnapitae First Nation 112 Chippewas Of Rama First Nation
79 Atikameksheng Anishnawbek 113 Chippewas Of Georgina Island First
80 Point Grondine Park (Wikwemikong Nation (2 parcels)
Unceded Territory) 114 Mississaugas Of Scugog Island First
81 Temagami First Nation Nation
82 Timiskaming First Nation 115 Curve Lake First Nation
83 Kebaowek (Eagle Village First Nation) 116 Mississaugi of Hiawatha First Nation
84 Nipissing First Nation 117 Alderville First Nation

118 Alderville (Sugar Island) 147 Seneca Nation of Indians Oil Springs
119 Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte - Reservation
Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory 148 Seneca Nation of IndiansAllegany
120 Algonquins of Pikwakanagan Reservation
121 Wolf Lake First Nation (Hunters Point) 149 Seneca Nation of Indians Cattaraugus
Reservation
122 Long Point First Nation Anishnabe Aki
150 Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe Isabella
123 Algonquian Anishinabeg Nation (Pikogan) Reservation (5 parcels)
124 Algonquian Anishinabeg Nation (Lac 151 Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa &
Simon) Chippewa Indians Reservation (8 parcels)
125 Anicinape De Kitcisakik Community 152 Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa &
(Grand Lac) Chippewa Indians Trust Land (4 parcels)
126 Algonquins of Barrière Lake (Rapid Lake) 153 Little Traverse Bay Bands Reservation (2
127 Algonquian Anishinabeg Nation (Kitigan parcels)
Zibi) 154 Little River Band of Ottawa Indians of
128 Cree Nation of Waswanipi Michigan (2 parcels)
129 Ouge Bougomou Cree Nation 155 Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of
130 Atikamekw of Opitciwan Obedjiwan Indian Pottawatomi Indians of Michigan (Gun
Reserve No. 28 Lake Tribe)
131 Communauté Atikamekw De Manawan 156 Nottawaseppi Huron Band of the

(Atikamekw First Nation) Potawatomi Reservation
132 Communauté de Wemotaci (Atikamekw 157 Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians
First Nation) Reservation (6 parcels)
133 Coucoucache (Atikamekw First Nation) 158 Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians
Indian Reserve No. 24A Trust Land (9 parcels)
134 Pekuakamiulnuatsh Takuhikan (Innu) First 159 Gnoozhekaaning: Bay Mills Indian
Nation Community Reservation (3 parcels)
135 Wôlinak Abenaki First Nations Indian 160 Gnoozhekaaning: Bay Mills Indian
Reserve No. 11 Community Trust Land (3 parcels)
136 Odonak Abenaki First Nations Odanak 161 Keweenaw Bay Indian Community L’Anse
Reserve No. 12 Trust Land (2 parcels)
137 Kahnawake Mohawk Territory (Doncaster 162 Keweenaw Bay Indian Community L’Anse
Indian Reserve No. 17) (Ontonagon) Reservation (2 parcels)
138 Kahnawake Mohawk Territory 163 Hannahville Community Band of

Potawatomi (11 parcels)
139 Mohawk Council of Kanesatake Lands
164 Hannahville Community Band of
140 Mohawk Nation at Akwesasne (No. 15) Potawatomi Trust Land (2 parcels)
141 Mohawk Nation at Akwesasne (No. 59) 165 Forest County Potawatomi Reservation
142 St. Regis Mohawk Tribe Reservation (39 parcels)
(Akwesasne) 166 Forest County Potawatomi Trust Land (2
143 Oneida Indian Nation Reservation parcels)
144 Onondaga Nation (People of the Hills) 167 Sokaogon Chippewa Community (Mole
Reservation Lake Band of Lake Superior Chippewa)
145 Tonawanda Seneca Nation Reservation Reservation
146 Tuscarora Nation Reservation 168 Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin

Reservation
169 Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin 189 Meskwaki Nation (Sac and Fox Tribe
Trust Land of the Mississippi in Iowa) Reservation
170 Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican Tribe (2 parcels)
Reservation 190 Meskwaki Nation (Sac and Fox Tribe
171 Oneida Nation of Wisconsin Reservation of the Mississippi in Iowa) Trust Land
(5 parcels)
172 Oneida Nation of Wisconsin Trust Land
(2 parcels) 191 Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior
Chippewa (of the Minnesota Chippewa
173 Lac Vieux Desert Band of Lake Superior Tribe) Reservation
Chippewa Reservation (3 parcels)
192 Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior
174 Pokégnek Bodéwadmik (Pokagon Band of Chippewa (of the Minnesota Chippewa
Potawatomi Indians) Tribe) Land
175 Ho-Chunk Nation (57 parcels) 193 Grand Portage Band of Chippewa (of the
176 Ho-Chunk Trust Land (23 parcels) Minnesota Chippewa Tribe) Reservation
177 Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior (18 parcels)
Chippewa Indians Reservation (4 parcels) 194 Grand Portage Band of Chippewa (of the
178 Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Minnesota Chippewa Tribe)Trust Land
Chippewa Indians Trust Land (23 parcels) 195 Minnesota Chippewa Tribe Homestead
179 Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Trust Lands (7 parcels)
Chippewa Reservation 196 Bois Forte Band of Chippewa (of the
180 Mashkiiziibii: Bad River Band of the Lake Minnesota Chippewa Tribe) Reservation
Superior Tribe of Chippewa Reservation 197 Lower Sioux (Mdewakanton Band of
(2 parcels) Dakota) Indian Community Reservation
181 Mashkiiziibii: Bad River Band of the Lake 198 Gaa-waabaabiganikaag: White Earth
Superior Tribe of Chippewa Trust Land (3 Nation of Ojibwe (of the Minnesota
parcels) Chippewa Tribe) Reservation
182 Miskwaabekong: Red Cliff Band of Lake 199 Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe (of the
Superior Chippewa Reservation Minnesota Chippewa Tribe) Reservation,
183 St. Croix Chippewa Indians of Wisconsin (3 parcels)
Reservation (11 parcels) 200 Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe (of the
184 St. Croix Chippewa Indians of Wisconsin Minnesota Chippewa Tribe)Trust Land
Trust Land (7 parcels) (4 parcels)
185 Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe (of the 201 Miskwaagamiiwi-zaaga’igan: Red Lake
Minnesota Chippewa Tribe) Reservation Nation (Red Lake Band of Chippewa)
(23 parcels) Ceded Lands (432 parcels)
186 Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe (of the 202 Miskwaagamiiwi-zaaga’igan: Red Lake
Minnesota Chippewa Tribe) Trust Land Nation (Red Lake Band of Chippewa)
(18 parcels) Trust Land (25 parcels)
187 Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux 203 Miskwaagamiiwi-zaaga’igan: Red Lake

Community (4 parcels) Nation (Red Lake Band of Chippewa)
Reservation
188 Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux
Community Trust Land (6 parcels)
Map created by Nicky Recollet, Geospatial/GIS Specialist, Crane’s Atlas (https://www

.cranesatlas.ca/) and Robinson Huron Waawiindaamaagewin (http://rhw1850treaty.com/).
Preface
During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Anishinaabe leaders

inscribed the images shown here and thousands of others like them
in place of signatures on treaties, petitions, and letters. The images are
outline sketches and sometimes the track marks of the ensouled beings
who call North America’s Great Lakes region home. Western-trained
readers might categorize these images differently, seeing instead images
of plants, animals, and mythical creatures. How we read these images
depends upon our worldview or our cultural perspective. These differ-
ent approaches to categorization reflect significant diversities between
Anishinaabe and Western thought worlds. Such differences matter.1
They inform respective understandings of time, space, history, law, phi-
losophy, ethics, and, most significantly, the foundational relationship
between human beings and the world in which humans live. Anishi-
naabe leaders wrote these images on documents pertaining to their
lands, at councils held on those lands, reflecting the decisions of those
councils. These images are expressions of Anishinaabe law.
The images also represent a uniquely Anishinaabe category of kin-
ship: the doodem identity of the signatory – doh-DEM, or doh-DE-mahg
(doodemag) in the plural form – in which members of the same doodem
1 Vine Deloria Jr. eloquently described the fundamental differences between Native
North American spiritualtiy and Christianity. See Deloria, God is Red. But Deloria’s
crucial observations about different understandings of space, time, and history apply
well beyond Christianity to the secular West as well, a secular world nonetheless
deeply and profoundly shaped by Christianity and Christian values.
xiv Preface
consider each other closely related, as close as siblings are constructed

within Western kinship systems.2 Anishinaabe use of doodem as a cat-
egory of kinship is also an articulation of Anishinaabe philosophy and
law – one that places humans in interdependent relationships with
other-than-human beings, who are considered persons with a soul and
also relatives to whom one owes a duty of care.3 Doodem is an old cat-
egory; images of this identity appear on rock art, and one can also find
doodem stories in origin narratives. Both expressions of doodem long
pre-date the appearance of these images on eighteenth- and nineteenth-
century treaty documents signed by Anishinaabe leaders, such as the
examples at the start of this preface.4
The word Anishinabek is also old; it is a collective noun that describes
people who developed a distinct civilization in the Great Lakes Region
of North America.5 Anishinabek cultural and political traditions, and
2 In Anishinaabemowin the word doodem belongs to a special class of nouns known

as dependent nouns. As these nouns never appear without a possessive adjective,
it is awkward to write them in English, where there is an expectation that a noun
should be able to stand apart from the person or people who possesses it. In previous
publications, I used nindoodem, retaining the first person pronoun as a prefix and in
so doing following established linguistic conventions. But as this makes for awkward
reading and as, increasingly, other Anishinaabemowin vocabulary is being used in
English, I have decided to drop the first-person prefix in favour of the easier to read
and pronounce doodem. But the reader should continue to keep in mind that when
Anishinaabe peoples spoke of doodemag they would always have indicated, through
the use of the possessive form, to whose doodem they were referring. See Valentine,
Nishnaabemwin Reference Grammar, 106–7. Previous works of mine that use nindoodem
are Bohaker, “Nindoodemag: Anishinaabe Identities in the Eastern Great Lakes Region”
and “Nindoodemag: The Significance of Algonquian Kinship Networks.”
3 This concept of an “other-than-human” being as distinct from a human being was used
by Irving Hallowell in his attempt to explain Anishinaabe cosmology to outsiders. See
Hallowell, “Ojibwa Ontology.” As Michael Angel has pointed out, this concept expressing
difference between humans and other-than-humans is an act of interpretation, not one
“intrinsic to the Ojibwe world view.” It is, as Angel points out, more accurate to collapse
the distinction between humans and non/other-than-humans in Anishinaabe worldview
and to think instead of ensouled beings. Angel, Preserving the Sacred, 41.
4 I first made the case for the antiquity of the doodem tradition in Bohaker,
“Nindoodemag: The Significance of Algonquian Kinship Networks.”
5 Anishinaabe people speak Anishinaabemowin. “Anishinaabe” can be translated
as “original men” or “original people.” Anishinaabe people would not use
“Anishinaabe” to describe other Indigenous peoples, such as the Haudenosaunee
Confederacy (the Six Nations speak different languages. In Kanienʼkéha [Mohawk],
the Confederacy’s name is the Rotinonhson:ni – in colonial documents called the
Iroquois Confederacy). Anishinaabe is for a person in the singular, a male person,
Preface xv
therefore their legal traditions, were, and continue to be, derived from
the aadizookaanag, or sacred stories. In these narratives, the land and
waters are simultaneously spiritual and physical spaces. People who
call themselves Anishinaabe today include people who may also iden-
tify or be described in archival documents as Ojibwe or Ojibwa, Chip-
pewa, Ottawa or Odawa, Mississauga, Potawatomi, and Algonquin.6
Doodem was, and remains for many Anishinaabe people today, an
essential part of what it means to be an Anishinaabe person. By con-
sciously representing themselves as their doodem beings on treaty
documents and petitions, Anishinaabe leaders were clearly articulating
the centrality of doodem to their system of government and were tying
that identity to the lands described within the treaty texts. As this book
will show, the principles of Anishinaabe governance are based on the
concept of alliance between different doodemag, a lived expression of
the interdependence of all life in the region.
The word doodem often appears as “totem” in both archival docu-
ments and in academic publications (in Anishinaabemowin, the letters
“d” and “t” represent the same sound and do not indicate a difference
in meaning), and totem itself has come to have a range of meanings
or can be used as an adjective, as in the Anishinaabe language. Anishinabek (or

Anishinaabek) is the plural. Some speakers shorten it to Nishnaabek. Algonquin
refers to Anishinabek living in what is now eastern Ontario/western Quebec about
the Ottawa River area. Algonquian (or Algonkian) is the term for the language family
(really Central Algonquian, a subfamily of Algic) to which linguists have classified
Anishinaabemowin, along with Cree, Kickapoo, Menominee, and others. See the
dictionary entries for Anishinaabe in Baraga, Dictionary of the Otchipwe Language, 38–9;
Rhodes, Eastern Ojibwa/Chippewa-Ottawa Dictionary, 20.
6 These identifiers are in contemporary use and have specific political meanings
and great significance for those who use them. In using “Anishinaabe” here, I do
not mean to suggest that it should replace these other forms, unless communities
themselves desire it. In the past two centuries of settler colonialism these names
have come to evoke nations, in the sense defined by Benedict Anderson as imagined
communities, shaped by reading publics and the rise of print, and defined in no
small way by nineteenth-century Anishinaabe authors including William Warren,
Peter Jones, Andrew Blackbird, George Copway and Francis Assiginack, who
all made cases in print and in speeches for the independence and sovereignty of
their people. For a description of this process, see Konkle, Writing Indian Nations;
Anderson, Imagined Communities. For the writings of leading nineteenth-century
Anishinaabe intellectuals, see Assiginack, “Legends and Traditions of the Odahwah
Indians”; Blackbird, History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, 45; Copway,
Traditional History and Characteristic Sketches; Indian Life and Indian History; Jones,
History; Warren and Neill, History.
xvi Preface
and uses in English.7 This book focuses on the Anishinaabe meaning

of the word, using doodem as a category of analysis. I study doodem
images on treaty and other political and legal documents such as peti-
tions and receipts for annual annuity payments to explore fundamental
principles of Anishinaabe governance that both European colonizers
and subsequent generations of historians, until recently, have ignored.8
Doodem images on treaty and other documents are a key into the politi-
cal and legal history of the Anishinabek. There are only a few docu-
ments signed with these images before the outbreak of the Seven Years’
War in 1756 but such documents number in the thousands following
the American Revolution and into the mid-nineteenth century, as colo-
nial officials and settler governments increasingly engaged with dif-
ferent communities of Anishinabek in efforts to secure title to more
and more of their land. The doodem-bearing treaty and other docu-
ments analyzed for this work have in common the fact that they were
the products of Anishinaabe council fires – specific and long-standing
7 Totem appears to have entered general English use in the 1790s. Early British
anthropologists in the 1850s then applied it to other peoples and practices globally,
to refer to kinship networks that were identified by an animal “or less commonly
a plant or other natural object,” and also to guardian spirits “who may be applied
to or worshipped.” See “totem, n.,” OED Online, http://www.oed.com, accessed
24 March 2016. The word was made famous by Viennese psychiatrist Sigmund
Freud in his classic book Totem and Taboo (1913), in which he brought these ideas
of kinship networks and guardian spirits together. He then used this construction
as a foil to compare those he thought had “primitive minds” with the mentally
ill (the “neurotics”) he was treating. Anthropologists, including the noted French
anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, critiqued Freud’s generalizations and
misapplications, but the confusion has persisted, along with the uninformed and
inaccurate pejorative of primitivism. In compound form, the word totem has also
been applied to the monumental art of Northwest Coast civilizations as “totem poles”
(beginning in the 1880s) and in that context is also used figuratively in English, as in
“he’s the low man on the totem.” Historian Theresa Schenck has nicely sorted out all
this semantic confusion and discovered that the error crept into English usage when
colonial visitors to the Great Lakes region confused doodem with the guardian being
that Anishinaabe children acquired during puberty fasts. Schenck, “Algonquian
Totem and Totemism.”
8 There was some limited antiquarian interest initially. See Mallery, “Picture
Writing,” and Schoolcraft’s multi-volume American Indians. Anthropologists and
ethnohistorians picked up the subject of doodem again beginning in the 1960s. See
Hickerson, Chippewa and Their Neighbours; Bishop, “Question of Ojibwa Clans”; Peers,
Ojibwa of Western Canada; Vastokas, “History without Writing”; Brown and Peers,
“‘There Is No End to Relationship.”
Preface xvii
deliberative bodies that were constituted and recognized through and

by other Anishinaabe councils to have responsibility for the lands,
waters, and peoples of a particular territory. As the treaty in Figure 1
illustrates, the images identify that council fire’s civil leadership: some-
times simply the ogimaa (or chief in English), sometimes the ogimaa
and aanikeogimaa (second chief, deputy), and in many cases, especially
on land sale/purchase agreements, also the gichi-Anishinabek (council-
lors).9 The gichi-Anishinabek, aanikeogimaa, and ogimaa were also his-
torically leaders of their own indinaakonigewin (those whom one over-
wintered with, a group of usually twenty to forty people).10 Doodem
images in these contexts nearly always reflect only the council of gichi-
Anishinabek together with the ogimaa and aanikeogimaa.
But there were two other equally important councils that advised
and significantly influenced decisions – the council of women and
the council of young men (warriors); mention of the existence of these
councils shows up occasionally in treaty documents, too. While council
fires could each make decisions independent of the others, doodem kin
ties created and sustained lateral connections between different coun-
cil fires, ties that spread over the region. Kinship ties reinforced the
political principle of interdependence through alliance. Since there was
a widespread taboo against marrying anyone with the same doodem,
a marriage was by definition an alliance that brought two doodemag
together. Council fires were comprised of people living in alliance rela-
tionships with one another.11 So doodem images on treaty and other
documents tell a much larger story about the decentralized, intercon-
nected, and interdependent alliance networks that formed the govern-
ments of the Anishinaabe peoples. These images therefore have much
to say about Anishinaabe law. They are the tangible expression of the
connection between Anishinaabe law as expressed in oral traditions
and decisions taken by councils in accordance with that law.12
9 Cary Miller, Ogimaag, 76–7.

10 Ibid., 77–8.
11 Recent work that acknowledges the importance of doodem to the Anishinabek
includes Cary Miller, Ogimaag; Treuer, Assassination of Hole in the Day; Witgen,
Infinity of Nations; McDonnell, Masters of Empire; Willmott, “Anishinaabe Doodem
Pictographs.”
12 John Borrows makes the case for Anishinaabe law embedded in oral tradition. See
his Drawing Out Law and Canada’s Indigenous Constitution. For a broader discussion
of Indigenous law, see Napoleon, Thinking about Indigenous Legal Orders.
xviii Preface
This book is an interdisciplinary socio-legal and ethnohistorical

study that aims to historicize doodemag as a living tradition central to
Anishinaabe governance. I trace continuities, changes, and innovations
in Anishinaabe governance through the concept of council fires and the
alliances between them, from the seventeenth through the nineteenth
centuries. In short, this work is a study of Anishinaabe law. By situating
doodem as a foundational principle within a framework of Indigenous
legal traditions writ large, the Anishinaabe tradition shares with its
common and civil law counterparts “considerable pluralism.”13 That is,
there were regional and local variations in custom and practice but all
under the umbrella of a shared ontology that was particularly notable
for extending the legal concept of personhood to other-than-human
beings. In the Great Lakes region, humans were accountable not only
to other humans for their actions but also to the animals and plants, to
all ensouled life. This is a much broader ethical and legal space than
either European common or civil law traditions. Anishinaabe law also
borrowed from its Siouan- and Iroquoian-speaking neighbours, as well
as later from colonial law. The evidence of such exchanges is visible
in the archival record at the time of the earliest European arrivals in
the region, indicating that the practices had begun before. Great Lakes
Indigenous legal traditions maintained their autonomy and distinctive-
ness even as these diverse peoples developed a common set of regional
practices, a body of international law, and sets of diplomatic protocols
useful for promoting peace and social relationships between their soci-
eties.14 In the Great Lakes region, people spoke languages from three
distinct language families: Algonquian, Iroquoian, and Siouan. Anishi-
naabemowin is as distinct from the languages of the Wendat (whom the
French called “Hurons”) and Haudenosaunee Confederacies as English
is from Arabic.
As a settler and descendant of settlers growing up on Anishinaabe
land I knew very little of this history, despite the fact that I was born
13 Girard, Phillips, and Brown, History of Law in Canada, 1.

14 Girard, Phillips, and Brown stated, “It is not known whether Indigenous legal
traditions borrowed from each other prior to European contact, but they did begin to
draw inspiration from colonial law afterwards” (History of Law in Canada, 6). There
was earlier borrowing between Indigenous nations, especially in the development
of intercultural diplomatic protocols, such as the use of wampum and calumet
ceremonies, in place when Europeans arrived.
Preface xix
on Michi Saagig Anishinaabe territory and in a province (Ontario) and

a country (Canada) whose names are derived from Onkwehon:we
languages.15 These lands, as I later came to learn, were governed by
existing treaty and alliance relations, including alliances between
Onkwehon:we and Anishinaabe council fires that long pre-dated the
legislated beginnings of Canadian Confederation in 1867. Although
there is more public awareness today of Indigenous histories in both
Canada and the United States, settler colonial tropes continue to domi-
nate the histories of both countries, including erroneous and frankly
quite racist and unexamined statements about the supposedly limited
historic capacities and effectiveness of Indigenous governments. Recent
scholarship, however, demonstrates quite the opposite.16 Anishinaabe
oral traditions structured Anishinaabe society, in which law was “inte-
grated with all other aspects of life, as opposed to confined to a separate
realm.”17
My hope is that this work, despite its inevitable limitations, will also
contribute to contemporary conversations about Indigenous–settler
treaty relations and to renewed research into Canada’s treaty history.
As Indigenous leaders have long pointed out, the treaties entered into
in the past need to be understood as compacts between two cohesive
and complex, yet culturally and philosophically distinct worldviews.
Settler states in both Canada and the United States have treated this dif-
ference as an existential threat and created policies and laws intended
to force the assimilation of Indigenous peoples and the breakup of their
distinct societies. In Canada, the release of the 2015 report of the Truth
and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) on residential schools provides
extensive and irrefutable evidence of the harm such policies caused to
15 For an Anishinaabe history of this region see Gidigaa Migizi, Michi Saagiig.
16 See, for example, in the Great Lakes region: Cary Miller, Ogimaag; Witgen, Infinity
of Nations; Hill, Clay We Are Made Of; Child, Holding Our World Together. Chapter 2
of Girard, Phillips, and Brown, History of Law in Canada (26–41) has an excellent
recent summary of scholarship pertaining to Indigenous legal traditions, including
governance, across what is now Canada. The socio-legal/historical work of John
Borrows, Darlene Johnston, Heidi Kiiwetinepinesiik Stark, Mark Walters, and Aaron
Mills on Anishinaabe law is also supported by a broader flowering of interest in
Anishinaabe studies, with new insights coming, it seems, every day. My work has
also been influenced by new scholarship in the productive and innovative academic
discipline of Indigenous Studies, and as well by new work in colonial and imperial
histories, anthropology, art history, and linguistics.
17 Girard, Phillips, and Brown, History of Law in Canada, 4.
xx Preface
so many people.18 The TRC report calls for the recognition and honour-
ing of historic treaty relationships as part of the work of (re)concilia-
tion.19 To do so meaningfully will require coming to terms with both our
shared histories and the separate ontologies that have have informed
our respective legal traditions and structures of governance.
Anishinaabe leaders have been teaching (or trying to teach) their
laws and philosophy to European newcomers in the Great Lakes region
for more than four hundred years. While seventeenth- and eighteenth-
century colonial officials eventually mastered the art of performing gov-
ernance through alliance, it is evident that these representatives of first
France and later Britian did not entirely embrace the spirit and intent of
what these alliance relationships were intended to be. Following the War
of 1812, the settler populations in the Great Lakes region on both sides
of the border rapidly increased and soon outnumbered the Anishina-
bek and other Great Lakes Indigenous nations. By the mid-nineteenth
century, what Patrick Wolfe calls settler colonialism’s “logic of elimi-
nation,” which “destroys to replace,” was fully operational.20 Reports
prepared for colonial and dominion legislatures dismissed Indigenous
governments as primitive and backwards and their people as being in
need of assimilation; residential schools in both Canada and the United
States were ultimately one part of that program.21 By the 1860s, the gov-
ernments of both the United States and the new Dominion of Canada
no longer saw in the treaties anything other than a means by which to
acquire title to land as cheaply as possible in order to make it avail-
able to (white) settlement. Despite this, Indigenous leaders, including
Anishinaabe ogimaawag, continued to assert treaty rights and to peace-
fully protest against violations of the treaty agreements.22 In so doing,
18 Truth and Reconciliation Canada, Honouring the Truth. The summary and the full
report along with primary sources related to the establishment of the schools in
Canada are permanently archived and available for download at the National Centre
for Truth and Reconciliation at the University of Manitoba: https://nctr.ca.
19 Truth and Reconciliation Canada, Honouring the Truth, 183–5.
20 Wolfe, “Settler Colonialism.”
21 See for example Province of Canada: Bagot Commission Report of 1844; Report on
the Affairs of the Indians in Canada; Pennefather Commission of 1858; and Davin,
Report on Industrial Schools.
22 See here evidence of protest and resistance in Donald Smith, Sacred Feathers; Chute,
Legacy of Shingwaukonse; Blair, Lament for a First Nation; and in contemporary court
rulings or negotiated settlements concerning pre-Confederation treaties such as
Restoule v. Canada; the Williams Treaty Claim Settlement of 2018; and the 2010 final
Preface xxi
they “exist, resist, and persist,” while continuing to confront a structure

(settler colonialism) that, as Hawaiian scholar J. Kēhaulani Kauanui has
shown, in turn resists their resistance.23
By bringing forward evidence of Anishinaabe governance in earlier
colonial sources, I show how Anishinaabe leaders explained their law
to newcomers, before the advent of settler colonialism. One can thus see
how and where colonial officials were respecting and trying to under-
stand Anishinaabe law or, later, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries,
where they ignored it. What is clear, though, is that earlier generations
of officials were willing to play the part of ally as the Anishinabek
understood it when it suited colonial purposes, first to survive in a new
land, then to secure military allies against imperial enemies, and later
to acquire land for settlements.24 Anishinaabe councils had a different
understanding of alliance that affected how they viewed these treaties.
The work here has significant implications for the interpretation of pre-
Confederation era treaties. Land sale agreements that comprise the con-
temporary set of recognized “treaties” are not standalone agreements
concerned solely with a specific property transaction. Rather these trea-
ties must be understood as a modification of the larger alliance relation-
ships between interdependent council fires in accordance with the laws
of Great Lakes Indigenous nations. As I will demonstrate, Anishinaabe
councils treated colonial governments as if they too were council fires,
and colonial governments in turn performed as if that is what they were
in their relationships with Anishinaabe peoples.
This book has been a long time coming. In 2006, I published an article
on the importance of the doodem tradition to the survival of the Anishi-
naabe peoples and civilization in the wake of mid-seventeenth-century
epidemics of diseases brought by Europeans and the resulting wars
between Great Lakes nations that were sparked by the high mortality
rate, as nations looked to outsiders as potential causes of these waves of
death.25 Doodem images provided evidence that that the Anishinabek
settlement of the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation’s Brant Tract and
Toronto Purchase Specific Claims.
23 Kauanui, “A Structure, Not an Event.”
24 This model of treaty as an agreement to fulfil a specific purpose (either for
commerce, military support, or land) structures the classic survey of treaties in
Canada. See James Miller, Compact, Contract, Covenant.
25 Bohaker, “Nindoodemag: The Significance of Algonquian Kinship Networks.”
xxii Preface
drew from the resources of their own cultural and political tradition to
reconstitute themselves and their society after 1650. But despite the fact
that I was staring at hundreds of documents all signed with doodem
images, I failed at the time to see the common element – that all were
produced in council. Signed land purchase agreements, products of the
common law tradition, were also infused with evidence of Anishinaabe
legal tradition. The treaty documents articulated the crucial relation-
ship between doodem images and how Anishinaabe governments were
historically organized; it just took me a very long time to see it, as I
too worked with and through my own assumptions and biases of how
Anishinaabe governance functioned and how their governance prac-
tices changed over time.
By 2006, I was also engaged in another research project that eventu-
ally did open my eyes and unstop my ears to other important sources
of Anishinaabe governance and law: the Great Lakes Research Alliance
for the Study of Aboriginal Arts and Cultures, or GRASAC (https://
grasac.org). I am one of its co-founders. GRASAC, as we explain on our
website, is an organization where “researchers from Indigenous com-
munities, universities, museums and archives work together to locate,
study, and create deeper understandings of Great Lakes arts, languages,
identities, territoriality and governance.”26 GRASAC’s origins go back
to the beginning of this century. In the early 2000s Anishinaabe legal
historian Darlene Johnston (Waabizheshi [Marten] doodem), Alan Ojig
Corbiere (Bne [Ruffed Grouse] doodem), and I were planning to build a
database for treaty-related documents. As anyone working in this field
or attempting to research a land claim knows, there is no one archive
containing the relevant material. Treaties themselves and their associ-
ated council minutes are scattered over a great many repositories and
fonds. We were also all interested in the doodem images we observed
on many of these documents.
Around the same time, the noted Great Lakes art historian Ruth B.
Phillips thought about digitizing the database of the slides she had
accumulated over her long career of studying Great Lakes material
culture in museums both on Turtle Island and overseas. The anthro-
pologist Cory Willmott, who knew of my previous work with databases
in an earlier career, connected Ruth and me at a Rupertsland Society
meeting in Kenora in 2004. We agreed to work together to produce a
26 “About GRASAC,” https://grasac.org/about.

Preface xxiii
database that would include both material culture and archival docu-
ments. Alan Corbiere was already researching his community’s history
and was interested in further investigation into medals, wampum belts,
and other diplomatic gifts related to treaties. Ruth then sought grant
funding to bring a large group of Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee
scholars and community researchers to Carleton University to meet
with museum curators and archivists. Together we discussed what
such a collaboration might look like. What came out of the meeting
was a plan to do more than digitize a slide collection. We recognized
the need to take interdisciplinary and cross-cultural teams into reposi-
tories, examine those items as a group in situ, and take much more
detailed, high-resolution images and video so that communities could
continue to research the items after we returned home. At that meeting,
GRASAC was created and with it, our governance and ethical protocols
and our commitment to develop a reciprocal and collaborative research
methodology.27
Although I was still working to complete my dissertation, I began
working with Ruth to design the first database, and we planned our
first trip, to the National Museums of Scotland in December of 2006.
GRASAC members have now researched collections in more than
eighty institutions and have made detailed records of nearly six thou-
sand items of Great Lakes cultural heritage. We have also held mul-
tiple research gatherings and developed an extensive network of con-
tributors. I originally thought GRASAC was something extra I was
doing, almost separate from my work as a historian, but the past fifteen
years have shown me how wrong that thinking was. As we worked
in museum storage areas documenting medals, wampum belts, pipes,
suits of clothing, and other gifts given in council as part of Great Lakes
Indigenous diplomacy with imperial powers, it became clear that here
really was an enormously significant Indigenous archive of governance
and law, an archive that has increasingly been recognized as such by
those working in the fields of Indigenous philosophy and law.28 More-
over, the beauty and artistry of the items we study are a powerful cor-
rective to persistent settler colonial discourses of primitivism and to
the excessive focus on Indigenous participation in colonial wars in
27 This history is discussed in Bohaker, Corbiere, and Phillips, “Wampum Unites Us.”
28 Bohaker, “Indigenous Histories and Archival Media in the Early Modern Great
Lakes”; Morito, Ethic of Mutual Respect; John Borrows, “Wampum at Niagara.”
xxiv Preface
the archival and historical record.29 The material evidence, when one
includes archeologically recovered items (which we do in GRASAC),
speaks volumes about cultural continuities and dynamic, self-directed
changes within the distinct societies of Great Lakes Indigenous peoples.
This research has been a crucial source of my own understanding of how
Anishinaabe leaders used gifts given in council to create and renew alli-
ance relationships. By integrating the study of these items with archival
descriptions of how they were exchanged in formal alliance-making
and renewal contexts, we are better able to appreciate how such gifts
form part of Anishinaabe law. These items are tangible evidence of how
the terms of the alliance or treaty can be embodied in physical forms.
Furthermore, some Anishinaabe material culture also contains or has
been inscribed with doodem images, connecting the item into a broader
world of kinship and politics. I have woven evidence from these mate-
rial culture sources into the narrative of this book.
The work with GRASAC has afforded me the great privilege of
studying this rich material heritage in museums and travelling to Great
Lakes communities as part of our collaborative methodology. Our
teams have been graciously welcomed and hosted by the communities
we have visited. It is clear to me that the cultural practices of gifting,
alliance-making, and consensus-based decision-making described by
Jesuit missionaries and colonial officials in the seventeenth century are
very much alive in Anishinaabe community life today. Listening to the
histories told by Elders and Knowledge Holders has also helped me
to describe what earlier generations of settlers and visitors were writ-
ing about when they too visited Anishinaabe communities. Specifically,
conversations with Lewis Debassige, Darlene Johnston, and Alan Cor-
biere have been especially important in sparking me to look at colonial-
authored sources with fresh eyes. Johnston contributed enormously to
my understanding of doodem as both anchored in deep time and con-
nected to place. She was an early and crucial partner in this research,
and our many long conversations about how to read doodem images
and what they meant are essential to the findings in this work.30 Her
continuing research in seventeenth-century missionary dictionaries
29 Indigenous scholars are confronting these discourses and old tropes head-on,
through deep dives into studies of language, oral history, and traditional teachings.
See for example, Geniuz, Our Knowledge is Not Primitive.
30 Darlene Johnston, “Litigating Identity”; Connecting People to Place.
Preface xxv
for vocabulary relating to doodem and governance will fundamen-

tally change the way we write about Anishinaabe history in the first
century of French–Anishinaabe relationships. Alan Corbiere has sig-
nificantly enriched my understanding of Anishinaabe leadership and
governance, Anishinaabe use of wampum, the symbolic importance
of medals, and the ways in which leaders communicated meaning
through dress and gesture.31 His own research on doodem genealogies
of Manitoulin Island and Georgian Bay Anishinaabe communities has
confirmed my own findings.32 And his recently completed doctoral the-
sis marks a major contribution to the field of Anishinaabe studies, pre-
senting Anishinaabe history, specifically treaty history, from an Anishi-
naabe perspective, using sources written in Anishinaabeowin and “by
incorporating stories of Anishinaabe Manidoog (spirits) back” into this
history.”33 M’Chigeeng Elder Lewis Debassige (Adik [Caribou] doodem)
has been a source of tremendous insight and knowledge of Anishinaabe
oral histories. Mr. Debassige, who passed away on 13 May 2019, is a lin-
eal descendant of Ogaa, who signed the 1798 treaty for St. Joseph Island
with an image of representing the Caribou doodem. As co-founder of
the Ojibwe Cultural Foundation and a long-time activist and strategist
for Indigenous control of education and for economic development
on Manitoulin Island, Mr. Debassige drew on his deep knowledge of
Anishinaabe history, culture, and language to create opportunities for
subsequent generations.
I am also greatly indebted to conversations with anthropologist Cory
Willmott at the State University of Illinois (Edwardsville) and her schol-
arship on doodemag. She used the term “lateral alliance” to explain
how Anishinaabe families had access to resources from more than one
doodem through marriage alliances, as people kept their birth doodem
when they married. Her work on the communication of doodem iden-
tity through dress also taught me to think “outside the archive” and to
look to material culture to understand how Anishinaabe leaders used
clothing to communicate their political responsibilities and doodemag.
Most recently, she has contributed a marvellous essay that explores later
nineteenth- and twentieth-century innovations in how Anishinaabe
31 Alan Corbiere, “Anishinaabe Headgear”; “Dbaad’dang Wiigwaaskeng”; Bohaker,

Corbiere, and Phillips, “Wampum Unites Us.”
32 See for example the permanent exhibit on Anishinaabe doodem curated by Mr.
Corbiere at the Ojibwe Cultural Foundation, M’Chigeeng First Nation.
33 Alan Corbiere, “Anishinaabe Treaty-Making,” 19–20.
xxvi Preface
people receive their doodem.34 Willmott and Johnston both stressed the
continuing political significance of doodem, an idea expressed by nine-
teenth-century Anishinaabe writers Peter Jones and William Warren
and again in the more recent publications of Anishinaabe writers Eddie
Benton Banai, Basil Johnston, and Gidigaa Migizi (Doug Williams).35
If doodem describes the who of Anishinaabe governance, then coun-
cils (or council fires) describe the where – the seats of decision-making
and the lands for which the councils were responsible. My thinking
about this aspect of Anishinaabe governance was influenced by mul-
tiple people and their work. Jones and Warren, described above, both
described the important roles of councils and their different responsi-
bilities in their respective works. The significance of fire as an Anishinaabe
political metaphor is beautifully expressed in Heidi Kiiwetinepinesiik
Stark’s research on the political use of allegory in Anishinaabe oral
histories.36 Conversations about governance with long-time GRASAC
members have helped tremendously as well. John Borrows, one of
Canada’s leading Indigenous legal scholars, unpacks Anishinaabe legal
principles and governance practices in action from those same narra-
tives in Drawing Out Law and Canada’s Indigenous Constitution.37 Jeffrey
Hewitt, legal counsel for the Chippewas of Rama and Assistant Profes-
sor of Law at Osgoode Hall Law School, talked to me about wampum
belts as constitutions and got me thinking about Anishinaabe consti-
tutionalism as a practice within Anishinaabe law. Collections work in
the company of Ruth B. Phillips, Cory Willmott, Alan Corbiere, Laura
Peers, Sherry Farrell Racette, Darlene Johnston, John Borrows, Mikinaak
Migwans, Marge Bruchac, and other GRASAC colleagues has been one
master class after another, where critical conversations around differ-
ent epistemological ways of engaging with the multiple meanings of
items in museum collections have greatly enriched my understanding
of why material history matters.38 Sherry Farrell Racette has remarked
that when she opens museum drawers she is “often overwhelmed by
34 Willmott, “Clothed Encounters”; Willmott and Brownlee, “Dressing for the

Homeward Journey”; Willmott, “Anishinaabe Doodem Pictographs.”
35 Jones, History; Warren and Neill, History; Benton-Banai, Mishomis Book; Basil
Johnston, Ojibway Heritage; Gidigaa Migizi, Michi Saagiig.
36 Stark, “Marked by Fire.”
37 John Borrows, Drawing Out Law; Canada’s Indigenous Constitution.
38 See especially Farrell Racette, “Pieces Left along the Trail.” For what the material
study of dress and clothing can reveal, see Willmott, “Beavers and Sheep.”
Preface xxvii
the loss of knowledge that collections represent. It is why I am there.”

Alan Corbiere explains his research as a broader project of recovery,
reclamation, and revitalization: “I am looking for pieces of our past, our
identity, pieces of our foundations so we can build it up again.”39 His
work on headdresses, wampum, and medals has helped me to visualize
historic council meetings and better recognize the important meanings
communicated through gifts exchanged in councils.40 Tuscarora art-
ist and art historian Jolene Rickard’s theoretical framings of the deep
connection between Indigenous arts and articulations of philosophy,
law, and governance are powerful tools for re-reading and reinterpret-
ing old colonial records of treaties and council meetings, for moving
beyond the colonizing text and the colonial gaze.41
In Doodem and Council Fire, I stress the importance of using Anishi-
naabe political categories and terms in Anishinaabemowin rather
than reaching for analogies from other political and cultural tradi-
tions. Imported concepts such as band, tribe, village, and nation do not
adequately describe Anishinaabe polities and law. Further, such terms
render invisible the presence and power of Anishinaabe alliances and
governance through alliance. I do this despite my own limited skills in
Anishinaabemowin, although I will continue to learn this metaphori-
cally rich language. I am therefore beyond grateful for the insights
into Anishinaabemowin and its metaphors from the work of and con-
versations with Alan Corbiere, Mary Ann Naokwegijig-Corbiere (no
relation), Lewis Debassige, Rand Valentine, Alex McKay, Maya Cha-
bacy, and Darlene Johnston, who have opened up the deeply layered
thought worlds of Anishinaabe people as expressed in and through
Anishinaabemowin, as the language too has changed over time.42 I look
39 Farrell Racette, “Pieces Left along the Trail,” 225.

40 Jeffrey Hewitt, personal communications, 2008 and 2009. Ruth Phillips is one of the
leading art historians in Great Lakes material culture – see, for example, her Patterns
of Power; “Dreams and Designs”; and Trading Identities; see also Alan Corbiere,
“Anishinaabe Headgear.”
41 Jolene Rickard calls for use of sovereignty as a concept that “could serve as an
overarching concept for interpreting the interconnected space of the colonial
gaze, deconstruction of the colonizing image or text, and Indigeneity.” Rickard,
“Visualizing Sovereignty in the Time of Biometric Sensors,” 471.
42 As all languages do. For an overview of the discipline of historical linguistics see
Campbell, Historical Linguistics. Alan Corbiere’s deep and beautifully researched
studies have been especially informative. Corbiere has also explored how
Anishinaabe leaders from Manitoulin Island adopted writing Anishinaabemowin
xxviii Preface
forward to the day when the field of North American Indigenous histo-
ries will be researched and written with and in Indigenous languages.
I accumulated many more scholarly and personal debts in writing
this book that are described in the Acknowledgments, including to
Elders and Knowledge Holders from eastern Great Lakes communities
who took the time to share their knowledge with me and through many
wonderful conversations and collaborations with other GRASAC col-
leagues and with students over the past fifteen years. I felt it important
in this preface, though, to draw the reader’s attention to the interdisci-
plinary scholarship and many conversations upon which the findings
of this book depend. Doodem and Council Fire is a study fundamentally
about the centrality of alliances to Anishinaabe governance and treaty
law. Significantly, my research was also a product of alliance and col-
laboration. I can only hope that the history I present here is a sufficient
bagijigan in return for the many gifts I am so grateful to have received
from people who shared their insights and understandings with me.
But all faults and errors in this work are mine, and mine alone.43
in alphabetic script as a political strategy in the mid-nineteenth century. See Alan

Corbiere, “Exploring Historical Literacy”; Valentine, Nishnaabemwin Reference
Grammar; Mary Ann Corbiere, “Flying Blind over Strange Terrain”; Corbiere and
Valentine, Dictionary of Nishnabewin Database.
43 Bagijige – the act of making a gift or offering – is the central framing of an important
collection of essays on Anishinaaabe philosophy, ethics, law, and spirituality, on
Anishinaabewin or Anishinaabe ways of being. See Doerfler, Sinclair, and Stark,
Centering Anishinaabeg Studies.
Acknowledgments
A book project that takes as long as this one did accumulates a stagger-
ing pile of debts, both scholarly and personal. I am profoundly grateful
for the kindness of so many people who have – in both large and small
ways – helped me through to completion. In addition to those men-
tioned in the preface, I would like to acknowledge others here and hope
that I have not forgotten anyone.
I would first like to say a resounding chi-miigwetch to the Anishi-
naabe communities whose history this is and to express my profound
gratitude for the tremendous kindness and patience you have shown
this outsider/settler. You have so kindly welcomed me over the years,
shared research and teachings, and taught me much, although I still
have so much to learn. I would like to say a special thank you to the
Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, Mississauga First Nation, Wiik-
wemkoong Unceded Territory, M’Chigeeng First Nation, Chippewas of
Rama First Nation, Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation, Curve
Lake First Nation, and Sagamok Anishnawbek First Nation. I also have
been very fortunate to be invited regularly to speak at the Mississaugas
of the Credit First Nation’s annual multi-day historical gathering, now
in its tenth year, which has grown to attract hundreds of attendees.
I am also honoured that Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History
selected Doodem and Council Fire as the members’ book for 2020. Jim
Phillips and Philip Gerard are a talented team of editors; they made
the final version of this manuscript that much stronger. I thank Jim for
xxx Acknowledgments
encouraging me to see my work as legal history and for inviting me to

move into the field of legal history from the sidelines.
Since I signed my first contract with the University of Toronto Press
many years ago, Len Husband has been strongly supportive of this proj-
ect, unflagging in his enthusiasm, patient and kind. Thank you, Len!
The entire University of Toronto Press team has been a delight to work
with, even during a global pandemic and under work-from-home rules.
Thank you especially to Managing Editor Lisa Jemison who shepherded
this book through the final stages, while like so many of us juggling child
care and working odd hours. Thanks also to Beth McAuley of The Edit-
ing Company and Jonathan Adjemian for copy editing and indexing.
I am also so grateful to the thoughtful comments from anonymous
reviewers for the University of Toronto Press. One in particular deeply
engaged with a previous version of the manuscript, providing a lengthy
report on the strengths and deficits of the book’s research and organi-
zation. This reviewer still recommended publication, but raised such
important questions it was clear that the structure and overall argument
would be much better if rethought. My colleague and faculty mentor
Adrienne Hood generously read the manuscript through in light of
feedback and helped me formulate a plan for both reorganization and
restructuring. Chi-miigwetch to Adrienne and to all of the anonymous
reviewers. I hope the revisions were worth the wait.
In 2016 I was asked to be an expert witness in Restoule v. Canada,
2018 ONSC 7701. Preparing my expert report and participating in the
trial contributed significantly to my analysis in this book. I am grate-
ful for the many excellent questions posed by the plaintiff’s legal team
of Nahwegahbow Corbiere especially David Nahwegahbow, Dianne
Corbiere, Scott Robertson, and Chris Albinati, as well as Joe Arvay and
Catherine Boies Parker of Arvay Finlay. I acknowledge the Elders who
testified and shared so much of their knowledge: Rita Corbiere of Wiik-
wemkoong, Irene Stevens of Batchawana First Nation, Irene Makadebin
of Sagamok Anishnawbek, and Fred Kelly from Treaty #3, as well as the
Fire Keepers who ensured that a central symbol of Anishinaabek law
was present on the land, adjacent to the court building, burning twenty-
four hours a day, for the duration of the trial. Counsel for Ontario and
Canada played their part too. While being cross-examined is never a
pleasant experience, it certainly helps to hone one’s argument.
My brother Scott Bohaker read multiple versions of draft chapters
and has a talent for asking just the right questions. He also taught me to
stop burying the lead. I am also grateful for feedback on earlier drafts
Acknowledgments xxxi
from Michael Saver, Kristen Chew, and Chandra Murdoch, and on the
penultimate draft by Jeffrey Hewitt, Darlene Johnston, and Grace Lau.
Darlene Johnston, Alan Corbiere, Donald Smith, Reg Good, and the
truly exceptional now-retired archivist of Library and Archives Canada,
Patricia Kennedy, generously pointed me to doodem-bearing docu-
ments they had encountered in their own work, some in places I never
would have thought to look on my own.
In addition to those named in the preface, thanks also to colleagues
and friends for great conversations on the subject of doodemag (you
might not remember, but I do!), email queries answered, thoughtful
comments offered, encouragement and support for this work over these
many years: Laurie Bertram, Anne Bigwind, James Bird, Jennifer S.H.
Brown, Carol Chin, Paul Cohen, Natalie Zemon Davis, Allan Greer, Sean
Hawkins, Susan Hill, Heather Howard, Carolyn King, Cara Krmpotich,
Stacey Laforme, Daniel Laxer, Nicholas May, Michael A. McDonnell,
Mia McKie, Ken Mills, Sean Mills, Joan Morningstar, Melanie Newton,
Reg Niganobe, Alison Norman, Christopher Parsons, Tom Peace, Laura
Peers, Steve Penfold, Carolyn Podruchny, Naomi Recollet, Audrey
Rochette, Margaret Sault, Alison Smith, Katrina Srigley, Alan Taylor,
Anne Taylor, Nick Terpstra, Sylvia Van Kirk, Germaine Warkentin,
my many wonderful colleagues in The Great Lakes Research Alliance
for the Study of Aboriginal Arts and Cultures (GRASAC), my incred-
ible students in HIS366/69: Aboriginal Peoples of the Great Lakes and
HIS418: Canada by Treaty, and my talented graduate students.
The research for this book was supported by parts of multiple SSHRC
grants, including a SSHRC doctoral fellowship, post-doctoral fellow-
ship, and an Insight Development Grant. SSHRC has also supported
GRASAC through multiple grants, and I am very grateful for their sup-
port. My university and department have been generous too, support-
ing GRASAC as an alliance and this work. My book benefited from the
Connaught New Researcher Award and several SSHRC Institutional
Grants. This funding along with SSHRC support funded graduate and
undergraduate student research assistants including Kata Bohus, June
Allison, Jennifer Hayter, Zachary Smith, Chandra Murdoch, Stephanie
Davis, and John Stewart. Thank you for all of your hard work!
The manuscript was delivered to the press at the end of February, just as
the COVID-19 epidemic was ravaging Italy and truly becoming a global
health emergency. Many museums, libraries, art galleries, and archives,
as less essential workplaces, shuttered, and some remain closed to visi-
tors as of August 2020. In some cases, due to COVID-restrictions, I was
xxxii Acknowledgments
unable to obtain a publication-quality colour images, and in other cases,

COVID forced the substitution of originally planned images as staff were
unable to access collections for photography. That there are images in this
book at all is due to the kindness of archivists, librarians, and museum
staff working remotely, granting permission to use GRASAC research
images in lieu of in-house photography and in some cases making special
trips into closed buildings to take the pictures themselves. I would espe-
cially like to acknowledge Roma Kail (Head, Reader Services at E.J. Pratt
Library, Victoria University at the University of Toronto), John Shoesmith
(Outreach Librarian, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library), and Jonathan
Barker (Archives Collection Officer, Kent History and Library Centre) for
capturing high-resolution images on my behalf when their reproduction
services were closed. Caleesha Murray at the Archives of Ontario remotely
arranged for special manuscript retrieval and photography despite the
AO’s closure. Emanuela Rossi, Professore Associato at the Università
degli Studi di Firenze, helped me connect with the Museo civico di Sci-
enze naturali di Bergamo during the shutdown. Thanks also to Jacqueline
Vincent (Brechin Group), Monika Zessnik (Ethnologisches Museum Ber-
lin), Tricia Walker (Royal Ontario Museum), and Erin Wilson (Canadian
Museum of History) for speedy help acquiring images and permissions
while working from home. Ingmars Lindbergs (Bonhams) arranged for
high-resolution photos of the 1836 Treaty Pipe. Nicky Recollet of Crane’s
Atlas was an incredible collaborator on the map. Thanks to you all!
Friends and family have cheered on this project for many years,
offered welcome breaks when needed, and/or provided space to write:
thanks especially to Dora Alveszo, Jim Barnsley, Sophie Bender John-
ston and Grace Lau, Greg and Maxine Bohaker, Scott Bohaker, Julie
Michels and Joey Morin, Bruno Morin, Sandra Morin, Melanie Phillip,
Tracy and Warren Synnott, and Julie K. Wong.
Last, but most certainly not least, my husband and son have provided
unflagging support and encouragement despite the length of time it has
taken me to complete this project. Claude Morin has believed in me and
this work from the beginning; he’s talked me through the challenges that
have come up and helped me to find solutions. He also lent his profes-
sional IT skills to support the development of GRASAC’s database in its
early days. Our son, Alexander, arrived in 2010 when I thought this book
was almost done, and then it wasn’t. He has grown up with it. Rather
than asking “are we there yet?” the question in our house was “is the
book done yet, Mama?” Chi-miigwetch for your patience, Aniksaanten.
And yes, finally, it is.
DOODEM AND COUNCIL FIRE
Anishinaabe Governance through Alliance

Introduction
As the summer days of 1642 grew shorter and the annual meteor show-
ers began to light the night skies, Anishinaabe families from council
fires around the north shore of Lake Huron, Georgian Bay, and Lake
Nipissing packed their canoes with gifts and food. They paddled
towards a large island on the eastern side of the Bay, about ninety to
one hundred kilometres north of Wendake.1 In total, about two thou-
sand people made the trip during this Manoominike-giizis (the Ricing
Moon) month.2 Others remained behind to help finish the harvest of
wild rice, of berries, and of cultivated crops planted near Anishinaabe
1 The author of the eyewitness report discussed here noted the following with respect
to the location: “The spot selected for this purpose was at a Bay of the great Lake,
distant about twenty leagues from the country of the Hurons.” Possible sites would
be Parry Island or Ojibway Island. A land league is an obsolete measurement
of the amount of time a person could walk in an hour – roughly three miles or
five kilometers. Jérôme Lalemant, “Of the Mission of the Holy Ghost Among the
Algonquins, the Nearest to the Hurons,” from “Relation of 1642–1643,” in Thwaites,
Jesuit Relations, 23:205–33.
2 The Anishinaabe calendar historically divided the year into thirteen moons, each
with a name connected to important ceremonies and sometimes also to particular
collective activities such as the maple sugar harvest or sucker fishery. There are
teachings and aadizookaanag associated with each moon. There are some regional
differences in the calendars across the Great Lakes. The Ricing Moon was the time of
year for the wild rice harvest.
4 Doodem and Council Fire
council sites, or because age or infirmity made the prospect of a jour-

ney difficult to contemplate. Those who journeyed came together for a
regional gathering and a general council.3 This year it was the Nipissing
council fire’s turn as host.4
As was the practice for these types of gatherings, the Nipissing coun-
cil had sent runners early in the spring to invite the other council fires.
These young people, who would rival today’s ultra-marathoners and
elite athletes with the speed and distance they could travel on foot or
by canoe, carried the news of the Nipissing’s intention to host as well as
the location for the gathering and the agenda for the political business
to be discussed. This gave time for the other councils to deliberate at
home on the questions and to prepare the many gifts they would bring
with them to renew their alliances with one another. At this event, the
Nipissing specifically sought ratification of their new leaders from their
allies. The gathering had a sombre purpose too, for each council brought
to the gathering the bones of their dead who had been born on another
council’s territory so that those remains could be sent home to the place
of their birth. The Nipissing had invited other guests as well – particularly
three Jesuit priests and the Wendat, with whom the Nipissing also
3 This 1642 gathering was first analyzed by anthropologist Harold Hickerson in 1960,
who analyzed it and other accounts of similar gatherings in the Jesuit Relations and
the writings of Nicolas Perrot. Hickerson was reacting against ideas in circulation in
the twentieth century scholarship that the Anishinabek were historically without real
governments – that their culture was individualistic and their political life simplistic.
In his examination of seventeenth-century sources, Hickerson concluded that such a
picture was not historically accurate, and that he had found in seventeenth-century
sources significant evidence of a much greater level of social and political cohesion
than had been previously thought. However, he drew some erroneous conclusions,
too. He assumed, because Lalemant referred to this event as a “Feast of the Dead,”
that it was a cultural phenomenon imported from the Wendat, with whom they were
allied; and that, because descriptions of only a handful of ceremonies labelled “Feast of
the Dead” exist in seventeenth-century colonial-authored sources, the practice stopped
or had petered out by the eighteenth century. However, it was Lalemant himself who
applied the label “Feast of the Dead” to this event, and when he did, he noted that
it differed “much from those of our Hurons.” The Anishinabek did not borrow the
idea for these ceremonies from the Wendat because the Wendat practiced a secondary
burial in a communal ossuary. The redistribution of bones back to the lands of one’s
birth was a distinctive Anishinaabe practice. See Hickerson, “Feast of the Dead.” For
Wendat mortuary practices, see Seeman, Huron-Wendat Feast of the Dead.
4 The French fur trader Nicolas Perrot described these as annual events for which common
councils took turns hosting. See Perrot, “Mémoire,” in Blair, Indian Tribes, 1:86.
Introduction 5
intended to renew a long-standing alliance.5 The Jesuits’ record of what

occurred is the only surviving written source describing this event, and
it is particularly noteworthy for the richness of the description. Since
gatherings such as these were intra-Indigenous councils, it is not surpris-
ing that written accounts of only a handful of these gatherings appear in
colonial archives or the memoirs of missionaries. Merchants, missionar-
ies, and imperial governments typically prioritized their own interests
in the documentary records that they created, privileging the fur trade,
military conflicts, and efforts to proselytize.6 Such a source bias has dis-
torted the writing of Great Lakes histories, making this 1642 recounting
of Anishinaabe peoples’ gathering together of particular historical sig-
nificance, as it is a window into seventeenth-century Anishinaabe law,
governance, and community life.
As the canoes carrying the families from the various councils arrived
at the gathering site, each party waited off shore until there were hosts
on shore to receive them. This was a regular part of regional diplo-
matic protocol. The guests waited to be formally welcomed into the
territory of their hosts. This act was a public recognition of the host’s
responsibility for the lands, analogous to the idea of jurisdiction. Once
the reception party arrived, each ogimaa in turn stood in his canoe and
spoke to those on shore, to explain why they had come and what busi-
ness had brought them there. They brought gifts for their hosts in grati-
tude and appreciation for being welcomed to their territory. Some items
intended as general gifts for the host community were thrown over-
board, creating a flurry of activity as young people swam out to collect
items floating on the surface or to dive down for them if they sank.
The items varied, as the Jesuits described: “a mat, wrought as tapestries
are in France, another a Beaver skin; others got a hatchet, or a dish, or
some Porcelaine beads [wampum].” Figures 2 to 5 show some exam-
ples of these types of gifts. As the paddlers pulled their canoes ashore,
5 Lalemant, “Of the Mission of the Holy Ghost,” in Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 23:205–33.
Lalemant was the Superior of the Huron Mission from 1638–45. See Pouliot,
“Lalemant, Jérom̂e.”
6 As scholars of imperial archives and archival formation have long noted, colonial and
imperial archives are far from neutral repositories of data. In summarizing this critical
scholarship, Antoinette Burton notes that archives “all have dynamic relationships, not
just to the past and the present, but to the fate of regimes, the physical environment,
the serendipity of bureaucrats, and the care and neglect of archivists as well.” Burton,
“Introduction,” 6.
people greeted each other with tremendous excitement – for many it

would have been months or a year since they last met. As one mis-
sionary in attendance recorded: “there was nothing but joy, cries, and
public acclamations, to which the Rocks surrounding the great Lake
return an Echo that drowns all their voices.”7 They may have shouted
“shataahaa” to one another – an Anishinaabemowin greeting reserved
for occasions when people reconnected with one another after a long
absence.8 Women found spots to set up their family’s wiigiwaam, each
infant snuggled in a tikinaagan (cradleboard), safe while their mothers
worked.9 Older children played as grandparents kept a watchful eye
on their activities and caught up on the news with each other. As night
fell, the light from the many fires would have sparkled upon the water,
reflecting the brilliant display of the stars overhead.
Once all the guest council fires had arrived, the renewal of alliances
and work of council could begin. The host nation was responsible for
maintaining the fire that would remain lit throughout the gathering.
All the people (including children) came together in a circle at the
grounds prepared for the council meeting. Lalemant observed: “When
the Nations are assembled and divided, each in their own seats, Beaver
Robes, skins of Otter, of Caribou, of wild Cats, and of Moose; Hatchets,
Kettles, Porcelain Beads, and all things that are precious in this country
are exhibited. Each Chief of a Nation presents his own gift to those who
hold the Feast, giving to each present some name that seems best suited
to it.”10
The name given to each gift was significant. While Lalemant is not
specific about what was said on this occasion, at other such gatherings
the name given to the gift described a specific treaty term, a pipe given
to commemorate the peace, for example, or a kettle so that people could
feast together.11 As the Jesuit Barthélemy Vimont would remark three
7 Lalemant, “Relation of 1642–1643,” in Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 23:211.

8 Farrell Racette, “Shaataahaa: Indigenous Methodologies.”
9 Nahwegahbow, “Springtime in n’Daki Menan” describes the historic and contemporary
practices of tikinaagan use by Anishinabekwe.
11 In 1645, the Jesuit Vimont recorded the details of each present exchanged in a formal
peace agreement made between eastern Anishinaabe council fires, the Wendat,
the French, and the Mohawk. The Mohawk orator, Kiosaeton, brought seventeen
“collars” of wampum with him to the initial peace talks in July of that year. As he
spoke, he explained the purpose of each. The first wampum on which he spoke
thanked the French governor for saving the life of Tokhrahenehiaron, another
Introduction 7
years later in his observations of a 1645 peace treaty, “It is needless for
me to repeat so often that words of importance in this country are pres-
ents.”12 Because these gifts were given in formal council, they became
more than gifts: they expressed the thoughts and intention of each ogi-
maa on behalf of the council or nation presenting the gift. Each gift
expressed a term of the treaty relationship that constituted the alliance
and the duty of care owed the other.13 Gifts were, as Vimont observed,
a fundamental communication tool – not only between humans but
between humans, spirits, and other-than-human beings.14 The giving
and receiving of the present transformed the gift into both physical
proof and a memory aid of the specific terms of alliance. If the gift was
rejected, so too was the specific term or the larger alliance itself.15
Here in this opening event, speakers gave gifts for a different
purpose – to ease the sorrow of those who had lost loved ones. When
their turn came, the Jesuits also gave a gift. But in the Jesuits’ account
it is clear that their words breached protocol and likely offended
their hosts. Father Lalemant, who was the superior of the mission
at Sainte Marie, and the two priests who accompanied him, Fathers
Pijart and Raymbaut, refused to offer their gift with the intention that
people expected. Instead they gave presents in memory of those who
Mohawk man. The fourth was a present intended “to assure us [the French] that the
thought of their people killed in war no longer affected them; that they cast their
weapons under their feet.” While Kiosaeton used wampum as a present to embody a
present or proposal, the Anishinabek brought a mix of wampum and other gifts. See
Vimont, “Relation of 1644–45,” in Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 27:246–304. The French
fur trader Pierre Radisson also described using this diplomatic form and speaking
on presents during a council with western Lake Superior Anishinabek at Lac Courte
Oreilles, in present-day Sawyer County, Wisconsin. See Radisson, Collected Writings,
1:265–7. Gilles Havard also observed the substitution of specific gifts for wampum,
and wampum for specific gifts (where wampum was used to symbolize a particular
gift) at the negotiations around the 1701 Peace of Montreal. See Havard, Great Peace
of Montreal, 23–5.
12 Vimont, “Relation of 1644–45,” in Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 27:281.
13 On the responsibilities that gifts conferred on those who received them, see Bruce
White, “Give Us a Little Milk”; Cary Miller, “Gifts as Treaties.”
14 Sims, “Algonkian-British Relations,” 36. See also the concept of gift discussed in
Simpson, “Looking after Gdoo-naaganinaa.”
15 As Cary Miller noted with respect to Anishinaabe treaties negotiated in the early
nineteenth century: “The presence of the items in a person’s lodge served as a
reminder of the terms agreed to, and the holder accorded them the same respect that
he felt for the agreement.” Miller, “Gifts as Treaties,” 225.
had died “that we might wish to the living the same happiness that
we hope to enjoy in Heaven when they shall have acknowledged the
same GOD whom we serve on Earth.”16 Lalemant reported that he told
those assembled that “only the hope that we had of seeing them become
Christians led us to desire their friendship.”17 In other words, the Jesu-
its’ gift was conditional. He then mentioned that those assembled were
“astonish[ed]” by their remarks. But to offer a conditional gift was anti-
thetical to Anishinaabe understanding of governance through alliance.
The Anishinaabe had built a civilization through braiding together dif-
ference – different doodemag, different people, and different ideas –
where the parts remained intact but contributed to a stronger whole.18
To be in an alliance relationship carried with it the responsibility to care
for the other. The idea of a conditional gift or partial relationship was
an astonishing concept indeed.
Following the condolence ceremony, it was the Jesuits’ turn to be
astonished as they witnessed the grace, beauty, and athleticism in the
dances that followed.19 The first dancers to come into the middle of the cir-
cle were from Bawaating, a council fire located on the river where the
waters of Lake Superior flow into Lake Huron. They performed three
dances, the Jesuits observed, “to the sounds of voices and of a sort of
drum, in such harmonious accord that they rendered all the tones that
are most agreeable in Music.” Historically, dancing was an integral part
of Anishinaabe gatherings, and it remains so today. The first was a war
dance, and like every war or hunt dance, it had stories to tell. The Jesuits
recognized this fact – they called this performance a ballet. This dance
figured hand-to-hand combat between single fighters. Each dancer was
armed differently, one with a hatchet, another a spear, another a bow and
arrows, the fourth with a shield and bgamaagan or war club. The Jesuits
observed that this dance was highly choreographed and complex; each

17 Ibid.
18 I am consciously using the metaphor of “braiding” as one would for braiding
sweetgrass. My colleague Alan Corbiere proposed the name “Braiding Knowledges”
for our 2006 SSHRC Aboriginal Research Grant application to capture the ways in
which GRASAC sought to bring understandings from different ontologies together.
Braiding as a metaphor is also used this way in Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass.
19 On the importance of dance, see DesJarlait, “Contest Powwow Versus the Traditional
Powwow.” Basil Johnston also discusses the cultural and spiritual significance of
dance in Ojibway Ceremonies, especially 1–4, 67–9, and 125.
Introduction 9
gesture, glance, and step was different, and yet as Lalemant reported, it
appeared coordinated by “one mind.” As soon as dance ended, the next
began. Lalemant called this one a “dance on a large scale” and noted
that eight male dancers started the performance, “then by twelve, then
by sixteen, ever increasing in proportion,” adding four dancers each
time. Finally the women danced in a style in a style that Lalemant only
describes as follows: “as agreeable as the others and in no wise offen-
sive to modesty.”20
The weapons carried by the war dancers were themselves works of
art, carefully made, beautifully balanced and sometimes indicating the
doodem identity of the owner. The portraits in Figures 6 and 7 show a
spear and a hatchet. While most such weapons in museums today date
from the eighteenth century or later, the bgamaagan in Figure 8 is clearly
older. It came into the French Royal Collection before the capture of
New France in 1760. The weapon was carved from hardwood and is a
well-balanced piece. Viewed from the side, one can see that the artist
carved the weapon to portray an otter holding a ball in its open mouth.
But view the ball head-on and one comes face to face with another otter.
There are two round indentations for eyes and the iron point becomes the
nose; otter whiskers radiate out the sides. In other pieces, such indenta-
tions hold glass beads for eyes and these may have as well. The upper
jaws of the otter on each side of the club also form otters, carved in the
round, and it is these otters that form the “ears” on the ball. This weapon
likely proclaims the otter doodem identity of its owner, and it does so
with wit and style.21 On another such weapon in the British Museum,
the artist carved an eagle wearing wampum as the regalia of an ogimaa
into the handle.22 I have observed other sculptural forms or inscriptions
on such weapons, including a catfish and a marten.23 Not all weapons
20 Lalemant, “Relation of 1642–1643,” in Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 23:213–15.

21 Unknown Anishinaabe artist, Great Lakes Region. Ball-headed war club with iron
spike. Weapon weight (balanced, made of hardwood). Currently in the Musée du
quai Branly, Paris, France, 71.1917.3.10 D. Item photographed and described as
part of a GRASAC research trip in May 2013 in which I took part; GRASAC item id
26253. Analysis: A. Corbiere, M. Migwans, R. Phillips, C. Willmott.
22 Unknown Anishinaabe artist, Great Lakes, “Gunstock club” with iron spike. Currently
in the British Museum, Am.5408. Item photographed and described as part of a
GRASAC research trip December 2007 in which I took part; GRASAC item id 26228.
23 See, for example, Unknown Anishinaabe artist, Great Lakes, Club with marten motif.
Currently in the British Museum, Am.4976 Item photographed and described as part
of a GRASAC research trip December 2007 in which I took part; GRASAC item id
necessarily evoked doodem identity. Some recorded events through pic-

tographs or evoked images of manidoog. But others did. Regardless of the
imagery, as part of the regalia of the dancers, all of these weapons would
have displayed their makers’ artistry and skill.
As the dancers left the circle, set up for the next event began. The host
nation put two prizes, a deer hide and a kettle, on the top of what Father
Lalemant described as a “pole of considerable height.” Not only had
the bark been stripped from the trunk but the Nipissing man who tied
the prizes then greased the pole on his way back to the ground. Many
attempted to climb it, some making a greater height than others, but
all fell to the bottom, to the amusement and delight of those watching.
Finally, a Wendat man who had joined the gathering on his way to Que-
bec tried to climb it and made it about half-way up before he realized he
was going to have the same result as the others. He then used his knife
to cut notches in the tree and, taking some cord, fashioned a stirrup
to take himself higher. The audience hooted and shouted their disap-
proval of what they regarded as a cheat but he repeated this technique
until he reached the top and claimed the prizes as his own. He then
continued on his travels. The Anishinaaabe ogimaawag complained to
the Wendat about this action, and the Wendat leadership “taxed them-
selves for a present of Porcelain beads [a string of wampum],” thereby
acknowledging the wrong and resolving the conflict.24
After the dancing and games that were part of the ceremonies of
renewing alliances, the new leadership of the Nipissing council fire
was ratified by all assembled. The Jesuits recognized the political sig-
nificance of this event. At the beginning of his account, Lalemant had
called this gathering one of “Confederated Nations” (“les Nations con-
federées”), which in seventeenth-century French meant allied nations or
allied peoples.25 Lalemant called the ratification ceremony an election,
but it was more likely that the Nipissing council had already nomi-
nated their leaders. What the Nipissing community needed was the
25396. Catfish doodem images appear on a presentation pipe carved as a war club
dating from the first half of the nineteenth-century, in the collections of the McCord
Museum, M15889.
25 See entries for “allier” in Jean Nicot, Thresor de la langue françoyse tant ancienne que
moderne, vol. 1 (Paris: Douceur, 1606) and “confederé, confederée” in Le Dictionnaire
de l’Académie française 1694, vol. 1 (Paris: Coignard, 1694), both available through the
ARTFL Project (https://artfl-project.uchicago.edu).
Introduction 11
larger regional alliances to recognize and acknowledge the choices

of the Nipissing people. Lalemant says that “votes were taken” – the
voices of approval ratifying the new Nipissing leaders. Public recogni-
tion of their leaders by their allies was a crucial part of Anishinaabe
governance, as it was these new leaders who would bring the Nipiss-
ing council’s perspective forward at regional gatherings.26 Alliances, as
consensual relationships, required mutual approval of changes. This
was a central principle of Anishinaabe law with respect to alliance rela-
tionships. Unilateral changes could potentially harm the alliance. This
practice of seeking consent from each other allowed allies to identify
possible problems and to ensure that the alliance relationship remained
strong. The Nipissing women who had married out into other council
fires would also therefore be involved in confirming the leadership of
their natal community. Doodem kin of those on the Nipissing coun-
cil fire would also participate in ratifying the Nipissing leadership. No
council fire was thus isolated from its neighbours; each instead was an
integral part of the others in the alliance, and the practice of intermar-
riage ensured these connections were strong.
This particular ceremony confirmed the new leadership roles of mul-
tiple people – at the very least, for the recognition of a new ogimaa and
aanikeogimaa for the Nipissing council. Once their appointments were
ratified, the Jesuits observed how the gichi-ogimaa (whom Lalemant
called their “chief Captain”), the ogimaa of the regional alliance, called
each new leader forward. As evidence of the public importance of this
event, the new leaders, Lalemant observed, were dressed “in their finest
robes” when they came forward to receive what Lalemant called “their
Commissions” – some tangible evidence of their new office.27 These
robes would have been tanned and smoked hide garments, meticu-
lously adorned with porcupine quillwork featuring geometric and sym-
bolic designs in brilliant shades of red, blue, yellow, white, and black.28
In 1615, Samuel de Champlain described the quillwork he observed
during his travels through Georgian Bay and the eastern Great Lakes
as follows: “For they put on their robes strips of porcupine-quill which
they dye a very beautiful scarlet colour; they value these strips very

27 Ibid.
28 These are the colours that appear on the many examples of early Anishinaabe quillwork
that I have personally studied in museums in France and the United Kingdom.
highly and take them off to make them serve for other robes when they
wish to make a change.”29
Porcupine quillwork is evident on many items of Anishinaabe manu-
facture, including clothing and footwear. Figure 3 shows quillwork trim
on a basket; Figure 5 shows quillwork on moccasins given to Jasper Grant,
an Anglo-Irish officer serving in Upper Canada, 1795–1808. Figures 6
and 7 and Figure 9 are portraits of leaders from the Amikwa, Nipissing,
and Bawaating council fires in the late seventeenth century, the earliest
known such portraits, which show them wearing clothing that is both
painted and decorated with quillwork as Champlain described.
The commissions that Lalemant mentioned were likely the neck orna-
ments and headdresses which ogimaawag wore. Leaders received and
wore headdresses (such as those in Figure 9), as gifts of the community,
to remind them of their responsibilities.30 French and subsequently Brit-
ish colonial officers later joined in this process of ratification by offering
medals to ogimaawag on their appointments, and the recipients also
wore these medals around the neck. To demonstrate their capacity to
take care of their people, the newly recognized leaders then gave gifts
of beaver and moose hides to those in attendance. Following these gift
exchanges, the council bestowed the names of prominent leaders who
had died on their successors. Lalemant said this was so as “to perpetu-
ate their memory,” but this action was so much more – the name change
also served to acknowledge the new leaders’ position and to remind
them of their responsibilities to those they served.31
The next day was one of remembrance, a memorial ceremony for
those who had died since the last gathering of these allied council fires.
The women first constructed a large longhouse “with an arched roof,
about a hundred paces long, the width and height of which were in
proportion.” Inside this building, the same women brought in caskets
of birch bark, containing the bones of those who had died in previous
years outside the land of their birth. Each casket was covered with a robe
of beaver skin and laid atop were belts and strings of wampum. The
women sat inside the cabin, next to the caskets, in two long lines facing
each other, while the men brought in food as a feast for them and to feed
the souls of the departed. Lalemant explained that “this Feast is for the
29 Champlain, Works, 3:134.

30 Alan Corbiere, “Anishinaabe Headgear.”
Introduction 13
women only, because they evince a deeper feeling of mourning.”32 That

deeper feeling of mourning, or more immediate grief, makes sense in
the context of Anishinaabe practices around marriage and beliefs about
souls, discussed in detail in Chapter 1. Since Anishinaabe women in
this period generally married men from another council fire and relo-
cated to live with them after their first child was born, it would have
been more likely that these were women’s bodies whose bones were
being sent home for final burial. And it would be other women from
those home communities who might be first hearing of a sister, mother,
grandmother, or auntie’s death at one of these gatherings; certainly it
would be the first time that they would confront their remains. And so,
indeed, their grief would have been raw and deep.
Following this feast, Lalemant described how twelve men entered the
cabin and sang a mourning song, together with the women. They kept
a vigil over the bones for the entire night, with only a fire lit at each end
of the cabin for illumination. When the dawn broke, the women who
mourned then distributed gifts to those in attendance: “corn, moccasins,
and other small articles.” The small articles may have included, in addi-
tion to the quillwork-decorated moccasins, intricately made birch bark
containers bound with sweetgrass (wiingashk), or beautifully woven
bags of nettlestock, bulrush, or other plant fibres, of the types used to
hold medicines. Such gifts were also tangible connections to the places
their materials came from. As Madeline Whetung points out, such
places were “unmoveable sites of much of women’s labour.”33 These
gifts also carried spiritual and secular meanings. Sweetgrass, used to
bind containers, is one of the four Anishinaabe sacred medicines. Bul-
rushes, used to weave the mats upon which people sat in council, evoke
principles of Anishinaabe governance.34 After they distributed their
presents, the women mourners continued to sing and chant, waving
branches they held in their hands to speed the souls of the dead on their
journey home. The ceremony ended when a party of warriors came to
the cabin and chased the souls away. At that point, the women left, and
the warriors in turn took their place for more dancing and feasting.35
These ceremonies of mourning showed the support and care given to
32 Ibid., 23:217–19.
33 Whetung, “(En)Gendering Shoreline Law,” 28.
34 Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass; Migwans, "Naaknashk miinawaa Naaknigewin.”
those who had lost a loved one and in turn the reciprocal acknowledge-
ment of that care returned through gifts given to those who attended
the ceremony.
The next events were the renewal of the alliance between the Nipiss-
ing and the other “Confederated Nations” of Lake Huron and Georgian
Bay and the formal return of remains to their communities of origin.
These activities were closely connected. Caskets of bones were returned
to their families of origin “borne between the presents given to the most
intimate of friends, and were accompanied by the most precious robes
and by collars of porcelain beads, which are the gold, the pearls and
the diamonds of this Country.”36 Families gave presents “according
to the extent of the Alliance that existed between the Nipissirieniens
and them.” It is through the giving of these gifts that the family among
whom the deceased had lived acknowledged to the birth family of the
deceased how important and valued the deceased had been to them.
Each person who left their birth family to marry into another council
fire strengthened the alliances that sustained the Anishinaabe peoples.
Returning the remains of the person to their family of origin surrounded
by all of these gifts was an expression of deep gratitude for the gift of
that person’s life. It was a tangible gift symbolizing respect for the work
they had done, not only for the community that the person had married
into but also for the work required to maintain the alliance between the
two council fires.
Following this poignant return of remains between families was a
separate ceremony renewing the alliance between the Nipissing coun-
cil fire, the other Anishinaabe councils in attendance, and the Wendat
Confederacy. To reaffirm this alliance, the Nipissing gave new gifts to
all the leaders in attendance. As Kathryn Labelle persuasively argues,
this long-standing alliance was central to the quality of life all enjoyed
in the eastern Great Lakes.37 The alliance ensured that all parties could
maintain their distinctive ways of life and their political autonomy,
while creating a climate of peaceful co-existence. Eastern Anishinaabe
families gained access to the extensive crops grown by the Wendat;
in return the eastern Anishinabek exchanged with them the furs they
traded with their more northern neighbours, the Omushkego peoples
of what is now called James Bay. But this alliance was far more than a
36 Ibid., 23:221.
37 Labelle, Dispersed But Not Destroyed.
Introduction 15
trading pact. Such gift exchanges, as Cary Miller has noted in her study
of later Anishinaabe treaty ceremonies, were ultimately about main-
taining and expanding interdependent social relations that ensured the
well-being of all allied members. The Jesuits reported that they were
singled out at this ceremony, given “the Highest seat, the first titles of
honour and marks of affection above all of their Confederates.”38 The
Nipissing were not placing the Jesuits on a pedestal here in some sort of
social hierarchy. Rather, they were inviting the Jesuits into a system of
interdependent social relationships that were intended to be mutually
beneficial over the long term, if they were not always perfectly equal in
their exchanges. When the needs of one party were greater, the needi-
est would receive the most. In their acceptance of the gifts bestowed
upon them, the Jesuits would have been communicating that they
understood, as Miller explains, the “ideas, commitments, or political
agreements that accompanied them.”39 Such gift-giving also placed the
Wendat, and the allied Anishinabek too, under an obligation when the
Jesuits accepted the gifts – to meet the needs of their new allies. If
those needs involved making the time to listen to what their new allies
the Jesuits were preaching, the Wendat and Anishinaabe allies would
undertake that task as well.
The exchange of presents and the distribution of gifts awed the Jesu-
its, but it was an integral part of the Anishinaabe economy at work.
There were the gifts given when the guest nations arrived, those tossed
into the water for the young people to retrieve during the grand entry,
the formal presentations of gifts to the hosts to condole them for their
losses, prizes given to the winners of games of skill and agility, give-
aways by the newly elected Nipissing leaders to all those in attendance,
gifts given by women mourning lost relatives to those who came to feast
their dead together, and gifts given to reaffirm alliances. In addition
to this, regional gatherings were places where people would trade for
medicines and other goods with each other. People took home as much
as they brought, strengthened and with their alliances renewed. The
gifts pictured in Figures 2 to 5 demonstrate the beauty of these items,
reflecting many hours of work and significant artistic skill.
Indeed, Lalemant tried to put a monetary value on what he had seen,
and he concluded that “although the riches of this Country are not
38 Lalemant, “Relation of 1642–43,” in Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 23: 221.

39 Cary Miller, “Gifts as Treaties,” 224.
sought for in the bowels of the Earth, and although most of them con-
sist only in the spoils of animals – nevertheless, if they were transported
to Europe, they would have their value. The presents that the Nipis-
sirieniens gave to the other Nations alone would have cost in France
forty or even fifty thousand francs.”40 This was an impressive amount
of wealth, which quickly became concerning to French officials who
struggled to understand why people would give away so much of their
wealth. Nicolas Perrot noted that the hosts of these gatherings “reduce
themselves to such an extreme of poverty that they do not even reserve
for themselves a single hatchet or knife.” Perrot said the practice was
declining because “the Frenchmen who have gone among them have
made them realize that these useless extravagances of theirs were ruin-
ing their families, and reducing them to a lack of even the necessities
of life.”41 But of course such poverty wasn’t poverty at all. In the first
place, being “impoverished” through giving away of gifts was only a
temporary state, since being impoverished obligated the allied nations
and relations to help out the former hosts in return. For example, after a
gathering later held in 1670 near Manitoulin Island, the host community,
the Amikwa (the council fire led by the Beaver doodem), was depleted
as Perrot described. But in a later section of his memoir, Perrot notes
that during that same winter people from the council fire at Bawaat-
ing (led by the Crane doodem) came to help them hunt on Manitoulin
Island, and together they took 2,400 moose.42 This is an example of the
interdependent alliances that the Anishinabek created. One didn’t sim-
ply give all one’s possessions away; communities also received, and in
receiving, their wealth and prosperity was restored.43

41 Perrot, “Mémoire,” in Blair, ed., Indian Tribes, 1:88.
42 Perrot, “Mémoire,” in Blair, ed., Indian Tribes, 1:221. Communual hunting is also
described in Hickerson, “Feast of the Dead,” 97. While this may seem like a large
number of moose, I suspect that the hunt occurred not only on Manitoulin Island but
on the many smaller islands around Manitoulin as well. Depending on the quality of
habitat, the moose carrying capacity of land can be anywhere from 0.2 to 3 moose or
more per square kilometre, based on contemporary scholarship. See Gingras, et al.,
“Adjacent Moose Populations.”
43 Elder Lewis Debassige of M’Chigeeng First Nation described this wealth redistribution
practice as a circle to me on numerous occasions, a circle where each community placed
a small part of their wealth in a common feast bowl and gave the rest of their wealth
away. Of course, as the gifts travelled in the circle, each community received back all
that it needed, with the added benefit of strengthened social and political ties.
Introduction 17
Once this work of formal alliance renewal and governance ended at

the gathering, those assembled turned to more games and contests of
“physical strength, for bodily skill and for agility” in which both men
and women participated for the prizes that were given away. As the
gathering concluded, the people from Bawaating, who had travelled
from the farthest distance, then invited the Jesuits to come visit them.
Two Jesuits, Pijart and Isaac Jogues, accepted the invitation and travelled
to the Bawaating council site in mid-October with several members of
the Wendat Confederacy. There they found another two thousand peo-
ple assembled for yet another gathering, met some Anishinaabemowin-
speaking Potawatomi who the Jesuits reported were taking refuge
among their relatives, and learned about the many other people living
along Lake Superior and far into the interior.44 The gifts that the people
from Bawaating had received at their council with the Nipissing thus
became part of the redistribution network at this next council, while
the news they had acquired was also shared with those who gathered
at Bawaating. Those who received would give, and those who gave
would receive. The council fire at Bawaating maintained alliances with
many other fires throughout the Great Lakes. Through regular meet-
ings of formal councils, Anishinaabe peoples were able to govern them-
selves and maintain their way of life over a very large region even as
individual council fires or alliances of council fires pursued their own
autonomous policies with respect to relationships with outsiders.
More than two hundred years after this 1642 gathering, Anishinaabe
missionary and author Kakewaquonaby Peter Jones explained (in his
History of the Ojibwe) the basic structure of Anishinaabe governance as
consisting of two types of councils. Jones dedicated one chapter of his
manuscript to this topic, in which he explained the centrality of the
council fire as both an Anishinaabe metaphor for governance and the
physical location where decisions were ratified.45 He demonstrated to
his readers how a highly decentralized system of government could
exercise effective responsibility over the vast lands and waters through
two functionally different types of formal councils, each with their own
areas of jurisdiction and competency, who yet remained interdepen-
dent. Common councils, Jones noted, concerned themselves with mat-
ters within a territory, including the resolution of disputes, the decision
44 Lalemant, “Relation of 1642–1643,” in Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 23: 225–7.

45 Jones, History.
to adopt outsiders, and matters relating to land. General councils, he

explained, comprised meetings of Anishinaabe people from a regional
set of common councils. At general councils, those assembled recog-
nized new leaders of common councils, as common councils made or
renewed alliances with each other and as boundaries between territo-
ries of common councils were established or adjusted as need be.46 As
Jones wrote, it was at common councils (those led by an ogimaa), that
“their local affairs are settled, such as sale and division of their lands,
settling disputes, adopting other Indians into their own body, and the
transaction of business with the British government.” All people could
access the common councils as Jones noted: “each person is at liberty to
give his opinion on all matters before the council.” At general councils,
which involved people attending from a much larger area, the assem-
bled Anishinabek discussed issues of a wider, or regional, concern. As
Jones explained: “At these councils federal unions are formed, war or
peace is declared, treaties are made or renewed, and boundaries of ter-
ritories established.”47 The “nations” that Lalemant described as part of
the “Confederated Nations” who attended the 1642 gathering were the
common councils that Jones described. The alliance renewal and ratifi-
cation ceremony hosted by the common council of the Nipissing in 1642
was just one example of a general council held at a regional gathering.
People who attended regional gatherings would stay together any-
where from one to three weeks before heading back home to their respec-
tive territories. For gatherings held in the late summer, those returning
home would be preparing for the fall and winter hunts. Decisions about
who would hunt where and on what land were then made at common
councils, before the extended families who comprised those councils
headed off to their respective winter hunting territories. Such gather-
ings as the one in 1642 were part of the Anishinaabe annual round. As
Lalemant observed two years before of the Nipissing:
They seem to have as many abodes as the year has seasons – the Spring
a part of them remain for fishing, where they consider it the best; a part
go away with the tribes which gather on the shore of the North or icy
sea [James Bay], upon which they voyage ten days, after having spent
46 Ibid., 106–9.
47 Ibid., 105–9.
Introduction 19
thirty days upon the rivers, in order to reach it. In summer they all gather
together, on the road of the Hurons to the French [the Ottawa River], on
the border of a large lake which bears their name ... About the middle
of Autumn, they begin to approach our Hurons, upon whose lands they
generally spend the winter.48
What Lalemant described was no more nomadic than the annual reloca-
tions of today’s wealthy city dwellers who spend summers at a cottage
and winters at a ski chalet or in Florida. The community of each Anishi-
naabe common council was responsible for the lands within its territo-
ries. People moved regularly in widespread but seasonally expected,
politically negotiated movements on these lands and exercised their
laws through decisions made in common and general councils.
While common and general councils were responsible for differ-
ent types of decisions, neither was subordinate to the other. Writing
in the mid-nineteenth century, Peter Jones compared common coun-
cils to “independent states” – as each was effectively able to pursue
its own policies with respect to alliances and citizenship based upon
the collective wishes of their people, since the authority of leaders, as
he noted, “extends no further their own body.”49 But Jones in writing
“independent states” was using an analogy to help his mid-nineteenth-
century settler readers understand the Anishinaabe principle of politi-
cal autonomy, in a mid-nineteenth-century context of state formation in
both Europe and North America.50 But of course, common councils – the
nations that Lalemant described in 1642 – were not truly independent
states. Rather, in keeping with Anishinaabe philosophy, they were inter-
dependent ones. The ceremonies that opened and closed councils, the
protocols of smoking the pipe, gift-giving, and ceremonies of condo-
lence described by Jones in his chapter on governance all embodied and
were performances of Anishinaabe law and moral philosophy – perfor-
mances that Lalemant and other French visitors had witnessed more
than two centuries before. These ceremonies grounded political power
in the entire community, to whom leaders owed their positions. But
49 Jones, History, 106–9.

50 The mid-nineteenth century was a period of political maturation in the British North
American colonies and an age of revolution and state formation in Europe. For a
discussion of the political changes within the mid-nineteenth-century colony of
Canada, see the introduction and essays in Greer and Radforth, Colonial Leviathan.
because of the way in which doodem and marriage alliances created

kin ties between the common councils, and across the broader region,
Anishinaabe peoples were always interconnected beyond the boundar-
ies of their own common council’s territory.51 These practices created
the continuity and consistency in Anishinaabe social life and political
practice and in Anishinaabe law over the lands and waters around the
Great Lakes.52
It was these laws and practices that helped the Anishinaabe weather
the initial storms brought by colonial intrusions on their land. Most
significantly, the newcomers brought disease. As early as 1615, the Lake
Nipissing Anishinabek had been affected by at least one smallpox epi-
demic.53 Beginning in the late 1630s, a particularly virulent smallpox
strain devastated many communities in northeastern North America,
especially those living in the densely populated year-round settlements
of the Wendat, the Haudenosaunee, and other Iroquoian-speaking hor-
ticulturists in the region.54 The 1642 Nipissing-hosted gathering was
held just two years after the worst of these terrible epidemics began.
After that, the mortality rate increased. Within ten short years – between
1639 and 1649 – approximately two-thirds of the Wendat had died. The
Haudenosaunee and other Iroquoian-speaking peoples, including the
Wenro, Erie, and the Neutral living along the Niagara peninsula, expe-
rienced similar mortality rates.55 The Anishinabek were also affected,
but their practice of living in smaller population concentrations may
have limited disease transmission among them. Furthermore, the sur-
vivors of the 1615 epidemic among the Lake Nipissing Anishinabek
would have had some immunity against this new outbreak.56 These
factors meant that the smallpox, influenza, and measles outbreaks that
51 This concept is discussed in Bauerkemper and Stark, “Trans/National Terrain.”

52 Readers who have attended contemporary Anishinaabe community councils will
recognize similarities with the smudging and thanksgiving addresses that open such
gatherings today.
53 A document describes a Nipissing man as being pock-marked. Bibliothèque
nationale de France, departement des manuscrits, Cinq-Cents de Colbert, Lettre du
père Denis Jamay au cardinal de Joyeuse, 15 July 1615; Microfilm at the LAC, MG7-
IA7, Microfilm of the transcript, reel no. C-12868.
54 Tanner, Atlas of Great Lakes Indian History, Map 32.
55 Trigger, Children of Aataentsic, 601–2; Richter, Ordeal of the Longhouse, 58–9.
56 For a critical re-evaluation of the impact of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century
epidemics, see Jones, “Virgin Soils Revisited.”
Introduction 21
tore through Indigenous populations at the time, while locally disrup-

tive, likely did not have the same impact on the Anishinabek during
the 1640s as they did on Iroquoian-speaking peoples. Nevertheless, the
epidemics still brought devastating losses that shook the region and
caused widespread grief.
These major waves of epidemic disease sparked increased violence
that is well documented in the historical record. In the late 1640s, fight-
ing broke out between the Haudenosaunee and other Iroquoian-speaking
peoples in what is now central and southern Ontario – the Wendat, the
Neutral, the Erie, and the Wenro – as people reacted to horrible new
illnesses with high mortality rates that devastated entire communities.
These internal deaths spurred communities to war on outsiders as they
sought to replace those who had died and to avenge their deaths. The
resulting conflicts culminated in the well-documented breakup of the
Wendat and Neutral Confederacies. The Haudenosaunee absorbed so
many survivors into their longhouses that, by the 1660s, almost two-
thirds of the Haudenosaunee were adoptees.57 This catastrophe affected
the eastern Anishinabek too, especially those whose councils were in
alliance with the Wendat and who had historically wintered among
them, such as the Nipissing and the Kinouchespiriri from eastern
Ontario, forcing the survivors to relocate from their lands temporarily.
They covered their council fires but did not extinguish them. Those who
did go moved west to the Sault and beyond up to Lake Superior, to live
among their relations and allies in places that were already familiar to
them. Some women knew these places as the lands of their childhoods,
other community members from regular travels and gatherings. During
the years that followed, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy established
communities on the north side of Lake Ontario.58
But these relocations were relatively short-lived. Gatherings like the
one in 1642 described above continued. The Anishinabek also pushed
back against the Haudenosaunee attacks and the allied council fires of
Lake Huron remained strong. In the 1650s, allied Anishinabek led a coor-
dinated effort against the Haudenosaunee war parties. The war chiefs
were from the Crane and Thunderbird doodemag from the Bawaating
and the Mississagi council fires, and Mahiingan of the Beaver doodem
from the council fire of the Amikwa. Their collective accomplishments
57 Richter, Ordeal of the Longhouse, 58–9.

58 Konrad, “Iroquois Frontier.”
were recorded in rock art painted at Agawa Canyon. Mahiingan was

especially noted for leading the party that killed all but one of a 120-man
strong Haudenosaunee raiding party.59 Mahiingan died in 1667, and in
1670 it was the turn of the Amikwa to host a regional gathering – this
time to see Mahiingan’s eldest son become ogimaa. Although Father
Louys André, who attended this gathering, provided fewer details
about the event than Lalemant had twenty-eight years earlier, it is clear
from André’s description that this 1670 event had the same structure
and purpose. André estimated that about 1,500 to 1,600 people, includ-
ing the “chiefs of many Nations,” had gathered on Ouiebitchiouan, an
island north of Manitoulin. As in 1642 and at other general councils
held before or since, the occasion of families and friends reuniting was
one of joy and celebration; there were “games and spectacles” in addi-
tion to the return of remains. Figure 10, a painting of a canoe race at
Bawaating made nearly two centuries later in 1836, illustrates one type
of popular entertainment that was enjoyed by young and old alike for
generations. At the 1670 gathering decribed by Father Andre, the infants
in tikinaagan and the children who played in 1642 were now the adults,
parents, and leaders at this 1670 gathering; the adults of 1642 were now
the elders. One can almost feel sorry for poor Father André, who tried
to preach to those assembled, as he reported that he “had difficulty
in making himself heard – although I spoke in a very loud tone – on
account of the noise and din caused by the promiscuous intermingling
of so many families.”60 Clearly these men, women, and children had
better things to do than to listen to the missionary’s homily. André’s
account, despite its brevity, conveys a sense of vitality and happiness
and of the continuity of Anishinaabe law and society, as those assem-
bled once again confirmed new leaders.
Ten short months later in June of 1671, there was yet another general
council – this one at Bawaating, the place of the rapids, where Sault
Ste. Marie is today. Bawaating has been an important meeting place for
centuries, and because of the abundant fishery it could support very
large gatherings. The council site itself was on a tall hilltop overlooking
59 Elder Fred Pine Sr. of Bawaating told the story to the archaeologist Thor Conway.
See Conway, Spirits On Stone, 28. For a discussion of other pictographs related to
Mahiingan’s spiritual powers and accomplishments as a leader, see Alan Corbiere,
“Anishinaabe Treaty-Making,” 4–6.
60 Louys, “Relation of 1670,” in Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 55:135–9.
Introduction 23
the river. On this occasion some additional guests were present: a small
party of men, emissaries of the French king, sent by the Intendant of New
France, Jean Talon, and ogimaawag of other councils from throughout
the Great Lakes. The French visitors came with the intention of claiming
the Great Lakes region for the King of France through a European legal
ritual known as a prise-de-possession61 and making the Anishinabek there
subjects of the French king. Had such an idea been successfully trans-
lated, it would have been thoroughly rejected. What happened instead
was that the French, who brought gifts with them obstensibly intended
to purchase the region, received gifts as well from the Anishinabek at
the council; and in so doing, they performed from an Anishinaabe per-
spective the protocols for making or renewing an alliance. But when
the Intendant of New France later wrote to the king about what had
transpired, he reported to His Majesty the happy news that the copper
mines of Lake Superior and the whole of the Great Lakes region had
cost the king nothing, since the Anishinabek at the ceremony had given
bundles of beaver furs in equal value to the goods that the Sieur de St.
Lusson, the leader of the expedition, had brought for the purchase of
the Great Lakes.62
These radically different understandings – the creation of a binding,
ongoing alliance relationship on the one hand, or the purchase and sale
of land on the other – are at the root of contemporary debates about the
meanings of treaties signed between Indigenous peoples and imperial
governments and their descendant settler states. Such differences are
evident in the earliest recorded treaties between Crown representatives
and Indigenous peoples and much more recent agreements, including
those signed in the twentieth century. These different understandings
occurred because multiple legal traditions were present at the site of
treaty signings, and each legal tradition was itself a product of a dif-
ferent ontology.63 Each party’s respective understanding of what had
transpired was informed by their own separate worldviews. However,
it is hard to imagine that, at the very least, the Sieur de St. Lusson and
his interpreter Nicolas Perrot did not have some understanding of the
61 For descriptions and the history of these ceremonies, see Seed, Ceremonies of Possession.
62 Talon to the King, 2 November 1671, Fonds des Colonies. Série C11A.
Correspondence générale, Canada, vol. 3, fol.159–171v, ANOM, France.
63 For an excellent discussion of the significance and challenges of these ontological
differences for historical research, see Doxtator, “Inclusive and Exclusive
Perceptions.”
significance of the alliance ceremony they performed, even as the inten-

dant reported the substantial savings to the king.
One must also wonder about the Anishinaabe reaction to the legal
ceremony of prise-de-possession that the French performed during
the council proceedings. The Sieur de St. Lusson, with Perrot as his
interpreter, gestured to his men to first raise a cross and then a cedar
pole, to which he nailed an iron shield displaying the coat of arms of
the King of France. Next, he grabbed a handful of soil and, holding it
aloft, gave an impassioned speech. Then to conclude his performance,
he produced a piece of paper (a statement of the ceremony) and invited
the ogimaawag to sign. What must they have thought about this? Nev-
ertheless, these leaders, seventeen in all, responded by inscribing pic-
tographs that represented their doodem identities. According to one
eyewitness, they inscribed “the insignia of their families; some of them
drew a beaver, others an otter, a sturgeon, a deer or an elk.”64 Although
writing or inscribing signatures to agreements on paper was not a con-
ventional Anishinaabe diplomatic practice in this period, these lead-
ers still knew how to respond – with their doodem images – as such
images appeared on the Agawa canyon pictograph. And in so doing
they began a convention that would continue through two more cen-
turies of treaty-making. Leaders in council signed documents intended
for colonial audiences with their doodem images. Unfortunately, the
document they signed became separated from the official report some-
time after its submission, and its current location is not known. Only
Perrot’s description of the signing ceremony remains. But another doc-
ument signed thirty years later has pictographs that compare favour-
ably to those described (see Figure 11). In 1701, at the Peace of Montreal,
Anishinaabe leaders from the Great Lakes region were invited to sign
the text of the treaty, and again they responded with doodem images of
the ogimaawag attending and the council fires they represented – this
64 Le Roy, Claude Charles, Sieur de Bacqueville de la Potherie, “Histoire de l’Amérique

septentrionale”, in Blair, ed., Indian Tribes, 1:347. La Potherie was not an eyewitness
and relied on the interpreter Nicolas Perrot (who was there) for his information
about this event. The manuscript original of this prise-de-possession has not yet
been found. The Intendant of New France, Jean Talon, indicated in his letter to the
king that he would bring the document to Paris himself when he next came, but
the document is not in the colonial archives with Talon’s other correspondence.
See Talon to the King, 2 November 1671, Fonds des Colonies. Série C11A.
Correspondence générale, Canada, vol. 3, fol.159–171v, ANOM, France.
Introduction 25
time with beaver, cranes, thunderbirds, bears, and catfish. As signing in

this way became an Anishinaabe treaty convention, Anishinaabe lead-
ers inserted evidence of their governance practices and legal traditions
into the imperial archival record.
Despite the presence of doodem identities, French officials remained
uncertain about exactly what the images represented, and so they
attempted to insert the Anishinabek into French political categories. In
Talon’s November 1671 report to Louis XIV, he described the leaders
who signed as representing seventeen nations and the leaders as hav-
ing the authority to bind their people to the French king as the king’s
new subjects. By asserting that Anishinaabe leaders represented what
they thought of as nations, St. Lusson, Talon, and others were reason-
ing by analogy with their own French practices and from within their
own political categories. “Nation,” as defined in the various dialects
of French spoken in this period, did not mean state, and it certainly
did not mean council fire. Seventeenth-century visitors to the region,
including Samuel de Champlain, Gabriel Sagard, and Jesuit missionar-
ies, all used the French word nation, or the Latin word natio, to label
Indigenous polities. Sometimes they said gens – simply “people.” In
the early seventeenth-century French dictionary, Thresor de la Langue
Française, the French word “nation” is defined by both the Latin words
natio and gens. In Latin, gens and natio can be synonyms. Natio spe-
cifically connotes birth, or being born – by association “a breed, stock,
kind, species or race.” The Latin gens (whose root is gen, “that which
belongs together by birth or descent”) meant “a race or clan, embracing
several families united together by a common name and by certain reli-
gious rites.”65 And in the broad European heraldic tradition of the same
period, the idea of the nation could also connote the collective body of
people who were the monarch’s subjects, represented symbolically by
the coat of arms of the monarch’s family line.66
In defining Anishinaabe polities as “nations,” and in describing lead-
ers signing with coats of arms or the insignia of their families, seven-
teenth-century French writers were grappling with how to make sense
of the Indigenous polities they were encountering. They struggled to
65 See Aimar de Ranconnet, Thresor de la Langue Francoyse, tant Ancienne que Moderne,
ed. Jean Niçot (1606), s.v. “nation” and s.v. “gens,”; Dictionarie de l’Academie française
[1764], 2:197, both available via ARTFL, https://artfl-project.uchicago.edu/;
Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary (Oxford, 1879).
66 Bedos-Rezak, “Medieval Identity.”
describe a decentralized interdependent system of governance while

they were themselves increasingly part of a centralizing imperial world,
structured by hierarchies of social rank and gender. The French King
Louis XIV was a chief architect of this model. He ascended the throne
in 1643 at the age of five and assumed control of government in 1661.
At that point he began to implement his vision of absolutism. A decade
later, in 1671, he was in complete command, exercising his own political
philosophy in which he, as the “Sun King,” was at the apex of a pyra-
mid of political power, with nobility, gentry, clergy, and the vast French
peasantry arranged below him in descending layers of social rank.
Louis XIV consolidated his power in France at his palace at Versailles
as he and his ministers worked to extend French territorial holdings
throughout the world, in competition with other European empires.
This, in essence, was the purpose of St. Lusson’s prise-de-possession
ceremony: to make a claim for part of North America that would be
recognized by other European powers, especially England.67
By attempting to claim the Great Lakes region on behalf of the King
of France, St. Lusson was enacting a performance intended to define a
cartographic zone of exclusivity. But the political world of the Anishina-
bek was utterly different from that of the French. As historian Michael
Witgen has persuasively shown in his An Infinity of Nations, the Anishi-
nabek made a fundamental distinction between inawemaagen (relatives)
and eyaagizid (foreigners). Relatives were people that Anishinaabe
individuals had responsibility for. They were also people with whom
one could trade. The Anishinabek did not deploy a separate semantic
category for ally, trading partner, or friend.68 You were either inawe-
maagen or you were not. If you were not doodem kin, you became
inawemaagen through ceremony. Such alliances were the basis for all
political relationships.
Historian Michael McDonnell has cautioned against the tendency to
“exoticize these kinship relations” on the grounds that of course both
European officials and Euro-American settlers were also connected into
their own networks of relations: “networks of allegiances, obligations,
and resource sharing that was often tied to the relations among nuclear
67 See Seed, Ceremonies of Possession, especially Chapter 2, “Ceremonies: The Theatrical

Rituals of French Political Possession,” 41–68, and Michel Witgen’s analysis that this
ceremony in particular represented nothing more than imperial rhetoric, in Witgen,
“Rituals of Possession.”
68 Witgen, Infinity of Nations, 33.
Introduction 27
and extended families.”69 While I agree that such kinship relations

should not be exoticized, as they are perfectly comprehensible, I do
feel that we scholars have not respected their difference from Western
categories enough. In other words, both colonial-era newcomers and
contemporary historians have reached for analogies to explain these
differences and to make Indigenous worldviews comprehensible to
themselves. In so doing, however, crucial distinctions have been lost.
Of course Europeans had their own informal family networks that were
as, or perhaps even more, important than “formal structures of govern-
ment” in explaining how decisions were made or actions taken in the
histories of those countries. But how Europeans and Euro-Americans
made distinctions between kin and non-kin differed quite significantly
from the Anishinabek and other Indigenous peoples, as, perhaps even
more importantly, did the type of obligations owed to those kin. Fur-
thermore, the extension of kinship to other-than-human beings is a rad-
ical departure from European thought worlds, which sharply divide
humans from non-humans in a way that Anishinaabe philosophy does
not. Both of these differences have tremendous significance for the legal
traditions of their respective cultures.
The ethic of kinship is also quite distinct in the Great Lakes region
from Western European historic and present norms; the Anishinabek
have responsibility for and kin obligations towards beings that in West-
ern thought are animals or inanimate property. A birch tree in Anishi-
naabe worldview is an animate, ensouled being and can have human
kin who are in relationship to it and who have responsibilities for it.70
In Anishinaabe law, personhood is a greatly expanded concept that
includes all ensouled beings. Anishinaabe law therefore treats as per-
sons those beings (animals, plants) who in Canadian common law – and
indeed in international legal orders today – are regarded as property.71
69 McDonnell, Masters of Empire, 12fn18.

70 This principle is well-documented in Anishinabek studies, scholarship, and Elders’
teachings. One excellent explanation of this principle in practice can be found in
Pitawanakwat and Paper, “Communicating the Intangible.” For a discussion of this
principle in operation during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, see
Bruce White, “Woman Who Married a Beaver.”
71 In 2017, however, New Zealand granted legal personhood to a river, by the Whanganui
Iwi Deed of Settlement. The river has its own guardians and will be able to exercise its
legal rights against other legal persons (like corporations or individuals) who pollute
it. Debates about the extension of personhood to other beings including animals and
ecosystem are ongoing. See Hutchison, “Whanganui River as a Legal Person.”
As colonizers arrived with different theologies and philosophies, they

struggled to make sense of a worldview so at odds with their own. Nor
did many, except those most closely connected to Anishinaabe peoples,
appreciate the political significance or the centrality of this worldview
in shaping the alliance relationships they were making with the Anishi-
nabek and what it really meant to live as allies and with whom – that,
in fact, it meant to live in relationship.72 All of these differences matter
when it comes to interpreting what treaties mean.
Lacking any deep understanding of Anishinaabe political structures,
the French and later the British misunderstood the crucial distinction
between authority over and responsibility for as the defining characteris-
tics of political leaders from their different cultural traditions. In their
speeches at the 1671 prise-de-possession ceremony, the Jesuits referred to
the King of France as a “captain” in order to equate his political position
to that of an Anishinaabe ogimaa – whom they also called a captain – but
also to a level of French leadership of which with the Anishinabek already
had first-hand experience. However, both French kings and French
captains had authority over the people under them. Anishinaabe ogi-
maawag, in contrast, could not compel the behaviour of others. Instead,
ogimaawag had responsibility (and lots of it) for the people under their
care and the lands and resources they were entrusted to manage. When
Anishinabek heard the word ogimaa applied to a French monarch, or
later to an English one, they applied their own understandings of what
that role meant. When colonial officials gave presents to Anishinaabe
peoples in the name of the monarch, that monarch was being, from an
Anishinaabe perspective, a good ogimaa. In making a formal exchange of
gifts of equal value, Anishinaabe leaders symbolically enacted with their
allies the mutual promise of responsibility for the other, the same sort of
responsibility that leaders, that ogimaawag, had for their own people.
Talon, when he wrote to the king, knew or chose to communicate nothing
of this. He reported instead a successful territorial acquisition for France
and how the people of seventeen Indigenous nations were now subject
to the authority of the French king. As Michael Witgen has demonstrated,
Talon’s claims were not based in fact.73
Anishinaabe polities consisted of networks of alliances – some
very large, others much smaller. Alliance was and is a foundational
72 Mills, “What Is a Treaty?,” 211.

73 Witgen, Infinity of Nations, 69–77.
Introduction 29
Anishinaabe cultural practice and legal principle. Marriage, for exam-

ple, brought together people of different doodemag. When couples
married, they continued to keep their own doodem identity. Each mar-
riage therefore constituted a micro-alliance between two individuals,
each with a distinct doodem. Therefore, any group of Anishinaabe peo-
ples for councils such as the one held in 1642 or at Bawaating in 1671
included people of more than one doodem. Large gatherings brought
individuals of many doodemag together. Any mixed-gendered group
of Anishinaabe peoples that included spouses would by definition have
included people with multiple doodem identities who understood their
relationship to one another through the concept of alliance. Common
councils and regional councils were also sites of alliances, the first
between people with different doodemag, and the second between dif-
ferent doodemag and different council fires.
Historians have for some time now suggested that Indigenous soci-
eties used the alliance relationships they constructed with Europeans
through kinship metaphors for strategic and tactical purposes, in order
to play competing imperial powers off against each other, and to main-
tain control and autonomy in their own homelands. Such interpreta-
tions of how Indigenous peoples used alliance relationships, however,
are inevitably grounded in a European normative political framework.
They contain the underlying assumption that Indigenous peoples used
alliance in roughly the same way that Europeans did, for roughly the
same political purposes. Within this framework, in which contempo-
rary eyewitnesses who produced the sources were also situated, schol-
ars have described alliances as being made between different nations to
achieve specific outcomes such as peace, trade, or combining military
forces against a common foe.74
But Anishinaabe understandings of alliance are far different, and
they are in fact central to a distinct Anishinaabe theory of government
through treaty relationships.75 The regional gatherings descripted in
this introduction were sites of significant ontological difference between
74 For example, James Miller’s discussion of treaty history in Canada in Compact,

Contract, Covenant organizes treaties into these categories and also includes treaties
for land sales.
75 Aspects of Anishinaabe theory of government through alliance is expressed in the
work of Anishinaabe scholars previously cited in the Preface, especially by Borrows,
Mills, Stark, and Miller.
the Anishinabek who gathered there and the French who came to visit.
The impact of such divergent worldviews has continued to the pres-
ent, affecting contemporary interpretations of treaties and alliances,
because subsequent generations of political actors from Western Euro-
pean countries struggled to comprehend Indigenous thought worlds
or chose to dismiss them as irrelevant. Because these same individu-
als produced the primary sources upon which historians have to date
almost exclusively relied, our interpretations have been necessarily
limited. This is not to say that, over time, local colonial officials on the
ground did not come to some basic understanding about the impor-
tance of doodemag. They certainly learned the diplomatic protocols of
Anishinaabe councils and the locations of regionally significant council
fires. Later, following the end of the Seven Years’ War in 1763, British
colonial officials recognized the doodem images that Anishinaabe lead-
ers signed as equivalent to their signatures. They were not, but colonial
officials acted as if they were. Regardless of what officials thought at
the time, the Anishinabek knew what their doodem images meant and
consistently wrote them on documents that pertained to the work of
governance, to reflect the alliances between doodemag that comprised
their councils, their legal traditions, and, indeed, their political world.
Doodemag in the Archive
Doodem and Council Fire uses the evidence of doodem images on treaty
and other documents as a key to recover the political history of the
Anishinabek in North America’s Great Lakes region. The doodem
images cited here come from a range of documents dating from 1671
to circa 1915.76 The treaty documents on which many of these images
appear were produced by colonial officials and then presented to
Anishinaabe delegates to sign in the context of a formal council to
negotiate the treaty. In many cases, the clerk who wrote out the manu-
script document was also the individual who inscribed the names of
the Anishinaabe chiefs in roman orthography beside each pictograph.
The ordering of colonial signatories on treaties reflects Euro-American
social rank, with the most important or senior person signing first and
subsequent officials and witnesses signing below in descending order
76 For an excellent discussion of the challenges of working with manuscript treaty

documents, see Kennedy, “Treaty Texts.”
Introduction 31
of rank. This ordering pattern appears to be consistent throughout the

treaty-signing period. Interpreters, who were sometimes barely literate
or illiterate fur traders, typically signed last, sometimes with an X-mark.
Significantly, while colonial clerks prepared these treaty documents
and wrote out Anishinaabe names, the patterns of doodem images on
treaties respects and reflects Indigenous protocols concerning political
roles and the local importance of particular doodem identities.77 On
treaties negotiated with American officials after their Revolution, for
example, Indigenous signatories were grouped together by council fire
and, within that grouping, by political role, with the most senior ogi-
maa or gitchi-ogimaa topping the list. There are six treaties negotiated
between the Anishinabek and the American government that contain
doodem images, from the 1785 Treaty of Fort McIntosh up to the 1817
Treaty at the Rapids of the Miami. The 1785 Treaty of Fort McIntosh
was widely regarded at the time of its signing as invalid because it was
only negotiated with minor chiefs and headmen. It had too few signa-
tories to be a legitimate peace (only twelve minor chiefs, none of whom
had the authority to either make peace or to cede land). Twenty-eight
chiefs signed the replacement – the Treaty of Fort Harmar in 1789 – and
these were the civil leaders. The newly constituted United States gov-
ernment had been forced to toss out the Treaty of Fort McIntosh in the
wake of a public outcry on the part of those regional leaders who knew
the agreement was not legitimate.78 Subsequent US agreements were
regional in scope and specifically identified the discrete “nations” to
which the signatories were associated: the Ottawas, the Chippewas, or
the Potawatomis, for example. Under each bracketed grouping, though,
leaders signed with their doodem images. On the last treaty, only the
most senior leaders signed with doodem images; all others were shown
with an X. American treaties with the Anishinabek signed after 1817
have X-marks in lieu of doodem images.
Treaties signed north of the new border in British North America
followed a similar pattern in cases where multiple council fires were
involved. In the case of land purchases from a single council fire, the
77 I discuss these relationships and patterns in Bohaker, “Anishinaabe ‘toodaims.’”

78 National Archives and Records Administration at College Park, MD (NACP),
General Records of the United States Government, RG 11, Indian Treaties, 1722–
1869, and available on National Archives Microfilm Publication M668, roll 1. See also
Prucha, American Indian Treaties, Chapter 1.
listing of signatories also reflects local political contexts. Clearly, local

local colonial officials had a reasonable understanding of Anishinaabe
politics. Anishinaabe protocols also influenced the treaty process. On
treaty documents for the eastern Great Lakes, the first image in any
column of Anishinaabe pictographsis that of the ogimaa belonging to
the doodem identity acknowledged to be the keepers of the council
fire. As will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter 4, crane doodem
images appear first in the column of doodem images for treaties negoti-
ated around Sault Ste. Marie and around Rice Lake in eastern Ontario;
Caribou doodem images around the Lake Simcoe, Mnjikaning area; and
Eagle images on treaties related to the Mississauga-Anishinabek from
the north shore of Lake Ontario.
An examination of doodem images produced on treaty and other
documents over more than three centuries reveals that there was a sig-
nificant change in what – or more precisely, who – each doodem image
could represent. On seventeenth- and eighteenth-century documents, a
single image could represent an entire family under the leadership of
a gichi-Anishinaabe or ogimaa or be the doodem of the ogimaa, rep-
resenting an entire council fire. After the 1671 prise-de-possession cer-
emony, interpreter Nicolas Perrot told the Sieur de Bacqueville de la
Potherie that each leader drew just one image as the “mark” of their
families. On the Peace of Montreal of 1701, while specific leaders were
sometimes identified by name, there was only one doodem image on
the document for each council fire in attendance.79
Over the eighteenth century, the practice changed and each ogimaa
or gichi-Anishinaabe of an entire council signed. Some marginalia on
treaty documents are suggestive of changing practices. On a 1774 pri-
vate land deed for lands around Detroit, the author of the document
penned “father and sons” beside the doodem of a wolf. On another
private deed for lands around Detroit signed in 1788, the author or clerk
who prepared the document wrote two and sometimes three names
beside each doodem image, clearly suggesting that the doodem images
represented multiple people.80 In his 1795 letter to General Anthony
79 Claude Charles Le Roy, Sieur de Bacqueville de la Potherie, “Histoire de l’Amérique

septentrionale,” in Blair, ed. Indian Tribes, 1:343–8; “Ratification de la paix,” 4 August
1701, Fonds des Colonies. Série C11A. Correspondence générale, Canada, vol. 19,
fol.41–44, ANOM.
80 Deed of land on the Detroit River from the Chiefs of the Ottawa Indians at Detroit,
7 June 1774, Archives of Ontario, Toronto, Hiram Walker Historical Museum
Introduction 33
Wayne, Benjamin Henfrey enclosed a signed copy of council proceed-

ings from 18 September 1795. On it, one ogimaa signed a Bear doo-
dem, but a note in the margin indicates that it was both for himself
and on behalf of three others. Similarly, on the same document, the
names of Chechogwas and Nathanena are recorded using one thun-
derbird image, as the one image stood for the both of them. One signa-
tory named Nawac signed, as the marginalia attested, for both himself
and his brother Asimettic, while the notation beside Sinade’s Beaver
doodem reads “for the Beaver,” suggesting that Sinade’s image also
represented more than one person who shared that identity.81
Doodem images are not equivalents to personal signatures, as the
Anishinabek did not consistently draw their own images on the doc-
ument. In some cases, it is clear that the same hand drew all of the
images, while in others the variations in style, line thickness, and evi-
dent familiarity (or lack thereof) with a quill pen suggest that more than
one person was involved. Occasionally documents identify the person
who drew the images. On the signed council proceedings Benjamin
Henfrey included in his 1795 letter to General Wayne, there are ten doo-
demag where Henfrey noted “the above characters was [sic] drawn by
the Chief Kee Sap at the request of all present.” By this, it seems that
Kee Sap drew all of the images; they certainly appear to have all been
drawn by one hand. It is possible that Kee Sap was chosen because
he was familiar with using a quill pen, but he may simply have been
Henfrey’s choice and not that of the council attendees. A margin nota-
tion by Kee Sap’s image displays Henfrey’s assessment of him: “a good
man and I will answer for him will be found a true Friend to the United
States.”82 But sometimes there are explicit notes that each person signed
their own doodem. In 1800, an Anishinaabe council at the Delaware
mission village run by the Moravians on the Thames River had a docu-
ment produced and the notation added to explain “we have caused
this speech to written [sic] for us to sign that you [Joseph Brant] may
Collection F378, James Sterling Papers (20–217); 20 September 1788, Proclamation

concerning the free and voluntary granting of land on the north side of the Thames
River to Jonathan Scieffelin of Detroit, merchant, by the Chippeway [sic] Nation
of Indians at Detroit, Archives of Ontario, Toronto, Miscellaneous Collection F775,
MU2099.
81 Letter of Benjamin Henfrey, 2 October 1795, The Historical Society of Pennsylvania
(HSP), Anthony Wayne Papers, Collection #699 (Volume XXXIX, page 9).
82 Ibid.
show them [the Indian Department] that these are our wishes.” The
corresponding doodem images each appear to be by distinct hands.83
Explanatory marginalia on late-eighteenth-century treaty documents
reveal an uncertainty on the part of the British and Americans with
regard to Anishinaabe practices. On the 1781 sale and purchase of Mich-
ilimackinac Island, for example, the clerk wrote next to the two Loon
doodem images that the second one, although representing the same
bird as the first, in fact represented a different person. Such a notation
was most likely for the benefit of British officials who were less familiar
with Anishinaabe political tradition. The shared doodem identities of
these two Anishinaabe leaders concerned this clerk – would his coun-
terparts understand that two or more Anishinaabe men could be rep-
resented by two images of the same animal, or in other cases, where
several names were written beside a single doodem?
During the first half of the nineteenth century, writers of doodem
images began more frequently to sign documents as individuals, and
this was particularly the case in British North America, where signing
documents with doodem images was a regular occurrence. Anishi-
naabe leaders entering into any formal business with Crown officials
signed land sale agreements, receipts, petitions and other documents,
all with doodem images. Typically each name was written by a colonial
official (usually a clerk) and the doodem image was either inscribed by
each person beside their own name or the images were drawn by a com-
mon hand. During this period, there appears to be a shift from earlier
practices of having only leaders sign to having all adult males in a com-
munity (or at the very least, heads of households) sign the documents.
But by the mid-nineteenth century not only were there typically more
doodem images or X-marks on documents, but each mark or image was
clearly associated with one individual.
The British concern with authorship and authority on treaty
documents can be traced back to before the Proclamation of 1763,
but in the wake of Pontiac’s War colonial officials and landowners
were concerned about the need to regularize the securing of title
to Indigenous land in the Great Lakes region. Sir William Johnson,
83 Speech from the Chipewas, to Joseph Brant, 21 May 1800, Wisconsin Historical
Society, Madison (WHS), Lyman Copeland Draper Manuscripts, Joseph Brant
papers, 1710–1879, Series F, Volume 21, Document 3, consulted on microfilm at the
University of Western Ontario.
Introduction 35
then the British Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Northern Dis-
trict, established the practices following the Proclamation to ensure that
documents, duly signed and sealed, were obtained for all land transac-
tions. However, despite Johnson’s efforts, other military and colonial
authorities continued to be anxious about the appropriateness of using
doodemag as signatures, particularly when more than one person was
represented by the same image. Despite this, there seems to have been
no significant move in British North America to force the replacement
of doodem images with X-marks.84 Americans also continued with the
practice of permitting doodem images to be signed on treaty docu-
ments until after the end of the War of 1812. After 1817, doodemag no
longer appear on American treaty documents with the Anishinabek.
The continuing use of doodem images and symbolic picture writing in
America by the Anishinabek through the American Civil War on other
types of documents and media, however, suggests that the decision to
discontinue the practice came at the instigation of American officials.85
The British, by the 1820s, seemed less concerned about ending the
practice than they were about insisting that all signatories be repre-
sented by their own distinct doodem image. Specifically, the British
wanted to stop the practice of one image “standing” for an entire band
or even for a family of father and sons. By the 1830s, Indian Department
officials had become frustrated with the slow pace of cultural change
among Indigenous peoples, many of whom were otherwise adapting
to the new colonial reality by farming and participating in the settler
economy. J.B. Clench, a superintendent of Indian Affairs from 1830 to
1854, received a pointed passage in a letter from one of his field agents
about this problem:
I beg to take this occasion to observe that with respect to the Indians use-
ing [sic] hieroglyphical marks for signatures, such a practice was common
to all the uncivilized tribes in America with whom Treaties have been
84 Glover, Paper Sovereigns; “Plan for the Future Management of Indian Affairs, 1764,”
in O’Callaghan, Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York,
7:638–9.
85 Symbolic Petition of Chippewa Chiefs, presented at Washington, 28 January 1849,
headed by Oshcabawis of Wisconsin. Pictograph A. Plate 60. Drawn by S. Eastman,
USA, Printed in Color by P.S. Duval, Philadelphia, in Schoolcraft, American Indians,
416–17. See Figure 34.
held; but as they advance in knowledge they assume names, and as His
Excellency’s instructions have invariably directed my exertions to change
their manners and reform their habits, and assimilate their mode of life to
that of the whites, I have ever been influenced by those benevolent views.
And request the Chiefs to lay aside their ancient customs and imitate those
whose example we wish them to follow, but must they in future resume
that mode? Although it operates much to my disadvantage.
You are well aware they are a cunning people and notice the least incon-
sistencies which might create a wavering in their minds, and cause a pre-
dilection in favour of old customs to which they are so strongly wedded:
You will observe in their written request two signatures alike (Omicks)
[amick, or Beaver doodem] and to show the correctness of signing by
marks X I beg to state that the Head Chief is known by the name of John
T[amicoo], his signature is the first “Omick” and there are five others in
this village who bear the same Indian title and their signature (hieroglyph-
ical) could not be distinguished.86
There are documents both in Canada and the United States, however,
that contain a mix of X-marks and doodem images, suggesting that
these practices co-existed for quite some time. X-marks were a rec-
ognized way in both British and American law for illiterate people to
indicate their consent to the terms of a written contract. The shift to
using X-marks was already evident on American treaties by 1817 but
did not predominate on treaties made on the British colonial side of
the international boundary until the 1850s. The shift to using X-marks
instead of doodem images purportedly occurred while the strength
of traditional doodem governance practices, discussed in Chapter 5,
was under pressure to change and conform to settler expectations, as
the letter J.B. Clench received suggests. Anishinaabe leaders were also
creatively adapting to these political pressures. They produced many
petitions and letters signed in council with doodem images during this
same period, some of which are cited in this book. This archival record
of innovative responses to settler colonialism’s world of print are also a
critical archive of Anishinaabe doodem governance in action.
86 Rogers, “Algonquian Farmers”; Letter to J.B. Clench, of Indian Affairs, 19

January 1832, Chief Superintendent’s Office, Upper Canada (Colonel J. Givins) –
Correspondence, LAC RG10, Vol. 50: 55741–2.
Introduction 37
Towards an Anishinaabe Political History
Doodem and Council Fire builds on scholarly interest in the intersection

of Indigenous peoples and empires that has accelerated since the pub-
lication of Richard White’s 1991 The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires and
Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1615–1812. Scholarship in this field
includes my own 2006 article on the doodem tradition and 2010 article
on doodem political metaphors and most recently includes Michel Wit-
gen’s 2013 An Infinity of Nations and Michael McDonnell’s 2016 Mas-
ters of Empire.87 While Doodem and Council Fire centres the Anishinaabe
world on the Great Lakes proper and with a clear focus on the eastern
Great Lakes, the narrative here follows Anishinaabe peoples as they
moved through this region and out of it in all four directions. The web
created by nodes of council fires and networks of doodem relations was
thickest in the Great Lakes region proper but spread well beyond.88
This book shows how Anishinaabe governance and law was struc-
tured through alliances between doodemag, forged through marriage
ties and between council fires across the region. In referring to alliance
as a concept that structures governance and law, I am consciously evok-
ing the contributions to anthropology by French anthropologist Claude
Lévi-Strauss, and the school of structuralism more broadly, because
it is a useful way to think about the way in which doodem created a
framework for how the Anishinabek governed themselves.89 However,
I want very much to guard against ahistorical or rigidly prescriptive
readings of doodemag – or what the doodem tradition meant or how
people thought about the tradition – either through a social or a legal
analysis. Anishinaabe governance with and through doodem was and
is creative, innovative, and dynamic.
I have organized this book into five chapters. Chapter 1, “The Doo-
dem Tradition,” discusses doodem as a distinctly Anishinaabe category
of kinship and situates its origins in the aadizookaanag (origin stories
87 In addition to Richard White, Middle Ground, see also Havard, Great Peace of Montreal;
Taylor, Divided Ground; Witgen, Infinity of Nations; McDonnell, Masters of Empire;
Havard, Empire et Métissages; DuVal, Native Ground; MacLeod, “Anishinabeg Point of
View.”
88 Doerfler, Sinclair, and Stark, “Bagijige: Making an Offering,” in Centering
Anishinaabeg Studies, xvii.
89 See especially his seminal Elementary Structures of Kinship.
or grandfather teachings). The aadizookaanag are the foundation of

Anishinaabe law and principles of governance. The concept of doodem
souls discussed here is critical for understanding the concept of being in
relationship to particular territories and to other ensouled beings. Chap-
ter 2, “Family in All Four Directions,” explores doodem as a dynamic
tradition within Anishinaabe worldview. The “Four Directions” is a
reference to many things: the cardinal directions to which Anishinaabe
peoples offer prayers of thanksgiving, the locations of winds, the stages
of life. Here I use it to evoke the idea of each Anishinaabe individual at
the centre of a cross of kin connections – future descendants (who come
from the east, the dawn, through the eastern door), ancestors (whose
souls have gone to the west, through the western door), and spouses
and doodem kin. These two chapters together make the case for the cen-
trality of doodem as defining what it means to be Anishinaabe and the
importance of marriage as an alliance between doodemag, as the basis
for the entire larger structures of Anishinaabe governance and law.
Chapter 3, “Anishinaabe Constitutionalism,” explains the law
through which the Anishinabek established sites of formal governance
throughout the region. It is a study of how doodem beings functioned
metaphorically as political allegory to explain why specific places in
the Great Lakes region were the responsibility of those with particular
doodem identities. These types of histories are constitutional in nature,
as are histories of migration and more recent records of alliances. Each
is a record of the founding (or kindling) of new council fires. Chapter
3 demonstrates how regional alliances created common council fires
and how in turn regional councils were the place where people came
together to negotiate and renew alliance relationships between com-
mon councils. Anishinaabe constitutionalism was fundamentally recip-
rocal, creating interdependent relationships through alliance.
Chapter 4, “Governance in Action,” focuses on the period between
the Treaty of Niagara in 1764 and the mid-nineteenth century. Drawing
from treaties and council minutes, it takes a closer look at how Anishi-
naabe historic governance practices worked, how law was enacted
in council, the differences and relationships between common and
regional councils, and the political work that each did during the treaty-
making era. Governance was widely distributed in Anishinaabe societ-
ies and was fundamentally non-hierarchical. Adult men and women
shared leadership responsibilities in some areas and in others, particu-
larly civil governance, gender and age determined political roles, as
younger men participated on warriors’ councils and women met as a
Introduction 39
separate advisory council to ogimaawag and gichi-Anishinabek. The

set of land sale/purchase documents signed between 1781 and 1862 in
British North America for what is now the Province of Ontario form a
remarkable set of legal sources that reveal the changing composition of
local and regional councils through the doodem images of those who
signed treaty documents.
Chapter 5, “Doodem in the Era of Settler Colonialism,” considers the
implications of colonialism in the nineteenth century on Anishinaabe
governance, law, and the doodem tradition. While the processes and
structures of settler colonialism significantly disrupted Anishinaabe
governance practices in this period, how, when, and where that change
occurred varied over time and place. And while Canada and the United
States both imposed elected band or tribal councils on Anishinaabe
communities in the latter half of the nineteenth century, awareness of
the doodem tradition itself persisted, even as core elements, such as the
taboo against marrying someone with the same doodem, began to be
disrupted. Christian missionization and residential schooling had most
significant negative impacts, as Western kinship categories began to
replace Anishinaabe historic ones and as alliances between council fires
became harder to maintain during the reserve/reservation era. Indig-
enous people found themselves increasingly confined to reserves; when
people travelled they experienced increasing racism and fears for their
own safety. Some did travel, though, and there are multiple examples
of grand and general councils from this period indicating that Anishi-
naabe governance practices continued. Despite the challenges faced,
knowledge of traditional Anishinaabe governance practices, legal tradi-
tions, and the doodem tradition has survived, and these are undergoing
revitalization as people reclaim their doodem identities and begin to
explore ways that doodem can contribute to governance and law.
I use the term “Anishinabek” as a collective term in this book, fully
aware that it describes a cultural tradition better than a political one, as
Anishinaabe polities were instead the council fires themselves – both
common and general. This is the crucial point: neither polity had juris-
diction over the other. Anishinaabe polities were mutually constitutive
and embedded in reciprocal relationships with each other through alli-
ances. Nevertheless, I use the term Anishinaabe (or Anishinabek, in
the plural) because it is a meaningful category of belonging and does
encompass people who spoke a common language and were part of
the doodem tradition. I sometimes use a compound form, such as
Ottawa-Anishinabek or Mississauga-Anishinabek where it is necessary
to demonstrate a distinction, or where I feel such identification would

be useful to the reader. However, the term “Anishinabek” itself is too
general for writing political histories. We must focus instead on the his-
tories of council fires and the multiple and differing alliances between
them because this is how the Anishinabek exercised their jurisdic-
tion. Such an exercise of jurisdiction was also a culturally distinctive
practice. The Anishinabek did not exercise jurisdiction over lands and
resources but rather for and alongside them, as lands and waters were
also ensouled beings and legal persons within Anishinaabe worldview.
This is why doodem images matter. What they offer is nothing less than
Anishinaabe peoples’ own articulation of a crucial political and legal
category and the central role that category played in how Anishinaabe
peoples governed themselves.
1
The Doodem Tradition
They derive their origin from a bear, others from a moose, and others similarly
from various kinds of animals …You will hear them say that their villages each
bear the name of the animal which has given its people their being – as that of
the crane, or the bear, or of other animals.
– Nicolas Perrot, circa 1715
Some are of the family of Michabous, – that is to say, of “the Great Hare” … The
second family of the Outaouacks maintain that they have sprung from Name-
pich [namebin, white sucker].
– Sebastian Râle, 1723
Each grand family is known by a badge or symbol, taken from nature; being
generally a quadruped, bird, fish or reptile … the writer is disposed to consider,
and therefore presents, the Totemic division as more important and more wor-
thy of consideration than as generally been accorded to it by standard authors
who have studied and written respecting the Indians.
– William Warren, circa 18521
Anishinaabe aadizookaanag, or sacred stories, explain the origin of

the doodem tradition. There is a large and rich body of Anishinaabe
1 These quotations in the epigraphs are from Perrot, “Mémoire,” in Blair, Indian Tribes;
Râle, “Lettre à Monsieur son Frére, October 12, 1723,” in Thwaites, Jesuit Relations,
67:153–7; and Warren and Neill, History, 44.
aadizookaanag. George Copway said that he had “known some Indi-

ans who would commence to narrate legends and stories in the month
of October and not end until quite late in the spring, sometimes quite
late in the month of May, and on every evening of this long term tell
a new story.”2 My discussion here is limited of necessity to excerpts
in print that refer to the doodem tradition.3 The epigraphs above
were recorded by three men – two of whom (Perrot and Râle) learned
Anishinaabemowin as adults. For Warren, Anishinaabemowin was his
first language. Nicolas Perrot was a noted trader and interpreter who
spent his entire adult career in the Great Lakes; during his retirement
he recorded his observations on Anishinaabe social and political orga-
nization in a manuscript which contained aadizookaanag. Perrot was
the interpreter attached to Sieur de St. Lusson’s expedition in 1671. He
gave a manuscript report of his career to the Intendant of New France
in 1710, where presumably it helped to inform French colonial policy
towards the Anishinabek, but the document did not appear in print
until 1864.4 Sebastian Râle, a Jesuit, began his missionary work among
the Abenaki in 1689. The order sent him west to work with the Illinois
at Kaskaskia in 1691. Interrupted in his travels due to bad weather, he
spent the winter of 1691–2 at Michilimackinac where he learned these
narratives that he later recorded.5 The last quotation in the epigraph
appeared in print for the first time in 1884. William Whipple Warren
was a noted Anishinaabe politician, interpreter, and intellectual, and
author of the History of the Ojibway Peoples. He was born in 1825 to an
Anishinaabe mother and trader father. He died at the age of 29 from
tuberculosis; his manuscript was published posthumously in 1885. War-
ren devoted an entire chapter of his book to the doodem tradition and
its political importance as the basis for Anishinaabe civil governance.
He summarized the narratives that he had been told by Elders in his
community. These sources (Perrot, Râle, and Warren) all locate the ori-
gin of the doodem tradition in deep time. The Elders who told Warren
the aadizookaanag he recorded were drawing from a corpus of very old
2 Copway, Traditional History and Characteristic Sketches, 98.

3 Scholars have studied Anishinaabe aadizookaanag as folklore, myth, and narrative
within the academy. See Fisher, “Ojibwa Creation Myth.” But aadizookaanag are
becoming the centerpiece of Anishinaabe Studies as an academic discipline. See
Doerfler, Sinclair, and Stark, Centering Anishinaabe Studies.
4 Perrault, “Perrot, Nicolas.”
5 Charland, “Rale, Sébastien.”
The Doodem Tradition 43
stories, not mythologizing a sixteenth- or seventeenth-century history.

These narratives situated the origin of the doodem tradition together
with the origin of the Anishinaabe as a distinct people in the distant
past. Indeed, when the Jesuit Jérôme Lalemant described Anishinaabe
society in his observations at the 1642 gathering discussed in the Intro-
duction, he noted that they had a way of life “which has been led here
for two, three even four thousand years.”6
The question of time is an important one, especially when Western-
trained historians approach the analysis and interpretation of Anishi-
naabe aadizookaanag that have been recorded in fragment or snippet
form in colonial texts or in manuscripts like Warren’s, those intended
for a non-Indigenous audience.7 However, these narratives still provide
valuable evidence of the doodem tradition. Such narratives reveal doo-
dem governance and law operating throughout the Great Lakes region.
Because these early records are also snippets of aadizookaanag or origin
narratives, they anchor this political tradition in deep time. The doo-
dem tradition was a system that was well in place before the arrival of
the first recording European in the region. Written versions of the narra-
tives that record the origin of the doodem tradition also make it possible
to assess the changes and continuities in those narratives since outsid-
ers began recording them in translation in the late seventeenth century.
Versions continued to be recorded through the nineteenth century and
up to the present.
Beginning in the nineteenth century, as settlers pushed Anishinaabe
peoples onto reserves (first in the south and east of the region and then,
after mid-century, in the north and west) and as people increasingly
converted to Christianity, they found it more difficult to talk about
being related to or descended from animals, or having a shared doo-
dem-soul. Such ideas were fundamentally at odds with Christianity.
Some aspects of these narratives have changed over time (or at least
those aspects shared with non-Anishinabek).8 However, core elements,

7 Anishinaabe narratives include the aadizookaanag but also dibaajimowin, or everyday
news. And of course, many Nanabozhoo stories recount incidents where the trickster
gets himself into trouble, with generally hilarious results.
8 A clear example of this erasure of metamorphoses can be found in the oral history
and archival research undertaken by Alan Corbiere concerning the story of “Gchi-
Ogaa: ‘The Great Pickerel.’” The oral history of Gchi-Ogaa’s memorable escape from
including the connections between doodem, governance, and law, have

remained. Such recorded narratives are also sources for change in the
doodem tradition itself and include accounts of how new doodem iden-
tities were created or incorporated into Anishinaabe society. This chap-
ter also discusses how to think about doodem as an analytical category
for historical analysis. It matters that scholars speak of doodem and not
reach to other kinship systems for analogies. Doodem is a particular
and specifically Anishinaabe category of belonging.
The Origins of the Doodem Tradition
The earliest written account of the doodem tradition that I have been
able to find is in the writings of the fur trader and interpreter Nicolas
Perrot. This version was likely told to Perrot sometime in the third
quarter of the seventeenth century, while he was working as a fur
trader and interpreter in the Great Lakes region and overwintering
with families.9 Perrot’s account provides evidence of two crucial
points: first, that the Anishinabek constituted their governments as
doodem beings who met in council, and second, that specific doodem
beings took on responsibility for particular places in the Great Lakes
region. Perrot’s “Mémoire sur les moeurs” begins with an Anishi-
naabe re-creation story that followed a flood. The animals were gath-
ered on a great wooden raft as it floated on a vast body of water, with
no land in sight. This is the second flood event in Anishinaabe oral
histories. An older flood describes the original creation of the world
by Geezhigo-kwe, or Sky woman. She fell pregnant, landed on a tur-
tle’s back, and created the world from the soil brought up by a musk-
rat. Her descendants then, “millennia later … dreamed Nanabush
into being.” After a second flood, it was Nanabush or Nanabozhoo’s
an American naval vessel includes his transformation into a giant pickerel, which
allows him to slip off the shackles he was bound with and to escape overboard. This
story was told by Lewis Debassige, a lineal descendant of Ogaa. Corbiere found
an 1877 petition by Chief Louis Debassige to the Indian Department concerning
annuity payments for the Robinson-Huron treaty, which contains the same story
and many of the same details of Ogaa’s actions; however, in the version submitted
to the Indian Department, Ogaa escapes over the side at night and does not turn
into a fish.
9 Perrault, “Perrot, Nicolas.”
turn to recreate “his world from a morsel of sand retrieved from the
depths of the sea.”10
In the version told to Perrot, which clearly picks up the plot thread
from this second flood, Nanabozhoo is called the Great Hare. He is
described as the leader of the animals.11 It was he who asked a series of
animals to dive for a grain of sand from the bottom of the sea. All failed
until the muskrat tried, and it was the muskrat who finally succeeded.12
Nanabozhoo took that sand and, as Perrot recalled, “let it fall upon the
raft, when it began to increase; then he took a part of it, and scattered
this about, which caused the mass of soil to grow larger and larger …
As soon as he thought it was large enough, he ordered the fox to go
to inspect his work, with power to enlarge it still more; and the latter
obeyed … After the creation of the earth, all the other animals with-
drew into the places which each kind found most suitable for obtaining
therein their pasture or their prey.”13
At this point there were no human beings in the world – the earth
was inhabited by these “first ones,” as Perrot described them. These
first ones may not have been human, but they were persons. They had
law and government. The Great Hare was their leader, and he called a
council of all the beings to discuss what course of action should be taken
to provide land for them and who should take on the responsibility of
trying to acquire the sand. These beings all had souls, and they could
pass their souls to subsequent generations of related beings. As Perrot
then noted: “When the first ones died, the Great Hare caused the birth
of men from their corpses, as also from those of the fishes which were
found along the shores of the rivers which he had formed in creating the
land.”14 Perrot goes on to explain that the Anishinabek therefore “derive
their origin from a bear, others from a moose, and others similarly from
various kinds of animals … You will hear them say that their villages
10 Basil Johnston, “Is That All There Is?” 7–8.

11 Note that while Nicolas Perrot genders the Great Hare male, because there is no
third-person masculine or feminine pronoun in Anishnaabemowin, the Great
Hare/Nanabozhoo could be described as female by either the teller or the listener.
Storytellers today do this as well. See for example the Mandaamin story as told by
Lindsay Borrows, in which she changes genders of some of the characters. Lindsay
Keegitah Borrows, Otter’s Journey, 156–9.
12 Perrot, “Mémoire,” in Blair, Indian Tribes, 1:32.
13 Perrot’s words here are in translation from his original French by Emma Blair. Perrot,
“Mémoire,” in Blair, Indian Tribes, 1:31–7.
14 Ibid., 1:5–6.
each bear the name of the animal which has given its people their being –
as that of the crane, or the bear, or of other animals.”15
This narrative reveals some fundamental aspects of the Anishinaabe
worldview, aspects that are distinct from Christianity.16 In the Anishi-
naabe worldview, God or the Creator did not bring forth humans
independent of animals; instead, humans came from the animals
(a perspective, one might note, much more in alignment with con-
temporary science on evolution). Anishinaabe philosophy and world-
view interprets this connection between humans and animals as one
of interdependence or even simply dependence – where humans are
dependent upon animals and other ensouled life. The human-animal
relationship is similar to a sibling relationship – animals are the elder
siblings, humans the younger. Humans have much to learn from their
older siblings.17 Perrot’s story also demonstrates how doodemag define
the Anishinabek as a distinct people. The version told by Perrot locates
each doodem in a distinct territory, since each ancestor being “with-
drew into the places where each kind found most suitable for obtaining
therein their pasture or prey.”18 Only then did humans emerge from the
bodies of the “first ones” and begin to take responsibility for the lands
on which they were born. In the story told to Perrot, humans being
are descended from, and therefore kin to, the other-than-human beings
who are their doodem. Beaver people and beavers, for example, were
related to one another. And as kin they had obligations to each other.
In this version told to Perrot, the doodem tradition was created in the
waters and on the lands of the Great Lakes region.
In a 1723 letter to his brother, the Jesuit Sebastian Râle recorded a
flood origin story with elements similar to Perrot’s version, which
also situated the origins of the Anishinaabe people right in the Great
Lakes. Râle had arrived in Quebec in the fall of 1689 and immediately
began language studies. After a two-year sojourn among the Wabanaki
(also known as the Algonquian-speaking Abenaki of what today are
the northern New England states), Râle was recalled to Quebec and
then sent out to a mission among the Illinois. With winter advancing,
Râle was obliged to wait at Michilimackinac until spring with people
15 Ibid., 1:37–8.
16 Vine Deloria Jr. discusses these distinctions in God is Red.
17 Basil Johnston, Ojibwe Heritage, 46.
he called the Outaouacks (the Ottawa-Anishinabek). Like Bawaating,

Michilimackinac was a major historic council site. That winter, Râle
heard their origin stories; he reproduced snippets in his letters to his
brother about the origins of the principal doodemag comprising the
council at Michilimackinac:
They declare that they have come from three families, and each family is
composed of five hundred persons.
Some are of the family of Michabous, – that is to say, of “the Great
Hare”: They affirm that this Great Hare was a man of prodigious height;
that he spread nets in water eighteen brasses deep, and that the water
scarcely came to his armpits. They say one day, during the deluge, he sent
out the Beaver to discover land; then, as that animal did not return, he des-
patched the Otter, which brought back a little soil covered with foam. He
then proceeded to the place in the Lake where this soil was found, which
made a little island; he walked all around it in the water, and this island
became extraordinarily large. Therefore, they attribute to him the creation
of the world. They add that, after having finished this work, he flew away
to the Sky, which is his usual dwelling place; but before quitting the earth
he directed that, when his descendants should die, their bodies should be
burned, and their ashes scattered to the winds, so that they might be able
to rise more easily to the Sky …
The second family of the Outaouacks maintain that they have sprung
from Namepich [namebin, white sucker], – that is to say, from the Carp.
They say that the carp having deposited its eggs upon the bank of a river,
and the sun having shed rays upon them, there was formed a woman from
whom they are descended; thus they are called, “the family of the Carp.”
The third family of the Outaouacks attributes its origin to the paw of a
Machoua [makwa, bear] – that is to say, of a Bear; and they are called “the
family of the Bear,” but without explaining in what way they issued from it.19
Perrot and Râle independently provided accounts both of the creation

of the Anishinaabe world and the foundation of the institution of doo-
demag, in which people are descended from and related to other-than-
human beings. Michabous (the Great Hare) came from the sky world
19 Punctuation appears as in the original. Râle, “Lettre à Monsieur son Frére, October
12, 1723,” in Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 67:153–7. Râle reflects on his long career in
this letter.
(his domain). Because of this fact, the souls of his descendants needed to
be returned to the sky. The White Sucker doodem people are descended
from a woman who emerged out of carp eggs deposited in a riverbank,
and people who had this doodem would have known which river it
was. The “family of the Bear” had the Bear’s foot as their doodem – sig-
nifying their origin from “the paw of a Machoua [makwa, bear], con-
nected to and part of the Bear doodem.” The Bear doodem once had so
many people, Warren later noted, that it was divided into families that
were parts of the bear. The Mississauga-Anishinaabe leader Peter Jones
also identified the Bear’s foot as a separate Anishinaabe doodem in the
mid-nineteenth century, and the anthropologist William Jones found
people with this doodem in 1920s Minnesota.20
Returning to Râle’s description, recall that spouses kept their doo-
dem when they married. There the “family” which Râle described
would have been the doodem of the ogimaa, gichi-Anishinabek, and
their brothers, sons, and daughters. The wives of these men would have
had different doodemag. European observers like Râle, recall, likened
doodem to coats of arms or the “marks” of their families, and it is highly
probable that French observers simply assumed that these identities
would have been applied to women upon marriage. The fact that Râle
reported that the family of the Carp described themselves as descended
from a woman is also not necessarily an exception to the principle of
patrilineal descent. Having been born from the eggs of a female sucker,
the practice of patrilineal descent of the doodem was likely still fol-
lowed by those who had this fish as their doodem. Together, these nar-
ratives are describe kinship of the soul between doodem beings and
human beings.
The doodem origin narratives told in William Warren’s History of
the Ojibway People at first glance look quite different from Perrot’s and
Râle’s and seem to be a history also of Anishinaabe migration. Yet on
closer examination, Warren’s version has much in common with these
earlier versions. In Warren’s account, the story opens with the Anishi-
naabe already alive, living on the “shores of a great salt water” at a
time “when the earth was new.” Six manidoog (ensouled spirit beings)
emerged from the water and came into the homes of these Anishinaabe.
One of the six cast his glance on an Anishinaabe and killed him with
20 See Warren and Neill, History, 49; William Jones, Ethnographic and linguistic field
notes on the Ojibwa Indians, folder 1, APS.
Table 1. Doodem identities given in William Warren’s History of the Ojibwe People
Original A-wause Bus-in-as-see Ah-ah-wauk Noka (Bear) Moose-neeg

doodemag (Channel (Echo-maker, (Loon) (Moose)
Catfish) Crane)
Doodemag Merman Crane Goose Bear’s Foot, Marten
descended Sturgeon Eagle Cormorant Bear’s Head, Caribou
from Pike Bear’s Rib, etc.
original Whitefish
families Sucker
Including the original five described in the doodem origin story and additional new doo-
demag Warren described as descended from these original families.
Source: Warren, History of the Ojibwe People, 44–5.
that look; the other five beings decided that this sixth one was too pow-
erful and sent him back into the water. The five remaining lived among
the Anishinabek and bestowed upon their new allies their identities
as gifts: Awause (Catfish), Businasee (Crane), Ahahwauk (Loon), Noka
(Bear), and Mooseneeg (Moose). According to the oral histories told to
Warren, all the many different doodemag he described were descended
from one of these five original families.21
It is possible to draw the conclusion that Warren’s creation story is
a fundamentally different account than Perrot’s. It seems to occur at
an earlier point in the creation chronology. The migration story from a
great salt water seems inconsistent with narratives that the Anishinaabe
peoples have lived in the Great Lakes region since time immemorial or
that their cultural and political traditions developed here. However, a
careful reading of Warren’s book reveals that he played with his read-
ers.22 Warren introduced puzzles and subverted the order of the narra-
tives, while leaving verbal clues to indicate the intended order of the
reading. For example, after discussing the origin of the doodem system
in Chapter 2 (titled “Totemic Division of the O-Jib-Ways”), he waited
until Chapter 3, “Origin of the O-Jib-Ways,” to explain the Anishinaabe
21 Warren and Neill, History, 43–53.

22 I would like to acknowledge the importance of conversations with John Beishlag, a
former fourth-year student of mine (HIS 472S, 2009) who wrote a fascinating term
paper on the writings of William Warren. Beishlag found many examples where Warren
was playing with the reader, proclaiming, for example, that he had never studied
Hebrew, when in fact he had at the school he attended. Beishlag’s work convinced me
to take a fresh look at how Warren discussed the origins and importance of doodemag.
“Idea of Creation.” One would think that, logically, creation would be

discussed first. In Chapter 3, however, Warren told the story of the flood,
which he clearly indicates occurred before the creation of the doodem
tradition: “They fully believe, as it forms part of their religion, that the
world has once been covered by a deluge, and that we are now living on
what they term the ‘new earth.’”23 It was only after the flood, “through
the medium of a powerful being, whom they denominated Man-ab-o-
sho [Nanabozhoo], that they were allowed to exist, and means were
given them whereby to subsist and support life.”24
So here, as in Perrot and Râle’s accounts collected two centuries ear-
lier, there is a flood, and only following the flood does the doodem
tradition emerge in the “new earth.”25 The clue to the correct ordering
of the narrative is Warren’s use of the phrase “new earth” in his mention
of when the doodem tradition began – after the creation of the “new
earth.” Moreover, it is Man-ab-o-sho, or Nanabozhoo, the Great Hare,
who restored the Anishinabek to life, although Warren did not reveal to
his non-Anishinaabe audience exactly how the Great Hare brought the
creation of the earth about.26 In mid-nineteenth-century North America,
claiming descent from other-than-human beings – or even according
the category of personhood to other-than-human beings – would not
have served Anishinaabe communities well, as they were already under
intense pressure from colonial authorities to assimilate to the values of
the now-dominant Christian society. This belief in other-than-human
beings was still present in the early 1850s, when Warren wrote his man-
uscript. After all, none of the beings that emerged from the water to
give the doodem tradition to the Anishinabek were human. It is these
other-than-human beings who created the doodem tradition and, by
extension, its founding the basis for Anishinaabe governance and law.
The other-than-human actors remained key constitutional agents in
Warren’s narrative even if the tricky question of “how” the doodem
beings bestowed their doodem identities on their descendants was left
out of the story. As for the emergence of doodem beings from a great
“salt water,” it is important to keep in mind the dynamic hydrology of
23 Warren and Neill, History, 55.

24 Ibid. Warren also indicated that the Midewiwin medicine lodge appeared at the
same time.
25 Ibid.
26 For a thorough discussion of Anishinaabe creation narratives, see Fisher, “Ojibwa
Creation Myth.”
North America following the last Ice Age. The Atlantic Ocean had an
inlet as far as eastern Ontario around 12,000 to 10,000 years ago. The
locations of the cities of Ottawa and Montreal were under as much as
100 metres of seawater at this time. Only as the continent rebounded
from the weight of glaciation did the waters recede east slowly over
time. Perhaps it is not that the ancestors of the Anishinabek migrated
to the Great Lakes Region from what is now the east coast of North
America but rather that the salt waters moved away from them.27
Other doodem origin narratives do not tie the idea of doodem to
descent from another-than-human progenitor. However, they still
connect doodem to place. One such story published in 1839 by Henry
Rowe Schoolcraft, an Indian agent for the American government and
an amateur anthropologist, linked the origin of the Crane doodem with
Bawaating. In this version, human beings were already in existence. A
particular family took the Crane as their family mark because a giant
manidoo in the form of a crane ferried them safely across the rapids
at Sault Ste. Marie, past another dangerous manidoo in the form of a
woman’s skull. The crane then took this skull and dashed it into the
water, causing whitefish to be born from the maggots spilling out of the
brain. In this story, those Anishinabek who took the Crane as their doo-
dem now had a vital source of food as a gift from the First Crane.28 This
narrative still connects the doodem tradition to the realm of the sacred
and is a powerful teaching about the importance of the First Crane. A
manidoo is after all an ensouled being. In this story, there are two: one in
the form of a crane and one in the form of a woman’s skull. And regard-
less of physical form, the Crane manidoo was acting as a leader should,
providing food for the people.
A third version collected in the early twentieth century by anthro-
pologist Paul Radin places more evidence on the social function of
doodemag. This version was also set in the days of Nanabozhoo, as
he raised a family with his wife. As his children grew and left home,
Nanabozhoo “thought he would have to do something in order that
these people, as they multiplied, would know the relationship.” He
organized an enormous feast, to which he invited all his children and
their families. As they were leaving, Nanabozhoo explained to them
that, “your families are increasing very fast, and you will always be that
27 Gadd, Late Quaternary Development of the Champlain Sea Basin.

28 Schoolcraft, Algic Researches, 237–9. Citations refer to the Dover edition.
way. You will be scattered all over the country and will be far apart, so
I want each of you to take home one of these animals and one of the
fish, so that you, your children, your grandchildren, and their children
shall have them for totems. In this way you will know your relatives.”29
In this version, there is no direct statement of descent from other-than-
human beings, although the story is ambiguous enough to suggest the
possibility that the animals and fish were also relatives. But the doodem
tradition was explained to Radin as if it were a badge of identity rather
than integrally connected to governance and spirituality. As I will dis-
cuss in detail in Chapter 5, the combined legislative, missionary and
regulatory assault on Indigenous polities was well underway by the last
quarter of the nineteenth century in both Canada and the United States.
Radin collected these narratives during his tour of southeastern Ontario
reserves from March to August 1912. These trips were funded by the
Geological Survey of Canada.30 Those Radin interviewed included the
descendants of hereditary leaders, including Musquakie (Caribou doo-
dem) at Rama and Robert Paudaush (Crane doodem) from Hiawatha.
It is hard to believe that these leaders and descendants of leaders were
not keenly aware the impact of Radin’s research and of the dangers of
revealing any contemporary practice of “pagan” beliefs to outsiders.
While the narratives that Radin collected did contain stories of people
turning into animals, those narratives were set in mythic time. Further-
more, Radin’s story of Nanabozhoo giving the doodem tradition to the
Anishinabek was not included in his published version.
The existence of different, and what appear at first to be competing,
versions of the origin of the doodem tradition can be understood when
the versions are themselves situated in larger narratives that provide
different explanations for how the Anishinabek came to be in the Great
Lakes. Narratives of in-situ emergence and narratives of migration
from the “shores of a great salt water” also record Anishinaabe histori-
cal experiences. The Great Lakes region has experienced major refor-
mations of its water and landscapes since the retreat of the last glaciers
11,0000 years ago that have had a correspondingly dramatic impact on
the ecosystem.31 As discussed earlier in this chapter, only 10,000 years
29 Paul Radin, “Social and Religious Customs of the Ojibwa of Southeastern Ontario,”
Canadian Museum of Civilization, Ethnological Records, Box 67 folder 1, 13–14.
30 Radin, Some Myths and Tales, v.
31 Clark, et al., “Model of Surface Water Hydrology.”
ago the Atlantic Ocean had an inlet into North America that reached
into southeastern Ontario. By 9,500 years ago, the lake levels were much
lower than they are now. It was possible to walk from the Bruce Penin-
sula to Manitoulin Island. Over time, the lakes refilled, with occasions
when water levels would have risen rapidly. Sometimes the rivers that
drained into them experienced changes in the direction of their water
flow due to isostatic rebound. These changes occurred while people
were living in the region. Why would histories of such major environ-
mental changes and dramatic events, such as rapidly changing water
levels of lakes and rivers, not have survived? Stories of migration and
movement also reflect lived historical experiences. As Chapter 3 will
discuss in detail, the Anishinabek had developed protocols for establish-
ing new sites of government and extending jurisdiction when required
to deal with social and political change. While some Anishinaabe peo-
ples maintained long-standing ties to particular lands, the Anishinaabe
history of the Great Lakes also involves the movement of people and
the relocation of council fires. Aadizookaanag that tell of floods, the
emergence of the doodem tradition, and the migration of peoples are
records of such experiences in deep time. These stories bundled Anishi-
naabe histories, environmental knowledge, and worldview into a form
that passed down from generation to generation.
The Concept of Doodem Souls
The aadizookaanag that describe the origin of the doodem tradition

also explain the close bond of kinship between the beings who share
the same doodem. But in Anishinaabe worldview, kinship is expressed
through the idea of shared souls, not shared blood. Understanding this
distinction is critical for understanding the concept of personhood in
Anishinaabe law. While both Anishinaabe and Christian beliefs include
the concept of souls (an intangible animating essence, an animating life
force), there are significant differences grounded in the worldviews of
each tradition, each fundamentally concerned with humanity’s place in
the world in relationship to other life and to the spiritual world. Early
and medieval Christians debated the character and the number of souls
and engaged with the Greek philosopher Aristotle’s idea of the soul as
comprising three parts (of “nutrition, sensation and intellection”) that
effectively animate the body and manage its core functions. Other spiri-
tual traditions also contributed to early Christian debates, including the
Manichean idea from Late Antiquity Iran that humans had two souls,
one good and one evil. Other early Christians argued against the idea
of multiple souls (i.e., one of the body and one of the spirit), suggesting
that these were but different aspects of one soul animating the body.32
Medieval theologians including the noted scholar Thomas Aquinas
concurred, contributing to a sense of the soul within the Catholic tradi-
tion as a single soul of three parts, united with the human body during
life, divisible from the body at death, and reunited with the body at the
Resurrection. The fate of the soul – whether it went on to eternal salva-
tion or eternal damnation – depended on one’s acceptance of Christi-
anity, earthly behaviour, and divine judgment. Eternal salvation was
something only the “rational” souls of human beings could achieve.33
Debates about souls continued through the Renaissance period as part
of the humanist movement, as scholars wrestled with the idea of what
separates humans from animals and other forms of life.34 When Jesuit
missionaries arrived in the Great Lakes region in the early seventeenth
century, they would have been well aware of these debates.
Anishinaabe sources expressed a radically different understanding of
souls – one that considered humans as just one part of all life and not the
most important part. In contrast with Christian theology, which under-
stood human souls as something different from other life, Indigenous
civilizations across Turtle Island shared a common belief that life was
ensouled.35 Furthermore, even something considered “not alive” in West-
ern ontology could also have a spirit. As the example of the story of the
Crane above shows, a manidoog could appear in the form of a woman’s
skull – something once part of a human but, in Western worldview, some-
thing considered not alive. Rock can also contain a soul. Life in Anishi-
naabe worldview is that which has a soul. If an entity has a soul, it is also
a person in Anishinaabe law. An Anishinaabe soul is as an essence that
can transcend physical forms and/or move between them.36 In Anishi-
naabe worldview, the human body is home to at least two souls. One soul
expresses the essence of the individual; it is this soul that can leave the
32 The scholarship in the fields of Christian theology and the study of religion on the
question of souls from late Antiquity through the Early Modern period is large. The
discussion here is from Bauerschmidt and Buckley, Catholic Theology; James Lee,
“John Donne.”
33 Bauerschmidt and Buckley, Catholic Theology, 86–7.
34 James Lee, “John Donne,” 884–5.
35 Angel, Preserving the Sacred, 41.
36 Ibid., 35; Darlene Johnston, “Litigating Identity,” 72.
body (even when the person is alive), and it is this soul that can travel to
the afterlife.37 The other soul is shared with the doodem, as the doodem
itself also has a soul – an animating essence in common with all who have
that doodem. Shared souls forge the relational link between doodem kin,
both humans and other-than-humans, throughout the Great Lakes region
and beyond, connecting ancestors and descendants.
It is this concept of souls, and particularly the idea of a doodem soul,
which explains why the Anishinabek historically felt that it was impor-
tant to return the dead to the country of their birth, as we saw in the
example of the 1642 gathering discussed in the Introduction. While
the soul that was the essence of the individual leaves the body after
death and travels west to re-join other relatives who have died, there is
another soul that remains with the body and resides within the bones
and only leaves the bones when it is “recycled” into a descendant. An
individual’s soul could even depart before the death of the physical
body, but the second, the body soul, would remain behind.38 In 1639,
the Jesuit Paul Le Jeune spoke with an Anishinaabe Elder who poi-
gnantly expressed to Le Jeune the grief felt by survivors whose loved
ones have passed on: “They distinguish several souls in one and the
same body. An old man told us some time ago that some … have as
many as two or three souls; that his own had left him more than two
years before, to go away with his dead relatives, – that he no longer
had any but the soul of his body, which would go down into the grave
with him.”39 What remained to animate this Elder’s still-breathing body
was a “body-soul” that would be buried with his physical remains. As
Father Le Jeune further observed of the same conversation, “One learns
from this that they imagine the body has a soul of its own, which some
call the soul of their Nation.”40 Nearly a century later, the French writer
37 Vecsey, Traditional Ojibwa Religion, 59–61. Vecsey distinguishes between the travelling
“free soul” which lives in the brain, and the ego-soul, which lives in the heart. The
ego-soul remains with the body. Johnston and I think this ego-soul is the doodem
soul – residing in the heart, remaining with the body.
38 Johnston, “Litigating Identity,” 78.
39 The ellipsis removes the word “Savages.” Sauvage in the original French did not
have the same extreme negative connation that Thwaites’s translation gives. Le
Jeune, “Relation of 1640–41,” in Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 16:191–3. See also the
writings of Jean de Brebeuf, S.J., who observed that the Wendat believed in multiple
souls as well, saying the Wendat “call the bones of the dead Atisken, or the souls”;
de Brebeuf, “Relation of the Hurons, 1636,” in Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 10:287.
40 Le Jeune, “Relation of 1640–41,” in Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 16:191–3.
Pierre Charlevoix made a similar observation: “There are others who

acknowledge two souls in men; to the one, they attribute every thing I
have been just now speaking of, and pretend that the other never quits
the body, unless it is to pass into some other.”41 More than three hun-
dred years after Le Jeune’s conversation with the Elder awaiting his
passing, in 1992, Anishinaabe Elders from the Chippewa of Nawash
First Nation expressed the same insight concerning the divisibility of
souls and how body souls remained with the bones. They did so to
Darlene Johnston, during their community’s eight-day vigil to protect a
burial ground located within the city limits of Owen Sound.42 The bones
buried within this cemetery were not simply human remains, but they
were in fact ensouled remains – still possessing qualities of personhood
and agency and still in relationship with the living.
Johnston explains that the body-soul to which Le Jeune referred –
what he called the “soul of their Nation” – was in fact the soul of the
doodem.43 Johnston’s interpretation makes complete sense; Anishi-
naabe practices and protocols for the treatment of the dead support this
finding. Historically, people displayed doodem images prominently on
grave markers. The deceased were, wherever possible, interred in the
land of their birth, even if that meant carrying their bones considerable
distances. These practices are old. In 1612, Samuel de Champlain visited
an Anishinaabe cemetery on the Ottawa River at the summer council
site of the ogimaa Tessouat. There, Champlain observed aboveground,
wood-covered graves with marker posts (“in the form of shrines”). On
those posts, people carved images to indicate the deceased person’s doo-
dem and accomplishments in life, particularly if the deceased had been
a chief.44 Recall too the evidence discussed in the Introduction – how
at regional gatherings Anishinaabe returned home the bones of those
who had died outside the land of their birth. Doodem remained impor-
tant in Anishinaabe funeral practices. Nearly two hundred years after
Champlain, in 1793, the British officer Major E.B. Littlehales reported
seeing doodem-inscribed grave markers as he accompanied the new
41 Charlevoix, Letters to the Duchess, 2:153.

42 The community was successful in having the federal government recognize the land
as part of an existing treaty, protecting it from development. See Darlene Johnston,
Connecting People to Place.
43 Darlene Johnston, “Litigating Identity,” 78.
44 de Champlain, Works, 2:279–80.
Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada, John Graves Simcoe, on a tour of

what is now southern Ontario. Littlehales observed aboveground buri-
als of “raised earth … wickered over,” and beside the graves “a large
pole with painted hieroglyphics on it, denoting the Nation, Tribe and
achievements of the deceased, either as Chiefs, Warriors, or Hunters.”45
Inscribing the doodem of the deceased on a grave post (see Figure 12)
allowed others of the same doodem to recognize the grave as that of one
of their immediate kin, one who shared the same doodem soul.
These deep familial bonds created by the doodem tradition tran-
scended certain binaries that exist in Western thought, such as liv-
ing and dead, human and animal. Doodem is the source of metaphor
describing what it means to be related to someone. To share a doodem
is to be immediate kin. In contrast, Western Europeans define imme-
diate kin though the metaphor of shared blood – the more blood one
is presumed to share, the closer the relationship. This equally potent
metaphor, used to describe descent-based relatedness, is an idea drawn
from Aristotelian concepts of generation.46 The Western tradition of
patrilineal descent and family names, and of the social importance of
the male “lineage” to create “blood ties,” continues today, despite the
knowledge that a foetus has an independent blood supply, separated
from the mother’s by the placenta, and blood isn’t a substance that is
typically shared between people outside the context of transfusion.
If anything, the discovery of DNA and the modern focus on genetics
as the connective force in family relationships has only strengthened
older ideas about the importance of blood in defining who is kin, even
though more precisely the link is through genetic material.47 But for
the Anishinabek, while some doodem kin would have close biological
45 Littlehales, “Journal from Niagara to Detroit, 1793,” 289.

46 This is an over-simplification of complex and diverse metaphors pertaining
to sex and sexual reproduction in early modern Europe, but it is significant in
demonstrating its distinction from Anishinaabe worldview. See Laqueur, Making Sex.
47 French and English legal regimes had different, and changing, approaches to
the problem of adoptive or fictive kin, as opposed to birth or “real” kin. In both
societies, the adoption of children was a marked category distinct from family
formation through birth. The question of “blood ties” was particularly important
in determining inheritance rights and subjecthood (citizenship). See, for example,
Gager, Blood Ties and Fictive Ties. English law made room for consideration of the
national identity of the child’s mother in determining subjecthood status until
legislative changes in the nineteenth century – see Todd, “Mother’s Blood.”
relationships, other doodem kin would not.48 Note that the blood meta-
phor sometimes appears in both colonial and Anishinaabe sources that
discuss the doodem tradition. The Jesuit Louis Nicolas wrote in the late
seventeenth century of the honour felt by members of the Hare doodem
“to say that all their race was of this divine blood [referring here to
Nanabozhoo] ... they say openly and in their right minds that they are
directly descended from this majestic divinity ... For this reason they
put in their escutcheon, as their arms, a great hare that makes the snow
fall”49 Nicolas here connects the writing or inscribing of the doodem
image with the idea of relatedness to the doodem being. William War-
ren also used the blood metaphor extensively to discuss doodem kin,
likening the doodem to a “blood relationship” and noting that “any
individual of any one of the several Totems, belonging to a distinct tribe,
as for instance the Ojibway, is a close blood relation to all the other Indi-
ans of the same Totem, both in his own and all other tribes, though he
may be divided from them by a long vista of years, interminable miles,
and knows not even of their existence.”50 In each case though the writ-
ers were consciously reaching for an analogy to explain this concept of
relatedness to their Western audiences in terms that audience would
understand. These are acts of interpretation rather than expressing an
idea integral to Anishinaabe worldview.
Doodem identity was and is of such importance because of its con-
nection to what Westerners would describe as the spiritual and the
sacred. While doodem identities inscribed on treaty and other docu-
ments appear to be in a secular context, Anishinaabe readers of those
images would also have recognized their spiritual significance. They
were well versed in other narratives and other meanings associated
with those doodem beings. Such narratives tied doodem identities to
the very creation of the world, the emergence of the Anishinabek, and
the creation of relationships between the living, the dead, and place.
Doodem was also an assertion of responsibility for the lands and waters
of one’s doodem being. In the origin narratives told to the interpreter
Nicolas Perrot by Anishinaabe Elders in the late seventeenth century,
after the creation of the world the First Beings moved into the places
48 This idea is expressed in Bohaker, “Nindoodemag: The Significance of Algonquian

Kinship Networks,” 38.
49 Nicolas, Codex Canadensis, 313, 324. An escutcheon is a shield or other emblem on
which a coat of arms is displayed.
50 Warren and Neil, History, 42–3.
best suited “for their pasture or prey.”51 In Perrot’s retelling of the aadi-
zookaanag, as Nanabozhoo (Michabous) brought forth the first human
beings from the corpses of the First Beings, so subsequent generations
of Anishinabek received their respective doodemag from the souls of
their ancestors. I have found one seventeenth-century exception to the
idea of repatriating the bones of the deceased that still fits the general
principle, which is really about returning doodem souls to the lands
to which they belong. For those Anishinabek who traced their descent
from Michabous (the Great Hare), souls had to be repatriated through
burning the bones of the deceased. This exception has a cultural logic
grounded in core Anishinaabe beliefs because Michabous was from the
Sky world. As the Jesuit Sebastian Râle was told in a passage previ-
ously cited, Michabous himself “directed that, when his descendants
should die, their bodies should be burned, and their ashes scattered to
the winds, so that they might be able to rise more easily to the Sky.”52
In the case of the Hare doodem, burning the bones of the deceased
was a practice still grounded in the logic of shared souls connected to
a particular landscape. In this case, because the Hare doodem’s place
was the Sky world, the burning of bones was entirely consistent with
the goal of repatriating the body-soul of the deceased.
Through the aadizookaanag that spoke of the creation of the doodem
tradition, Anishinaabe people could situate themselves in the landscape
of the Great Lakes, even if they were some distance from the place of their
own birth. Those of the Hare doodem could look to the island of Mich-
ilimackinac and know its special significance as the home of Michabous
and, by extension, his many descendants. The descendants of the Great
Beaver knew the final resting place of their ancestor was on the northeast-
ern shore of Georgian Bay at the outlet of French River, while those of the
Crane could look to Bawaating. Doodem origin narratives create a sense
of both belonging to and responsibility for particular places. Doodem as
metaphor could extend further to shape requests for aid, to request access
to resources even by people who were not of that doodem. In the late
seventeenth century, for example, Perrot was told that
If, when any stranger or poor widow in need near these Amikoüas [Amik-
wag, or those who gathered at the council fire kept by the Beaver doodem
51 Perrot, “Mémoire,” in Blair, Indian Tribes, 1:5–6.

52 Râle, “Lettre à Monsieur son Frère.”in Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 67:153–7.
ogimaa at Lake Nipissing or the eastern shore of Georgian Bay] or any

one of their clan, they see a branch that has been gnawed at night by some
beaver, the first person who finds it at the entrance of his tent picks it up
and carries it to the head of the clan, who immediately causes a supply of
food to be collected for this poor person, as a memorial of their ancestors;
and those in the villages willingly club together to make a present to him
who has done them the honour of recalling them to their origin. They do
not practice this with the Frenchmen, since these deride them and their
superstition.53
Doodemag are described within aadizookaanag narratives recorded

by seventeenth- and eighteenth-century non-Anishinaabe observers
in ways that reveal the doodem tradition to be an old one, with deep
generational and historic roots. Such origin stories also describe the
fundamental importance of gift exchange and reciprocity as a means
of cementing relationships between beings, as the example from Perrot
above suggests. But this understanding of doodem as a gift continues.
As William Warren described it much later in his mid-nineteenth cen-
tury text, the doodem tradition is itself a gift to the Anishinabek and, as
a gift, it creates an obligation between humans and other-than-human
beings of the same doodem to share resources and to assist one another
as kin should do.54
Doodem origin stories reveal a political tradition that created inter-
connected communities spanning long distances while anchoring peo-
ple to the places they called home. European observers of the tradition
instead likened doodem to their own extended families. By calling doo-
dem images “coats of arms,” French colonists attempted to find a par-
allel practice from within their own culture. But the doodem tradition
was developed within, and as a central part of, Anishinaabe worldview
and understandings of the natural world. Bears, cranes, and caribou
are all Anishinaabe doodemag and are also beings who/that inhabit
(or inhabited, in the case of the caribou) the Great Lakes region. How-
ever, other beings, including the animikiig (thunderbirds), nebaanaabeg
(mermen), and the michi-bizhi (underwater manidoog), are also doo-
demag. In Anishinaabe worldview, these beings are accorded the same

54 Warren, History, 44. Warren uses the word “blessing” to describe the gift of the
“totemic divisions.”
potentiality for personhood as other flora and fauna. Collectively, then,

all doodemag are drawn from Anishinaabe cosmology and Anishi-
naabe understandings of the world.
Anishinaabe doodemag are a small set of all life in the Great Lakes
region, but they share common qualities that are metaphorically pro-
ductive in terms of Anishinaabe cultural values. These metaphors, in
turn, illuminate the political and social significance of each doodem
and, in short, their relevance to law and governance. Doodem images
functioned as a visual metaphor for Anishinaabe readers that were
connected to a much larger set of cultural knowledge and allegorical
associations. Doodem pictographs evoked additional, and often bi-
directional, associations between the person and his or her doodem
identity, further connecting that person to the larger Anishinaabe cor-
pus of narratives featuring their doodem being. At the most basic level,
these associations could refer to physical characteristics or shared
behavioural qualities. The concept of an inheritable, shared doodem
soul provided a descent-based explanation for common physical char-
acteristics among people with the same doodem. Anishinaabe peoples
understood that related people had similar appearances; they extended
that logic to include a physical resemblance to their other-than-human
ancestors. According to Perrot, the late seventeenth-century French
fur trader, the Anishinabek suspected that the French, because of their
beards, were related to the Bear family.55 Nearly two centuries later,
William Warren personally observed that members of the Bear doo-
dem are “possessed of a long, thick coarse head of the blackest hair,
which seldom becomes thin or white in old age.” He also remarked
that all those of who had various fish as doodemag were “physically
noted for being long lived, and for the scantiness and fineness of their
hair, especially in old age; if you see an old Indian of this tribe with a
bald head, you may be certain that he is A-waus-e.”56 People felt that
the soul of the doodem had agency over the individual and that it had
the potential to shape one’s physical form.
Several sources indicate how doodem as metaphor could also shape
the trajectory of individual lives. Warren describes how the leadership
role in councils that was undertaken by members of the Loon doodem
was visually reinforced by the fact that the common loon has markings

56 Warren and Neill, History, 43, 49.
around its neck, resembling the wampum shell collars that leaders wore
to indicate their status and political role.57 Anishinabek of the Loon
doodem, then, could expect to step into leadership roles. As Anishi-
naabe teacher Basil Johnston explains in his 1976 Ojibway Heritage, “as
these animals were endowed with certain traits of character, so did the
Anishinabek endeavour to emulate that character, and make it part of
themselves. Each animal symbolized an ideal to be sought, attained,
and perpetuated.”58 While the Jesuits and other Catholic missionaries
might look to the lives of saints, for example, the Anishinabek sought
(and seek) the teaching and wisdom of the elder animals, through par-
able and metaphor, to guide them.59
People drew metaphors for leadership from doodem beings of all
sizes and shapes. While the strength and size of an animal like the
bear or eagle makes each seem an obvious choice to produce meta-
phors for leadership, smaller animals are also doodem beings and
served similar purposes. The northern clear water crayfish, the most
common species in the Great Lakes, is an assertive defender of its
territory; the few doodem images I have of this species show it rais-
ing its claws to attack or defend.60 The small muskrat plays a central
role in the earth diver narrative in the creation story as the being who
successfully returns a grain of sand to Michabous/Nanabozhoo so
that he can fashion the earth. Consequently, as Basil Johnson points
out, the muskrat “possesses and reflects” the quality of endurance,
as do those who share that doodem. All doodem beings have dif-
ferent qualities connected with leadership characteristics: Johnston
also notes that cranes have “eloquence for leadership,” white-headed
eagles have “foresight,” bears “strength and courage,” caribou “grace
and watchfulness,” pike “swiftness and eloquence,” and catfish
“breath and scope.”61
Warren ascribes similar qualities to the five original doodemag,
commenting on the strength of the Bears but also of their fondness for
fighting, and the leadership qualities of the Crane and Loon because
of their strong voices. Another contemporary Anishinaabe traditional
57 Ibid.
59 Ibid., 46.
60 Page, “Crayfishes and Shrimps.”
61 Basil Johnston, Ojibway Heritage, 53.
teacher, Edward Benton-Banai, explains in his 1979 book The Mishomis

Book: The Voice of the Ojibway the distinctions between each doodem in
terms of roles, in that “each of these clans was given a function to serve
for the people.”62 Johnston, Warren, and Benton-Banai all describe
doodemag serving as potent metaphors that can shape individual
character and life choices of people, while also connecting through
doodem identity to specific political roles and to places. This idea that
one’s doodem shaped one’s physical form as well as one’s character is
evident in sources dating from the seventeenth century to the present
day. And all of the beings discussed here appear as doodem images
on Great Lakes treaties that were signed on documents beginning in
1671, providing a continuous chain of evidence of the importance of
doodem to law and governance and the role of doodem in shaping
how people defined their roles and responsibilities within councils
and communities.
Basil Johnston provides some further insight into how doodemag and
their connection to other-than-human beings are reflected in Anishi-
naabe worldview. He explains how human beings are dependent upon
animal beings – their kin, or “elder brothers” – in three fundamental
ways: first, and most obviously, physically, as these other-than-human
beings fed Anishinaabe people with their bodies, and second, provided
them with tools and clothing from their skins and bones. But there was
another equally, if not more, important level of dependence: “for knowl-
edge of the world, life and himself.”63 As Johnston explains, “There is in
animals a unique capacity to sense the changes of the world, the alter-
nation of the seasons, and the coming state of things. Man does not have
the preknowledge possessed by bluebird or trout, or squirrel. For man
to prepare, he looked to his elder brothers.” And by this Johnston meant
that the Anishinabek should look to what Western Europeans would
call the animal world. As Johnston explains, because of their impor-
tance, because of humanity’s dependence upon them, and because
62 Warren and Neill, History, 49: “It is a general saying, and an observable fact,
amongst their fellows, that the bear clan resemble the animal that forms their Totem
in disposition. They are ill-tempered and fond of fighting, and consequently they are
noted as ever having kept the tribe in difficulty and war with other tribes, in which,
however, they have generally been the principal and foremost actors”; Benton-Banai,
Mishomis Book, 74.
63 Basil Johnston, Ojibway Heritage, 52.
humans needed these other-than-human beings to sacrifice themselves

so that they might live, “the Anishinaabe included them in almost all of
their stories.”64 As Basil Johnston’s discussion suggests, some of these
beings were particularly productive in terms of metaphor; they all have
in common, as doodemag, some quality or qualities that resonated with
the Anishinabek.
Today, many continue to assert that doodem identities have particu-
lar social roles to fulfil because of the behavioural characteristics they
share with their doodem namesake. Thus, people with the Bear doo-
dem are described as protectors and are likely to take up occupations in
policing, the military, and healing. Cranes and Loons are still regarded
in many communities as most likely to work in politics or leadership,
while people of the Marten doodem are particularly noted for their
work in mediation. Those having fish doodemag, identities associated
with wisdom and learning, are more likely to seek careers in teaching.
A member of the Sturgeon doodem, when a newly elected chief of his
First Nation, enumerated to me the many members of his Sturgeon doo-
dem kin who all work in the education sector – logical career choices,
given the connection between fish doodemag, teaching, learning, and
wisdom.65
These comparatively more recent sources suggest that the relation-
ship between humans and their doodem identities was and is limited
to metaphor. When these nineteenth- and twentieth-century authors
explain that people of the Pike doodem are like fish because they have
little body hair and that people of the Bear doodem are like bears in
that they have much body hair, they are employing metaphor. But
older sources, and some oral traditions that survive today, indicate
that people clearly understood these connections in terms of shared
souls and also saw the possibility of metamorphosis from one physical
form to another. One constant theme in Anishinaabe oral traditions is
the ability for people to move between human and non-human forms.
Doodem images support this insight: some writers, particularly those
of the Crane and Caribou doodemag, drew track marks to indicate
their doodem identities. After all, that is one important way in which
64 Ibid., 56.
65 Benton-Banai, Mishomis Book, 77; Basil Johnston, Ojibway Heritage, 59–61. On the
Sturgeon doodem: Reg Niaganobe, Ogimaa, Misissauga First Nation, Blind River,
Ontario, personal communication, fall 2011.
Table 2 Basil Johnston’s chart of doodemag organized by social/governance function
Leadership Defence Sustenance Learning Medicine

Chejauk Noka Waubizhaezh Mizi Makinauk
(Crane) (Bear) (Marten) (Catfish) (Turtle)
Wawa Myeengun Amik Kinozhae Negik
(Goose) (Wolf) (Beaver) (Pike) (Otter)
Mong Pizheu Moozo Numaebin Medawaewae
(Loon) (Lynx) (Moose) (Sucker) (Rattle snake)
Kaihaik Addick Numae Muzundumo
(Hawk) (Caribou) (Sturgeon) (Black Snake)
Peepeegizaence Wawashkaesh Addikmeg Mukukee
(Sparrow Hawk) (Deer) (Whitefish) (Frog)
Migizi (White- Wuzhushk Nebaunaube
headed Eagle) (Muskrat) (Merman) or
Kineu (Black- Nebaunaubequae
headed Eagle) (Mermaid)
Makataezheeb
(Brant)
Kayaushk (Seagull)
Source: Johnston, Ojibway Heritage, 60.
a caribou or a crane leaves behind an impression of itself. These state-

ments of shared physicality express the Anishinaabe idea that the
same ensouled being could inhabit different physical forms. These
ideas continued to be expressed in the twentieth century; despite
the impact of colonialism, missionization pressures, and residential
schools, this worldview has survived. For example, the artist Selwyn
Dewdney, who researched Anishinaabe midewiwin scrolls in the 1960s,
was told by those he interviewed that they were aware when their
doodem was hunted or fished, because they themselves were that
being.66 This understanding also explains some taboos that existed
against hunting or eating other-than-human beings who shared one’s
doodem identity.
66 Dewdney, Sacred Scrolls, 30.

The potential for metamorphosis in Anishinaabe culture also existed

in another, more destructive context: that of wiindigoog. A wiindigoo is a
wild and dangerous being that travels alone and feasts on the unwary.
People could become windigoog under certain conditions, and they
presented a grave danger to the community.67 In one narrative told
by Elder Maude Kegg (1904–96), titled “When Aazhawakiwenzhiinh
Almost Became a Windigo,” she explains the connection between a per-
son’s doodem and the cannibal actions of a wiindigoo as follows: “he
who is a windigo sees the other Indians as their totems. He sees
anybody who has a Bear for his totem as a bear, and so he kills and
eats him, and so with someone who has the Deer as his totem. If anyone
has a Beaver as his totem, that’s how he sees him and so he kills and eats
him.”68 Kegg’s account explains the violation of a taboo act in terms of
the wiindigoo’s vision: a wiindigoo commits a horrible act because they
see the doodem soul and not the human person.
The physical connection between the Anishinabek and their doo-
demag was reinforced even further when people wore materials
or marks on their bodies that proclaimed their identity. There is a
remarkable continuity between descriptions of this practice from
seventeenth-century sources through to the twentieth century. Louis
Nicolas, observing in the second half of the seventeenth century,
noted the eldest member of the Hare doodem was “always dressed
or wrapped in the manner of the natives in a robe of the skin of hares,
which had to be killed during the time of snows so that these rare
skins would be all white, and so that this illustrious elder descended
from the great hare god would always wear the livery and the colour
of this divinity.”69 Nearly two centuries later, Peter Jones wore a coat
that had his Eagle doodem embroidered on the lapel at his audience
with Queen Victoria in 1844.70 Even into the twentieth century, people
67 Basil Johnston explains that wiindigoos were invoked or discussed as punishment for
excess: greed, gluttony, coveting, etc. See Johnston, Ojibway Heritage, 165–7; see also
John Borrows, “Windigos,” in Drawing Out Law, 216–27.
68 Kegg and Nichols, “When Aazhawakiwenzhiinh Almost Became a Windigo.” My
thanks to Alan Corbiere for bringing this source to my attention.
69 Nicolas, Codex Canadensis, 313.
70 Willmott, “Clothed Encounters,” 477.
used both materials and symbols to communicate doodem identity.71

It continues today, as people wear sometimes large and sometimes
small images or material references to their doodem identities on
dance regalia at powwows and in other formal settings such as
present-day council meetings.
Doodemag as a System of Categories
While the doodem tradition connects people to their history and to each
other as relatives, it is very much also a framework for thinking with
and for organizing and making sense of the world. It provides a system
of categories. Categories matter: they are “the building blocks in the cre-
ation of knowledge and in the application of knowledge to situations.”
To understand how and why people took the actions that they did
across different periods, it is critical that we understand each culture’s
fundamental categories and how people of those cultures used those
categories. For the Anishinabek, race, class, and social rank were far
less relevant than doodem.72 While it appears simplest to describe the
doodem tradition as a kinship category, it is more accurate to describe it
a “system of categories.” Specific doodem such as Bear and Beaver are
categories within the main set of doodemag in the same way in which
71 Jenness observed that “otter people worked an otter in beadwork on the front
of the coat, and the loon people attached the head of a loon.” Jenness, Ojibwa
Indians of Parry Island, 8. The practice has continued in more recent years: as
young girl growing up on the Bruce Peninsula, Professor Darlene Johnston’s
grandmother explained that her winter moccasins were dressed with otter
fur because she was Otter doodem: “I was sitting at Grammie’s round, claw-
legged, table that was always covered with the white hand-crocheted cloth. She
passed to me the most beautiful pair of moccasins, the ones that reach nearly
to the knee. They were beaded, but it’s not the beadwork that I remember. I
was drawn to the dark, silky fur that trimmed the top. I remember asking her
what kind of fur it was. She told me it was Otter. I probably asked her why,
because the next thing I remember her saying was that she was Otter clan … She
said that she was Otter because her Father was Otter and her Father’s Father
before him and her Father’s Father before him; that her father had been the last
in a long line of hereditary chiefs from the Otter clan.” Johnston, “Litigating
Identity,” 45.
72 Shoemaker, “Categories,” 51.
“male” and “female” are categories within the larger set of categories
that is gender.73
Kinship is a significant emic, or insider-based, category; so, for the
Anishinabek, being Crane was and is a distinct category from being
Loon. Historians have become increasingly aware of how kinship is
a potent source of metaphors for defining political relationships in
North American Indigenous societies. This awareness is crucial for
understanding how Indigenous allies understood their relationships
with each other and how these metaphors structured the practices of
Indigenous-European diplomacy.74 Such awareness is also important
for understanding how the Anishinabek negotiated the experiences
of encounter, missionization, and colonization from within their own
worldview. The doodem tradition embodied a system of categories that
had both social and political meaning – in the way that race, class, and
gender continue to be socially and culturally significant in the world
today. The doodem tradition is a set of categories embedded in Anishi-
naabe epistemology.
Like so many concepts used in ethnohistorical research, the problem
with kinship as a category of analysis is that it can carry a great deal of
unconscious baggage. We think we know what kinship means because
all human beings, regardless of culture, find their lives shaped by kin
and kin ties; as a result, we have a tendency to apply our own under-
standing of that category to the people or culture under study. But kin-
ship as a category of analysis requires an understanding of how kinship
operates in the culture in question. Within each cultural tradition, it
is vital to consider how declarations of relatedness and belonging are
made and how these have changed or remained consistent over time. It
is certainly customary today for people to name their doodem first when
introducing themselves and then to say the community where they
are from. Historically, when people were wintering in small, extended
73 Ibid., 56.
74 The study of the way in which Anishinaabe peoples deployed kinship over time is a
type of nonevent history. See Fogelson, “Ethnohistory of Events and Nonevents,” 36.
For important studies of kinship, see, especially, Brooks, Captives and Cousins; Brown
and Peers, “There Is No End to Relationship”; Cook, “Onontio Gives Birth”; Nash,
“Abiding Frontier”; Thorne, Many Hands of My Relations; Van Kirk, Many Tender Ties.
For gender as a source of political metaphors, see Shoemaker, “Alliance between
Men.”
family groups, that place would have been the site of their common or
local council, such as Bawaating, Mnjikaning, or Bkejwanong, where
they would have gathered in the spring and fall, or the site of their sum-
mer base camp. By naming both doodem and place, speakers situated
themselves in the web of their relations. They identified both the node
of place and the lines of relatedness connecting them to their doodem
kin.75 Doodem in one’s daily life operated as a set of categories that gave
people a network of family in all four directions.
75 Kinship studies, once a cornerstone of anthropological fieldwork, nearly died in

the 1970s when David Schneider declared kinship to be an artificial construct of
anthropology, not a fact of human existence. Kinship studies have rebounded,
however, as the next generation of anthropologists, freed from the strictures of
biology and descent-based systems, were able to consider how human beings
constructed themselves as related to others. This has proven to be a most useful
line of inquiry. See Peter Schweitzer’s overview of kinship studies in Dividends of
Kinship, 2–5.
2
Family in All Four Directions
All those who are of the same mark or totem [doodem] consider themselves as
relations, even if they or their forefathers never had any connexion with each
other, or had seen one another before. When two strangers meet and ﬁnd them-
selves to be of the same mark, they immediately begin to trace their genealogy,
at which they even beat my countrymen, the Highlanders.
– Duncan Cameron, 18011
In 1801, Scottish fur trader Duncan Cameron published his memoirs on

his life as a fur trader working among Anishinaabe council fires in the
western Great Lakes. Cameron started his career as a clerk in 1785, at the
age of twenty-one, and he spent much of his time in the Lake Nipigon
area. There he married an Anishinaabe woman of the Loon doodem;
together they had children and raised their family.2 She welcomed him
into the world of Anishinaaabe family relations and taught him what
1 Cameron, “Nipigon Country, 1801,” 247. My thanks to Sylvia van Kirk for bringing
this source to my attention.
2 Cameron’s experience was shared by many other French, English, and Scottish fur
traders when they married into Anishinaabe and other Indigenous families. See
especially Van Kirk, Many Tender Ties; Brown, Strangers in Blood. For a biography
of Duncan Cameron, see Brown, “Cameron, Duncan.” For more on the enduring
Anishinaabe family, see Brown and Peers, “There Is No End to Relationship.”
Family in All Four Directions 71
the obligations and reciprocal responsibilities of Anishinaabe bonds of

kinship meant – to ancestors and descendants and to those kin
now living – to one’s own doodem kin and the doodem kin of one’s
spouse. She showed him the difference between the clan system of the
Highland Scots and the doodem tradition of the Anishinabek. In the
latter, each Anishinaabe person exists at the centre of four lines extend-
ing in the four directions: The vertical lines represent the generations of
one’s ancestors and descendants, while the horizontal lines extending
perpendicular to the vertical represent the expansive network of kin in
the present – through one’s doodem and through the doodem of one’s
mother or spouse.3 Cameron married a woman of a prominent and large
family; a later census from 1850 shows sixty-nine members of the Loon
doodem at Lake Nipigon, only behind the Moose and Catfish doodem
in size.4 Other doodemag at Lake Nipigon included Caribou, King-
fisher, and Bear. Cameron would therefore have a connection through
marriage to his wife’s Loon doodem father, uncles, brothers and sisters,
and nieces and nephews. He also would have kin connections through
the doodem of his wife’s mother as well, as each Anishinaabe person
was (and is today) suspended in a web of kin.
Alliances of marriage partners were lived both physically and meta-
phorically around the fire, in this case the fire of the wigiwaam, or family
dwelling. The alliances they made were reinforced through the recipro-
cal work of caring for and raising children and taking care of the elders.
Anishinaabe mothers modelled the reciprocal duties of treaty partners
in the care of their children from the time of their birth. In Anishinaabe
teachings around parenting and the mother–child bond, the quality of
that bond must not be taken for granted. In order for the relationship
to be successful, the relationship must be balanced, in that both parties
(mother and child) must have their needs met. And in order for this to
happen, other family members outside the mother-child pair must help
to maintain the relationship.5
3 Cory Willmott calls ties made between doodem through marriage lateral alliances.
“Clothed Encounters,” 95.
4 Census of Population of Lake Nipigon, 1 June 1850, LAC RG10, Vol. 1728: 2.
5 Anishinaabe writer and poet Leanne Betasamosake Simpson calls breastfeeding “the
very first treaty.” At the time of her first child’s birth, Simpson recalls Anishinaabe
Elder Edna Manatowabi’s teaching that “breastfeeding is where our children learn
about treaties, the relationships they encode and how to maintain good treaty
relationships.” Simpson, Dancing On Our Turtle’s Back, 106–8.
From such beginnings, children were educated in knowledge of the

work required to maintain larger political relationships, as the funda-
mental principal of reciprocity shaped all alliances, large and small. In
other words, the principles and practices that shaped Anishinaabe legal
traditions around governance through alliance were grounded in the
principles and practices that guided everyday family life in the pursuit
of mino-bimaadiziwin. This phrase means both life itself and the rules
for proper conduct – to live well, to achieve mino-bimaadiziwin, is to
fulfil one’s obligations to all one’s relations, in all four directions.6 By
exploring the four directions of Anishinaabe families – through ances-
tors and caring for the deceased, with descendants and through alli-
ances forged between marriage partners – this chapter demonstrates
how doodem was a central organizing principle of Anishinaabe life,
connected to the idea of mino-bimaadiziwin. The reciprocal obligations
of families united through doodem and alliance created the founda-
tional constructs for Anishinaabe governance. When an Anishinaabe
person married a non-Anishinaabe partner, the council fire could adopt
the new spouse into a doodem to ensure that they too could participate
fully in Anishinaabe society. When Anishinaabe council fires entered
into alliance relationships with non-Anishinaabe peoples, marriages
not only served to strengthen the alliance but also ensured that the next
generation understood their treaty obligations to each other, to their
doodem beings, and to the other ensouled beings that comprised the
life-world of the Great Lakes region.
Descendants
When children were born, the long-standing cultural practice was that
they typically inherited the doodem of their fathers.7 The traditional
kinship terms in Anishinaabemowin provide evidence of the patrilineal
descent of doodem identity, as there are separate terms for parallel and
6 As Michael Angel explains in his glossary, bimaadiziwin means life, but more
specifically “a long, productive and healthy life – the goal of all Anishinaabeg.”
Preserving the Sacred, 231.
7 As Anton Treuer points out: “Throughout Ojibwe country, I have never encountered a
knowledgeable elder, a reliable archival reference, or a tradition that claims patrilineal
clan inheritance alters with introduction of a non-Indian father.” Assassination of Hole
in the Day, 18.
cross cousins.8 Instead of using a generic equivalent such as “uncle”

to address either their father’s or their mother’s brothers, Anishi-
naabemowin speakers historically called their father’s brothers by one
distinct term (ninmishoomenh) and their mother’s brothers by another
(ninzhisbhenh). Each person shared a doodem with their father’s broth-
ers and sisters but had a different doodem than their mother’s brothers
and sisters.9
The archival record, too, supports the idea that Anishinaabe doo-
demag historically followed the father’s line, back in time from one
father to another, to the First Being who shared the doodem. In all
of the genealogies that I studied of Anishinaabe signatories to Great
Lakes treaties made with British and American colonial officials from
the 1760s to the 1860s, the pictorial evidence from the doodem images
consistently demonstrate that the principle of patrilineal inheritance
was widely upheld. This is not to say that other methods of inheri-
tance are not valid. There are people today who know that their spe-
cific doodem came through the mother’s line or through fasting and
visions. There are also examples, especially beginning in the late nine-
teenth century, of doodemag acquired through ceremony.10 Inheri-
tance from the father’s line is such an important basic principle there
have been some contemporary statements that the right to call oneself
Anishinaabe is only inheritable through the father’s line and that those
without Anishinaabe fathers are not Anishinabek.11 However, not all
Anishinabek agreed with or followed this practice. More specifically,
people did not interpret “through the father’s line” to mean through
genetic inheritance. As I demonstrated in Chapter 1, blood is not an
Anishinaabe metaphor for defining belonging. As this chapter will
show, communities used a range of practices to ensure that children
of Anishinaabe mothers and non-Anishinaabe fathers could still have
their doodem soul, be part of Anishinaabe communities, and take up
8 As Anishinaabemowin linguist Rand Valentine has noted: “Historically, the

Anishinaabe kinship system fundamentally distinguished between parallel and
cross-cousins of aunts, uncles and cousins.” Nishnaabemwin Reference Grammar, 108.
9 Ibid., 110–11.
10 See Willmott, “Anishinaabe Doodem Pictographs.” However, I feel the evidence
overwhelmingly supports patrilineal inheritance of the doodem among the
Anishinabek in the nineteenth century and earlier.
11 Wub-e-ke-niew, We Have the Right to Exist.
their responsibilities in governance to all of their relations. These strate-

gies included adoption into the doodem of one’s mother and maternal
grandfather, specific “adopting” doodemag, naming ceremonies, and
the inclusion of new doodemag from other cultural traditions.
Ancestors
Given the expression of relatedness through the idea of shared souls,

Anishinaabe peoples also placed, and continue to place, great signifi-
cance on the maintenance of ongoing relationships with the deceased; as
these relationships were integral to historic Anishinaabe conceptions of
kinship and collective identity. As legal historian Darlene Johnston has
so persuasively argued, Anishinaabe views of death, souls, reincarna-
tion, and the obligations of the living toward the dead are a critical com-
ponent of legal and political history.12 The complex beliefs surrounding
souls and burial locations play a significant part in any understanding
as to why specific landscapes have such a deep pull on people having
that associated doodem. Historic events could push some people out
from the lands they called home for some time, but people continued to
express their desire to return and to return the bones of their deceased
to the land of their birth. As discussed in Chapter 1, the desire to repatri-
ate remains was connected to the idea of the doodem soul.
The Jesuit Relations contain many examples of how Anishinaabe and
other Indigenous peoples cared for the dead and returned them home
for burial. In the spring of 1637, the bodies of seventy Anishinabek
from Lake Nipissing (sometimes called the Nipissings), who had fallen
ill and died while they were overwintering near a Wendat commu-
nity on the Penetanguishene peninsula, were all carried home in seven
canoes for burial, rather than being interred where they died. The Jesu-
its observed that these Nipissings had “embarked to return to their
own country” with their deceased.13 The paddlers were from the same
council fire that hosted the late summer gathering in 1642 that opened
this book. More than a century later, the French military engineer
Pierre Pouchot noted in his observations of the Seven Years’ War that
if a man died while hunting, “even if it has been three or four months
they will disinter him and carry him in their canoes to bury him in their
12 Darlene Johnston, “Litigating Identity,” 72; Connecting People to Place.

13 le Mercier, “Relation of 1637,” in Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 14:37.
village.”14 The living needed to care for their dead relations; part of that
care required people to return the dead home for burial to the coun-
try of their birth. Allowing bodies to decompose on platforms above
ground, at least initially, enabled the soul that remained with the body
to have the freedom to come and go as it wished. Once the bones had
lost their flesh, people could then bundle the bones to return them to
the place of the person’s birth. By so doing, the soul of the nation could
be properly recycled and passed on to subsequent generations. In the
nineteenth century, the increased use of coffins and burial “six feet
under” required the adaptation of Anishinaabe internment practices:
when using a coffin, the lid would not be nailed down or instead holes
would be drilled in the top of the coffin to allow the body-soul to leave
and then return to the body.15 Even as burial practices changed, the
Anishinabek continued to have ongoing relations with their deceased.
Their bones or, more properly, the soul of the nation housed within
them, had agency and even personhood. In the 1920s, on Parry Island
in Georgian Bay, the Anishinaabe community there considered digging
up a grave to recover a medal that had been buried with a relative at
Shawanaga. They consulted with a traditional medicine expert, who
recommended that the medal be replaced with another offering (in this
case, a mirror) “to avoid the shadow’s displeasure.”16 These complex
beliefs provided powerful motivation; the needs of the dead shaped
the actions of the living.
Anishinaabe ancestors were also remembered and formed part of
the ongoing social world of the living. As Duncan Cameron noted
(quoted earlier in this chapter) he was deeply impressed by the ability
of people to remember detailed genealogies and to know more ances-
tors than his own Scottish Highlanders, a fact he found remarkable.17
In mid and late-nineteenth-century petitions presented to colonial
officials in Upper Canada, Anishinaabe leaders provided impressive
eight- and ten-generation genealogies to underscore the legitimacy
of their political position.18 In 1843, the Deputy Superintendent of
14 Pouchot, Memoir, 2:231–2. My thanks to Darlene Johnston for bringing this source to
my attention.
15 Darlene Johnston, “Litigating Identity,” 90–1.
16 Jenness, Ojibwa Indians of Parry Island, 107–8.
17 Cameron, “The Nipigon Country, 1801,” 247.
18 Petition to The Honourable E. Dewdney, Supt. General of Indian Affairs, 4 April
1892, LAC RG10, Vol. 2568, file 125851, p. 1; my thanks to Reg Good for bringing this
Indian Affairs for Canada, Samuel Jarvis, received one such petition
from Thomas Shilling on Snake Island in Lake Simcoe, listing both the
genealogy of his own family and that of the current ogimaa, William
Yellowhead. Both were Caribou doodem, but Shilling explained that
it was his ancestor (his fourth-great grandfather) Nekike who was
the first ogimaa at Lake Simcoe, having come from the Mississaugas
on the north shore of Lake “before the war with the Mohawks”; that
his third great-grandfather Oskabewis, a war chief, led the attacks on
the Mohawk and defeated them; and that Oskabewis’s son Mindame-
ness made peace with the Mohawk – all events of the seventeenth
century. Shilling’s remarkable listing of two lineages in chronologi-
cal order along with historical markers is documented evidence of
what Duncan Cameron observed. Cary Miller also found that Anishi-
naabe leaders in the western Great Lakes also anchored their claims
to leadership and to responsibility over land through genealogies of
their lineage.19 William Warren reported that the great ogimaa Tug-
waug-aun-ay kept a “circular plate of virgin copper” on which was
marked “the number of generations of the family who have passed
away since they first pitched their lodges at Shaug-a-waum-i-kong
[Chequamagon Bay].”20 Warren observed eight marks for the eight
ancestors who had died since Chequamagon’s council fire was first
established and five since the people at Chequamagon had first met
Europeans.
When people were displaced or dislocated from the land of their
ancestors, they expressed their intention to remain with or to be
reunited with their deceased family members. Colonial records contain
evidence of these desires; in 1642, an eighty-year-old Anishinaabe Elder
told the Jesuit Jérôme Lalemant that his family had once inhabited the
island of Montreal, in the mid-sixteenth century, but that they had been
driven away by the Wendat. The Elder told Lalemant that he wished to
return to the island of Montreal “to be buried in it, near my ancestors.”
petition to my attention. Another family genealogy is in a petition by the Shilling

family to re-establish their claim to the office of ogimaa: see Shilling to Jarvis, 9
May 1843, Office of the Chief Superintendent in Upper Canada, Samuel Peters
Jarvis – Correspondence (S to T), Department of Indian Affairs, LAC, RG10, Vol. 138:
78951–3. My thanks to Darlene Johnston for introducing me to this source.
Lalemant heard similar wishes from other Anishinabek in the Montreal

area.21 In 1721, the Jesuit Pierre-François-Xavier de Charlevoix observed
that the Anishinabek living at Trois Rivières refused to relocate to Chi-
coutimi, where other “Algonquins” were; the reason they gave was that
“they could not resolve to quit a place where the bones of their ances-
tors rested.”22 In a later letter, Charlevoix explained that their “tombs
are held to be sacred.”23
More than two centuries later, in 1936, American anthropolo-
gist Charles Wisdom was dispatched to the Great Lakes region by
the Office of Indian Affairs to find out why the Chippewa people
in Minnesota and Wisconsin were so unwilling to relocate, despite
cash incentives and other economic benefits for doing so. Wisdom
noted that “they, or many of them, will not move merely because
the new land has obviously greater economic value, for the simple
reason that it has no emotional value for them. Their dead are buried
in the old habitat; it is the birthplace of themselves and their ances-
tors; and a thousand emotional ties bind them to it.”24 For centuries,
long-standing cultural protocols required that the dead not be left
behind because of the deep meaning and attachment to place in the
Anishinaabe world and the ongoing kinship relationships that they
had with those who had died. People felt a deep sense of connection
to their deceased relatives, cared for the dead long after their depar-
ture, fed them by burning food in fires, and sheltered their graves
from the effects of the weather. Jesuit missionaries nodded approv-
ingly overall at their care of the dead but attributed to superstition
that which appeared to suggest that mortal remains had needs in
common with the living.25 Instead, the Anishinabek were including
their ancestors within their social world and were continuing to be in
relationship with them. Ongoing care of the dead was and remains an
expression of that relationship.

22 Charlevoix, Letters to the Duchess, 1:54. Charlevoix travelled through the Great Lakes
in 1721. For a biography see Hayne, “Pierre-François-Xavier de Charlevoix.”
24 Wisdom, “Report on the Great Lakes Chippewa,” 4.
25 Le Jeune, “Relation of 1634,” in Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 8:21–2; see also Le Jeune,
“Relation of 1633,” in Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 5:131 for descriptions of burning
food to feed the souls of the dead.
Marriage: Forging Alliances between Doodemag
Marriage relationships functioned as micro-alliances bringing different

doodemag together. Most often, an Anishinabekwe (-kwe is the female
suffix) married an Anishinaabe man, and the couple typically relocated
to live with the husband’s family after the birth of their first child. The
Jesuits observed this practice of patrilocality (of women living with their
husband’s families) among Anishinaabe communities early on, noting
in the 1630s that their “daughters have married with all the neighbour-
ing Nations … Your children live in the land of the Nipissiriniens, of the
Algonquins, of the Atikameques, of the people of the Sagne and in all
the other Nations.”26 Women made important social and political con-
nections by marrying men from other doodemag, sometimes from quite
considerable distances away. Such marriages, spread out geographi-
cally, created the Anishinaabe political world. It meant that travellers
could then rely upon the hospitality of kin as they voyaged through
the region. War leaders and warriors could count on the support of
their spouse’s relatives as allies. For example, the decision of the Sinago
Ottawa to relocate west of Lake Michigan around 1650 was grounded in
these sorts of kinship relationships. Chief Sinagos’s wife was the sister
of the chief of the Sakis. In 1665, Chief Sinagos was able to raise a large
party to go to war against the Sioux by calling on his brother-in-law,
while his brother-in-law in turned reached out to the Sakis’ allies, the
Potawatomis and Renards [Fox].27 As one 1736 French report on the
number of allied peoples in the Great Lakes noted, “all the Northern
Nations have this in common; that a man who goes to war denotes
himself as much by the device [doodem] of his wife’s tribe as by that
of his own, and never marries a woman who carries a similar device to
his.”28 Such doodem ties created a thick web of relationships, multiplied
access to support, and were historically important for providing allies
in times of conflict.
In contrast to the automatic kinship ties that existed because of
a shared doodem soul, bonds of alliance that included marriage ties
were not automatic. Marriages, like all alliance relationships, had to
26 Le Jeune, “Relation of 1636,” in Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 9:219.

28 Dénombrement des nations sauvages, 1736. ANF, fondes des colonies, S&ie C11A,
vol. 66, fol. 236–256v.
be requested, arranged, and maintained between people, their fami-

lies, and the council fires to which they belonged. Such relationships
required additional effort but they were crucial. Marriages created the
foundational alliances that connected council fires. At one level, the
practice of women marrying outside their natal family, coupled with
the principle of doodem exogamy, meant that families had kin spread
out over large geographic areas. But, examined in a different way,
these marriage practices created communities that were interlinked
by multiple kin ties and could be quite insular. Anthropologists call
the practice of marrying within one’s family “endogeny.” Anishinaabe
kinship practices were historically both exogamous and endogenous.
Since cross-cousins were seen not only as potential but as ideal mar-
riage partners, sisters who had married men with different doodemag
could arrange matches between their children.29 In Western kin prac-
tices, such marriages would be between first cousins. Beloved nieces
and nephews could thus become “in-laws,” reducing potential strain
on close-knit family groups by having an “insider” step into the social
spot reserved for an “outsider” – that of spouse. One can easily envision
the conversations of grandmothers at gatherings conferring on which of
their respective grandchildren would be good matches and how those
matches would serve to strengthen the community.30 Since women had
connections in both their birth community and the community into
which they married, they were well-placed to give advice on the types
of connections that would strengthen the alliances between council
fires, as such alliances kept the regional (general) council functioning
well. The preference for cross-cousins as marriage partners remained
well into the twentieth century in some places. When anthropologist
Irving Hallowell “asked his principal Ojibwa consultant, Chief Wil-
liam Berens, if a man could marry a woman he called ninam [niinim,
or “cross-cousin”], Berens gave a straightforward response: ‘Who the
hell else would he marry?’”31 Intimate preferences like these reinforced
29 Hallowell, Contributions to Anthropology, 8.

30 Elder Lewis Debassige of M’Chigeeng First Nation has told me that this practice
continued well through the nineteenth and into the twentieth century on Manitoulin
Island, where he was born. He describes the practice as more of “suggestions” than a
system where marriages were formally arranged, but a wise person knew to listen to
the good advice of Nokomis.
31 Hallowell, Contributions to Anthropology, 8; Peers and Brown, “There Is No End to
Relationship,” 533.
the ties between particular doodemag over the generations. Making

and supporting marriages between young people was crucial politi-
cal work, undertaken primarily by grandmothers and especially those
“principal women” who would have comprised the leadership of the
women’s council.
The central importance of marriage as an alliance-making institution
is evident in the rules around who and when one could marry. Since
the principle of doodem exogamy was essential to the integrity of the
political tradition, it was reinforced by an incest taboo against marry-
ing someone with the same doodem. However, the evidence of social
shaming for those who violated the social norm suggests that violations
did occur from time to time. As Duncan Cameron noted, those with the
same doodem “do sometimes marry, but it is against the will of the par-
ents, and they are greatly despised by the others for it.”32 There was also
flexibility around the question of when someone could remarry after
the loss of a spouse. Since the work of ogimaawag was so dependent
upon these alliance relationships, leaders could observe shorter periods
of mourning before they could remarry than the general population (six
months, instead of one or two years).33
The demands of hosting and travelling also meant that sometime
polygamy was permissible. Ogimaawag could have more than one
spouse to handle the additional responsibilities of hosting and gift-
giving that they were obligated to perform as firekeepers. As Nicolas
Perrot recorded in his memoirs of his late seventeenth-century Great
Lakes fur trading career, ogimaawag were dependent upon the work
of their wives. He wrote that they could not “get along without women
to serve them, and to cultivate the lands which produce their tobacco
and all that is necessary for them to be prepared to receive those who
come to visit them.”34 Perrot interpreted the work women did through
a seventeenth-century French lens and imagines Anishinaabe women
as servants for their spouses. But as this book will discuss in later
chapters, this “women’s work” and their participation on the women’s
council was integral to the cultivation and development of alliances.
From the preparation of gifts for allies to the care of sacred medicines
such as tobacco (essential to the pipe ceremonies of treaty-making),
32 Cameron, “The Nipigon Country, 1801,” 247.

34 Ibid.
women were actively engaged in the art of forming and maintaining

alliances.
Polygamy, in an Anishinaabe context, must therefore be read through
the lens of alliance-making. In the early eighteenth century, Father
Charlevoix also noted that polygamy was practiced among the Anishi-
nabek and that families preferred in these cases that sisters married one
man.35 More than a century and a half after Perrot’s and Charlevoix’s
observations, Peter Jones observed that polygamy was still being prac-
ticed among leading ogimaawag in what is now southern Ontario and
that sister marriage was preferred in these cases too. Jones reported
that the Credit River ogimaa Adjutant (also known as Captain Jim or
James Adjutant) had two wives. An 1818 census at the Credit River
shows Adjutant’s family consisting of three adult men (Adjutant and
two related men) and four adult women (most likely the wives of these
men). Likewise the noted Otter ogimaa Assance, from the Lake Simcoe
area, had three wives when he converted to Christianity in 1827.36 Peter
Jones, who knew Assance and Adjutant well, explained in his History
of the Ojebway Indians that ogimaawag preferred to marry sisters “from
the idea that they will be more likely to live together in peace, and that
the children of one would be loved and cared for by the other than
if the wives were not related.”37 Since these sisters shared the same doo-
dem, the bond between the two doodemag in this family was further
strengthened. Ogimaawag also took into their households those who
needed care, including widows with children, to ensure they were pro-
vided for, as this was part of their responsibility to their community.38
Polygamy here did not serve to subordinate women to male sexual
or reproductive needs but instead was used to meet the political and
social needs of all the members of the council fire, through supporting
alliance-making work and ensuring that everyone had someone to hunt
for them in the winter.
Doodem exogamy clearly is visible in the records that Peter Jones
kept of the Mississaugas of the Credit River beginning in 1826. In the

36 For a biography of Assance, see Sims, “ Exploring Ojibwe History.”
37 “Return of Indians Present ... at the River Credit,” 20 October 1818, Canada and
Lower Canada Requisitions, Estimates and Returns, LAC, RG 10 vol. 478:172548;
Jones, History, 81.
38 Lewis Debassige, personal communication.
register of converted Methodists he not only listed the Anishinaabe and

English names for each member of the congregation but also wrote the
doodem identities for nearly all of the eighty individuals on it. The fact
that this register gives the doodem identities of the female members
of the community makes this a rare and important document. A com-
parison of that list against the marriage and baptism records also kept
by Jones reveals that, of the twelve married couples I have been able
to identify conclusively, all but one couple were doodem exogamous.
Jones’s records also reveal particular patterns in choice of spouse, indi-
cating that at least some families were continuing to use the principle of
doodem exogamy to strengthen alliances between specific doodemag.
Jones’s register, while admittedly a very small sample, reveals that the
Eagle men on this list preferred to marry women of the Otter, Caribou,
and Birch Tree doodemag, prominent doodemag in the nearby council
fires of Rama and Rice Lake.39
Whether political alliances were made between council fires of
Anishinabek, or between Anishinaabe and other peoples, over time
these increasingly close relationships led to both marriage and, subse-
quently, children. For the Anishinabek, such marriages had the poten-
tial to challenge the doodem tradition if the father of the children was
non-Anishinaabe. A doodem identity was a necessity.40 This was true
whether the non-Anishinaabe father was European, Dakota, Wendat, or
Haudenosaunee. What the Anishinabek did was to work within their
own cultural tradition to find a distinct set of solutions to ensure that
the doodem tradition remained viable. These responses varied across
the region and were the product of local creativity. At present, I do not
have enough data to assess how consistently, and to what extent, each
of these methods was in use and where across the Great Lakes region.
However, the examples presented below do make a convincing case
for the importance to the Anishinabek of ensuring that children had
a doodem and for the various methods they used to do so when non-
Anishinaabe fathers were involved. Some of these solutions, in the
39 Register, including births, 1776–1881, marriages, 1831–1855 (predominantly

undated), deaths, 1840–1883, of the River Credit Indians; Record of Baptisms,
1802–1846 and Membership list of Methodist Society at the Upper Mohawk Grand
River, 1826; New Credit Methodist Indian Mission (Ontario) fonds, F1434, United
Church of Canada, Toronto.
40 Treuer, Assassination of Hole in the Day, 17.
end, also resulted in the appearance of new doodem identities within

Anishinaabe communities.
If a non-Anishinaabe father came from a society with an analogous tra-
dition of kinship networks, marriage could be a vehicle through which
a foreign identity became an Anishinaabe one. Siouan or Iroquoian-
speaking fathers, for example, could bring new identities from their own
cultural traditions into Anishinaabe communities and the tradition of
doodemag. The Kingfisher doodem came to be part of the Anishinaabe
world through marriage between an Anishinaabe woman and a Dakota
man in what is now Minnesota.41 Similarly, William Warren was told
how a chief of the Catfish doodem “died without male issue, and his
only daughter married a Dakota chief who belonged to the Wolf Clan of
his tribe.” During a lengthy interval of peace between the ongoing series
of wars with the Dakota, two sons were born, “who of course inher-
ited their father’s totem of the wolf. In this manner this badge became
grafted among the Ojibway list of clans.” Those belonging to the Wolf
doodem from the St. Croix and Mille Lac communities, Warren went on
to say, “are all descended from this intermarriage.”42
The identity exchange could also go the other way to serve politi-
cal and diplomatic purposes. Warren pointed out how the Merman, or
Water-Spirit doodem, is known among the Dakota through marriage
between Anishinaabe women of this doodem and Dakota men.43 There
is a significant and long history of Dakota–Anishinaabe conflict in
the western Great Lakes area, which was underway by the sixteenth
century (and lasted well into the nineteenth); these marriages and the
alliances they produced were part of a series of diplomatic initiatives
designed to keep the peace.44 The forging of kin relationships like these
41 Anton Treuer recorded this information from his interview with Elder Vernon
Whitefeather, who identified the marriage as having taken place in Ponemah,
Minnesota. This fact, Treuer notes, helps “to explain the prevalence of that clan
[kingfisher] at Red Lake and Turtle Mountain, as well as its scarcity east of Red
Lake.” Treuer, Assassination of Hole in the Day, 18–19; quotation on 231n26. Note that
a census of Lake Nipigon Anishinabek (north of Lake Superior) counted sixty-nine
members of the Kingfisher doodem. See Census of Population of Lake Nipigon,
1 June 1850, LAC RG10, Vol. 1728: 2.
43 Ibid., 43.
44 Michael Witgen discusses the long history of this conflict, and periods of peace, in
Infinity of Nations.
did not prevent outbreaks of violence between the Dakota and western
Anishinabek in the late 1730s, but it was, regardless, the mechanism that
people used throughout the region to help alliances last. At peace nego-
tiations and gatherings, those of the Merman and Wolf doodemag from
both Anishinaabe and Dakota sides would acknowledge one another as
kin on the grounds that, back in time, a Wolf leader from the Dakota had
married a woman of the Catfish doodem.45 In addition, Warren reports
that the Merman doodem is related to the Catfish, as they are both part
of A-waus-ee (awaasii), a larger grouping that includes both of these doo-
demag. Awaasii is a word in Anishinaabemowin that both refers to a
specific species (bullhead catfish) and a larger “taxonomic” category
that encompasses other inhabitants of the underwater world.
So when Anishinaabe women married French and English men,
they were not doing something radically new or marrying “outside,”
because all Anishinaabe marriages served the important political func-
tion of making connections between different people. In fact, this ques-
tion of what to do about non-Anishinaabe fathers existed long before
contact with Europeans and the marriages that resulted from the fur
trade. When the French first arrived in the Great Lakes region, they
found that Anishinaabe peoples were already intermarried with their
neighbours, including the Wendat. As Warren explain above, similar
marriages were occurring between the Anishinabek and Siouian-speaking
peoples like the Dakota. Following the Great Peace of Montreal in 1701,
French officials observed that Anishinaabe peoples living in eastern
Ontario also married people from the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Con-
federacy), their former enemies.46 As the French colonial official and
historian Claude-Charles Le Roy De La Potherie observed in volume
two of his 1722 Histoire de l’Amérique septentrionale: “they were mutually
bound to give their daughters in marriage on both sides. That was a
strong bond for the maintenance of entire harmony.”47 La Potherie also
noted that women married into allied nations across the region.48 French
observers described women as being “exchanged” when they described

46 Chief Robert Paudash, “Testimony of Chief Robert Paudash on the Coming of the
Mississauga,” 9–13.
47 Claude Charles Le Roy, Sieur de Bacqueville de la Potherie, “Histoire de l’Amérique
septentrionale,” in Blair, Indian Tribes, 2:277.
48 Ibid., 2:301.
these practice to support the maintenance of the alliance. Such language

suggests that women were pawns in this process and not active par-
ticipants in the maintenance of alliance relationships. Yet the evidence
that women, particularly grandmothers, were the primary arrangers of
marriages suggests otherwise. Clearly, Anishinaabe families had devel-
oped strategies to manage the implications of cross-cultural marriage
before French and English fur traders presented themselves as potential
spouses. Marriage was the key mechanism through which council fires
strengthened alliances with one another; when Europeans arrived in
the region, they were simply incorporated into existing cultural and
political practices.
Adoption into a Doodem
Adoption was an important means used to address the challenge of

having children of non-Anishinaabe fathers. This could be done by
adopting the non-Anishinaabe father into an Anishinaabe doodem or
by adopting the children themselves directly into the doodem. Anishi-
naabe adoption practices in which a person is made a full member of
the community are not the same as a ceremonial adoption (the equiva-
lent of honorary citizenship) or Western-style legal adoption, in which
the individual ceases to legally be the child of one set of parents and
instead becomes the descendant of another. A child born to any non-
Anishinaabe father would need to be adopted into a doodem – this was
as true of a child born to a Haudenosaunee father as a French or English
one. From the beginning of the fur trade with Europeans in the sev-
enteenth century, there were certainly many children born of relation-
ships between French, Scottish or English men and Indigenous women.
By 1815, there were as many as ten thousand people primarily living
around fur-trade posts who were descendants of these relationships
and living culturally and politically distinct lives from their Anishi-
naabe kin. Others integrated more fully into Anishinaabe communi-
ties.49 There were often strong kin ties between these distinct peoples. If
the children were to be part of Anishinaabe communities, they would
require a doodem. Children with French, Scottish, or English fathers
might also be baptized or christened and receive a Christian name as
well. Children could receive a doodem by being adopted as the children
49 Peterson, “Many Roads to Red River,” 62.

of a particular person, by being assigned to the doodem of an “adopting

clan,” or by receiving the doodem through ceremony.
One common method was to adopt someone into a doodem. Con-
sider the case of Peter Jones (Kahkewaquonaby), who was born in 1801
on the escarpment overlooking Burlington Bay on Lake Ontario. His
mother was Tubinaquay, daughter of Wabenose, one of the principal
gichi-Anishinaabe of the Mississauga-Anishinabek. Wabenose’s family,
in turn, had gathered each spring and fall since the late seventeenth cen-
tury at the Credit River. Wabenose and his daughter Tubinaquay were
both migizi, or Eagle doodem, while the baby’s father, Augustus Jones,
was a Welshman. Augustus Jones worked as the deputy surveyor for
the British colonial government of Upper Canada, which had only been
established ten years earlier. By the patrilineal practice of the doodem
tradition, Kahkewaquonaby would in theory not have had a doodem.
And yet he proclaimed his Eagle doodem identity throughout his life,
and even after he converted to Christianity. As an adult, when acting
in his capacity as an ogimaa of the Mississauga, he consistently signed
documents with a migizi image. When he travelled to England in 1838
to meet Queen Victoria, he wore a coat with an embroidered migizi
image on the lapel to his audience with the queen as part of his court
dress.50 Given his father’s identity as a British subject, Jones’s assertion
of migizi identity seems to disaffirm the principle of patrilineal descent
of doodem identity; and yet, it did not. Wabenose used the practice of
adoption to welcome his grandson into the Eagle doodem by giving him
the name of his own deceased son, Kahkewaquonaby. A name conveys
the spirit of the person who had previously held it and aspects of their
personhood and character. Through this act of naming, Kahkewaquonaby
was given not only his maternal uncle’s name but his doodem identity.
Wabenose restored the principle of doodem inheritance through patri-
lineal descent by making his daughter’s son his own.
The descendants of Lawrence Herkimer faced a similar situation.
Herkimer was a Loyalist who married a Mississauga woman from Rice
Lake after the American Revolution. Their children are all listed on the
50 Donald Smith, Sacred Feathers, 167–8. For a discussion of the suit, see Willmott,
“Clothed Encounters,” 477. The Credit River community elected Jones aanikeogimaa
in 1829; he consistently signed treaties, letters, and petitions below the leading
ogimaa, Joseph Sawyer. For a discussion of Mississauga-Anishinaabe leadership at
the Credit River and Jones’s roles, see Bohaker, “Anishinaabe ‘toodaims,’” 109–12.
Methodist Society membership list as belonging to the Bear doodem,

meaning either that Herkimer had been formally adopted into the Bear
doodem himself or that Herkimer’s Anishinaabe wife was of that doodem
identity and the children had subsequently been given that doodem
in their naming ceremony.51 Regardless, once named in a naming cer-
emony, a person was unquestionably Anishinaabe, and to have an
Anishinaabe name and doodem identity was, and is, to be fully Anishi-
naabe. Much as a citizenship ceremony makes one fully Canadian
or American, there was no possibility of being “half blood” or “part
Anishinaabe,” because the doodem tradition does not use blood as a
metaphor.52 Understanding of this older Anishinaabe law of belonging
persists in communities, despite settler colonial legal regimes in both
Canada and the United States that have usurped responsibility for
determining community membership. In his research on contemporary
practices of adoption at Fort William First Nation, community mem-
ber and adoptee Damien Lee explores how his aunt Iskigamizige-giizis
expressed the right of her adopted nephew to belong to Fort William.
As Lee noted, she did so using “a family’s authority to claim individu-
als.” Iskigamizige-giizis used a blood metaphor for belonging while
subverting it at the same time in order to express an Anishinaabe con-
cept of kin. As Iskigamizige-giizis explained, “I mean, you may not be
blood, but you’re blood, because you’re family.”53
There is also the well-documented practice of “adopting clans” – spe-
cific doodemag into which children born to non-Anishinaabe fathers
were assigned by some Anishinaabe communities. Among many com-
munities in Minnesota, children in this situation were assigned to the
Eagle (migizi) doodem, whereas if the child lived in northwestern
Ontario, he or she could be adopted into the Marten (waabizheshi)
doodem.54 In other cases, French voyageurs in the early days of the fur
trade were actually adopted into the ba-bi-zha-shi’do-i’daym, or Mar-
ten doodem. By adopting these French men into the Marten doodem,
Edward Benton-Banai (Anishinaabe from Lac Courte Oreilles) writes
his The Mishomis Book, “it was possibly felt that the acceptance of the
51 Membership list of Methodist Society at the Upper Mohawk Grand River, 1826; New
Credit Methodist Indian Mission (Ontario) fonds, F1434, United Church of Canada,
Toronto.
52 See Damien Lee, “Adoption Constitutionalism,” 785.
53 Cited in Ibid., 800. See also Lawrence, “Real” Indians and Others.
responsibilities of this clan would be a worthy test of the sincerity of

the newcomers. The French traders must have impressed the Ojibway
with their loyalty because they were accepted, for the most part, fully
and completely.”55 As Benton-Banai explains, the Marten doodem have
responsibility as warriors, providers, and hunters. So by accepting
French men into the Marten doodem, their new Anishinaabe commu-
nities were giving the newcomers their adult roles. Likely, other doo-
demag in the categories of leadership, medicine, and teaching would
have been less suitable for French newcomers due to their lack of child-
hood and adolescent training for those areas of responsibility.
In some Ontario communities, children of non-Anishinaabe fathers
had their “adopting clan determined at a jiisakaan [shake tent]” cere-
mony of the Midewewin, or Grand Medicine Society, “where the prac-
titioner divines the adopting clan.”56 This last practice may seem to be
completely at odds with the principle of patrilineal descent, but in the
context of Anishinaabe cosmology it is not. If a child received a doodem
identity through such a ceremony, the child would also receive the soul
of the doodem and would share with doodem relatives the connection
back through their father’s ancestors back to the original first doodem
being. The doodem tradition, after all, reflects a metaphysical relation-
ship. In fact, all of these diverse practices are united by a common pur-
pose. They represent creative solutions to the challenge posed by non-
Anishinaabe fathers to the principle of patrilineal descent, ensuring
Anishinaabe children of their ability to fully participate in Anishinaabe
society, including in Anishinaabe councils.
In other cases, Anishinaabe leaders looked to the visual symbols of
French, British, and American political authority and deemed those to
be doodemag in the context of Anishinaabe cosmology. In contempo-
rary community sources, those whose fathers are American or whose
ancestry is American are sometimes said to belong to the Eagle doodem
because the United States government took the bald eagle for its sym-
bol. This idea is expressed in some western Great Lakes Anishinaabe
communities in both oral histories and, today, online community heri-
tage sites.57 In a similar way, those with British fathers were said to be
55 Benton-Banai, Mishomis Book, 105.

57 See, for example, “Do You Know Your Clan,” Turtle Mountain Chippewa Heritage
Center, 1 March 2012, http://www.chippewaheritage.com/1/post/2012/3/do-you
-know-your-clan.html; see also Michelson, “Note on the Gentes,” 338.
michi-bizhi or the great underwater manidoog, because of the similar-

ity in appearance between the lion on the British coat of arms and the
physical form in which the manidoog is most often depicted, that of a
long-tailed cat.58
Children could also bring new doodem identities into Anishinaabe
culture when they were adopted after being captured in warfare. Noted
Anishinaabe artist Norval Morrisseau recounted a family oral history
that explained how the Grizzly Bear doodem came to be adopted into
the doodem of the western Anishinabek from the Stony (Assiniboine)
people. Morrisseau was told by his maternal grandfather, Moses Nana-
konagos of Beardmore, that his direct ancestors were Assiniboine
(Stony) because of a war at some unspecified time in the past. During
this conflict, “the Ojibways, being a great nation to be feared, went into
the plains in the land of the Stonies to fight. The Ojibways passed a
law [i.e., came to a consensus in council] that if a full-scale battle were
fought and all the enemy killed, any surviving children should not be
killed or mistreated but brought back to be adopted as children of the
Ojibway.” Morrisseau then revealed that two children of the Grizzly
Bear doodem were brought back in this manner and that one of them
became his ancestor on his mother’s side. It is through these children
that the Grizzly Bear doodem came to be an Anishinaabe doodem, as
the Anishinabek did not require the children to forfeit their birth iden-
tity following adoption. Not only does Morrisseau use this story to
explain how the Grizzly Bear doodem became an Anishinaabe doodem
but he also uses it to explain how some western Anishinaabe art shows
Assiniboine influence.59 The story also reveals insights into Anishi-
naabe governance practices. The council considered the impact of war
on non-combatants and also accepted their responsibility to take care
of them afterwards.
Taken together, the examples discussed above reveal the diverse local
and regional strategies that different council fires used to ensure that all
Anishinaabe children, regardless of their fathers’ identities, each had a
doodem. The Anishinabek developed processes for incorporating new-
comers into their families and societies using the doodem tradition and
expanded it or adjusted it where required to fit new circumstances. The
list of doodem identities given in Chapter 1 (Table 2), therefore, is both
58 Michelson, “Note on the Gentes,” 338; Dewdney, Sacred Scrolls, 125–7.

59 Morrisseau, “Great Conjurers and Warriors,” 87–8.
evidence of the tradition’s antiquity and a reflection of change over

time, as the list includes older as well as more recent doodem identi-
ties. Narratives that explain the inclusion of new identities (e.g., the
Wolf, incorporated from the Dakota) and changes in the relationships
between others (e.g., the Moose, whose descendants became cousins of
the Marten doodem following a conflict between them) are evidence
of the political history of the Anishinabek.60 Children needed to have
a doodem identity because one could not participate meaningfully in
Anishinaabe civil, social, and political life without one. Adoption facili-
tated this and, by extension, fostered the kinds of family ties between
allies that built connections over time.
Towards a Philosophy and Law of Alliances
With family in all four directions, Anishinaabe peoples lived suspended

in a web of relations. The doodem tradition shaped self-conception and
political actions, law, and governance practices. As an analytic category,
doodem opens up ways to describe and explain the historical choices of
individuals. The concept of shared doodem souls is a distinctly Anishi-
naabe source of metaphor and political allegory, used as metaphor in
aadizookaanag from which the Anishinabek derived their laws. The
ongoing relationships that the Anishinabek historically had with their
dead reflected their sense of responsibility towards the land and the
doodem beings that originated on it. Marriage, as an alliance-making
institution, created unions between people having different doodem
and served in its own way as a model for Anishinaabe self-governance –
a practice of continual negotiation grounded in a set of ethical prin-
ciples founded on the reciprocal duty to take care of the other. People
expressed this reciprocal duty of care through the exchange of gifts, a
long-standing practice demonstrated at the many regional gatherings
as in the example of 1642 described in the first chapter. These princi-
ples created the structures for Anishinaabe polities and these principles
which were extended to alliances with newcomers. The gifts exchanged
in the context of formal councils were a key part of the Anishinaabe
law of alliances as they were both symbol and evidence of understand-
ings and undertakings (somewhat the equivalent of an oral contract)
60 For the story of the Wolf doodem from the Dakota, see Warren and Neill, History,
165; for the Marten/Moose doodem story, see 49–53.
to enter into and to maintain their relationships. When Anishinaabe

council fires gathered to renew their alliances, they exchanged gifts of
clothing, cooking implements, and weapons. Such items all did double
work as both tangible and useful items and metaphors for the type of
responsibility allies owed each other: to clothe the other, to feed the
other, to protect the other.61 These twin purposes were also echoed in
the gifts exchanged between individuals and families as part of the
work of making and maintaining relationships.
In Great Lakes regional diplomacy with the Haudenosaunee and
the Wendat, and with French, English and other newcomers, leaders
also exchanged gifts as part of the law of alliances. Orators in council
described alliances metaphorically as paths, roads, or rivers that con-
nected autonomous council fires. These culturally and political distinct
peoples had developed formal council protocols for making or renew-
ing alliance relationships, specifically to address the challenges of effec-
tive and long-lasting relationships between distinct peoples, where the
emphasis was on co-existence. Alliances between council fires built on
Anishinaabe philosophies and ethics of forming family relationships
on the principle of interdependence. While the details of these prac-
tices did differ between different cultural traditions and throughout the
region, there were common elements. These elements included open-
ing ceremonies involving smoking the pipe together to place people in
a “good mind”; offering prayers of thanksgiving that reminded listen-
ers of the gifts they had received from creation and that, therefore, they
had an obligation to return; giving speeches that invoked all creation
as a witness to the proceedings; condolences offered for the deceased;
and the exchange of gifts. Council members smoked semma (tobacco)
together from sacred pipes. In these treaty councils, the semma accom-
panied prayers of thanksgiving and gratitude and carried messages to
the manidoog in its smoke. Orators spoke on gifts, whether wampum or
other items, or with the calumet (the pipe of peace) as being markers of
truth and as evidence of the giver’s capacity to care for the other in an
alliance. Wampum strings and belts functioned as mnemonic devices,
as a marker of truth, and as gifts; the speaker typically gifted wampum
strings to the other party so that the words spoken would be remembered.
Parties to an agreement made belts and exchanged them as records of
61 See especially Perrot for a description of the many gifts given and received during
regional gatherings. Perrot, “Mémoire,” in Blair, Indian Tribes, 1:87–8.
the alliance. Wampum played a critical role in Indigenous governance

and law throughout the region. Wampum-made diplomatic items also
embody Indigenous ontologies as they represent “the literal weaving
together of thoughts from living human beings and materials from
living marine, floral and faunal beings.” Wampum, and by extension
other diplomatic gifts given in council, both represent and are part of
“social (and not just material) relationships with the non-human per-
sons (e.g. flora, fauna, and mollusks) who provide the raw materials.”62
Gifts given in these contexts were more than just records of the alliance
(although they were that too); these gifts were an integral part of the
social relationships formed and maintained through each alliance.
When Great Lakes and eastern North American Indigenous nations
made alliances with Europeans, they performed the same ceremonies and
gave the same types of gifts, with the same meanings. The presents
were assurances that each party understood the obligation to the other, as
kin. Gifts always flowed both ways. The Anishinabek understood Euro-
peans in terms of Indigenous political categories and integrated them into
their thought worlds. The 1671 prise-de-possession ceremony discussed
in the Introduction is an excellent example of this. In return for the goods
brought to “purchase” the Great Lakes, the French received “an equal
value” in beaver pelts and other gifts. This was no purchase but an alliance,
founded on Anishinaabe law, in which the parties to the alliance have an
obligation to care for the other. The reason Anishinaabe leaders used kin-
ship terms in formal council with their allies is simply that Anishinaabe
law used the metaphors of alliance and treaty within a family to structure
their entire system of governance. In turn, the Anishinabek had every rea-
son to feel that the both French and later British officials at the very least
understood and respected their protocols – that allies had an obligation to
each other – because representatives of imperial governments acted as if
they understood. Empires and settler governments studied Great Lakes
diplomatic protocols and participated fully in them. They hosted regional
council meetings in which officials participated.63 And, as hosts, they took
on the responsibilities of ogimaawag and fed their guests.
These same colonial officials both distributed and received presents;
in other words, they acted as a relative, an ally, and a leader should.
62 Bruchac, “Broken Chains of Custody,” 69.

63 This practice continued into the numbered treaties negotiated after Confederation.
See Craft, Breathing Life into the Stone Fort Treaty.
Sometimes the minutes of colonial councils contain descriptions of

the pipes, wampum strings, and belts given to their colonial allies,
but the full extent of gifts given by Indigenous peoples to Europeans
is seldom listed in these documents. But give they did. Recall that at
the 1642 gathering discussed in the Introduction that the Jesuits were
given many gifts; this practice continued because it was a fundamental
aspect of Anishinaabe law in which gifts were used to form and main-
tain social relations. While the recipient was supposed to maintain the
gift as evidence of their alliance relationships, the reality is that many of
these items have ended up in European and North American museum
ethnographic collections following a sojourn in the family collection or
curiosity cabinet of the representatives from imperial governments.64
Not all the items in these ethnographic collections are diplomatic gifts.
Some of these items came in to museums through collectors who pur-
chased items from Anishinaabe and other Indigenous communities
and others from contexts that are more dubious.65 The story of museum
collections of Anishinaabe material culture has its own complex his-
tory.66 But certainly some wampum strings and wampum belts came
into museum collections via former imperial diplomats, as well as other
items from diplomatic contexts: pipes, war clubs, suits of clothing, and
chiefly regalia such as headdresses. Many other items, such as furs that
were given during councils, were simply sold off as part of the fur trade,
and their importance as evidence of the alliance contract is only visible
in council minutes or colonial accounts.67
64 On the expectation to keep the gift, see Cary Miller, “Gifts as Treaties,” 225. As
co-director of GRASAC, I have spent the past decade researching treaty gifts and
other Great Lakes material culture in museums and archives in Europe, the UK,
Canada, and the United States in collaboration with my colleagues, especially Ruth
B. Phillips and Alan Corbiere. Their work on the significance of these collections has
opened my eyes to their political and legal importance.
65 Wampum belts, strings, and politically significant items came into museum
collections through dubious means in the late nineteenth century, or ended up sold
by museums to private collectors. For a detailed study of the illegal removal from
community and subsequent sales of just two belts, see Bruchac, “Broken Chains of
Custody.”
66 See for example, Phillips, Trading Identities; Hamilton, Collections and Objections.
67 For example, at the 1671 council at Bawaating at which the French claimed to have
performed a prise-de-possession ceremony, the Sieur de St. Lusson reported that he
received in exchange for the gifts he had brought, their equivalent value in beaver
furs. See Talon to the King, 2 November 1671, Fonds des Colonies. Série C11A.
Correspondence générale, Canada, vol. 3, fol.159–171v, ANOM.
Two specific examples of these types of diplomatic gifts are a council

pipe given to Sir Francis Bond Head in 1836 when he was lieutenant
governor of Upper Canada (see Figure 13) and a presentation bgamaa-
gan given to Lord Elgin while he was Governor General of Canada dur-
ing the period 1848–56 (see Figure 14). These are beautiful works of art,
which would command high prices at auction today. The detailed por-
cupine quillwork and the quality of the carvings reflect the value that
the Anishinabek who gave these gifts placed on maintaining their alli-
ance relationship with the Crown. Such diplomatic gift-giving is a very
old practice in the Great Lakes region – recall that the Jesuits at the gath-
ering in 1642 discussed in the Introduction understood the diplomatic
significance of these gifts and came prepared to give gifts of their own.
As Father Lalemant recalled, “we strove to win the affections of the
chief personages by means of feasts and presents.”68 It was in particular
this participation in the cycle of gift exchange that the Jesuit priest Lale-
mant explained was the reason that the Jesuits were invited to travel to
the gathering at Bawaating later in the fall of 1642. Anishinaabe council
fires continued to give gifts to colonial leaders throughout the land sur-
render period. Following the signing of the Robinson-Huron treaty in
1850, for example, petitions and speeches sent to the colonial govern-
ment and later the government of Canada concerning unfulfilled treaty
obligations and concerns with the treaty were accompanied by pipes
and pouches.69
The gifts of clothing given in council have particular meaning; they
express the ability of the giver to meet the needs of the recipient. Spe-
cific items of clothing, such as headdresses, carried additional meaning,
recognizing a leadership role. Military commanders at posts through-
out the Great Lakes found themselves gifted with clothing when they
attended councils hosted by their Anishinaabe counterparts. Recall
from the Introduction how in 1642 the Nipissing leaders were for-
mally recognized at the general council: they were called forward in
their best robes and given the headdresses and neck ornaments that
signified their new roles. So when Anishinaabe leaders first entered
into alliance relationships with the French and later British, the Anishi-
nabek treated their forts as council fires and their leaders as ogimaa.

69 See for example, Speech of Way-ge-ma-keu (Beaver Doodem) and Pâpâsence (Beaver
doodem), 17 August 1851, LAC, RG 10, vol. 323, 216151–5.
The Anishinabek recognized these commanders with suits of clothing

and bestowed upon them headdresses and other chiefly regalia. This is
different from but related to practices of adopting individuals. When
Anishinaabe peoples adopted individuals, they also clothed them. For
example, fur trader Alexander Henry described the experience of being
ritually washed and given new clothing when he was rescued by the
Anishinabek at Bawaating during Pontiac’s War.70 Anishinaabe coun-
cils took the same approach to recognizing the colonial leaders with
whom they interacted.
French and later British colonial officials in turn reciprocated with
these gifts of clothing, particularly headgear, which Anishinaabe lead-
ers interpreted as acceptance of the terms of the alliance. At the regional
peace agreement made at Montreal in 1701 (also known as the Great
Peace of Montreal), clothing exchanges figured prominently. At the first
assembly on 25 July, the visiting Great Lakes leaders presented their
gifts to the French governor, Louis-Hector de Callière, as the host or ogi-
maa of the Montreal council fire.71 In subsequent meetings, as was the
regional practice, leaders spoke on gifts, requiring Callière to respond
in kind.72 In his first major speech of the negotiations, Callière spoke
on and distributed thirty-four belts of wampum as part of the French
gifts and as records of the peace. During the subsequent speeches from
leaders of the Great Lakes council fires, the diversity of headdresses
amazed the French delegates. One Jesuit remarked that the Indigenous
delegates “put their main glory in the adornment of their heads.” But
this was not mere vanity or concern for appearance. Rather, each head-
dress communicated important cultural and community meanings.
When orators in council wore headgear they had previously received as
gifts in the context of an alliance relationship, they were honouring that
alliance. At the Great Peace negotiations, the Fox orator Miskouensa
provoked the governor and the French audience into laughter when
he appeared wearing “an old wig” that he subsequently doffed “as if
it was a hat.” Given the importance of headdresses as marks of leader-
ship in this cultural context, Miskouensa likely interpreted the wig as a
headdress, which he wore to honour the French. He then removed the
wig as if it was a hat because he had seen French colonial officials offer
70 Henry, Travels and Adventures, 72.

71 Havard, Great Peace of Montreal, 127.
72 Ibid., 138.
that gesture as one of respect to the each other. Certainly by 1701 the
French were well aware of the significance of headdresses, as they gave
their own headgear as diplomatic gifts in return. As the leaders left the
assembly to return home, they received as parting gifts, in addition to
musket and shot, “caps decorated with laces of gold braid.”73
This practice of clothing exchange continued throughout the eigh-
teenth and into the nineteenth century and occurred among the Haude-
nosaunee as well. It was part of regional diplomatic protocols; Super-
intendent of Indian Affairs Sir William Johnson frequently appeared in
“Indian dress” at councils.74 Figure 15 shows a red wool stroud “chief’s
coat” of the type given by the British to Anishinaabe leaders. Both fur
traders and colonial officials presented coats to Indigenous leaders.
This one was given to Oshawana of Walpole Island, during the War of
1812. Oshawana (Thunderbird doodem) was Tecumseh’s aide.75 While
this coat looks at first glance like standard British military issue, the cut
and placement of the chevrons is different.76 These coats were made
specifically to give to Indigenous leaders. Likewise, Indigenous leaders
continued to receive and value gifts of European hats as they in turn
bestowed headdresses on their European counterparts. Figure 16 is an
ambrotype of Oshawana, taken in 1838, now, like his coat, in the collec-
tions of the Royal Ontario Museum. In this picture, Oshawana visibly
affirms the alliance connections he is responsible for maintaining as an
ogimaa by wearing the gifts he has received, including a top hat gifted
to him by the British and the George III medal around his neck. The
silver gorgets, hat bands, and wristlets were very likely also gifts given
in council to commemorate alliances.77
73 Ibid., 140n134.
74 Shannon, “Dressing for Success,” 13–42.
75 The coat is at the Royal Ontario Museum, 911.3.119; HD6294. Item photographed
and described as part of a GRASAC team research trip to the Royal Ontario
Museum, 15–19 December 2008, funded by a SSHRC Aboriginal Research Grant, of
which I was a participant. Ozhawanoo signed a request for the Indian Department
to forward £300 Halifax currency to the community for the purchase of agricultural
implements alongside three other members of council. Requisition of Chippewas
of Chenail Ecarte & St. Clair, 28 June 1843, Resident Agent, Montreal, Colonel
D.C. Napier – Correspondence, 1843, LAC RG10, Vol. 141: 45525–27. The doodem
signatures appear on page 45527.
76 These details were noted by GRASAC researchers during our conversations on site.
See GRASAC item 1190.
77 Cumberland, Oronhyatekha Historical Collection, 54.
The King George III medal that Oshawana is wearing was also a typi-
cal gift given by the French and later the British to recognize Indigenous
leaders. The medals signal visually that one’s role as chief had been
ratified by one’s allies, in the same way that new leaders were affirmed
at the 1642 general council and subsequent gatherings, with their “com-
missions.” As French and British colonial officials first entered into the
Great Lakes world, they responded to this practice of neck ornamenta-
tion by giving medals, which they distributed in recognition of those
chiefs and councillors of council fires with which they were allied. The
two shown in Figures 17 and 18 were commissioned expressly for the
commemoration of alliances with Great Lakes nations, and they clearly
convey the spirit of alliance. Both have the monarch on the reverse. The
George II Peace Medal dated 1757 has the inscription: “Let us look to
the most high who blessed our fathers with peace.” The second medal,
from the Treaty of Niagara, says “Happy While United 1764.” The
European-produced medals were limited in quantity and highly val-
ued, passed down in families on hereditary lines.78
These reciprocal gifts of clothing and headdresses are particularly
important because they underscore that such councils and alliances
occurred within the framework of an Anishinaabe legal tradition. When
French, British, and later American officials gave gifts, flags, and med-
als to chiefs, they may have thought they were exerting some control
over their Indigenous allies by participating in these ceremonies. But
if anything, the situation was the exact reverse – Indigenous leaders,
through gifting chiefly regalia, were in fact legitimating the leadership
of French and later British and American posts and recognizing those
sites as council fires. Mutual recognition of leaders in alliance was an
old regional practice. Similar to the case of wearing their allies’ gifts of
clothing, when Anishinabek wore medals or even flew the flags of their
allies, they were recognizing and honouring their alliance relationships,
not proclaiming their submission to imperial authority.79 There are other
78 Distributing medals to Indigenous leaders was a practice that began in the late
seventeenth century and continued until 1921, with the last treaty medal struck
for Numbered Treaty 11. The United States government also issued its own treaty
medals with similar images, beginning in 1777 and in earnest after 1789. France
and Britain also gave medals in other imperial contexts. See Pickering, et al., Peace
Medals, which includes discussion of medals distributed during the French regime;
Jamieson, Medals Awarded to North American Indian Chiefs.
79 Cary Miller, “Gifts as Treaties,” 230.
headdresses and ceremonial clothing in overseas museum collections

like the ones discussed above. While further research is needed, their
very presence in collections that came into museums through families
with a record of military service in British North America raises sig-
nificant interpretative possibilities, given the fact that such items would
only have been given in the context of a formal council and bestowed
upon someone recognized in a leadership role.80
The research of Ruth B. Phillips on two complete suits of clothing
from the late eighteenth century given to British officers supports this
interpretation, as does an 1850 photo showing the treaty negotiator Wil-
liam Beverly Robinson with leading treaty negotiators Nebanagoching
and Shingwaukonce, in which Robinson wears a headdress, while the
ogimaawag also wear their headdresses and medals. The images in
Figures 20, 21, and 22 are all of British subjects who received recogni-
tion by Anishinaabe council fires and who received gifts of regalia as
confirmation of their roles as ogimaawag. Sir John Caldwell was an
Irish baronet who served at both Detroit and Niagara between 1774
and 1780. He so admired his regalia that he commissioned this formal
portrait including his headdress. It now hangs in the Museum of Liv-
erpool; the items themselves are now part of the collection of the Cana-
dian Museum of History. In his portrait displaying the gifts he received,
he is holding wampum and a pipe, indicating the status of an ogimaa
and pipe carrier. Andrew Foster was likely gifted the outfit in Figure 21
during his service as an officer at Detroit, Michilimackinac, and Miami
Rapids between 1793 and 1796.81 Note the thunderbird motifs on the
neck ornament, likely signifying that Foster was of the Thunderbird
doodem. While not all images on Anishinaabe material culture corre-
spond to the doodem of the wearer, Anishinaabe leaders did often wear
an image of their doodem on their formal council regalia. In fact, many
continue to do so today.
Figure 22 shows William B. Robinson on the left with Shingwau-
konce and Nebanagoching. All three men are wearing regalia including
marks of leadership. Shingwaukonce and Nebanagoching are wearing
the same clothing that they wore when they visited Lord Elgin in 1849.
The two leaders posed along with Menissinowenninne (The Great War-
rior) for an image that was printed as a woodcut in the 15 September

81 See Ruth B. Phillips’ discussion of these suits as adoption clothing in “Reading
Between the Lines,” 115–19.
1849 edition of the London Illustrated News. Both Shingwaukonce and

Nebanagoching are wearing the same regalia in this second image. Both
also wear their King George medals, and Nebanagoching has a heart-
shaped thunderbird pendant, which he wears below. Nebanagoching
wears the same regalia in the portrait that was painted of him by Cor-
nelius Krieghoff. Nebanagoching’s crane doodem is also visible on his
coat. Nebanagoching’s coat has a large crane doodem image on it, just
below his right shoulder. As with Oshawana, discussed above, these
leaders were all wearing their alliance relationships with formal regalia.
Robinson, too, is wearing the headdress of an ogimaa and a neck orna-
ment, demonstrating continuity with the earlier practices. Robinson is
also wearing a capote – the kind of wool blanket coat known well to
historians of the fur trade. Given his career as a fur trader on Georgian
Bay, it would not be surprising that he would own such a coat or even
that the leggings and moccasins would belong to him. Note the detailed
and beautiful beadwork on the apron and leggings of Robinson’s
clothing – this type of decorated clothing was very likely gifted to him
and reflects a significant investment of time and women’s labour. The
material composition of the headdresses can reflect the doodem iden-
tity of the leaders; the feathers are earned for accomplishments and can
have different meanings for the type of bird species. The position of the
feathers is a metaphorical reflection of either calmness and peace, if flat
or laid out to the side, typical of civil ogimaa headdresses, or, if stiff and
pointing up, of vigilance or a metaphorical reference to war. There is
no indication of how Robinson came to be wearing that headdress and
whether or in what context it was gifted to him, but this would have
not been done lightly. It is significant that Robinson sat with Nebanago
ching and Shingwaukonce and posed in chiefly regalia with them, and
particularly in a headdress, in clothing that was in all likelihood gifted
to him.82 By wearing his gifts, Robinson was honouring his relationship
with the Lake Huron Anishinabek.
French and later British colonial officials gave medals as marks of
leadership to the Anishinabek and gifted Anishinaabe leaders with
suits of clothing, because that is how the Anishinabek treated them.83

83 Bruce M. White has discussed the significance of gift exchange in the French fur
trade. See “Give Us a Little Milk.” Cary Miller found this practice of gift exchange
between allies continued during Anishinaabe treaty-making with Americans: “Gifts
as Treaties,” 221–3.
The exchange of clothing signified the ability to care for the other. The
exchange of the insignia of ogimaa and marks of leadership symbolized
mutual recognition of the leadership roles of the other. While the word
ogimaa was translated by the French as captain or chef, and by the Eng-
lish as chief, translation went the other way as well. The Anishinabek
assigned the role of ogimaa to kings, queens (ogimaakwe), governors,
and lieutenants-generals and post commanders – transforming these
imperial officials into a recognizable Anishinaabe leadership category.
And when these same colonial leaders or their delegates performed the
expectations of their new role – by taking care of their allies as relatives –
they provided tangible evidence to Anishinaabe eyes that their colonial
allies understood Anishinaabe values and laws.84
Even after the War of 1812, when Anishinaabe communities really
found themselves on the front lines of settler colonialism, material gifts
still had legal meaning and material goods still functioned as meta-
phor. In 1829, for example, at a council at the British fort on St. Joseph’s
Island, the Crown announced its intention to relocate its council fire
(where the British distributed presents) to Coldwater. The Crown had
purchased the island in 1798 to build a military fort, and for thirty years
a British council fire had been “lit” at this location. Anishinaabe council
fires sometimes moved (as Chapter 3 will discuss, council fires could
be covered, extinguished, or kindled), but this decision was worrisome
because the British had not consulted their allies. In their remarks in
response to this announcement, speakers expressed their concern about
this unilateral action, but then invited the British to demonstrate to the
Anishinabek that the British were still good allies (good relations).
In their speeches, the chiefs did not press the British with outrageous
demands but rather requested that their allies demonstrate their contin-
ued capacity to care for the old, the young, and generations yet unborn.
These were metaphorical demands: chiefs asked for kettles for the old
women, weapons for the young men, and clothing for the unborn child
of a young widow. The expectation was still that allies would be gener-
ous in meeting demands. And in turn, when allies had needs such as
access to land or military aid, those needs would also be met – in the
same way that they had always been. Some speeches from this council
demonstrate this rhetorical device and invoked need in terms of what
84 Cary Miller, “Gifts as Treaties.”

anthropologist Mary Black Rogers has called a pity speech, intended to

invite one’s relation to meet a need: Shingauch, the Menominee ogimaa,
said, “This wampum is from the old women; some of them are very
industrious and are good cooks, but they have no kettles to cook in. I
beg you will give them some.” He then gave a pipe and the wampum.
Next, Kitchi Negou spoke and said, “There is a poor woman in our
camp, who has no husband or means of clothing her unborn child. I beg
you will give her a suit for it.” These were requests asking for material
confirmation of the alliance’s terms – it is beyond belief that assembled
leaders could not provide some kettles or some clothing to the indi-
viduals named. Each request was accompanied by a wampum string or
a pipe – in other words, a gift to the Indian Department officials present.
This was a performance of alliance and the demonstration of interde-
pendence of allies. The speakers asked the British to continue following
Anishinaabe principles in which allies and their leaders keep past, pres-
ent, and future generations in mind at all times. Leaders exercised their
responsibility to those generations by provisioning them so that they in
turn could meet the needs of their allies. As the British provisioned the
Anishinabek, they in turn would be generous with the British when the
latter had need of military aid, land, or other resources.85 Such ongo-
ing gift exchanges in the context of alliance-making and renewal call
for rethinking Canada’s pre-Confederation treaties with Anishinaabe
council fires as simply land purchase agreements. As Anishinaabe lead-
ers performed Anishinaabe law in formal treaty councils, they invited
their French and later British counterparts into the Anishinaabe prac-
tice of governance through alliance, into a network of relationships that
were grounded in the structures of Anishinaabe families. By granting
allies use of their land, they were meeting the needs of their allies, just
as their allies in turn met their needs through the provision of rations
in times of food shortages, or through the gifting of clothing, weapons,
shot, and utility items.
While the purpose of this book is to describe historical political struc-
tures and systems of governance, it is instructive to bear in mind the larger
moral principle that the Anishinabek conceptualized those political struc-
tures as serving: mino-bimaadiziwin. It is this principle that animated
85 Transcription of Speeches from council at St. Joseph’s Island, 1829, transcribed and
printed in the Appendix to the 6th vol. of the Journals of the Legislative Assembly of the
Province of Canada. Printed by the Order of the Legislative Assembly, 1847. Appendix T.
the women who sheltered graves from heat and fed the dead, the peo-
ple who placed offerings of semma (tobacco) along the French River in
honour of the First Beaver, the willingness to provide shelter and food
to doodem kin, and the decisions of the Anishinabek to fight alongside
their allies in imperial conflicts. In other words, while each Anishinaabe
person was indeed suspended in a web of kin relations that would serve
to sustain them in times of need, the principle and goal of bimaadiz-
iwin required adult Anishinabek to be actively engaged in taking care
of their relations in all four directions, through the giving and receiving
of gifts. In turn, when individuals received gifts, including the gift of
an animal giving its life for food, people offered their thanks in recogni-
tion of another being fulfilling its obligations. Through reciprocal gifts,
Anishinaabe peoples maintained their relationships with their doodem
kin and allies and with all of creation. These principles formed the basis
for Anishinaabe governance, discussed in the next two chapters.
3
Anishinaabe Constitutionalism
On 22 January 1840, the Anishinaabe ogimaa Musquakie (William Yel-

lowhead), Caribou doodem, rose to speak at a general council hosted
at the Credit River council fire. A veteran of the War of 1812, he was by
then in his seventies. Musquakie had travelled from his home on the
Rama Reserve near Lake Simcoe, some 150 kilometres away, to attend
this regional gathering at which two hundred assembled Anishinaabe
and fifteen Haudenosaunee delegates sought to renew a long-standing
alliance agreement.1 As he began his oration, Musquakie held aloft
a woven belt of white and purple shell wampum, “3 feet long and 4
inches wide.” The belt “had a row of White Wampum in the centre,
running from one end to the other, and the representations of wigwams
every now and then, and a large round wampum tied nearly the middle
of the Belt, with a representation of the sun in the centre.”2 As he dis-
played the belt, Musquakie began to speak, reciting the terms of the
alliance agreement that had been made some 150 years earlier, after the
eastern Anishinabek and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy had agreed
1 “Musquakie,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online. Details of this council are richly
discussed in Donald Smith, Sacred Feathers, 123–77.
2 Minutes of a General Council held at the River Credit, 16 January 1840, Paudash
Papers, LAC RG10, Vol. 1011, Part B:60–92.
to a formal peace following a century or more of episodic conflict.3 Four

of the five images on the belt represented a council fire that had been
created or an old fire that had been relit as the result of the alliance.4
According the minutes taken in translation by Peter Jones,
Yellowhead stated that this Belt was given by the Nahdooways [the
Haudenosaunee Confederacy] to the Ojebways [Anishinaabe] many years
ago – about the time the French first came to this country. That the great
Council took place at Lake Superior – That the Nahdooways made the
road or path and pointed out the different council fires which were to be
kept lighted. The first marks on the Wampum represented that a council
fire should be kept burning at the Sault St. Marie.
The 2nd mark represented the Council fire at the Manitoulin Island,
where a beautiful White fish was placed, who should watch the fire as
long as the world stood.
The 3rd Mark represents the Council fire placed on an Island opposite
Penetanguishene Bay, on which was placed a Beaver to watch the fire.
The 4th mark represents the Council fire lighted up at the Narrows of
Lake Simcoe at which place was put a White Rein Deer. To him the Rein
Deer was committed the keeping of this Wampum talk. At this place our
fathers hung up the Sun, and said that the Sun should be a witness to all
what had been done and that when any of their descendants saw the Sun
they might remember the acts of their forefathers.
At the Narrows our fathers placed a dish with ladles around it, and a
ladle for the Six Nations, who said to the Ojebways that the dish or bowl
should never be emptied, but he (Yellowhead) was sorry to say that it had
already been emptied, not by the Six Nations on the Grand River, but by
the Caucanawaugas residing near Montreal.
The 5th Mark represents the Council fire which was placed at this River
Credit where a beautiful White headed Eagle was placed upon a very tall
pine tree, in order to watch the Council fires and see if any ill winds blew
upon the smoke of the Council fires. A dish was also placed at the Credit.
3 See the testimony of Elder Fred Pine Sr., in Conway, “Ojibwa Oral History”;
“Testimony of Chief Robert Paudash on the Coming of the Mississauga,” Paudash
Papers, Ontario Historical Society, 1905, published in The Valley of the Trent, ed. Edwin
C. Guillet (Toronto: Champlain Society, 1957), 9–13. For an excellent summary of these
accounts, see MacLeod, “Anishinabeg Point of View.”
4 While the location of the belt is not known, Figure 23 may be the wampum pouch in
which the belt was stored; or it would have been held in a pouch very similar to this
one. Note the caribou hoof motif, reflecting the doodem of the wampum carrier.
Anishinaabe Constitutionalism 105
That the right of hunting on the north side of the Lake was secured to the
Ojebways, and that the Six Nations were not to hunt here only when they
come to smoke the pipe of peace with their Ojebway brethren.
The path on the Wampum went from the Credit over to the other side of
the Lake the country of the Six Nations.
Thus ended the talk of Yellowhead and his Wampum.5
As he recited the terms of the alliance, Musquakie was performing

Anishinaabe constitutionalism – by this, I mean that the sites of gover-
nance and their leaders were legitimated through meetings of Anishi-
naabe ogimaawag assembled in a regional council with their allies,
just as the Nipissing leaders were recognized in 1642 at the regional
gathering. The establishment of new common council sites required
the sanction of the broader network of people within the alliance,
so the new lands had to be constituted as responsibilities of named
Anishinaabe council fires but ratified by all.6 Decisions were ratified
by regional ogimaawag, acting on the advice of councils of women
and councils of warriors, coming to consensus in formal council. Such
decisions always involved doodemag, as an ogimaa of a particular
doodem would be assigned as the keeper of the newly constituted
council fire. Anishinaabe constitutionalism required periodic renewal
and reconfirmation of the terms of alliance agreements and renewal
and reconfirmation of sites of governance; and this, in fact, is what
Musquakie and the assembled ogimaawag were doing in 1840: hearing
the full terms of the agreement prior to discussion of its renewal. This
chapter explores how doodem was used as allegory to constitute and
structure Anishinaabe governance and to claim, and reaffirm, Anishi-
naabe relationships to particular lands and resources. The doodem tra-
dition, as a system of categories and a uniquely Anishinaabe kinship
category, expressed their responsibility to the lands and waters of the
Great Lakes.
Musquakie’s 1840 recitation of the alliance that rekindled and founded
two new eastern Anishinaabe council fires took place six months before
the British Parliament would impose a new constitution on its colony
5 Minutes of a General Council held at the River Credit, 16 January 1840, Paudash
6 Anishinaabe constitutionalism is an ongoing and dynamic practice. See for example
the process for developing the Constitution of the White Earth Nation, ratified in
April 2009 and discussed in Vizenor and Mackay, “Constitutional Narratives.”
of Upper Canada: the Act of Union. Intended to quell dissent and pro-
mote French-Canadian political assimilation following the rebellions of
1837–8, this new act replaced the 1791 Constitution Act, another Brit-
ish statute that had created the separate jurisdictions of Upper Canada
and Lower Canada in the wake of the American Revolution.7 Both acts
defined the terms of British settler governance for these territories.
The Anishinabek, however, had their own constituting practices and
assertions of jurisdictions for these lands, which long pre-dated those
imposed by the British. The belt read by Musquakie is a constitution,
akin to an act of parliament that creates a new province or territory
within an existing polity. According to the agreement, the Haudeno-
saunee initiated the peace (they “made the road”) and requested that
the Anishinabek keep four council fires burning as sites of governance
for the alliance. The political legitimacy of each was recognized and
reaffirmed by the public reading of the terms. This required the physical
presence of the belts, an audience of those who were party to the terms,
and a speaker who recited the terms he had committed to memory.
This was an alliance agreement that, in its initial acceptance in the
late seventeenth century, reshaped the political geography of the east-
ern Great Lakes region after the breakup of the Wendat Confederacy in
1649. Following a period of conflict, the parties came to agreement on
the terms of peace. The Anishinabek entered into an alliance with the
Haudenosaunee, who in turn formally recognized Anishinaabe respon-
sibility for the lands that are now in southern Ontario. Recall that prior to
1649, Anishinaabe council fires were lit in what is now southern Ontario
and that those council fires had been in alliance relationships with the
Wendat. But after the breakup of the Wendat Confederacy, and as peace
returned to the region, old council fires needed to be relit and new ones
established, to restore old, and create new, jurisdictions in collabora-
tion with allies. The Great Lakes practice of constitutionalism required
public oration at regular intervals, which Musquakie was doing at this
council. As he recited, Musquakie explained that each of the circles on
the belt represented a council fire which was the responsibility of a
particular doodem: Whitefish on Manitoulin Island, Beaver on Parry
7 Parliament of Great Britain, Constitutional Act, 1791 (31 Geo. III, c.31); 23 July
1840, Parliament of the United Kingdom, Act of Union, (3 and 4 Vict. C. 35). For an
overview of the Rebellions, see Bernard, Rebellions of 1837 and 1838, or a standard
university survey textbook in Canadian history.
Island in Georgian Bay, Caribou at Mnjikaning (the narrows where the

waters of Lake Couchiching flow into Lake Simcoe), and Eagle at the
mouth of the Credit River, where the river flows into Lake Ontario.
Musquakie spoke metaphorically of regional political changes that
had happened more than a century and a half before. The circles repre-
senting Manitoulin Island and Parry Island were for fires whose slum-
bering embers were uncovered – that is, they represented places where
previous council fires had burned. To describe the fire at Mnjikaning,
Musquakie said that it had been “lighted up” – in other words, that it
represented a new site of governance and that the Caribou doodem
would therefore be the firekeeper. Ishkode, or fire, was used by Mus-
quakie both metaphorically and literally to refer to the specific sites
where councils were held and as the metaphor for Anishinaabe gover-
nance broadly. By explicitly naming the doodem responsible for each
fire, he revealed the intertwined centrality of doodem and ishkode in
Anishinaabe governance: each council fire that Musquakie named was
a gathering place for a council where decisions regarding access to lands
and resources were made. Each of the four doodemag that Musquakie
associated with place identified the ogimaa who was responsible not
only for maintaining the physical council fire when meetings occurred
but also for the broader political responsibilities of that council. This
record of Musquakie’s speech is a rare and important archival record of
Anishinaabe constitutionalism in action; it demonstrates Anishinaabe
practices for creating new sites of governance and identifying the peo-
ple responsible for those lands.
But there were old fires that were also referenced by this agreement:
one Anishinaabe council fire, which met at Bawaating, and the multiple
council fires of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, which had initiated,
or “made the road,” for this alliance. Their homeland stretched across
the Finger Lakes district of what is now upper New York State. The
Haudenosaunee also used fire as metaphor for governance, though
their languages and political systems were significantly different from
Anishinaabe ones.8 Bawaating is where the war council had first met in
the early 1650s to plans its actions against Haudenosaunee attacks. All
the Anishinaabe delegates listening to Musquakie speak that day would
have known of the Crane doodem’s long-standing role as the keeper of
8 See “Glossary of Figures of Speech in Iroquois Political Rhetoric,” in Jennings, ed.,

History and Culture of Iroquois Diplomacy, 115–26.
the council fire at Bawaating, reaffirmed through widely shared oral

histories. As is common with wampum belts, the symbols displayed on
it can form a visual synecdoche – a metaphor where a part represents
the whole – and this belt as described was no exception. Listeners could
imagine the line of the alliance as the arced path connecting these fires,
from Bawaating on the one end, through the new fires, and off the belt
on the other end to the fires of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy then
located south of Lake Ontario.
These implicit fires – Bawaating and those of the Haudenosaunee
Confederacy – were already “lit” (i.e., established) before this late
seventeenth-century agreement was made, and they had never been
extinguished. The Haudenosaunee Confederacy was established much
earlier through its own constitution and Great Law, as expressed in the
Ayenwahta Wampum Belt.9 The establishment of Bawaating is recorded
in origin narratives that situate the Crane as the keeper of the council
fire there dating back to time immemorial – back to the emergence of the
First Crane, the ancestor being of the Crane doodem.10 Such narratives
that are set in “time immemorial” establish broad Anishinaabe Indige-
neity to those places.11 But, as this chapter will show, some Anishinaabe
origin narratives also perform constitutionalism by using doodem alle-
gory to assert the claim of particular doodem identities to governance
responsibilities at specific places.
The agreement read by Musquakie is also significant because it
explains why the pattern of doodem images on some eastern Ontario
land sale agreements look the way that they do, particularly in locations
for which there were multiple documents signed. Treaties and associ-
ated documents, such as receipts for annuity payments, consistently
show Crane doodem images appearing first and with the highest fre-
quency on documents pertaining to the lands and resources under the
jurisdiction of Bawaating. Likewise, Caribou doodem images appear
first, and with the highest frequency, on documents pertaining to the
lands and resources under the jurisdiction of the Caribou at Mnji-
kaning. Eagle doodem images appear first, and with the highest fre-
quency, on documents pertaining to the lands and resources under the
9 For a concise overview of the Great Lake and Ayenwahtha Belt, see Hill, Clay We Are
Made Of, 31–5.
10 For one version of the founding of Bawaating, see Warren and Neill, History, 87.
11 Chamberlin, If This is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories?
jurisdiction of the Eagle at the Credit River. The peace agreement read
by Musquakie established and asserted the Crane and Eagle doodemag
as being responsible for the lands and resources in their respective juris-
dictions. (See Figures 24 and 25.)
As Musquakie also explained through allegory, the second image
on the belt represented the fire on Manitoulin Island, “where a beauti-
ful White fish was placed, who should watch the fire as long as the
world stood.” The third image represented “the Council fire placed on
an Island opposite Penetanguishine Bay, on which was placed a Bea-
ver to watch the fire.” While this alliance specifically identified council
fires to be kept by Whitefish and Beaver doodem ogimaawag on Mni-
doo Minising or Odawa Minising (Manitoulin Island) and Wasauksing
(Parry Island) respectively, there are not the same number of documents
with examples of these doodemag and these council fires as there are for
Mnjikaning, Bawaating, and the Credit River to demonstrate the conti-
nuity of leadership. For example, the major land cession for Manitoulin
Island, the north shore of Lake Huron, and eastern Georgian Bay was
the 1850 Robinson-Huron Treaty. This treaty is an anomaly. It is the one
major land cession negotiated between the British and the Anishinabek
in the pre-Confederation period that did not contain doodem images.12
Nevertheless, recorded oral narratives and doodem images on other
treaties, annuity payments documents, letters, and speeches reveal that
Whitefish and Beaver were both regionally significant identities with
12 There is also a smaller land cession, the Coldwater Road Allowance, signed in 1836,
that also has X-marks. Significantly, both this cession and the Robinson Treaties
of 1850 were negotiated by the same person: William B. Robinson. On this earlier
cession, four of the leading ogimaawag signed with their doodemag, while the
remaining gichi-Anishinaabek signed with x-marks. Chippewas of Lakes Huron
and Simcoe - Surrender …, 26 November 1836, LAC RG10, Vol. 1844/126. Robinson
was not a member of the Indian Department and so this departure from standard
protocol may have been his personal preference. However, in 1843 a member of
the department, J.W. Keating, expressed frustration with the amount of time and
ceremony involved in inscribing doodem images on treaty documents and receipts
for annuity payments: “I had commenced by causing each Indian to make his totem
but the amazing time each took would have occupied two or three days from their
numbers & so they merely touched the pen as white people unable to write but
before a witness who can swear to the genuineness of each signature.” J.W. Keating
to Samuel Jarvis, 13 September 1843, Office of the Chief Superintendent in Upper
Canada, LAC RG10, Vol.134:76098–91.
long-standing ties to these places. The Beaver doodem in particular was

identified in early seventeenth-century records and on seventeenth-
century maps as the “Amikouais” or Beaver nation (People of the Bea-
ver, an effort by French writers to spell “Amikwag”), located roughly in
the northeastern corner of Georgian Bay.
The fourth mark on the belt read by Musquakie “represents the
Council fire lighted up at the Narrows of Lake Simcoe, and at which
place was put a White Rein Deer … the 5th mark represents the Coun-
cil fire which was placed at this River Credit where a beautiful White
headed Eagle was placed upon a very tall pine tree.” Musquakie was
the ogimaa from Mnjikaning. He was at the Credit River reading the
belt in 1840 because, through this agreement more than a century and a
half earlier, the Caribou doodem at Mnjikaning was given the responsi-
bility of “the keeping of this Wampum talk.” The first council at which
this agreement was made was likely Mnjikaning itself because, as Mus-
quakie explained, it was Mnjikaning where “our fathers hung up the
Sun, and said that the Sun should be a witness to all what had been
done and that when any of their descendants saw the Sun they might
remember the acts of their forefathers.” For the Anishinabek, the sun is
both a manidoo and a grandfather: an ensouled being with qualities of
personhood and also a relative and ancestor. By invoking the Sun as a
witness, Musquakie was emphasizing the sacredness and importance
of this constitution. Invoking the Sun as a witness to the agreement is
akin to swearing an oath on the Bible. The fact that Musquakie situates
the act of witnessing by the Creator as occurring at Mnjikaning under-
scores the continued legitimacy of the Caribou’s role as the keeper of
the talk and the central council fire of the alliance. By extension, this role
included Mnjikaning’s responsibility for being the alliance’s archive –
Musquakie not only kept the physical belt but was responsible for
ensuring that the memory of the alliance was preserved and transmit-
ted to the next generation.
This renewal in 1840, however, was being held at the Credit River,
with attendees from the Six Nations of the Grand River. In his speech
following his remarks about Mnjikaning, Musquakie explained the spe-
cific role of the Eagle doodem within the alliance. Recall that at the
River Credit “a beautiful White headed Eagle was placed upon a very
tall pine tree” – its purpose, Musquakie then explained, was “in order
to watch the Council fires and see if any ill winds blew upon the smoke
of the Council fires.” The beautiful white-headed Eagle is, of course, a
bald eagle. And the white pine, with its five needles representing the
original five nations of the Confederacy, is one of the Haudenosaunee

Confederacy’s most potent central symbols.13 There is a double refer-
ence here. The Haudenosaunee also described a white-headed eagle
sitting on their great tree of peace (the white pine) while the bald eagle
was also the doodem of the ogimaa who was the keeper of the council
fire of the Credit River. Musquakie’s allegory presented the Credit River
council as being the one tasked with, in essence, relationship manage-
ment, or external affairs.
This agreement also contained within it the roles and responsibilities
of the allied council fires. Given that each council fire kept its autonomy
in these types of alliances, neither the Credit council nor the Mnjikan-
ing council could compel the actions of any of the other parties. An
“ill wind” is a metaphor for a problem or threat; so in this alliance the
Credit River council was tasked with being an early warning system for
any potential threats to the alliance that might require additional nego-
tiation to sort out. The longevity of this alliance, lasting more than 150
years, is a testament to their success. Musquakie’s subsequent remarks
also described additional responsibilities for the Credit River commu-
nity within the alliance – to be the messenger between the Haudeno-
saunee and the rest of the allied Anishinaabe fires in the eastern Great
Lakes and to notify the Caribou if and when renewal councils should
be called. In so doing, the speech Musquakie recited reveals the use of
nested metaphors for both Anishinaabe common and general councils.
Every council had its ogimaa who met in consultations with his gichi-
Anishinabek. Recall that ogimaa often had an identified aanikeogi-
maa, or step-below chief, who acted as both an assistant and a deputy.
On treaty documents the doodem images of these individuals appear
below that of the ogimaa, in the second position. In this larger alliance
agreement, then, Musquakie stood in relation to the ogimaa of the other
fires as a chi-ogimaa, as the ogimaa of a local council stood in relation
to his own gichi-Anishinabek. And the Credit River ogimaa (the host
of this particular event) filled this agreement’s roles of both messenger
and step-below chief in the larger alliance.
This record of the 1840 council is remarkable as a document of an alli-
ance between the Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee peoples and also
for what it reveals about use of doodem and fire as metaphors through
13 Jennings, History and Culture of Iroquois Diplomacy. For an excellent recent study of
the Haudenosaunee at Six Nation in Canada, see Hill, Clay We Are Made Of.
which Anishinaabe governance was constituted. The belt shows us

how doodemag were used, allegorically, to enact new relationships
between people and place by referring to new sites for councils; and, by
extension, to identify the leaders who had responsibility for the lands
and resources. It created jurisdictions by identifying which doodemag
were the keepers of the respective council fires. In addition to alliance
agreements such as the one above, Anishinaabe aadizookaanag (sacred
stories) and dibaajimowin (histories) also use doodem as a political
allegory to explain how particular people came to gather at different
locations and what doodem identity was responsible for keeping the
fire of each common council. Drawing from these understandings, one
can then see Anishinaabe law in action and construct a dynamic politi-
cal map of the Great Lakes region, one that captures the complexities
of Anishinaabe governance, the continuities and changes in doodemag,
the emergence of new council fires, and the webs of alliances which
crossed the Great Lakes.
Doodem and the Founding of Council Fires in Deep Time
As the ogimaa Musquakie demonstrated so evocatively in his 1840

reading of an alliance agreement, the doodem tradition was a system
of categories that did political work through metaphor and allegory.
Chapter 1 discussed the origin narratives for the doodem tradition.
Those same narratives that tell the history of the doodem tradition
also consciously tied certain doodem identities to specific places, as the
birthplace or site of emergence for human beings with that doodem.
Such origin narratives not only explained the creation of the doodem
tradition; they were also constitutional. Migration narratives form the
other dominant strand of Anishinaabe origin stories, and they likewise
contain both elements of Anishinaabe political histories (where people
moved from, where to, and why) and how people came to have respon-
sibility for lands in new locations.
Doodem narratives of origin are powerful political allegories. As the
examples in Chapter 1 showed, late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-
century doodem origin narratives that explain the emergence of the
Beaver doodem along the French River or the Hare doodem at Mich-
ilimackinac use doodem as allegory to recognize and reaffirm long-
standing doodem responsibility for particular territories and council
fires. In another version, published in William Warren’s History, Crane
ogimaa Tugwaugaunay explains how the origins of Bawaating as a seat
1. Treaty for the sale of St. Joseph’s Island, 30 June 1798 to the British
Crown, signed with doodem images by Ogimaa Meatoosawke (Crane),
Aanikeogimaa Keegustakamsigishkam (Crane), Boanince (Crane),
Ogasque Waiaune (Marten), Kaukonce (Pike), Sasong (Crane),
Shawanapennisse (Thunderbird). Library and Archives Canada.
2. A large woven mat, made of basswood and bullrush or cattail, 126 cm
wide × 206 cm long, “wrought as tapestries are in France.” This example is
from Leech Lake, Minnesota, and was made sometime before 1904. This and
the following four images are examples of gifts given to a council fire host.
Ethnologisches Museum Berlin, Germany.
3. An oval-shaped birchbark basket with a rim wrapped in split root and

porcupine quills, 22.5 cm × 16.5 cm. Museo Civico di Scienze Naturali di
Bergamo, Italy.
4. Strands of white wampum (“porcelaine beads”), bound as traditionally expected: bound on one end, loose at the other end.
One end is tied with a blue silk ribbon tie. 40 cm long. Ethnologisches Museum Berlin, Germany.
5. A pair of moccasins given to British Army officer Major Andrew Foster (1768–1806) at Fort Miami or
Fort Michilimackinac. Colours faded from their original bright blue, red (now orange), black, and white.
© National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution.
6. Portrait of a man of the nation of the Noupiming-dach-iriniouek, Codex
Canadensis, circa 1700. Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma.
7. Portrait of a man of the Amikouek nation, Codex Canadensis, circa 1700.
Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma.
8. Ball-headed Otter war club carved from wood, with iron spike set into the
ball, 60 × 23 × 9.5 cm, and close-up of the face. The artist has captured the
wide-set eyes, whiskers, and the jaw line of the otter. Musée du quai Branly,
Paris, France.
9. Fishing by the Passinassiouek, Codex Canadensis, circa 1700. These two men,
from Bawaating, are both wearing headdresses. Compare these with images of
headdresses in Figures 21 and 22, especially with Nebanagoching’s headdress
in Figure 22. The man in the bow of the canoe is playing a bibigwan (an end-
blown flute). Anishinaabe peoples historically used flutes for many purposes,
including fishing. Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma.
10. George Catlin, Canoe Race Near Sault Ste. Marie, 1836–7. Catlin’s painting captures the excitement and
energy at the games and competitions during an Anishinaabe gathering at Bawaating. Men, women, and
children enthusiastically cheered the racers as they lined the course while sitting (or standing!) in their
brightly painted birchbark canoes. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC.
11. Signature pages from the Great Peace of Montreal representing delegates from thirty-eight to thirty-nine Great
Lakes Indigenous nations. Anishinaabe pictographs appear in the top half of the middle page. Archives Nationales
d’Outre Mer, Aix-en-Provence, France.
12. Grave posts with doodem images from Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, Historical
and statistical information, respecting the history, condition and prospects of the
Indian tribes of the United States, 1857.
13. Pipe presented to Sir Francis Bond Head as Lieutentant-Governor of
Upper Canada at the 1836 Manitowaning Treaty. The pipe was used to open
council between the British and 1,500 assembled Anishinaabeg. Overall length
of pipe and stem: 47 5/8 inches. The pipe has been repatriated by the host
council fire, Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory, and is printed here with
their kind permission.
14. A bgamaagan, or war club, presented to Lord Elgin, while he was
Governor General of Canada (1847–54). National Museum of Scotland,
Edinburgh.
15. Chief’s coat, issued by British Army, said to have belonged to Oshawana
(John Naudee), Anishinaabeg (Ojibwa). Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto.
16. Ambrotype portrait of Chief Oshawana of Walpole Island, Tecumseh’s
aide de camp during the War of 1812, taken in 1838. Royal Ontario Museum,
Toronto.
17. King George II Peace Medal, dated 1757. The inscription reads: “Let us
look to the most high who blessed our fathers with peace.” This and the
medal in Figure 18 were commissioned to commemorate alliances between
the British and Great Lakes nations. Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma.
18. George III Indian Chief Medal, dated 1764, from the Treaty of Niagara. The
inscription reads: “Happy While United.” Library and Archives Canada.
19. 1764 Treaty of Niagara Covenant Chain belt. This belt is presumed to have
been lost in a fire. The last known belt-carriers lived on Manitoulin Island. A
sketch of the belt was made from the originals in the 1850s. Reproduction by
Ken Maracle, Canadian Museum of History, Ottawa.
20. Sir John Caldwell wearing gifted regalia, circa 1780. National Museums
Liverpool, United Kingdom.
21. Regalia given to Andrew Foster, gifted around 1790 when Foster was
serving at Fort Michilimackinac. Note the thunderbird motifs on the neck
ornament. National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, DC.
22. William B. Robinson (left), government treaty negotiator for the Robinson-
Huron Treaty of 1850, with Shingwaukonce (centre) and Nebanagoching
(right), the hereditary Crane ogimaa of Bawaating. All three men are wearing
regalia including marks of leadership. Image taken in either Toronto or
Montreal. Shingwauk Residential Schools Centre, Algoma University, Sault
Ste. Marie, Ontario.
23. Pouch with Caribou doodem referenced by two caribou hoof images and
five representations of the four directions. The black and white quillwork also
evokes wampum. Canadian Museum of History, Ottawa.
Wabicommicott,
1764*
Wabakanne,
1787*, 1792
Wabanip,
1797
Chechalk,
1806
Adjutant,
1818
24. Eagle ogimaag at the Credit River. Years given indicate the
date when the pictograph was inscribed on the treaty document Joseph Sawyer,
or petition. * indicates copy made by clerk. 1831, 1844
Bawaating: Marque des Sauteurs, 1701; Meatoowanakwee, 1798;
Nebanagoching, 1849
Marque des Algonquins, 1701; Pahtash, Rice Lake, 1818; George Paudash,
Rice Lake, 1856
25. The Crane doodem were keepers of multiple council fires throughout the
Great Lakes, including at Bawaating, Rice Lake, and in Algonquin territory
along the Ottawa River. Nebanagoching’s portrait shows him wearing
his Crane doodem on his coat, in a posture indicating the intent to defend
one’s territory.
Marque des Shawanapenisse, Peewaushemanogh,
Mississauges, 1798 Treaty of Detroit,
1701 1807
Wabinaship, Credit River, 1792
Chechalk, Credit River, 1806
Peter Jones (note the

bald head), on a petition
to Queen Victoria, 1844
26. Leadership qualities in Thunderbird and Eagle doodem images.

Sandhill crane, bowing Wabanqué, Bawaating, Kewukance, Treaty of
1701 Manitowaning, 1836
Sandhill crane, jumping George Paudash,

Rice Lake, 1856
Toquish, Windsor/
Sandhill crane, location call Detroit area, 1800
27. Leadership qualities expressed through the body postures of cranes in

Crane doodem images.
Woodland caribou, note dewclaws visible above rear hoof,
reproduced on track mark below.
Ningwason, Mesquescon, Bay Annamakance, Caribou

Mnjikaning, and Ogaa, of Quinte, 1816; doodem represented by
St. Joseph’s Island, Maytoygwaan (partially the track mark, London
both 1798 covered by a wafer), 1819 Township, 1796
Channel Catfish, note forked tail
Kiskakons, 1701 Mitchiwass, London Boquaquet, Treaty of

Township, 1796 Detroit, 1807
28. Representation of Caribou and Catfish doodem images.
29. Indenture for the sale of lands along the Grand River, 23 May 1784.
The bottom three signatories are principal women. Archives of Ontario.
30. Signature page from the Address of the Chiefs of the Mississauga ...
to His Excellency the Lieutenant Governor, 7 October 1811. Library and
Archives Canada.
31. Signature page of the 1840 petition to Governor General Thompson, 24 January 1840.
Library and Archives Canada.
32. Nipissing-Anishinaabe petition from 1848 showing a Caribou doodem
affixed with sealing wax. Library and Archives Canada.
33. Census of Lake Nipigon indinaakonigewin by doodem, 1850. Library and

Archives Canada.
34. Symbolic petition of Chippewa Chiefs, presented at Washington, 28 January 1849, headed by
Oshkabawis of Wisconsin.
Ningwason, 1798 Big Shilling, 1835 David Abetung,
1857
Deer Sun Logo of the Chippewas of Rama First Nation
35. Representation of Caribou doodem images changing to Whitetail Deer at

Mnjikaning (Chippewas of Rama)
Marque du Village, Neace, 1787

1701
Moses Pahdequong, 1831 James Smoke, 1837
36. Representation of Bison, changing to Domestic Cattle.

of governance led by a Crane doodem ogimaa dates back to the cre-

ation of the Anishinaabe world. In Tugwaugaunay’s recounting, after
the Great Spirit first made the Crane, “it circled slowly above the Great
Fresh Water Lakes … looking for a resting place, ‘til it lit on the hill
overlooking Boweting [Bawaating/Sault Ste. Marie].”14 That hill was
the site of councils at Bawaating and the location where St. Lusson had
held his 1671 prise-de-possession ceremony, as described in the Intro-
duction. Such narratives demonstrate the use of doodemag as a source
of law that gives the parameters of jurisdictions – of who had rights and
responsibilities in each place.
Establishing New Council Fires
While French, British, and later American officials may have struggled
to appreciate the political significance of doodem identity, they did
record enough Anishinaabe narratives to give insights into how doo-
dem governance operated both locally and regionally. Those who did
have more intimate, first-hand knowledge of the teachings of Elders
are crucial sources, especially those Anishinaabe authors who wrote
about the tradition, particularly Peter Jones and William Warren. Such
stories like those concerning the origin of the Beaver, Hare, and Crane
doodemag explained how humans with those doodem identities could
claim precedence in a region due to their in-situ origin or establish-
ment by a First Being. But what about those times when the Anishina-
bek needed to establish new council fires? On what stories would they
draw? As the example of the wampum talk that opened this chapter
demonstrates, Anishinaabe ogimaawag also used doodem to constitute
new councils. In the absence of origin narratives, on what basis would
they have decided that the Caribou should host the council fire at Mnji-
kaning, for example, or the Eagle at the Credit River? Why one doodem
and not another? I suggest that here doodem as an ontological category
also worked to create certain kinds of political possibilities and to limit
others. In other words, there is doodem logic at work here.
With their knowledge of the characteristics, behaviours, and pre-
ferred habitats of particular doodem beings, the Anishinabek under-
stood that only certain doodemag were culturally logical choices for
this kind of leadership role. Specifically, the doodem identity chosen to

be the keeper of a fire also needed its other-than-human counterpart to

exist in the habitat where the new fire was established. This problem
arose for the people from the north shore of Lake Huron, some of whom
moved into the southern Ontario peninsula in the late seventeenth and
very early eighteenth century. On the signature page of the 1701 Peace
of Montreal, these “Mississaugas” of the north shore of Lake Huron
signed with a clear representation of a thunderbird image. Allied with
and led by chiefs of the Crane and Beaver doodem across the north
shore region from Sault Ste. Marie to the French River, the Mississaugas
had taken part in a campaign to push the Haudenosaunee Confederacy
out of what is now southern Ontario. Following their victory and sub-
sequent peace treaty with the Confederacy, some of the north shore peo-
ple returned home, while others moved south. However, those Anishi-
nabek who came to the mouth of the Credit River signed later treaties
not with the thunderbird but with an eagle doodem image. What led
to this change?
These different images express a related idea and communicate
a political history. The Eagle doodem image from the Credit River is
actually a visual metaphor that served to connect the new community
with their relatives from the north shore of Lake Huron. Recall that the
belt read by Musquakie established the council fire at the Credit River
as being cared for by the Eagle doodem; but the bald eagle refers alle-
gorically to the thunderbird. As Peter Jones, who was from the Credit
River community, explains, he was dedicated by his grandfather as an
infant, “to the eagle, i.e., to the thundergod.”15 Later in his narrative,
Jones related a teaching he received as a young man: that the animikiig
(thunderbirds) were beings who nested and raised their young on
the tops of the white ﬂint rock hills on the Michigan peninsula. When
these hills were viewed “from a distance they have all the appearance
of snow-capped mountains,” resembling the heads of bald eagles.16 The
north shore of Lake Huron has the same sort of geology. Viewed from
the water on a sunny day, the quartz in the north shore hills glistens like
snow. The Credit River location, and other important sites on the north
shore of Lake Ontario, did not have the hills of white quartzite where
animikiig dwelled. However, Lake Ontario was home to hundreds of
bald eagles that gathered, as the Anishinabek did, at river mouths to
15 Jones, History, 12.

16 Ibid., 43.
fish. How could the Credit River people express themselves as thunder
beings if they were no longer in the country of the animikiig? The lands
and waters of the Credit River had no quartzite hills. The lands, waters,
and ecology were different here. However, by representing themselves
as bald eagles, the Anishinabek who came to establish a council fire at
the Credit River could express a historic relationship with the home of
their ancestors. The white head of the mature bald eagle was a reminder
of their former home, and it expressed a shared quality of “eagleness”
with the mighty animikiig who dwelt there. In the late seventeenth
century the Credit River location would not have been a logical choice
for the people of the Caribou doodem to be keepers of a council fire, as
the habitat of the woodland caribou extends only as far south as the bot-
tom extent of the Canadian Shield. The location of the Caribou council
fire established at Mnjikaning is at the southern edge of the Shield and,
by extension, the southern edge of the woodland caribou’s range.
The Eagle doodem was also a logical choice for the Credit River loca-
tion, given the characteristics and behaviours of eagles as a species and
the responsibilities held by the maintainers of the Credit River council
fire under this treaty. Recall that in the terms of the agreement recited
by Musquakie, which opened this chapter, the Eagle was charged with
two additional responsibilities: to keep a watchful eye on the behav-
iour of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy to the south and to act as the
messenger for the Caribou at Mnjikaning, calling people together in
council when required. Logic pointed to the Eagle doodem as much
better suited to this role than the Caribou. There is quite a bit of poetry
in positioning a far-seeing “beautiful White headed Eagle … upon a
very tall pine tree” – one that resonates with Haudenosaunee cultural
symbolism as well, with the white pine being the tree of peace and the
symbol of the Confederacy. Neither the Crane nor the Caribou doodem
had the physical qualities that would enable them to serve as such a
potent political allegory. It is no accident that the Eagle doodem came
to be the leading doodem at the Credit River, as the Caribou did at
Mnjikaning. These were deliberate choices made in council by ogimaa
from the various doodemag who had participated in the war against
the Haudenosaunee, and they were choices that also resonated deeply
with the cultural logic of the doodem tradition.
Around the same time the Credit River fire was first kindled, some
other Anishinabek returned to eastern Ontario – particularly in the
region known as the Kawartha Lakes district, about three hundred kilo-
metres west of Ottawa. But this was a homecoming. As the fur trader
Nicolas Perrot reported in a manuscript written not many years after

the Great Peace, “Algonkins” had lived long before the French arrived
“along the river of the Outaoüas, at Nepissing, on the French River,
and between this last and Taronto [Toronto].”17 Anishinaabe peoples
from a council fire on the Ottawa River signed the Great Peace of Mon-
treal as the Algonquins, with the Crane doodem. And on later treaties
signed with the council fire at Rice Lake to the west, a Crane doodem
always signed first. Other doodem images on nineteenth-century east-
ern Ontario treaties include Pike, Bison, and Birch. Champlain reported
meeting fifteen canoes of people called “Quenongebin” (Ginoozhe, or
Pike people) along the Ottawa River in 1613.18
Examples of Anishinaabe use of doodem as political allegory are
found elsewhere in the Great Lakes region and demonstrate the use
of doodem as a political metaphor specifically to assert the claim of
a council fire to a particular territory. In his memoirs, Perrot recalled
being told that:
the Nepissings (otherwise called the Nipissiniens), Amikoiis, and all

their allies claim that the Amikoiis, which means descendants of the bea-
ver, took their creation from the corpse of the Great Beaver, from where
emerged the first man of that nation; and that this beaver left Lake Huron,
and entered the stream which is called the French River. They say that as
the water became too low for him, he made dams, which are now rapids
and portages. When he reached the river which takes its origin from the
Nepissing, he crossed it, and followed [the course of] many other small
streams which he passed ... And so having spent some years in his travels,
he wanted to fill the country with children whom he left there, and who
multiplied wherever he had passed.19
Perrot’s account makes it clear that he was told multiple times about
the origin of the Beaver doodem and its connection to the Anishinaabe
council fires of eastern Georgian Bay and Lake Nipissing region. The
story describes the territory fully (it is even today rich beaver habitat,
full of dams and lodges) and asserts the long claim of the Beaver doodem
17 Perrot, “Mémoire,” in Blair, Indian Tribes, 1:42–3. By Algonkin, Perrot is referring to

Anishinaabe peoples, not specifically the Algonkin nation today.
18 Champlain met the Kinouchespirini in 1612 in what is now eastern Ontario and
included them on his 1613 map. See Champlain, Works, 2:264.
and the council fire of the Amikouais to that region. People recognized
that territorial right throughout the region, as Perrot noted that “all their
allies” also supported the claim of this origin narrative. And perhaps
Perrot was told the story so many times to remind the French whose
lands they were on.
In the 1820s, the Crane ogimaa Tugwaugaunay of La Pointe, Wiscon-
sin, used a doodem origin story to depress the political pretensions of
the Loon doodem ogimaa who was challenging his precedence. Embed-
ded within that story is also a history of how the Crane doodem first
became the keeper of the fire at Bawaating and, subsequently, how it
was the members of the Crane doodem who had moved west to kindle
new fires, including the one at La Pointe. Tugwaugaunay’s narrative,
like the belt read by Musquakie, reveals how Anishinaabe governance
in the Western Great Lakes was also defined through doodem and
ishkode. In addition, it demonstrates the ways in which Anishinaabe
leaders mobilized doodem characteristics to make political claims. As
Tugwaugaunay explained to Warren: “Pleased with the sand point,”
the Crane,
circled over it and viewed the numerous fish as they swam about in the
clear depths of the Great Lake. It lit on Shaug-ah-waum-ik-ong,20 and from
thence again it uttered its solitary cry. A voice came from the calm bosom
of the lake, in answer; the bird, pleased with the musical sound of the
voice, again sent forth its cry, and the answering bird made its appearance
in the wampum-breasted Ah-auh-wauh (Loon). The bird spoke to it in a
gentle tone “is it thou that gives the answer to my cry?”
The Loon answered “it is I” the bird then said to him “thy voice is
music-it is melody, it sounds sweet in my ear, from henceforth I appoint
them to answer my voice in council.” Thus continued the chief, the Loon
became the first in council, but he who made him chief was the Businasee
or Crane. These are the words of my ancestors, who from generation to
generation, have repeated them into the ears of their children.21
The Crane ogimaa was making an argument, through his telling of

these stories to Warren, that it was not the French who made the Loon
20 Warren here is referring to a location on Chequamegon Bay of Lake Superior, located

in what is today the northern tip of Wisconsin.
doodem ogimaa; it was the council fire at Bawaating where the Crane
doodem ogimaa was the fire keeper. This is also a reference to the
regional alliance. Bawaating was at this time the fire keeper for the alli-
ance of Lake Superior council fires, and it was at the Bawaating council,
according to this account, that kindled the council fire at Chequamegon
and therefore constituted its government and recognized its leaders.
Furthermore, by naming the Loon as the one to “answer [the Crane’s]
voice in council,” Tugwaugaunay was reminding the Loon ogimaa that
his role in the larger alliance was that of a speaker and not the fire-
keeper. Tugwaugaunay was pushing back against what he saw as the
Loon ogimaa’s effort to use the alliance with the French to advance his
own agenda. The Anishinabek not only recorded their political history
through doodemag but drew from that tradition to explain or justify
their politics and to shape their choices, by invoking doodemag to
make political arguments. As with the wampum read by Musquakie
that opened this chapter, the narratives recorded by Perrot and War-
ren demonstrate how doodem identity was used in both metaphor and
allegory for constitutional and political purposes.
The Metaphor of Fire
When Anishinabek spoke about their councils, they used the word fire,
or ishkode, as a metaphor for governance. It was a regionally significant
political symbol that the Haudenosaunee and Wendat also used, and it
is important to unpack this metaphor as well because doodem and ish-
kode were used together in allegories about governance. Fire was used
to evoke acts of governance, councils and alliances, and, by extension,
the polities constituted by their deliberations. Fire appears as a meta-
phor in diplomatic negotiations with Europeans from the earliest days
of the seventeenth century.22 As political scientist Heidi Kiiwetinepine-
siik Stark demonstrates, fire is such a potent metaphor in Anishinaabe
political discourse because it draws meaning from aadizookaanag that
explain how the culture hero Nanabozhoo acquired fire for the Anishina-
bek. In the story, Nanabozhoo transformed himself into a hare (through
the power of metamorphosis) in the hope that he would be captured by
two young human girls, who would bring him to their home and next
22 “Glossary of Figures of Speech in Iroquois Political Rhetoric,” in Jennings, History

and Culture of Iroquois Diplomacy, 118.
to their fire. Once inside, their father realized quickly that Nanabozhoo
was a manidoo (an ensouled spirit being) who wanted to steal the fire
that he guarded. About to be caught, Nanabozhoo, thinking quickly, set
his own fur on fire with a spark before running across the frozen lake to
escape. Upon returning to his home, Nanabozhoo’s grandmother suc-
cessfully captured some of the fire before putting out the fire in his fur.
However, Nanabozhoo’s formerly all-white fur was now scorched. The
Anishinabek had fire, but Nanabozhoo’s appearance had been changed
in the process of obtaining it.23
This story not only serves to explain why the fur of the hare changes
colour from brown in the summer to white in the winter, but it also
functions as a political allegory. As Stark explains, while fire serves as a
metaphor for a discrete polity (she uses nation), the hare’s changing fur
colour (marked by fire), “illustrates how nations are defined and are in
turn marked by their treaties and alliances. When a nation enters into an
alliance or treaty, it retains its separate distinct identity in the same way
that the hare retains his white fur in the winter. Nonetheless, a nation
is also marked or shaped by its alliances with other nations in the same
way that the hare in this story is marked by the quest for fire, having
brown fur in the summer.”24
Nanabozhoo’s quest for fire is an expression of the desire to be in alli-
ance with others and of the benefits that come from making alliances
with other people. There are multiple lessons that listeners can draw
from this story, but for Anishinaabe political purposes the message is
that, through treaties and alliances, one is both simultaneously changed
and yet still the same. In the Anishinaabe worldview, one can belong
to or meet around multiple fires. By extension, one does not lose either
identity or autonomy by entering into a treaty or an alliance relation-
ship. And one most certainly does not become the subject of a foreign
power through treaty or alliance.
While Stark and others have equated council fire with nation, fire as
a political metaphor was used to describe any Anishinaabe polity rang-
ing from a small gathering of several extended families to large con-
federacies of multiple smaller fires. One could call all of these polities
“nations,” and many historians have done so. But, as Michael Witgen
notes in An Infinity of Nations, “the idea of nation, as either a political
23 Stark, “Marked by Fire.”

24 Ibid., 121–2.
construct or a description of collective identity, was the misapplication

of a European social category onto a Native social formation.”25 I suggest
more precisely that the idea of nation as expressed in European politi-
cal discourse has been, and continues to be, mapped inappropriately
onto more than one “Native social formation,” masking the social and
political gradations that the Anishinaabe and other Great Lakes peoples
understood when they spoke of “fires.” Sometimes both historians and
the authors of source documents have also used the word “nation” to
describe doodem identities, and sometimes they applied the term to
people who met at a particular council location. On the land surrender
treaties, Anishinaabe signatories are identified as either “nations” or
“tribes,” but the patterns of doodem images on each reveals polities
not covered by either word. As this book demonstrates, the pattern of
doodem images in such treaties actually reflected the leadership of the
local council fire that had responsibility for the land in question. As the
examples of treaty documents in this book show, people having mul-
tiple doodem identities could belong to one council fire while people
with the same doodem identity lived in different council fires spread
throughout the region.
Colonial writers often referred to the locations of council fires as
villages, but this is another inaccurate term for describing historic
Anishinaabe gatherings. When early visitors to the Great Lakes
region saw hundreds and up to two thousand people congregating
to conduct councils, visit with one another, trade, arrange marriages,
and discuss issues of common concern, these Europeans reached
for the closest analogy to their own terms for settlements. “Village”
seemed to be the nearest equivalent, in an effort to convey the per-
manency they saw in the semi-annual return of people to the same
location. However, there are crucial distinctions: French and English
villages in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were places
inhabited year-round by families living in permanent dwellings in
an otherwise rural area. Furthermore, the word “village” connotes
a particular population concentration that was bigger than a hamlet
(a concentration of a few families) but smaller than a town. Villages
had differentiated spaces: there was usually a church and at least
a few small shops, for example. Villages lacked the larger markets
25 Witgen, Infinity of Nations, 75.

and major churches or cathedrals of towns, whose populations of

one to several thousand were supplemented by people coming in to
access the regional markets and more specialized services that towns
offered. The word “village” conjures up in the mind a certain small
size of human settlement, of minor to no political importance, in a
rural area.
In contrast, the Great Lakes Anishinaabe gathering sites that
European visitors called “villages” looked nothing like their English
and French namesakes and were often highly significant political
sites. Prior to the establishment of French or English missionary
stations, trading posts, or military forts at these locations, people
left these sites during the winter months when families headed out
into their hunting territories. And they were often densely inhabited
during annual or semi-annual gatherings. Examples from the Jesuit
Relations give some further insight into these geographic patterns,
which were well-established in the early seventeenth century. In
1626, the Jesuit Charles Lalemant observed that two or three related
families travelled together for six months of the winter, “erecting
their cabins together in one place.” Families consisted of anywhere
from ten to twenty people, typically a group of brothers with their
wives and children. In summer, Lalemant described how families
would come together at specific locations on the St. Lawrence to fish
and socialize, as did families who gathered at Bawaating and other
locations throughout the Great Lakes. As discussed in the Intro-
duction, Lalemant’s brother Jérôme described the same pattern in
1640 among the people who gathered on the shore of Lake Nipiss-
ing. He noted that in the spring, some of the Nipissing people were
busy with fishing on the Lake while others spent a month travel-
ling to James Bay for trade, and then another month returning. The
entire community came together in the late summer for a gathering
before heading out in the fall to their hunting camps. The Nipissing
chose to hunt on Wendat territory. From there they could trade with
their meat for the corn and other produce of their allied Wendat
winter neighbours.26

Nicolas Perrot’s description of “village life” at Bawaating in the late

seventeenth century reveals the continuity of practice:
Those who have remained at the Saut [sic], their native country, leave
their villages twice a year. In the month of June they disperse in all direc-
tions along Lake Huron … This lake has rocky shores, and is full of small
islands abounding in blueberries. While there they gather sheets of bark
from the trees for making their canoes and building their cabins. The water
of the lake is very clear, and they can see the fish in it at a depth of twenty-
five feet. While the children are gathering a store of blueberries, the men
are busy in spearing sturgeon. When the grain [that they have planted] is
nearly ripe, they return home. At the approach of winter they resort to the
shores of the lake to kill beavers and moose, and do not return thence until
the spring, in order to plant their Indian corn.27
This pattern was not changed significantly until the nineteenth century,
when Anishinaabe families were forced onto reserves and settler colo-
nialism imposed a new political geography and new subsistence strate-
gies upon them.
In the Great Lakes region, imported labels such as “nation,” “tribe,”
“band,” and even “village” do not accurately describe the distinctive
political shape of Anishinaabe polities, with their web-like political
geometries consisting of nodes of seasonally occupied council fire sites
connected by overlapping, intersecting, and mobile networks of doo-
dem relations and allied kin.28 Recall that in 1642 the council at Bawaat-
ing was part of the eastern Anishinaabe alliance – the council farthest
to the west in the alliance. But it was also part of other alliances too,
including alliances of Lake Superior council fires. In the agreement
recited by Musquakie, the council fire at Bawaating was part of the alli-
ance, but it was not the central fire, where the talk was kept and the
agreement first made. Mnjikaning had that responsibility. However,
Bawaating was the historic constituting fire for Chequamegon, accord-
ing to Tugwaugaunay’s history as told to William Warren. Each council
fire could be part of multiple and differing alliances and each coun-
cil was free to choose its own path and allies. However, once the alli-
ance was recognized in formal council, with the sun as a witness, the
27 De la Potherie, “Histoire de l’Amérique septentrionale,” in Blair, Indian Tribes, 1:279–80.

28 Ferris, Archaeology of Native-Lived Colonialism, 4–6.
alliances became binding, and allies took on the responsibility to care

for each other. These alliances thus shaped the political geography of
the Great Lakes region.
Mapping Anishinaabewaki
A central claim of this book is that alliances were the framework through
which the Anishinabek defined their relationships with other Indige-
nous societies and, in turn, with European newcomers. Alliance-making
was a long-standing legal and political tradition that met social and
cultural needs. The region is full of examples of long-lasting agreements
constructed between council fires of Great Lakes Indigenous peoples –
between the Anishinabek and the Wendat, the Haudenosaunee, the
Sioux, and others. These international alliances demonstrate the cen-
trality of alliance-making to the construction of the region’s political
geography: the Wendat Confederacy, for example, and the coalition
between the eastern Anishinabek and the Wendat, the Haudenosaunee
Confederacy, the Three Fires Confederacy of the Anishinabek, and the
western Anishinaabe–Sioux alliance.29 In all of these alliances, the con-
stituting council fires maintained their distinctive identities and politi-
cal autonomy, even as they were strengthened and changed by their
alliance relationships.
Evidence for the rough locations of long-standing Anishinaabe coun-
cil fires are in the colonial archives, but they are not always obvious.
Seventeenth-century French colonial records, particularly maps, are a
useful source of names. One can almost read from the names covering
the map that European travellers were asking one of the most basic
of human questions in encounter situations: “Who are you?” But the
question (and the anticipated answer of national identity or country
of origin) varied greatly in different cultural contexts. As Anishinaabe
teacher and Elder Basil Johnston explains, historically, Anishinaabe
“men and women preferred to regard themselves as members of a totem
[doodem] and then a community. Strangers, when they met, always
asked one another, ‘Waenaesh k’dodaem?’ (What is your totem?);
29 For the Wendat–eastern Anishinaabe alliance see Labelle, Dispersed but Not Destroyed;
for the Haudenosaunee Confederacy as an alliance, see Parmenter, Edge of the Woods; for
the Three Fires Confederacy, see Belfry, Three Fires Unity; for the western Anishinaabe–
Sioux alliance see Witgen, Infinity of Nations.
only afterwards did they ask, ‘Waenaesh keen?’ (Who are you?).” The
maps and memoirs produced by early seventeenth-century French
travellers are not surprisingly populated with names of Anishinaabe
polities that answer Johnston’s primary question, “Waeneash k’dodaem? –
What is your doodem?”30
Of course, travellers and traders from across the Atlantic were really
asking, “What is the name of your/that nation?” It is clear from answers
that these visitors recorded on their maps and in their documents that
the Anishinabek often were answering with the doodem identities of
the keepers of specific council fires. For decades now, scholars have
recognized that at least some of the names of “nations” in early seven-
teenth-century sources – names such as the Amikouai, or Beaver (amik-
wag) people; Outchagi, or Heron (shagi) people; and Sinago (Squirrel)
people – were clearly connected to Anishinaabe doodem names. In
other cases, the names of “nations” were references to the gathering of
people at places, such as Baouichtigouian, or the People of the Rapids
(Bawaating), or Kitchisipirini, the Nation or People of the Great River
(the Ottawa River). Still others refer to the name of a hereditary ogimaa,
such as the Nassauakueton.31 To date, the conventional understanding
has been that each of these names referred to a distinct polity. As histo-
rian Michael Witgen has noted, both seventeenth-century observers and
subsequent generations of historians saw in these many different names
a Great Lakes region populated by “an infinity of nations.” According
to the conventional narrative, these many nations then collapsed in the
wake of mid-seventeenth-century wars, epidemics, and depopulation,
before reforming by the eighteenth century into the people we recog-
nize today as nations, such as the Ottawas, Ojibwes, Potawatomis, and
Mississaugas.32 But, as Witgen demonstrates, such a characterization
masks the significance of Anishinaabe alliances, which do not conform
to Western understandings of what a “nation” is. Doodem images on
treaty documents provide the key for reinterpreting the observations of
seventeenth-century observers, allowing us to now see what was really
there: a world of interconnected alliances of kin made through marriage
and doodem relations.

31 McDonnell, Masters of Empire, 98.
32 Witgen, Infinity of Nations, 20–1.
By recovering the centrality of doodem and fire to Anishinaabe cul-

ture, the “nation” names that I have cited resolve themselves into the
names of council sites, some of which are referred to locally by the doo-
dem of the hosts, others by the place at which they were held, less com-
monly but sometimes by the name of their leading ogimaa, and by other
metaphors in Anishinaabemowin that refer to doodem identity. A doo-
dem is not a polity itself; rather, it is the crucial category through which
Anishinaabe governance was constituted and defined. Council fires
were hosted by an ogimaa of the named doodem, but the fire itself cre-
ated a point of intersection that brought different doodemag together –
including those of the spouses of the council fire hosts, who, because
of the principle of doodem exogamy, always had different doodemag.
It is possible now to identify many different Anishinaabe council sites
throughout the region and the doodem that hosted each.
To reconstruct a map of Anishinaabe polities, therefore, we have to
begin by imagining a political order enmeshed in networks of doodem
alliances. We can identify major council fire locations as the places where
Anishinaabe governance was enacted through the networks of relations
who came together in annual or semi-annual gatherings. There were
many council sites throughout the Great Lakes region, some of which
routinely saw much larger gatherings than others. They were places
well-resourced with food, especially fish, as councils and the group
activities associated with these gatherings could last several weeks.
Places where waters narrowed, forcing fish as they moved between
lakes to swim closer together, were particularly well suited. To facili-
tate the fish harvest, people also constructed fish weirs. The timbers of
the fish weirs at Mnjikaning are still visible today.33 It is no accident that
long-standing council sites such as Bawaating, Mnjikaning, the Credit
River, and Bkejwanong were all locations where large quantities of food
could be readily provided to council attendees.
One of the earliest sources of names for council fires is found in
the Jesuit Relation of 1640. In this document mission superior Paul Le
Jeune expressed the “hope we have for the conversion of many” by
enumerating names and approximate locations of all the “nations”
that the French in Quebec had some knowledge of, either through the
33 See Parks Canada, “Mnjikaning Fish Weirs National Historic Site,” n.d., https://
www.pc.gc.ca/en/lhn-nhs/on/mnjikaning, accessed 14 April 2020.
reporting of interpreter Sieur Jean de Nicolet or from collected scraps

of information that had made their way to Le Jeune’s ear, such as
Amikouai – amikwag (beavers), Kinounchepirini – ginoozhii (Pike) people,
or Outchogai – ashagiwag (Great Blue Heron) people.34 Recording in
print what others had been told, early colonial authors assumed that
these were names of nations or tribes and in so doing mapped Euro-
pean understanding onto an Indigenous political tradition for which
there was no direct translation or comparison.
Some of the names in Le Jeune’s list are very clearly names for the
doodem of the council fire hosts: in addition to those above, Le Jeune’s
list includes Nikoquet (Otters), Maroumine (Catfish) and Roquai (noka,
or female Bear). Other names either clearly refer to place: Kichesipirini,
or the Great River people, whose council fire was on what is now known
as Calumet island in the Great (Ottawa) River and who signed the 1701
Great Peace with a Crane doodem image; Baouichtigouian (People of
the Sault, Sault Ste. Marie); and Oumisagai, whose name refers to the
wide river delta of the Mississagi River where it enters Lake Huron
from the north shore. For others, the irregular and phonetic spelling
make it harder to determine what word he intended. After listing all
known names for polities from the north shore of the St. Lawrence to
the southwestern shores of Lake Michigan, Le Jeune reported that “we
have been told this year that an Algonquin, journeying beyond these
peoples, encountered nations extremely populous. ‘I saw them assem-
bled,’ said he, ‘as if at a fair, buying and selling, in numbers so great that
they could not be counted; it conveyed an idea of the cities of Europe.”35
Note that, in referring to “nations” in the plural, Le Jeune was likely to
be commenting on the status of Indigenous peoples as not Christian,
rather than making any sort of comment on the type of polity.
While the purpose of Le Jeune’s report was to convey the extent to
which North America was “a glorious field for Gospel laborers,” it is
actually an important historical source of geopolitical data. Le Jeune
managed to collect significant information about the extent to which
the region was populated with many different council sites and, by
extension, the size of gatherings of people (from several hundred to
several thousands), even if his informant, Sieur Nicolet, was uncertain
34 Le Jeune, “Relation of 1640 – Hurons, Quèbec,” in Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 18:231.

35 Elizabeth Fenn says these were likely the Mandan: see her Encounters at the Heart of
the World.
about what type of polity to which each name referred. Nicolet would
have asked people who they or others were; when they replied, Nicolet
in turn would have passed those terms on to Father Le Jeune for the first
sweeping survey by Europeans of the geopolitics of the Great Lakes
region.36
It is also possible to decipher doodem names in other sources through
an understanding of how people employed metaphor to refer to this
identity. William Warren, in his History of the Ojibways, explained that
“Bus-in-aus-e” was the name used in the western Great Lakes region to
mean the Crane doodem, as it means “Echo-maker” and evokes “the
loud, clear, and far reaching cry of the Crane.”37 Likewise, while the
name maang is Anishinaabemowin for loon, the doodem name given
by Warren is “Ah-ah-wauk,” which is a reference to the call of the loon.
Other metaphorical names were collected by the anthropologist Wil-
liam Jones, who interviewed Anishinaabe people in Minnesota in the
1920s. Jones found significant evidence that metaphorical references to
doodem beings’ behaviours and habitats were used to refer to peoples
of that identity. For example, moose prefer swampy habitat. Jones noted
that his informants called people of the Moose (moos) doodem miciwaa-
naantag, “because he lives in a big swampy place there.” Jones’s infor-
mants also told him that “Pamaangik, or they that pass by singing” was
a metaphor for the wawa or Swan doodem identity; for wolf (maingan), it
was wawaonog, “the barker crier”; the beavers (amik) were pimaawidaasi-
wag, or “carriers.” Bald eagles, Jones noted, were called “otoonipi” [sic]
or “belly of fish,” because of the tendency of these birds (and by logi-
cal extension, their relatives in human form) to overeat during annual
salmon spawning runs.38
Multiple metaphors could be applied to the same place. This is true of
Bawaating, listed in seventeenth-century sources as “Passinassiouek.”
This name appears on Louis Nicolas’s circa-1670s map of the Great Lakes
region near Bawaating. The spelling is a reflection of Nicolas’s effort to
36 Le Jeune also consulted a Huron map of the region south of the Great Lakes,
provided by Father Paul Ragenau, which included people Le Jeune thought might
be “at the North of Virginia, Florida, and perhaps even new Mexico.” Le Jeune,
“Relation of 1640 – Hurons, Quèbec,” in Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 18:233.
37 Warren and Neill, History, 39; Darlene Johnston, Connecting People to Place.
38 William Jones, Ethnographic and linguistic field notes on the Ojibwa Indians,
William Jones fonds, folder 1, APS.
render the name Bus-in-aus-e (Baswenaazhi), or Echo-Maker (referring

metaphorically to the Crane doodem), into French.39 Nicolas, following
French practice, added “ouek” at the end to mean the animate plural
suffix – wag.40 But earlier in the 1640s, the Jesuits had, in two separate
reports, recorded first Baouichtigouian and then “Pauoitigoueieuhak”
as names of “nations” also living at the Sault.41 Le Jeune translated
Baouichtigouian as the “name of the people of the Sault.”42 Different
polities? Different council fires? No – the same. Baouichtigouian and
Pauoitigoueieuhak are both attempts to spell Baawaatigirini – the people
who gathered at the Sault – while Passinassiouek is a metaphor for
the Crane doodem that was the keeper of the council fire there. All three
names refer to the same gathering of people and the same place – those
who met each spring and fall in council at what is now Sault Ste. Marie.
A Crane doodem image represents “the Sault” on the Great Peace of
Montreal, and the Crane doodem was the leading doodem image on
treaties for lands around Bawaating from 1763 through the 1850s. Peo-
ple with other doodem identities met in council at Bawaating too, but
Bawaating was known by the Crane doodem who were the keepers of
the fire. Anishinaabemowin speakers appear to have used these differ-
ent names for the same place, just as today we use alternative names
like “the City of Lights,” “the Big Apple,” or “the Six” to refer to Paris,
New York, and Toronto, respectively.
This pattern continued in French and later British sources and reflects
Anishinaabe practices of using multiple metaphors. Names in these
documents refer to council fires sometimes by place and sometimes by
the doodem responsible for the territory. When one takes a closer look at
the pattern of names, it is clear that the same Anishinaabe councils were
continuing to meet and to exercise their responsibilities for the lands
regardless of what names they were labelled with in French-authored
sources. In 1681, Jacques Duchesneau (the Intendant of New France
from 1675 to 1682), conducted another enumeration. He described the
eastern Anishinaabe as those who came to trade at Montreal, consisting
39 For a biography of Louis Nicolas and a history of his manuscript, see Warkentin,
“Aristotle in New France.”
40 Nicolas, Codex Canadensis, overleaf one.
41 Le Jeune, “Relation of 1640,” in Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 18:229; Lalemant, “Relation
of 1642–1643,” in Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 23:223.
42 Pierre Radisson recorded “Pauoesligonce” as his version of “people from the Sault”:
see Radisson, Voyages, 227.
of “Ehemistamcies [Temiskaming], Nepisserinens [Nipissing], Missisa-

kis [Mississaugas], Amicoües [Amikwa], Sauteurs, Kiskacons [Kiska-
kons], et Ehionontatoronons.”43 This last name is in the Wendat lan-
guage and refers to Weskarini of eastern Ontario. They are sometimes
called the Iroquet in French records, after their ogimaa Iroquet, who
welcomed Champlain in 1609.44 The Weskarini are also Anishinabek.
What Duchesneau shows is that these council fires were again active in
the same areas where earlier sources indicated that they had been prior
to the wars and dislocations of the late 1640s. Duschenseau then identi-
fied the following people as those who traded with the eastern Anishi-
naabe for furs – living north and west of Lake Superior: “the people of
the woods [Northern Anishinabek], Kislistenons [Omukshego/Cree],
Assinbouels [Assiniboine], and the Nadouessioua [Dakota/Lakota],”
and living on the south side of the lakes: the “Sakis, Poutouatamis,
Puants, Oumalominers or of the wild rice [Menomini], the Outagami or
Renards [Fox], Mascoutens, Miamis, and Islinois [Illinois].”45 While the
arrangement of council fires and communities in the post-1650 world
of the Great Lakes region experienced change, they did not change sig-
nificantly. Furthermore, and even more importantly, change was neither
random nor ad hoc but in keeping with Anishinaabe law. The structure
of Anishinaabe governance did not change. New sites of governance
still required the approval and ratification of other constituting councils
for the area concerned.
Another enumeration taken of the Great Lakes region in 1736, almost
fifty years later, reveals the continuing presence of Anishinaabe coun-
cil fires in the southeastern Great Lakes, with Anishinaabe governance
clearly re-established or (in the case of the Caribou at Mnjikaning and
Eagle at the Credit) more recently established. This manuscript (now in
the French Colonial Archives) was authored most likely by Philippe-
Thomas Chabert de Joncaire and titled “the Enumeration of the Sav-
age Nations that are related to the government of Canada, the war-
riors belonging to each one of them and their coats of arms (or armorial
43 Mémoire du Duchesneau au ministre, 13 November 1681, ANF, fondes des colonies,

Série C11A, vol. 5, f.307; on diffusion microfilm: LAC, Reel C-2376.
44 Champlain, Works, 2:68.
45 Mémoire du Duchesneau au ministre, 13 November 1681, ANF, fondes des colonies,
Série C11A, vol. 5, f.307.
bearings)” – by which the author means their doodemag.46 This census

distinguishes between place-based names such as the Sauteurs, Missis-
saugs, and Nepissingues, and the respective doodemag associated with
each. This document is further evidence of how doodem and council
fire together define the Anishinaabe political world. The list names only
one or two doodem identities for each council, indicating the doodem
of the hereditary ogimaa and/or leading doodemag at each location.
Given that people kept their doodem when they married, each of these
locations would have included people from other doodemag, people
who had “married in” to that community. Joncaire was therefore only
identifying the council fire keepers or the doodem of the ogimaa. What
the document also reveals is that some doodemag were either more
numerous or more influential in governance than others: the Cranes,
for example, were listed as the “arms” of eight “nations,” from eastern
Ontario to western Lake Superior.47 The Bear doodem is listed at four
sites; the Beaver is listed at three.48
The real purpose of the document was military – the report was com-
missioned to get an accurate count of the number of warriors who could
be counted on to fight for the French in the wake of the Fox Wars and at
the onset of a new western Anishinaabe–Dakota conflict.49 It was also
a time of rising tensions with the British, and the westward population
pressure from Anglo-American expansionism meant that the French-
held interior was at increased risk. France was dependent upon its
Anishinabek and other Indigenous allies in this region to protect its
46 Dénombrement des nations sauvages, 1736, ANF, fondes des colonies, Series
C11A, vol. 66, fol. 236–256v. Schoolcraft identifies the author as M. Chauvignerie;
Newbigging identifies him as Joncaire. See Newbigging, “Ottawa-French Alliance,”
346. The “enumeration” has been published both in Schoolcraft’s Historical and
Statistical Information, 3:553–8, and in O’Callaghan, Colonial History of the State of New
York, 1:17–23. However, the manuscript in C11A actually consists of two copies back
to back. The first version appears to be a draft and contains the interesting notes
about the visual ways in which Anishinaabe peoples communicated their identities
(231–41). The second version appears to be the one published by Schoolcraft and
in O’Callaghan’s edited volume, although neither published version is a faithful
transcription of the original.
47 The voice of the Crane clearly travelled a great distance. See Schenck, Voice of the
Crane.
48 Dénombrement des nations sauvages, 1736, Fondes des colonies, ANF, Series C11A,
vol. 66, fol. 236–256v.
49 Witgen, Infinity of Nations, 306–12; McDonnell, Masters of Empire, 126.
claim; Joncaire, who in 1736 had just been appointed the Indian agent to
the Iroquois (a position his father had held), had been sent out to learn
what he could.50 The census was as comprehensive as Joncaire could
make it but only in terms of covering Indigenous peoples who were
allies of New France. Joncaire documented different Indigenous polities
from New England, the north, and the Great Lakes – all regions where
the French were known and had allies.
The census supports the finding by historians Michael Witgen and
Michael McDonnell that the French imperial hold on the Great Lakes
region was far more tenuous than has been previously thought and
that even after a century of engagement in the Great Lakes region,
French colonial officials still struggled to understand the people with
whom they were dealing.51 The manuscript census in the French Colo-
nial Archives reveals two enumerations, one apparently a draft of the
other. The draft reveals additional important commentary about the
multi-faceted reality of collective identity in the Great Lakes. Again,
in an effort to work within comfortable categories, Joncaire attempted
first to enumerate by geographic region and then by name of nation in
that region and to list the “coats of arms” or “armorial bearings” of the
principal families, if known. But he quickly ran into difficulty with this
method, as he noted that people from the same place could have the
same or a different “coat of arms.” He then interrupted his own draft to
note, “at this point one can object and ask how to distinguish a Sauteur
from a Mississauga who has the same coat of arms?” He responded
to his own question first by noting that a person was known both by
the place they were from – “by the arms of his Nation” – and second
by the arms “of his family,” or doodem. And the Anishinaabe, he then
explained, were “raised to distinguish each nation by the way of doing
its mark, of making the huts, of cutting their hair, by the differences in
their weapons, the arrows … by the snowshoes, by the canoes, by the
paddles and by other indications that they leave on their routes.” In
other words, it took a lifetime of knowledge to be able to read these
signs; Joncaire doubted whether even a full study would provide a
thorough understanding.52
50 Newbigging, “Ottawa-French Alliance,” 346–7, 346n21.

51 Witgen, Infinity of Nations; McDonnell, Masters of Empire.
52 Dénombrement des nations sauvages, 1736, ANF, fondes des colonies, Series C11A,
vol. 66, fol. 236–56v.
These colonial sources reveal the fundamental continuities of Anishi-

naabe governance through doodem and ishkode. Together, these
categories were the mechanism through which Anishinaabe peoples nego-
tiated and articulated their responsibilities for and connections to spe-
cific places, lands and sources. People were known both by the council
fire community to which they belonged and by their doodem. One can
see now how councils were places of significant ontological difference
between the Anishinabek who gathered there and the Europeans who
came to visit. The impact of such divergent worldviews has continued
to the present, affecting contemporary interpretations of treaties and
alliances, because subsequent generations of political actors from West-
ern European countries could not comprehend Indigenous thought
worlds or chose to dismiss them as irrelevant. Because these same indi-
viduals produced the primary sources upon which historians have to
date almost exclusively relied, our interpretations have been necessar-
ily limited and one-sided. This is not to say that, over time, local colo-
nial officials on the ground did not come to some understanding about
the importance of doodemag; and they certainly learned the diplomatic
protocols of Anishinaabe councils and the locations of regionally sig-
nificant council fires.
Consistently, Anishinaabe leaders meeting in council signed colonial
documents with images representing their doodem identities, as an
inscribed representation showing which doodem was the firekeeper at
each council site. In so doing, these leaders emphasized the importance
of kin and family in understanding how the Anishinabek recognized
relationship to and responsibility for lands and resources. An exami-
nation of doodem images produced on treaty and other documents
over more than three centuries also shows that there was a significant
change in what – or, more precisely, who – the image represented. On
the few extant seventeenth- and eighteenth-century documents from
the French colonial period, a single image would represent an entire
council fire. As La Potherie explained in 1671, “leaders made the mark
of their families,” and as was the case with doodem images on rock art,
one doodem image could represent all the individuals in a canoe. On
the Peace of Montreal of 1701, while specific leaders were sometimes
identified by name, there was only one doodem image per council fire.53
53 Ratification de la paix, 4 August 1701, ANOM, Fonds des Colonies. Série C11A.
Correspondence générale, Canada, vol. 19, fol. 41–4.
Following the Seven Years’ War in 1763, British colonial officials

entered into a new treaty relationship with Anishinaabe peoples
at the Treaty of Niagara in 1764.54 The Proclamation of 1763, which
was effectively Britain’s constitution for the new colonies it acquired
after the Peace of Paris, also contained provisions for the purchase
of Indigenous land, to be conducted at a public council called for
that purpose.55 The inclusion of this reference to public councils is no
accident. Formal councils were places where decisions of the broader
communities were ratified. These were the sites where Anishinaabe
law was performed. Following the Proclamation, when British colo-
nial officials sought to purchase land, they used their own title deeds
but had them signed at these public councils. And on these title deeds,
Anishinaabe leaders signed with their doodem images, which Brit-
ish officials considered as equivalent to their signatures. They were
not, but officials acted as if they were. Regardless of what officials
thought at the time, the Anishinabek knew what their doodem images
meant and consistently wrote them on documents that pertained to
the work of governance, to reflect the alliances between doodemag
that comprised their councils. In turn, Anishinaabe leaders also wrote
their doodem images on petitions sent to colonial governments. These
petitions were also the product of deliberations in council. The consis-
tent and enduring presence of doodem images on political documents
embodies the relationship between council fires and doodem identity,
a relationship best described as doodem constitutionalism. Through
doodem identity the Anishinabek articulated their relationship to par-
ticular landscapes and their responsibility for the beings who lived
in those lands. But the doodem tradition, much as it drew its politi-
cal legitimacy from narratives that connected the identity to particu-
lar locations, did not define that land as exclusively the property or
bounded territory of a single doodem. Instead, Anishinaabe peoples
made decisions about governance in council that comprised repre-
sentation of multiple doodem beings, reflecting the broader areas of
54 Parmenter, “Pontiac’s War”; John Borrows, “Wampum at Niagara.”

55 United Kingdom, Royal Proclamation of 1763, reprinted in R.S.C. 1985, App. II,
No. 1, 1 at 4–5. For a discussion of the clear recognition of Indigenous title, which
legal scholars now accept is embedded in the Royal Proclamation, see Walters,
“Brightening the Covenant Chain,” 89.
doodem responsibility as defined in Anishinaabe teachings. The next

chapter analyzes these doodem images on treaty and other documents
as sources for Anishinaabe governance in action. Despite the impact
of settler colonialism during this period of dispossession, the practice
of Anishinaabe governance through alliances of doodem and council
fire continued.
4
Governance in Action
“Among the Indians there have been no written laws. Customs handed down
from generation to generation have been the only law to guide them ... They
would not as brutes be whipped into duty. They would be as men persuaded
to the right.”
– George Copway, 18511
Anishinaabe missionary George Copway included the statement above

in his Traditional Sketches of the Ojibwe. Like his contemporary Peter
Jones, Copway had been raised in Anishinaabe tradition; he too wrote
for a non-Indigenous audience. “Customs,” he noted, were “the only
law to guide them.” For a Western audience, “no written law” has too
often been read as “no law.” But yet, as Copway went on to discuss
in his chapter on traditional government, regular meetings of Anishi-
naabe councils ensured that customary laws were both enacted and
followed after fulsome discussion within the community. Copway’s
statement can also be read as praise for a system of government that
was consensus-based and a rebuke to authoritarianism. Both Jones and
Copway attended councils; Jones was an aanikeogimaa who knew from
first-hand experience how Anishinaabe governance worked and how
1 Copway, Traditional History, 141.

it reflected and was answerable to the community. As Copway (who

was Crane doodem, from Rice Lake) noted, anyone (including an ogi-
maa) acting “different from what was considered right” would “bring
upon him the censure of the Nation, which he dreaded more than any
corporeal punishment that could be inflicted upon him ... This fear of
the Nation’s censure acted as a mighty bond, binding all in one social,
honourable compact.”2 This is an idealized statement, of course, and
Anishinaaabe leaders were as capable as any others of disagreeing with
one another or coming to different interpretations of “what was con-
sidered right.” Nevertheless, Anishinaabe councils were sites where
Anishinaabe law was put into action, whether at the common coun-
cils or regional gatherings, with advice from advisory councils and the
entire community. Anishinaabe governance was direct and participa-
tory, and the “censure of the Nation” was a powerful check on leaders
who forgot their responsibilities to the people in their care.
As earlier chapters have demonstrated, Anishinaabe consensus-
based governance practices through alliances and councils are old. Ori-
gin narratives and other oral histories describe these practices through
political metaphor and allegory. When leaders met in council, they
brought the specific knowledge and attributes of their doodem beings
with them, which in turn informed both governance practices and
decision-making. To understand Anishinaabe governance in action, I
look first at leadership, to see the relationships between doodem and
governance. Evidence for the historical practice of governance through
alliance comes from a study of recorded Anishinaabe oral histories and
colonial documents. Analysis of the differing composition of common
and general councils and their areas of responsibility comes from treaty
and land sale/purchase documents. The role of women in governance
is harder to see in the colonial record, given the near invisibility of
Anishinaabekwe in archival documents. But again, a combination of
recorded oral histories and evidence drawn from treaty documents and
council minutes brings their presence, power, and importance to light.
French, and later British, American, and Canadian government officials
recognized Anishinaabe governance structures. Colonial officials came
to learn which councils had jurisdiction in different places; they also
successfully made alliances and renewed them. Through the reciprocal
exchange of gifts, the same colonial officials demonstrated at least some
2 Ibid.
Governance in Action 137
understanding of the binding obligations they had co-created through

the performance of alliance ceremonies in council. Colonialism and
particularly settler colonialism did have a significant impact on Anishi-
naabe governance practices over time. Historically, the general councils
occurred on a regular – annual if not semi-annual – basis and were part
of the Anishinaabe seasonal round. But the arrival of colonists in sig-
nificant numbers during the first half of the nineteenth century increas-
ingly made off-reserve travel both unsafe and expensive. Increasingly,
general councils were attended only by ogimaa and aanikeogimaa, with
only the people of the host community to bear witness to the council’s
deliberations. Despite these challenges, leaders continued to exercise
their responsibilities according to the practices of earlier centuries and
to assert those values in their speeches and writing to colonial officials.
Anishinaabe Leadership
As legal scholar John Borrows has noted, Anishinaabe histories are

a potent source of law. They model governance “best practices,” and
demonstrate through allegory how consensus-based, consultative decision-
making worked.3 Anishinaabe oral histories consistently model consul-
tative and consensus-based leadership models. These narratives define
leaders as those who are responsible for the welfare of others. This is
evident also in the doodem origin story recounted to French fur trader
Nicolas Perrot in the late seventeenth century and discussed in Chap-
ter 1. While the animals of the earth floated on a raft following a flood,
the Great Hare, as leader of the animals, asked for volunteers to dive
in search of soil; he did not compel or order them.4 As leader of the
animals, the Great Hare acted on his responsibility to provide for those
under his care – in this case, to provide the very earth on which his
people needed to live. But the Great Hare could not achieve this objec-
tive on his own – all the animals who could dive had to contribute their
skills. And in the achievement of the muskrat, who died in his suc-
cessful effort to return to the surface with soil, listeners learn how the
smallest and seemingly insignificant make crucial contributions to the
well-being of the community, even at the cost of their own lives. So this
3 John Borrows, Drawing Out Law, 216–27.

story, like many Anishinaabe oral histories, is also a parable intended to

teach fundamental principles of Anishinaabe law and leadership and to
model the ethical principles for members of the community.
Drawing from many examples in the aadizookaanag (sacred sto-
ries), Anishinaabe peoples recognized multiple categories of leader-
ship. For civil governance, leadership roles for men (and occasionally
women) ranged from leaders of a family group (indinaakonigewin) to
ogimaawag of council fires, to regional gitchi-ogimaawag. Women’s
councils and warriors’ councils also had leaders. Gichi-ogimaawag
were highly respected individuals whose talent for leadership and
demonstrated excellence in managing spiritual power were widely
known. Because of their record of accomplishments, the words of a
gichi-ogimaa carried extra weight in councils, but their authority was
limited to the power to persuade. Many prominent leaders whose
names appear frequently in the archival record of French and British
colonial officials were gichi-ogimaawag, and colonial officials counted
themselves fortunate when they had these leaders on their side as
allies.5 Beyond civil governance, people could assume leadership
roles in other ways. People (generally men) stepped forward to lead
war parties; any adult could be a spiritual leader, knowledge keeper,
or healer.6 Individuals could, and did, have more than one leadership
role over their lifetimes. Someone who became ogimaa of a council fire
or who achieved recognition as gichi-ogimaa showed leadership skill
in other roles first. They could demonstrate their fitness for civil lead-
ership through the recognition they gained as hunters and warriors.
As skilful hunters, they would have met the Anishinaabe leadership
test of being a good provider for their people; as excellent warriors,
they would have demonstrated their ability to protect their people.
Future ogimaawag also spent time in other leadership positions,
5 For Anishinaabe leadership roles see Treuer, Assassination of Hole in the Day; Cary
Miller, Ogimaag; Chute, Legacy of Shingwaukonse, especially 1–7.
6 Most scholarship on Anishinaabe leadership focuses on the nineteenth century,
when the political tradition was under significant stress and experienced colonial
pressure to change. To reach back earlier, the broad brush strokes of what historically
constituted “traditional” Anishinaabe governance has to be gleaned from oral
traditions, colonial texts, and Anishinaabe-authored sources from the mid-nineteenth
century, particularly the writings of William Warren, Peter Jones, George Copway,
and Francis Assiginack.
acting as messengers or as aanikeogimaawag (step-below chiefs).

All Anishinaabe leaders were expected to be generous with material
wealth; good leaders accumulated wealth in order to give it away,
indicating further their ability to lead by being a good provider, and
through gifting, creating, and renewing the alliance relationships that
ensured security for the community.
Despite the fact that responsibilities ranged from the local to the
regional, Anishinaabe leadership was not hierarchical. A regionally
known gichi-ogimaa would, at the same time, be the headman of his
own family hunting group. While council fires did follow a heredi-
tary principle for the keeper of the council fire, it was the doodem that
defined the role. In other words, the ogimaa of Bawaating would his-
torically have belonged to the Crane doodem; at the Credit River, the
Eagle doodem; at Mnjikaning, the Caribou doodem. In some cases, the
successor was the child of the incumbent (as for example in the case of
Mahiingan in 1670, who the Jesuits reported succeeded his father as
the ogimaa of the Amikwa council on Georgian Bay). But this was not
by any means a hard and fast rule. What mattered was that the new
ogimaa for that council be of the same doodem as the prior incum-
bent, well suited for the role, and ratified by the general council. People
looked for leaders who had the training and ability to take on the role.
When communities looked to fill the ogimaa position of a particular
council, the new leader needed to be of the doodem that represented
that council. People having other doodem identities filled other leader-
ship roles on council. Anishinaabe governance structures were flexible.
Visual analysis of doodem images signed by Anishinaabe lead-
ers on treaty documents strongly suggests that the choices people
made in how to represent themselves were shaped by these concep-
tions of leadership characteristics, specifically that leaders were those
who took responsibility for their community through provisioning
and protecting them. (See Figures 26 to 28.) Leaders were stewards –
they took care of the people and land.7 The eagle doodem images
that I have observed, for example, all show the eagle either perch-
ing or in the act of catching prey. No other eagle behaviour, such as
eating, nesting, or courting, is reflected in these images. As Eagle
ogimaawag and gichi-Anishinabek, these leaders represented them-
selves as either in the act of hunting, and therefore provisioning their
7 Lindsay Borrows, Otter’s Journey, 26.

people, or as sitting vigilant and watchful in a perched position. Even

images of the pike demonstrate the quality of provisioning; some show
an image of a pike with its head higher than its tail, as one would
visualize the pike lying in wait camouflaged by reeds in the water,
watching to grab a duckling on the surface. The leadership quality of
vigilance is reflected in many other categories of doodem images. In the
crane images, most show elevated tail feathers, indicating arousal and
heightened awareness. The thunderbird with its wings outstretched is
preparing to do battle with the underwater manidoog, protecting the
Anishinabek from dangerous lake storms.8 Most of the caribou picto-
graphs embody the quality of vigilance by showing the raised tail the
caribou uses as a threat warning. One doodem image of a bull caribou
appears to be demonstrating an excitation leap, which caribou under-
take to communicate a possible danger ahead to the herd behind them
by leaving a scent warning in their tracks as they kick out with their
hind legs.9 The pictographs of catfish are drawn with their barbels
extended. While this could simply be intended as an aid to identify this
doodem, it is through the barbels that catfish, having the keenest sense
of smell and taste of any vertebrate, sense their food.10 Beaver doodem
images are consistently drawn showing the tail as the key diagnostic
feature, as the beaver uses its tail as a communication device, slapping
the water to warn others of approaching danger. Several of the crayfish,
admittedly from a tiny sample size, are shown rearing up in a defensive
posture employed by this tiny crustacean.11
The Anishinaabe artists who drew these images on treaties, speeches,
and petitions had an infinite range of possibilities when it came to
choosing how to best draw their doodemag; and what they chose to
8 For a discussion of the ongoing cosmological significance of the animikeek, see

Theresa Smith, Island of the Anishinaabeg.
9 Russell, World of the Caribou, 27; Caton, Antelope and Deer, 241. I made this
interpretation originally in Bohaker, “Reading Anishinaabe Identities,” 19.
10 Caprio, et al., “Taste System of the Channel Catfish.”
11 One possible interpretation of this emphasis on the communication of danger or
warning signs is that, through these postures, the writers were attempting to warn
others of possible problems with the treaty process, but I do not think this is the
correct interpretation. Any warning signals indicated by doodem images can also be
interpreted as expressions of vigilance by leaders on behalf of their people, a quality
that good Anishinaabe leaders were expected to demonstrate. See Chute, Legacy of
Shingwaukonse, 19.
do, consistently, was to reflect central qualities of Anishinaabe leader-

ship in their graphic vocabularies. In so doing they also reflected ideas
of leadership embedded in their aadizookaanag, in which their doodem
beings were the central actors in narratives that taught how governance
should be conducted in the human world: through deliberative discus-
sions in councils, in which people negotiated resolutions to problems
and strengthened their economic security and social safety net through
the formation and renewal of alliances.
Women’s Councils and Women’s Political Work
Women’s councils were a central component of Anishinaabe gov-

ernance.12 Not only were women historically highly respected by
Anishinaabe men for their crucial contributions to social and societal
well-being, but women had clearly defined political roles. During gath-
erings, women met in councils to discuss issues of importance; one
woman, an ogimaakwe, or chief woman, then presented the results of the
women’s council findings to the men. Women’s councils contributed
advice on matters of both peace and war.13 Significantly, several late
eighteenth- and very early nineteenth-century land sale agreements
with the British in the eastern Great Lakes region also recognize this
consultative structure of Anishinaabe governance and in particular the
involvement of women. Three early British–Anishinaabe treaties, all
signed between 1792 and 1796, describe the constitutive elements of
Anishinaabe political councils, stating in the preambles that the treaties
were with “Sachems, War Chiefs and Principal Women,” as does one
early agreement with the Six Nations on the Grand River.14 And on a
1784 land cession signed by the Mississauga-Anishinabek to grant land
to the Crown to create a territory for the Six Nations, the presence of the
women as signatories is clear – three women (Peawamah, Wapamones-
sychoqua, and Wacanoghaqua) affixed their doodem images, next to
the clerk’s works “her mark.” Inclusion of women in these texts indi-
cates that the British clerks who preparted the documents and the offi-
cials who hosted these councils had at least some understanding that
Anishinaabe women had political roles and responsibilities. Women

13 Ibid., 67–8.
14 Canada, Indian Treaties and Surrenders, 61, 64, 65–6.
are no longer mentioned specifically in the preambles to treaties after

1800, as the description of the parties changes to “Principal Chiefs, War-
riors and People,” but it would be a mistake to conclude from this that
Anishinaabe women ceased to be politically relevant in their communi-
ties merely because the British stopped mentioning them. It is possible
that other Anishinaabe women signed later treaty documents, but it is
hard to say with certainty. Personal names can sometimes indicate gen-
der. The suffix “kwe” is used to indicate a woman; “inni” or “nabe” a
man. Kwe was often written in colonial records as “quay” or “qua.” But
the 1784 document described above has the only two such suffixes that
I have been able to find.15 Anishinaabe personal names are just as likely
to not be gendered, however, so without further genealogical research
it is difficult to know for sure.
The advice of the women’s council and council of warriors is also vis-
ible in the minutes of an 1805 common council held at the Credit River
to discuss a prospective land sale to the British Crown. In this case,
both advisory councils disagreed with the government’s proposal. The
colonial government of Upper Canada was asking to purchase a “Tract
of Land on the Lake Ontario from the River Etobicoke to the head of the
Lake,” which would have included the Credit River itself. The common
council first said no, and the Crown then asked for the Credit River
Anishinabek to consider selling part of their lands. Quenepenon (Otter
doodem), the aanikeogimaa and orator, rose in council to explain their
response. He began by reminding the Crown of purchases made under
previous administrations and how the Crown had promised that the
settlers would benefit the Mississauga. Instead, the reverse happened:
“The inhabitants drive us away instead of helping us, and we want to
know why we are served in this manner … the farmers call us Dogs
and threaten to shoot us.” But at the same time, Quenepenon noted that
the Mississaugas were still allies of the King and must honour their
obligations to their relatives to provide them with more land. Yet the
councils were split. As Quenepenon went on to explain: “The Young
Men & Warriors have found fault with so much being sold before; it is
true we are poor & the Women say we will be worse, if we part with
any more.” The naming here specifically of the warriors and women
accords with Miller’s findings for the presences of these councils in the
15 Surrender of land by the Ottawa, Chippawa, Pot-to-wa-to-my, and Huron Indian

Nations of Detroit, 19 May 1790, LAC RG10, Vol. 1840/IT002.
Western Great Lakes. In the end the ogimaa, aanikeogimaa, and gichi-
Anishinabek who comprised the formal council followed Anishinaabe
law and agreed to the land sale, fulfilling their commitment to their
allied council fire, the British, against the advice of the other two coun-
cils but not before noting their differences for the record. These leaders,
after listening to all the advice, placed the needs of their allies over their
own. The fulfilment of obligations to an ally in these interdependent
alliance relationships was a cornerstone of Anishinaabe law.16
The role of women’s councils in land sale agreements appears to
have been advisory, and this practice may have been rooted in historic
Anishinaabe marriage practices. Because women kept their doodem
identities when they married, and because they typically married out-
side of their own and moved to their husband’s communities, they
brought other doodem perspectives and insights with them. These
women served to connect their husbands’ council fires with the council
fires on the lands where they were born, strengthening the alliances
between them.17 But the marriage alone was not the sum total of their
political work. It was not as if following their marriages Anishinaabe
women retreated to a domestic sphere. Through participation in the
women’s council, advising on decision-making involving both internal
matters and external relations, Anishinaabekwe did important political
and community-building work. The political significance of doodem
exogamy among the Anishinabek is therefore connected to the political
work that women did through the alliances that they made and rein-
forced and the knowledge that they brought with them from the com-
munities of their births.
It was possible for a woman to be an ogimaa (ogimaakwe).18 For
example, in 1892, the “Kettle Point and Sauble Indians” from Sarnia
township in southwestern Ontario submitted a petition in which they
included a genealogy of their leadership in support of a proposition.
This genealogy indicated that, at one time, the people from the Kettle
Point and Sauble communities had an ogimaakwe. In this document,
Mahmahwegeahego was identified as the Chief “when Montreal was
the headquarters of the French government.” Mahmahwegeahego was
succeeded by Inashiquay, who was followed in that position by her son
16 See especially Mills, “What is a Treaty?”; Stark, “Changing the Treaty Question.”
18 McCallum, “Miss Chief.”
Pewash. The author of the document described Pewash as “successor

to his mother” and Inashiquay as an “Indian Queen.”19 Not only was
Inashiquay acting as ogimaa, her son Pewash moved into that role after
her, further evidence that she was an ogimaakwe and firekeeper, not
the head of the council of women. As an ogimaakwe in this capacity,
Inashiquay would have had responsibility for the entire common coun-
cil community.
The rarity of women’s doodem images on treaty documents should not
detract from understanding their historical significance. Anishinaabe
women, unlike their settler counterparts, were not less favoured by law.
Rather, Anishinaabe women participated fully in the crucial political
work of binding council fires and communities together through alli-
ances. The 1784 Niagara sale/purchase agreement discussed above has
three doodem images; they provide evidence of the work Anishinaabe
women did maintaining alliances between the council fires of their
birth and marriage. This sale agreement was between the Mississauga-
Anishinabek and the British Crown and then permitted the subsequent
granting of the Haldimand tract along the Grand River to the Haudeno-
saunee in the aftermath of the American Revolution. On that document
(Figure 29), principal women are listed as signatories. Beside the names
of Peawamah, Wapamonessychoqua, and Wacanoghaqua the clerk
wrote “her mark,”20 and beside each name is a doodem image. Unfortu-
nately, the only known versions of this document are clerks’ copies and
clerks generally did a poor job reproducing doodem images; this case is
no exception. However, I have a high degree of confidence that Peawa-
mah and Wapamonessychoqua’s doodemag were both Crane. The clerk
managed to capture the bow posture of the Crane and tail “bustle” in
both cases.21 I am reasonably confident, based on my visual analysis
and comparison with thousands of other images, that Waconoghaqua
was likely Beaver doodem.22 Significantly, in 1784 Wapamonessycho-
qua (or Wapanatashiqua) was the widow of Wabbicomicott, the former
19 Petition to The Honourable E. Dewdney, Supt. General of Indian Affairs, 4 April

1892, LAC RG10, Vol. 2568, file 125851, pp. 1–3; my thanks to Reg Good for bringing
this petition to my attention.
20 Indenture for the sale of lands along the Grand River, 23 May 1784, Archives of
Ontario, Crown Lands, RG1–1v2p145–6. True copy of the original deed.
21 Happ and Yuncker-Happ. Sandhill Crane Display Dictionary.
22 Bohaker, “Reading Anishinaabe Identities.”
ogimaa of the Credit River. Her daughter Peshinaniqua or Margaret

Ball was born, according to Peshinaniqua’s baptismal record, “about
Lake Huron, 1746.” Peshinaniqua was an elderly woman when she
was baptized by the Reverend Alvin Tory in 1825.23 The fact that she
reported being born “about Lake Huron” suggests strongly that her
mother Wapanatashiqua was from an Anishinaabe community whose
council fire site was on that lake. While Anishinaabe women typically
moved to live and raise their children in their husband’s community,
the young couple would often stay with the wife’s family until the first
child was born. In the 1740s, Anishinaabe council fire sites were all
around Lake Huron and on Lake St. Clair and the Detroit River. But the
facts that, first, Wapanatashiqua was Crane doodem, and second, that
she married the ogimaa of a regionally important council fire (Credit
River) suggests a smaller set of council fires that she would have been
from. A French census of Great Lakes French allies in 1736 locates a sig-
nificant council site kept by a Crane doodem ogimaa at the base of Lake
St. Clair, where the lake enters the Detroit River.24 The prominent Crane
doodem ogimaa Wasson, who signed the adhesion to the 1764 Treaty of
Niagara in September at Detroit, was from the council fire at Saginaw
Bay on Lake Huron.25 Wapanatashiqua was likely from Saginaw Bay or
perhaps Lake St. Clair. Regardless, she would have considered Crane
doodem ogimaa at both of these council fires as her immediate kin.
When she moved to the Credit River with her husband Wabbicomicot,
she was doodem kin and therefore the key connection to the prominent
Crane families and leaders of the Detroit and Saginaw Bay council fires.
She would have had responsibilities to her doodem kin and they to her.
23 Record of Baptisms, Baptisms, 1802–57, New Credit Ontario Indian Mission, United
Church Archives, Reel 77.202L 1830, f.27.
24 Dénombrement des nations sauvages, 1736, ANF, fondes des colonies, Series C11A,
vol. 66, fol. 236–256v. See also “The French Era, 1720–1761,” in Tanner, Atlas of Great
Lakes Indian History, Map 9.
25 Kelsey, “Wasson”; Item 4, Copy of “Transaction of a Congress held with the
Ottawas and Chippewa Nations with several others,” 7 September 1764 (U1350
O48/4); Item 5, Copy of an acknowledgement by the Indians that they accept what
has been written down, 11 September 1764 (U1350 O48/5), Centre for Kentish
Studies (CKS), Unit 1350 (Amherst Mss.), Series 48 (Indian Affairs). Wasson signed
a land cession for the lands of south-western Ontario north of Lake Erie as the
ogimaa of the “Chippewas” with the track marks of the Crane: Surrender of land
by the Ottawa, Chippawa, Pot-to-wa-to-my, and Huron Indian Nations of Detroit,
19 May 1790, LAC RG10, Vol. 1840/IT002.
This glimpse into the life of Wapanatashiqua is rare, but it reminds us

about the political importance of Anishinaabekwe. The reality is that
the bulk of records produced in colonial settings were by French, Brit-
ish, and American men recording their encounters with Anishinaabe
men in formal councils. The importance of the political roles played by
women was seldom seen or acknowledged by European observers.26
When leading male ogimaawag are credited with negotiating treaties
and alliances, we do not see the essential work their spouses did in
making the alliances possible. Wabbicomicot, for example, is credited
with bringing the Detroit Anishinabek into the Covenant Chain rela-
tionship in September of 1764. It is hard to imagine Wabbicomicot suc-
ceeding in this endeavour without the pre-existing and strong kinship
ties between the Credit River council fire and the Crane doodem ogi-
maa Wasson, maintained by Wapanatashiqua.
Likewise, officials in the British Indian Department followed the
British practice of privileging men in their records of Anishinaabe
families who claimed annuity payments under treaty provisions.
Only the names of heads of families were given; the names of women
appear only if they were widows and, therefore, heads of households.
Nevertheless, Cary Miller found that as Anishinaabe societies faced
significant assimilative pressures in the second half of the nineteenth
century, women during this same later period continued to be active
politically. They used collective work groups as a political forum or
as a type of women’s council; such work continued into the twentieth
century, through homemakers’ clubs and other “social” activities that
were really about community-building and the maintenance of rela-
tionships between families.27 The relative invisibility of Anishinaabe
women in the French, British, and American archival record must
therefore not prevent us from being aware of the political work they
did, especially in creating and reinforcing regional networks of alli-
ance and information exchange. Both genders participated as Anishi-
naabe leaders, and both were essential to the decision-making that
took place within formal councils.
26 Note that shifts in discourses around women’s roles did not really change married
or single women’s legal status much in either the common law or the civil law
traditions prior to Confederation. See Girard, Phillips, and Brown, History of Law in
Canada, 683–701.
27 Cary Miller, Ogimaag, 67–8. See also Howard-Bobiwash, “Women’s Class Strategies.”
Alliance-Making through Council
Records of formal councils are everywhere in the colonial archives and

from the earliest colonial records of encounter. These records are crucial
as they reveal that the practices of governance through alliance, and alli-
ances made through a process of formal governance in council, were old.
Although there are far fewer records of councils involving only Indig-
enous participants (such as the alliance renewal ceremony discussed
in Chapter 3), these colonial records demonstrate that Anishinaabe
governance was conducted in a formal, structured setting that placed
binding obligations on the participants; the regular meetings of these
councils ensured that those binding obligations were fulfilled. Alliances
between Anishinaabe council fires, and alliances made between non-
Anishinaabe peoples and Anishinaabe council fires, had to be made in
formal council, and following Anishinaabe long-established legal pro-
tocols for creating those alliance relationships. The French cartographer
and later governor of the Quebec settlement, Samuel de Champlain,
wrote frequently in his accounts of regular council meetings. His early
descriptions of council structures reveal common protocols that have
much in common with those described by Jones and Copway in their
respective works on Anishinaabe governance more than two centuries
later.
Champlain’s experiences with alliance-making in council occurred
very early in his ventures into the eastern Great Lakes region. The pro-
cess he describes began in 1608, when the French and allied Wendat and
eastern Anishinabek exchanged youth to overwinter with one another
and learn each other’s language. Savignon travelled with Champlain
to France, and Etienne Brulé overwintered with the Wendat. The next
summer, the parties came together again for a second meeting. The par-
ties expressed pleasure at seeing how well their countrymen looked.
Brulé, Champlain reported, “was well pleased with the treatment
received from the Indians,” and “had learned their language well,”
while Savignon “spoke well of the treatment [Champlain] had given
him in France,” and also “of the strange things he had seen, wherat
they all wondered.” Brulé explained to Champlain that the Wendat and
eastern Anishinabek now wanted to make an alliance with Champlain.
Since Champlain had treated Savignon so well, the Wendat explained
to Champlain that this had “placed them under such obligations to be
kind to me in anything I might desire of them.” After several speeches,
they exchanged gifts. Champlain had clearly already been briefed on
this protocol, for he reported receiving “a gift of one hundred beaver

skins,” and he gave them in return “other sorts of merchandise.”28
Through ceremony and regionally established protocols, these parties
were now allies.
The result of this alliance is that later that summer Champlain
travelled with the Wendat and eastern Anishinabek to attack the
Mohawk. Both the alliance and the attack loom large in Canadian
history, and the engraving that Champlain produced of the battle has
long been a staple in Canadian history textbooks. But this over-focus
on a military alliance misses the objective that the Wendat and east-
ern Anishinabek were trying to achieve through establishing an alli-
ance relationship of interdependence with Champlain and the men
under his command. During the council at which the alliance was
ratified, the Indigenous orators expressed significant concern about
the other French traders who had followed Champlain up the river,
who they feared might do them harm. Several days later, Champlain
reported being called to their lodges “about midnight,” where he
found the leaders “all sitting in council, and they made me sit down
beside them, saying that their custom was, when they wished to
meet to discuss some matter, to do so at night, in order not to have
their attention diverted by any objects; for at night one thought only
of listening, whilst daylight distracted the mind.”29 Then and there
Champlain’s new allies again expressed concerns about these other
Frenchmen, that these traders, “were not very friendly towards one
another … they also said that some of their people had been beaten.”
They wanted Champlain’s assurances that these other Frenchmen
would not come back, as “they much mistrusted the others.” Cham-
plain was invited to return with more people, “as many people as
[he] liked, provided they were under the leadership of one chief.”
In return they were willing to show Champlain their country and
permit him to live there if he wished. They also then gave Champlain
a gift of another fifty beaver pelts and four wampum belts (“which
they value as we do gold chains”) to be shared with Champlain’s
“brother (meaning Pont-Gravé, since we were together).” These
gifts came from other council fires not present, who nonetheless
extended the hand of friendship to the French. Champlain observed
28 Champlain, Works, 2:188–9.

29 Ibid., 2:193.
both deliberative decision-making in action and the role of gifts in

signalling formal intent or acceptance of terms. These Anishinaabe
and Wendat leaders were also symbolically demonstrating, through
gifts, their ability to take responsibility for Champlan.
Of course, what Champlain observed was nothing new. The Anishi-
nabek shared diplomatic language, metaphors, and protocols with
their Indigenous neighbours; these practises were simply extended to
European newcomers. The Haudenosaunee Confederacy, for example,
used the Covenant Chain to describe an alliance negotiated between
the Mohawk Nation and the Dutch in the early seventeenth century.
The initial metaphor was a rope, signifying that the two peoples were
still distinct, yet bound together. When the British captured Albany
from the Dutch in 1664, they became allies of the Mohawk Nation,
using an iron chain as the metaphor, intended to indicate the strength
of the relationship. But iron rusts, and so by the late seventeenth cen-
tury a new metaphor, silver, was used to define the alliance relationship
between the British and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, one that in
time would come to include Anishinaabe council fires after the Seven
Years’ War. Silver proved a highly suitable metaphor, as it tarnishes
and turns black (the colour associated with war in Great Lakes colour
symbolism) unless it is polished regularly (i.e., unless regular meet-
ings are held to address grievances).30 The Haudenosaunee used silver
because what they wanted to emphasize in their choice of metaphors
was the regular work needed by both sides to maintain the relation-
ship represented by the image of a covenant chain. It was this Cove-
nant Chain relationship that was extended in 1761 to the Anishinabek
in the central and western Great Lakes, who had been French-allied
during the Seven Years’ War, and was reconfirmed at the Treaty of
Niagara in 1764 as defining the relationship between all Great Lakes
peoples, the British, and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, a “tri-par-
tite alliance.”31
While the treaty relationship itself was defined by a different met-
aphor, the enacting body for this agreement was a council fire and,
specifically, the leaders from many diverse Great Lakes communities,
representing the people of their own fires, who met around the large
30 There is a significant body of literature on the Covenant Chain. See, for example,
Jennings, Ambiguous Iroquois Empire.
31 Parmenter, “Pontiac’s War”; John Borrows, “Wampum at Niagara.”
council fire at Fort Niagara. This flexibility and variability in the size
and scale of the polities was defined through the metaphor of fire dis-
cussed in Chapter 3; the fact that fires as polities or alliance agreements
could themselves be comprised of other fires is part of what makes
Great Lakes political history so challenging to interpret. Council fires
were not exclusive, nor were they hierarchical jurisdictions. Further,
smaller fires did not lose their autonomy when they joined a larger fire:
they maintained their complete independence in policy and decision-
making. At the same time, larger fires could not represent the wishes or
needs of their constituent parts unless permission was granted, again in
council, on a very specific basis.32
Anishinaabe governance was enacted at both common and general
council fires. Doodem identity played a central political role in these
larger general councils, as Jones explained: the “head chief of the tribe
in whose territory the council is convened, generally takes the lead.”33
As the general council convened in 1642 exemplified, general councils
provided a place for allied Anishinaabe council fires to convene and
discuss issues of common concern. It was at general councils that larger
military actions were agreed to and planned on a scale that impressed
French, British, and American officials and seemed to them to reflect
effort on a “national scale,” such as the series of attacks on British-
held forts in the summer of 1763 often called Pontiac’s War.34 These
major differences in the types of council fires are what make it hard to
understand the differences between the parties who entered into alli-
ance agreements at a general council and the parties who entered into
land sale or land use agreements, which were transacted with common
councils.
However, British colonial officials certainly seemed reasonably well
informed of the political distinction between the two types of councils
and the respective jurisdiction (areas of responsibility) of each. In Octo-
ber of 1763, King George III issued a proclamation setting up the rules
for governing the new territories he had acquired through Britain’s vic-
tory over France in the Seven Years’ War, including France’s claim to the
Great Lakes region. By that proclamation, the British Crown reserved
for itself the sole right to purchase land from Indigenous peoples in
32 Stark, “Marked by Fire,” 124.

34 Eid, “‘National’ War”; see also Dowd, War Under Heaven.
order to make land available for colonists.35 But from whom specifi-
cally would the Crown purchase land? By the Treaty of Niagara in 1764,
the British Crown, through the negotiations of Sir William Johnston,
entered into a Covenant Chain relationship with “twenty-four nations”
who gathered at Niagara.36 This was an alliance and peace relationship,
and the “twenty-four nations” represented distinct regional council
fires, each of which had sent representatives to Niagara. Significantly,
when it came time to make land purchases on behalf of the Crown,
Sir William Johnson and subsequent generations of Indian Department
officials did not reconvene the general council that had entered into the
Covenant Chain relationship. For land purchases with the Anishina-
bek, the British made separate agreements with the common councils
who were responsible for the lands under consideration. This fact alone
tells us that when the land surrender period in Upper Canada began in
earnest after 1791, local Indian Department officials knew exactly with
whom, and where, responsibility for land surrender agreements rested –
and it was with the local or common council.
According to Anishinaabe governance principles, both general
and common councils were consensus-based deliberative bodies
that were expected to receive and consider advice from the people
they represented. All maintained alliances. At common councils,
leaders were accountable to all adults in a community. They took
advice from the council of women and the council of warriors about
what do about everything from where and what to hunt (resource
management), to where family groups would be (a winter safety
net), to the settling of internal conflicts and external disputes. Alli-
ances here were made between families. General councils, in con-
trast, were places at which alliances between common councils were
established and renewed, and ties between doodem lineages rein-
forced between council fires.
35 The proclamation was also the first British constitution for the former French colony
of Quebec as well as Grenada and East and West Florida, but it gave significant
attention to the question of the Crown’s relationship with Indigenous peoples
west of the proclamation line. It also laid out the rules that would permit non-
Indigenous people to settle on Indigenous land. His Majesty the King, George III,
“A Proclamation,” 7 October 1763, Mark Baskett, Printer to the King’s most Excellent
Majesty; and by the Assigns of Robert Baskett.
36 John Borrows, “Wampum at Niagara.”
The work that councils did is also evident in other types of documents
they produced and signed with doodem images, including speeches
and petitions. One beautiful example is an address that was commis-
sioned by Anishinaabe peoples living near Amherstburg, Upper Can-
ada, in 1809. It was presented to Colonel Jasper Grant on the occasion
of his permanent return to Ireland. This document now resides in the
National Library of Ireland in Dublin. Grant, who was Anglo-Irish, had
been the commanding officer at Fort Amherstburg (near the mouth of
the Detroit River) from 1806 to 1809. Both he and his wife had devel-
oped good relationships with the Anishinabek who visited the fort and
had received many gifts, including at least six pipe bowls and one pipe
and stem, wrapped in porcupine quills – the kind of gifts given in the
context of a formal council. Grant’s wife was also an avid collector of
Anishinaabe material culture and quite likely also a receiver of these
gifts; she returned to Ireland with a sizeable collection of women’s art-
istry, including beaded moccasins and woven baskets.
At a council held prior to the Grant family’s departure, Wabion-
ishkoubi (Eagle doodem) made a formal presentation to the Colonel,
bestowing upon him a single parchment carried on a bed of scarlet
goose down, along with sixteen strings of white wampum. The strings
of white wampum signified peace and prosperity, while the red goose
down communicated deep emotion and the great sense of their loss.37
On the parchment page were recorded the words of the orator: “Father,
Since you have been here we have always found you kind and friendly
to us on all occasions and We cannot allow you to leave us without
expressing our regret at the loss of such a good Commanding Officer.
We pray the Great Spirit to smooth the Watery way for you to con-
duct you and your family home in safety over the Great Waters where
we wish you may find your Relations and friends in Prosperity and
Peace.”38
37 For the Jasper Grant collection, see Phillips, Patterns of Power, an exhibit catalogue
produced when the Jasper Grant collection travelled to Ontario to mark the
provincial bicentennial. In April 2002 I visited the National Library of Ireland,
where the letter and goose down are held. The downy feathers are packaged with
the address, while the wampum strings are stored nearby in the vaults of the
ethnography department of the National Museum. The feathers are small, about
four inches long, delicate, and a vivid, bright scarlet.
38 Letters of Col. Jasper Grant, MS 10, 178, Box 3, Address of the Ottawas, National
Library of Ireland, Dublin.
Ten individuals signed the address; beside each name, the signatories
drew images of their respective doodem identities. Jasper Grant, or his
wife Isabella at the very least, evidently returned the feelings of affection.
She kept the letter after Grant’s death in 1812, together with the wampum
strings and goose down and along with beautiful examples of Anishinaabe
ceremonial clothing, pipe bowls, weapons, and other items that she left to
the care of her daughters after her death. These items were treasured in
the family and well taken care of before the collection was donated to the
National Museum of Ireland in 1902.39 Other council fires also gave letters
of thanks to departing vice-regal dignitaries.40 (See Figure 30.) Addresses
and gifts such as the one given to Jasper Grant are also evidence of the
deep personal and familial relationships that Anishinaabe peoples and
colonial officials and post commanders made with one another. Alliance
relationships transcended politics and over time created enduring family
ties. The doodem images on the documents, along with many other peti-
tions produced in council, can also be read along with treaty documents
signed between 1781 and 1862 for what are now lands in the province of
Ontario to reconstruct the composition of those councils and the doodem
alliance connections between them.
Councils and Doodemag
As Peter Jones explained in his History, the reason that Anishinaabe

peoples negotiated land transactions at the level of the common coun-
cil is that this is how the Anishinabek, as a whole, recognized who had
responsibility for particular lands and territories. The specific function
of the common council, was, according to Jones, to be responsible for
“local affairs,” which included “the sale and division of their lands,
settling disputes, adopting other Indians into their own body, and the
transaction of business with the British government.”41 The right to
engage in land transactions also belonged at this level because it was
at the common councils where Anishinaabe leaders historically deter-
mined who would hunt in which winter territory and how and under
39 Phillips, Patterns of Power, 20n2.

40 For another example of a letter of thanks, also signed with doodem images, see
Address of the Chiefs of the Mississauga ... to His Excellency the Lieutenant
Governor, 7 October 1811, LAC, RG10 Vol. 27:16316–8.
what terms councils negotiated access to other limited resources, like

a sugar bush or a fishery.42 While a majority of male common council
members may have had the same doodem as the fire-keeper, common
councils could and did have an aanikeogimaa and gichi-Anishinabek
from other doodem identities, whose long-time residency in the region
ensured that they too had a voice in council. These multi-doodem com-
mon councils are not evidence of some earlier “tradition” of single doo-
dem councils being changed or disrupted; instead, they reflect mar-
riage practices and long-standing relationships that had developed
between specific doodemag. As I explained earlier in Chapter 2, the
names of Anishinaaabe polities in seventeenth-century records such as
“Amikouais (Beavers) and Niquoquet (Otters)” do not reflect council
fires where every male and female member had the same doodem.
The name instead refers to the doodem that had responsibility as the
keeper of that council fire. Every council comprised people from mul-
tiple doodemag.
Peter Jones’s description of the common council can be seen in
action in the pattern of doodem images that appear on treaty docu-
ments covering what is now eastern and southern Ontario (illustrated
in Tables 3 and 4). These documents were signed by the ogimaawag
and gichi-Anishinabek of the common councils. The first example
(Table 3) from the Credit River shows the changes and continuities in
the council there over thirty years. The 1796 Mississauga-Anishinaabe
cession of lands at the western end of Lake Ontario, which the Brit-
ish negotiated with the council fire of the Credit River, contains six
doodem images: four Eagles, one Pike, and one Caribou. On this,
and subsequent, land sales signed by the Mississaugas in council at
the Credit River, the Eagle doodem always signed first and appeared
most frequently. Each doodem image represents a principal leader
of an extended family of that doodem identity. The ogimaa of this
council was always of the migizi, or Eagle, doodem. It is in this sense
only that we can think of traditional governance as “hereditary,” as
there was no requirement for first-born sons to follow fathers as in a
system of primogeniture.
At Mnjikaning (the narrows between Lake Couchiching and Lake
Simcoe, today known as Rama), Table 4 shows that it is the Caribou
doodem image that always occupies the top position on the vertical
42 See Cary Miller, Ogimaag, 34–6, for more specific discussion of how local councils
regulated hunting territories.
Table 3 Changes and Continuity of Doodem Identities on Treaty Documents Signed at

the Credit River (the Common Council)
1792 1795 1797 1 Aug 1805 2 Aug 1805 1806 1818 1820
Eagle Eagle Eagle Eagle Eagle Eagle Eagle Eagle
Eagle Eagle Otter Otter Otter Otter Eagle Eagle
Otter Otter Caribou Eagle Eagle Eagle Otter Eagle
Eagle Eagle Eagle Eagle Eagle Eagle Otter Otter
Caribou Eagle Eagle Eagle Eagle Pike Pike
Caribou Eagle Eagle
Eagle Eagle
Eagle
Caribou
Pike
Sources: Deed of Feoffment, Niagara to the Thames River (Between the Lakes Pur-
chase), 7 December 1792, RG10, Vol. 1840/IT005; Sale of Lands to Captain Brant, Bur-
lington Bay, 10 October 1795, RG10, Vol. 1840/IT008; Sale of lands at Head of the Lake
(Burlington Bay), 21 August 1797, RG10, Vol. 1841/IT029; Toronto Purchase, 1 August
1805, RG10, Vol. 1841/IT039; Agreement to Surrender Peel and Halton reserving Credit
River, 2 August 1805, RG10, Vol. 1841/IT041; Sale of Lands (Lease and Release) from
Etobicoke to Burlington Bay, 6 September 1806, RG10, Vol. 1842/IT042; Adjetance
Purchase (Sale of 624,000 acres), 28 October 1818, RG10, Vol. 1842/IT059; Cessions
of 12 Mile Creek, 16 Mile Creek and Credit River Reserves, RG10, Vol. 1842/IT071; all
Indian Treaties and Surrenders collection, Library and Archives Canada.
Table 4 Changes and Continuities of Doodem Identities on Treaty Documents Signed in

the Common Council at Mnjikaning
1798 1818 1836 1852 1856

Caribou Caribou Caribou Caribou Caribou
Otter illegible Otter Caribou Caribou
Pike Otter Caribou Caribou Birch
Caribou Pike Caribou Birch Catfish
Caribou Catfish (very *9 men signed Catfish Otter
poor quality) with X-marks
Otter Otter
Illegible
Otter
Sources: Conveyance of the Harbour at Penetanguishene, 25 May 1798, RG10, Vol. 1840/
IT008; Sale of 1.5 million acres in the Home District, 17 October 1818, RG10, Vol. 1842/
IT055; Sale of the Coldwater Road Allowance, 26 November 1836, RG10, Vol. 1844/
IT126; Surrender of 20 Acres in Orillia, 17 June 1852, RG10, Vol. 1845/IT152; Sale of
Islands in Lake Simcoe, 6 June 1856, RG10, Vol. 1845/IT188; all Indian Treaties and
Surrenders collection, Library and Archives Canada.
column of doodem images, and it is the Caribou doodem that occurs

with the greatest frequency, along with Otter, Catfish, Pike, and Bison
doodem images. While these council fires were “multi-doodem,” one
doodem was still recognized as the respective keeper of the fire (the
hosts of that council): the Cranes at Bawaating and Rice Lake, the Cari-
bou at Mnjikaning, the Eagle at the Credit River.
The Credit River Council Fire
The council fire of the Mississaugas of the Credit was established

through the alliance discussed in the opening of Chapter 3.43 The rich
archival record for this council fire makes it possible to reconstruct the
composition of this common council from that founding, in the late
1690s, and pictographically on treaty documents from 1764 through to
the extinguishment of the council fire in 1847. From this we can see
how this common council participated in larger regional agreements
and the ways in which doodem ties connected the Credit to other coun-
cil fires. The council fire of the Mississaugas of the Credit River was part
of an alliance with the British-allied Haudenosaunee Confederacy since
the early eighteenth century; the French enumeration of 1736 acknowl-
edged as much when it provided no census information about the
Anishinabek of the north shore of Lake Ontario, noting only that they
were already trading with the British.44 The council fire may have been
temporarily covered during the Seven Years’ War, as one document in
the papers of Sir William Johnson refers to Wabbicomicot and his com-
munity coming back to their location near Toronto at the war’s end
from the Detroit area.45 Wabbicomicot first met William Johnson at Fort
Niagara in 1761 and agreed to come with him to Detroit, where he intro-
duced Johnson to the council as his brother.46 Following the outbreak
of Pontiac’s War in 1763, Wabbicomicot opposed the action and spoke
against it to, as he put it, “convince the bad Indians at and about Detroit
43 This peace agreement was renewed in 1840. Peter Jones recorded the minutes. See
Minutes of a General Council held at the River Credit, 16 January 1840, Paudash
44 Dénombrement des nations sauvages, 1736, ANF, Fondes des colonies, Series C11A,
vol. 66, fol. 236–256v.
45 “An Indian Congress, Niagara July 17–August 4, 1764,” in Johnson, Papers, 11:307.
46 See Graham, “Wabbicommicot.”
of their error” and to remind them of the council the British had held
with them two years earlier and their peaceful intentions.47
Wabbicomicot was then one of the ogimaa invited to attend the Treaty
of Niagara in 1764, along with all of the former French-allied “Western
Indians,” to discuss a peace agreement and to formalize their new alli-
ance. Over the two weeks of meetings, Johnson received many wam-
pum belts from attending ogimaawag, as they and their orators spoke
about the conflict. In a separate meeting with Johnson in the evening of
29 July, Wabbicomicot came to see Johnson with “six others of his Peo-
ple” for a private council. This was still a formal affair, as Wabbicomicot
brought a pipe to the meeting; the Mississaugas and officers present
smoked together. At this meeting Wabbicomicot informed Johnson of
what he had been doing at Detroit to make peace; he also gave Johnson
a belt of purple wampum with five white circles on it. Johnson did not
record the meaning of this belt, but the circles would typically refer to
other council fires in an alliance, perhaps the very alliance discussed in
Chapter 3. Johnson then responded with two belts for Wabbicomicot,
including one described in detail: “a large Belt with a Figure represent-
ing Niagara’s large House, and Fort, with two Men holding it fast on
either side, and a Road through it, and desired that he, Wabbicomicot,
and his People would come, and settle at their old Place of Abode near
Toronto, and have a carefull Eye always over said Fort, and Carrying
Place.”48 Johnson was asking Wabbicomicot to uncover the slumbering
fire at the Credit, to protect the main portage route from the Humber
River to Mnjikaning. Johnson then distributed medals to the Missis-
sauga leaders.
Two days later, Sir William Johnson addressed all the Nations
together “in their Camp” – across the river from Fort Niagara (Mis-
sissauga Point). Johnson invited all of the Nations into “the great Belt
of Covenant Chain that we may not forget our mutual Engagements.”
Employing the visual metaphors of a road and two council fires, one at
each end, Johnson said “I desire that after you have shewn this Belt to
all Nations you will fix one end of it with the Chipaweigs [Anishinabek]
at St. Mary’s [Bawaating] whilst the other end remains at my House
[Niagara] … if you will strictly observe this, you will enjoy the favor of
47 “An Indian Congress, Niagara July 17–August 4, 1764,” in Johnson, Papers, 11:307–8.
48 Ibid., 11:307.
the English, a plentiful Trade, and you will become a happy People.”49
Johnson’s decision to name Bawaating as the anchor point may very
well have been influenced by Wabbicomicot, and the existing eastern
Anishinaabe alliance, as Bawaating was one of the “anchors” for that
agreement. But not all agreed. One ogimaa arose and suggested instead
that the “Belt of the Covenant Chain” should be kept at Michilimackinac,
“as it is the Centre, where all our People may see it.”50 (See Figure 19.)
In these early days of the British alliance with the former French-allied
Anishinabek, Johnson still had much to learn of the region’s deep his-
tory and Michilimackinac’s significance as the place where Nanabozhoo
began to remake the world. The eastern alliance could not be the keeper
of a belt for the nations of the entire region. In the end, the belt was
entrusted to the Ottawa and made its way with them back to the Michi-
gan peninsula and, eventually, to Manitoulin Island.51
Following the exchange of the Covenant Chain belt in July and the
formal founding of the new alliance, Wabbicomicot travelled back to
Detroit alongside Colonel Bradstreet, who was commanding British
forces in the area. He then helped to persuade the council fires there
to accept the peace and come into the Covenant Chain alliance. While
there were only wampum belts exchanged at Niagara, at Detroit Brad-
street had the ogimaawag sign a document agreeing to the peace. It was
signed by members of the “Chippeways, Ottawa, Miamis, Wyandot,
Potawatomies and Sakis,” all of whom had not been at Niagara.52 All of
the Anishinaabe delegates signed with doodem images (while represen-
tatives from other political traditions such as the Wendat represented
their own kinship systems with images). Wabbicomicot also signed as a
witness with his doodem.53 As Figure 24 shows, Wabbicomicot chose to
underscore his close and deep relationship with Johnson and the British
council fire by showing his Eagle doodem while wearing a King George
49 Ibid., 11:310.
50 Ibid., 11:311.
51 Ibid., 11:309–10.
52 Item 4, Copy of “Transaction of a Congress held with the Ottawas and Chippewa
Nations with several others,” 7 September 1764 (U1350 O48/4); Item 5, Copy of an
acknowledgement by the Indians that they accept what has been written down,
11 September 1764 (U1350 O48/5), Centre for Kentish Studies (CKS), Unit 1350
(Amherst Mss.), Series 48 (Indian Affairs).
53 Richard White, The Middle Ground, 288–9; “Journal of Colonel Croghan’s,” in
O’Callaghan, Colonial History of the State of New York, 7:779–88.
medal, the one he received from Johnson on 29 July, just before travel-
ling to Detroit to bring the remaining fires into the Covenant Chain.54
As discussed above, Wabbicomicot’s capacity to be a strong voice
at Detroit was made possible by his marriage to Wapanatashiqua,
the Crane doodem woman from a council fire located at the south-
ern end of Lake Huron. As a young adult he already would have
starting training for a leadership role of the Credit River council fire.
Wabbicomicot’s grandmothers would have suggested a suitable part-
ner from an allied council fire. It was this doodem connection to the
important Crane council fires of the Detroit area and Saginaw that
proved so useful to both Wabbicomicot and Johnson and gave Wabbi-
comicot the ability to influence the council at Detroit. But there would
also have been the additional and to date unacknowledged influence
of Wabbicomicot’s wife. Behind the scenes reported by colonial offi-
cials, the women’s council would have met, and Wapanatashiqua
would have given her assessment of the British as potential allies.
She could speak convincingly to her Crane doodem kin of her own
experiences with the British and her travels with Wabbicomicot to
Johnson Hall and her assessment of British behaviour respecting the
Covenant Chain.
With the war ended and the alliance with the British confirmed, the
Mississauga could return to a more peaceful existence, at least for a few
years. However, unlicensed traders continued to flood into the region;
Wabbicomicot promised Johnson to try to stop the trading, but as an
ogimaa, he could not compel people. Wabbicomicot continued to visit
Niagara and send news to Johnson (who lived further east along the
Mohawk River) until Wabbicomicot’s death in August 1768. In 1781,
his successor, Wabakayne, attended a large regional council at Niagara.
The leading ogimaawag of the council fires attending signed a treaty
confirming a 1764 transfer of the west bank of the Niagara River to
the British, for the consideration of three hundred suits of clothing.
Four signed with their doodem, reproduced and labelled on a clerk’s
copy of the original: Nanibisure (Swan) from west of the Grand River,
who is identified by the clerk as “Chipwewigh”; the other three were
identified as Misssissaga: Paghquan (Bear), Wabakinnie (Wabakayne/
54 Wabbicomicot’s loyalty to Johnson has been well established. See Graham,

“Wabbicommicot.”
Eagle), Minaghquat (Duck).55 Here were four very important Missis-

sauga ogimaawag renewing their alliance with the British, granting the
British use of their land, and receiving gifts in return.
Then, in 1784, the British asked the Mississaugas to create space in
their territory for Britain’s Haudenosaunee Confederacy allies. They
did so, granting lands along the Grand River. Wabakayne signed first,
with Wabanip (also Eagle doodem) and five other gitch-Anishinabek.
Within a few short years after the end of the American Revolution, the
influx of Loyalist Americans wanting to settle in what is now the prov-
ince of Ontario sent the British to ask their Mississauga-Anishinaabe
allies of the Credit River council fire for more land. The treaties (seven
land sales and one lease) signed between 1787 and 1820 all repre-
sent agreements between the British crown and the Anishinabek of
the north shore of Lake Ontario. Specifically, these transactions were
with the council fire of the migizi, or Eagle, doodem at the Credit
River. The pattern of doodem reflects the composition of the common
council. The leading image on each document is of the ogimaa of the
Credit River (just west of the present-day city of Toronto). On the trea-
ties signed in 1792 and 1795 Wabakayne signed as the ogimaa of the
council.56
Wabakayne was murdered in 1796 by a British soldier after an alter-
cation defending his wife’s sister from sexual assault.57 Wabanip, also
Eagle doodem, took his place. He had served as Wabakayne’s aanike-
ogimaa, or step-below chief. This person could be a son, or another
worthy individual, who was preparing to take on the role of ogi-
maa in the future. But this was not always the case, especially if the
aanikeogimaa was of a different doodem. For example, while Waba-
nip was ogimaa, the Otter doodem gichi-Anishinaabe Quenepenon
(“Golden Eagle”) was his aanikeogimaa. In this role Quenepenon
took the responsibility of speaking on behalf of ogimaa Wabanip in
55 Surrender of land by Chipeweigs and Mississagas, 9 May 1781, LAC RG10,

Vol. 1850/IT396.
56 Deed of Feoffment – The Messissague Nation to His Britannick Majesty, 7 December
1792, LAC RG10, Vol. 1840/IT005, and Captain Brant’s purchase near the outlet in
Burlington Bay, 10 October 1795, LAC RG10, Vol. 1840/IT008.
57 “Letter From Peter Russell to J.G. Simcoe, Niagara, 28th September 1796,” in Russell
Papers, 49.
council. Wabanip died sometime between 1797 and 1805. However,

Quenepenon did not become ogimaa. He continued as aanikeogimaa
under the new ogimaa, Chechalk (Eagle doodem). Chechalk died in
1810 and was replaced by Adjutant. Quenepenon then died in 1812.58
The position of Adjutant’s aanikeogimaa went to Weggishgomin, also
known as Ogimaa-Bineseh (Okemapenesse) or “Chief Little Bird.”
Born in 1764, Weggishgomin (He Who Is Like the Day) was also Eagle
doodem. He took on his new name when he became aanikeogimaa.59
The influx of settlers, the spread of disease, and the War of 1812 and
its aftermath were, as Donald Smith has described, very hard for the
Credit River people.60 The final surrender in 1820 left the Credit River
community control over their reserve only. Weggishgomin then died
in 1828 and Adjutant in 1829. Following this crucial loss of leadership,
the Credit River leaders in council elected Nawahjegezhegwabe (“Slop-
ing Sky Man,” or Joseph Sawyer) their ogimaa and Kahkewahkonaby
(Peter Jones) the aanikeogimaa.61 Both men were by this time converted
Christians, but they remained Eagle doodem. They participated fully
in Anishinaabe political tradition, meeting in council and respecting
the consultative, consensus-building process that characterized Anishi-
naabe politics. At the same time, they demonstrated the adaptability of
Anishinaabe governance as they worked to find a way forward for the
greatly diminished Mississaugas of the Credit, to rebuild the commu-
nity, and to maintain their autonomy. They did so by changing aspects
of their practices to resemble the norms of settler governments, includ-
ing the keeping of minutes and the establishment of some of the appa-
ratus of a formal justice system, but such changes were self-directed
and represented adaptation instead of assimilation.62
Even as the Credit River fire began to change, they still maintained
the centrality of their doodem identities to governance. On the docu-
ments they produced and signed we can see evidence of the continuing
interconnected world of Anishinaabe governance through alliance. For
58 Quenepenon was elderly by 1812. He died from a gunshot wound (but not in
combat) after fasting to acquire spiritual power to protect against such weapons. See
Donald Smith, “Kineubenae (Quinipeno, Quenebenaw).”
59 Donald Smith, “Ogimauh-Binaessih.”
60 Donald Smith, Sacred Feathers, 34–5.
61 Ibid., 104; Donald Smith, “Nawahjegezhegwabe.”
62 Walters, “According to the Old Customs.”
example, the Eagle doodem gichi-Anishinaabe Wabenose from Burling-

ton Bay, who sat at the Credit River council fire, signed a treaty in 1797
as part of a land sale agreement for lands at the western end of Lake
Ontario.63 Wabenose (who was Peter Jones’s maternal grandfather) was
on this document as both a gichi-Anishinaabe of his own extended fam-
ily from Burlington Bay and someone who participated in governance
decisions and land transactions affecting all those who met in council
at the Credit River. Because of this, Wabenose and his extended fam-
ily were also, by extension, a party to the alliance agreement between
the Anishinabek and Haudenosaunee that began in the 1690s, through
which treaty the very fire at the Credit River to which Wabenose
belonged was established. As a result of that agreement, Wabenose was
also part of the alliance agreement with other Anishinaabe council fires
that stretched in an arc north first to Mnjikaning, where the Caribou
were the keepers, to Wausauksing (Parry Island) where the Beaver kept
their fire, then to Odaawaa-minising (Manitoulin Island), where the
Whitefish doodem watched the fire, and finally to Bawaating at today’s
Sault Ste Marie, the fire kept by the Crane doodem. Wabenose would
also have thought of himself as part of the Treaty of Niagara and the
Covenant Chain relationship with the British. Furthermore, Wabenose
would also have kin through his wife Naishenum (although I do not yet
know her doodem). Following Heidi Stark’s argument, we can under-
stand the Mississaugas of the Credit River as being “marked by fire,” in
that their alliance relationships defined the multiple polities to which
each member of the community belonged.64 However, as will be dis-
cussed in Chapter 5, Wabenose’s children would find that settlers and
the colonial government of Upper Canada would disrupt these lines of
alliance and make these connections much harder for communities to
maintain.
The Credit River council fire makes a particularly excellent case
study for the composition of the local or common council because of
the rich records that exist for this community. Not only did this council
fire sign multiple land sale agreements – eight – in the period from 1792
to 1820 but further information is available on the number of extended
families who received annuity payments as a result of these treaties.
63 Deed of the Sale of Land at the head of Lake Ontario in Upper Canada from the
Mississaga Nation to William Claus Esq, 21 August 1797, LAC RG10, Vol. 1841/IT029.
64 Stark, “Marked By Fire,” 128–9.
Baptism, marriage, death, and members’ records of the Methodist

church to which many of the community came to belong by 1826 fur-
ther contribute to the demographic portrait. The turnover in leadership
and the rearrangement of the composition of the council that the trea-
ties suggest (see Table 3) can be explained by the set of circumstances
facing the Mississaugas between the end of the American Revolution
and the War of 1812. First, they suffered the impact of several epidem-
ics. At the start of the 1790s, the total population of the community
who gathered at the Credit River in the spring and fall of each year was
around 500. By 1800, more than a quarter of the population was dead
due to disease. The resulting grief and social dislocation had a nega-
tive effect on the community and on continuity of leadership. At the
same time, Loyalist settlers displaced by the American Revolution and
economic opportunists seeking free grants of land were encroaching
on Mississauga-Anishinaabe land. This combined assault of colonial-
ism and disease prompted some, including Weggishgomin, to engage
in some measure of assimilation, or at least accommodation, to cope
with this new reality. Weggishgomin began to learn English, built a
log cabin, took up some farming, and changed his clothing to match
that of the newcomers.65 Yet he continued to participate in and respect
traditional civil governance, and he accepted the position of aanike-
ogimaa in 1805.
The War of 1812 had a significant impact on the Mississauga-Anishinabek,
as it did on other Indigenous peoples living in what is now south-
ern Ontario. The opposing armies marched right through Mississauga
territory, devastating their lands. Furthermore, Mississauga warriors
were among those defending Upper Canada from invasion and they
were on the front lines when American soldiers landed at York on 26
April 1813. Many warriors died, including two chiefs – ogimaawag or
gichi-Anishinabek – whose names were not identified.66 At the same
time, the doodem images on the set of land sale documents indexed in
Table 3 provide remarkable examples of political continuity as well as
change. The Eagle doodem was the keeper of the fire at the Credit and
this fact is acknowledged in all of these agreements; the eagle doodem
is consistently in the first place, as it was more than twenty years later
on the petition that Peter Jones delivered to Queen Victoria in 1844,
65 See Donald Smith, “Ogimauh-Binaessih.”

66 Sheaffe to Prevost 5 May 1813 in Word, Select British Documents, 93.
when Joseph Sawyer signed first with his Eagle doodem.67 The presence
of Otter, Caribou, and Pike doodem images is also not surprising. The
Eagle doodem was in alliance relationship with the Caribou at Rama,
and members of each community were also intermarried with one another.
Likewise, Otter and Pike women were intermarried with Eagle men. The
gichi-Anishinabek who headed these families never became the lead-
ing ogimaa while the council fire was lit at the Credit River, as that
position was consistently held by those of the Eagle doodem. However,
these men had been intermarried long enough to be part of the com-
mon council and to assume important political roles, as Quenepenon
did in 1797, becoming the speaker in council for the Eagle ogimaawag
Wabanip and Chechalk.
As headmen of local families, these gichi-Anishinabek of the Otter,
Caribou, and Pike doodemag also had the responsibility to speak about
land issues, and to sign treaty documents. By the time the first land sale
documents were signed, the council fire at the Credit River had been lit
for one hundred years. Family contingencies and close ties may have
drawn brothers to be near sisters who had married into the Eagle doo-
dem; sons-in-law may have formed close relations with their in-laws
after marriage and may have stayed on in the area after the birth of their
first child. Or an ogimaa, having only daughters, may have wished his
sons-in-law to stay around to hunt for his family.68 These are all reasons
that would explain how the composition of common councils would
change over time and add members from different doodemag.
By 1824, government census of those receiving annual presents at the
Humber River reveals that the Credit River community consisted of
other doodemag beyond the Eagle, Caribou, Pike, and Otter who com-
prised the common council. There were men with Birch, Goose, Bison,
and Bear doodemag. While these doodem identities did appear on an
1835 petition on behalf of the Credit River community to ban liquor on
the reserve and again on the 1844 petition to Queen Victoria, Birchbark,
67 Petition to Queen Victoria, 19 October 1844, Peter Jones fonds, Box 1 Folder 9: Indian
Petitions and Addresses, Pratt Library Special Collections, Victoria University at the
University of Toronto.
68 As discussed in Chapter 2, this was exactly the situation facing an Anishinaabe
ogimaa in present-day Wisconsin. It was through this type of invitation that William
Warren explained the origin of the Wolf doodem among the Anishinabek, as the
son-in-law in that case was Sioux. Warren and Neill, History, 165.
Table 5 Transcribed Census showing Doodem of indinaakonigewin ogimaag and gichi-

Anishinabek of the Credit Community in 1824*
Men Women Boys Girls

10–15 5–9 1–4 10–14 5–9 1–4
Bark Tribe 4 7 1 2 1 0 1 1
1 Eagle Tribe 2 4 0 2 2 1 1 0
2 Eagle Tribe 4 5 0 0 2 0 2 2
3 Eagle Tribe 3 12 0 2 2 1 4 2
4 Eagle Tribe 3 4 3 0 0 0 0 0
5 Eagle Tribe 14 20 5 4 1 2 0 0
Goose Tribe 2 0 0 1 0 1 0 0
Otter Tribe 7 3 1 1 1 0 1 0
Rein Deer Tribe 9 6 1 1 1 2 2 1
Pike Tribe 7 6 1 6 0 0 1 1
Total 55 67 12 19 10 7 12 7
* Recall that adult women who were spouses of the ogimaawag and gichi-Anishinabek
would have had different doodemag.
Source: Return of the Missessague Indians Taken August 26th 1824 at the River Hum-
ber, NAC RG 10, Volume 42, p. 22671.
Goose, Bison, and Bear doodemag never appear on the land surrender
documents. This is not because they were not seen as members of the
community. As Table 5 demonstrates, the “Messissagua Indians” com-
prised families from a range of doodemag. However, it was only those
recognized by the larger community as having responsibility for the
lands in question who signed the land sale agreements. The common
council determined who was a member of the community and how
resources should be allocated to these other families. Marriage records
reveal, though, that these other doodemag were related to common
council doodemag.69 In other words, the Bark and Goose “tribes” listed
on the 1824 were kin.
69 Register, including births, 1776–1881, marriages, 1831–1855 (predominantly

undated), deaths, 1840–1883, of the River Credit Indians; Record of Baptisms,
1802–1846 and Membership list of Methodist Society at the Upper Mohawk Grand
River, 1826; New Credit Methodist Indian Mission (Ontario) fonds, F1434, United
Church of Canada, Toronto.
Mnjikaning Council
The long history of the Mnjikaning council at what is now the Chippe-
was of Rama can also be reconstructed from multiple treaty documents,
as Table 4 shows. Recall from Chapter 3 that Musquakie indicated that
the Caribou doodem was the keeper of the council fire at Mnjikaning
and was also the fire keeper and wampum keeper for the entire east-
ern Great Lakes Anishinaabe alliance. The first land cessions for this
area involved the lands around Penetanguishene in 1798, to support the
building of a British Naval Base. But after the War of 1812, new settlers
also began to pressure the Anishinabek at Rama for their lands. They
signed a series of cessions, eventually ending up with the small reserve
that is Rama today.
In 1840, Musquakie was the ogimaa and wampum keeper. In 1846,
he responded at a general council hosted in his own community to the
proposed removal of Anishinaabe peoples to the Saugeen peninsula
and the creation of manual labour schools to be funded by one-quarter
of each community’s treaty annuity payments. Musquakie spoke
strongly against the proposed removal: “I am not willing to leave my
village, the place where my Forefathers lived, and where they made
a great encampment; where they lived many generations; where they
wished their children to live while the world should stand, and which
the white man pointed out to me, and gave me for my settlement. This
is about all.”70 When the votes were taken on the question of funding
schools from band annuity funds, only Musquakie (Caribou doodem)
and ogimaa John Assance (Otter doodem) of Beau-Soleil Island were
opposed. One short day later, they reversed their decisions in response
to the wishes of their own common councils. Indeed, Captain Ander-
son of the Indian Department received a signed memo from “a large
majority of the Rama [Mnjikaning] Indians” approving of the Indian
Department’s proposals. It was signed by two others identified as
chiefs, Thomas Nanegishkung (Caribou) and Big Shilling (Caribou),
who signed with their doodem images, while the other adult men in the
community signed either with their own signatures (5) or by X-marks
(21).71 Nanegishkung and Big Shilling were councillors. Neither was an
ogimaa. But they carried forward the wishes of the larger community.
70 Minutes of the General Council of Indian Chiefs, 20.

71 Ibid.
Musquakie had no authority to act on his own. And Assance, too, was
overruled by his own community. Because this particular council was
held in Musquakie’s community, the people also had the opportunity
to hear what was proposed and to make their own decisions about the
choice of action preferred. Musquakie had just a year earlier complained
that missionaries were encouraging people to overrule their chiefs, but
even if that was the case here the principles of Anishinaabe leadership
meant that the ogimaawag had to respect the wishes of the community.
The leadership of Mnjikaning passed to Thomas Nanegishkung, but
the council still remained under the leadership of the Caribou doo-
dem. In 1856, the council was asked to cede all its islands: three in Lake
Simcoe, one in Lake Couchiching, and all the islands in Georgian Bay
and Lake Huron. Thomas Nanegishkung “signed by his son” Joseph
Nanegishkung, and James Bigwind signed with one Caribou doodem.72
George Young was next with a Birch tree, followed by Joseph Snake
(Catfish), John Assance (Otter), and Peter Gadequaquon (Otter).73 The
ogimaa, an aanikeogimaa, and gichi-Anishinabek who signed this
cession in council were still following the practices of Anishinaabe
governance – even as their daily lives had been significantly changed
as settler colonists moved on to their land. Most were now farming,
had converted to Christianity, and were living on reserves. But this did
not mean that people wanted to abandon their culture, language, laws,
and values.
As these examples demonstrate, the interpretive potential of doodem
images goes well beyond being able to identify a signatory to a treaty as
belonging to a specific kinship network. They help us to see beyond the
documents to the communities of people who lived in the Great Lakes
region. Doodem images on treaty and other documents create in council
provide visual evidence of Anishinaabe leadership values expressed in
oral histories and provide a window into doodem governance. They are
evidence for the continuity of Anishinaabe political practices from the
seventeenth through the nineteenth century and help us to understand
that council fires and doodem identities – not nations, bands, or tribes –
were how Anishinaabe policies were organized. The doodem images on
72 Thomas Nanegishkung signed an 1836 cession with a Caribou doodem. “Chippewas of

Lakes Huron and Simcoe - Surrender …,” 26 November 1836, LAC RG10, Vol. 1844/126.
James Bigwind signed the 1856 cession with a Caribou doodem (cited below).
73 Surrender by the Chippewas of Lakes Huron and Simcoe of certain Islands…, 5 June
1856, LAC RG10, Vol. 1845/IT189.
treaty documents represent specific Anishinaabe council fires, provid-

ing evidence of continuity between Anishinaabe identities documented
in the seventeenth century with the presence of Anishinaabe commu-
nity members having those same identities, living in the same locales,
some two hundred years later. To be sure, there were movements and
relocations in the region – including some that occurred before the sev-
enteenth century. But these identities, and the treaties and narratives
associated with them, go a long way to explain Anishinaabe choices to
protect particular sites in treaty negotiations as reserves in the face of
settler colonialism. The doodem images also speak to relative political
cohesiveness during a period when changing European ethnonyms for
Indigenous peoples give an impression of constant political change and
ethnogenesis.
While doodem identities reach back to deep time and are described
as gifts from the Creator, council fires are human creations to which
the Creator is witness.74 As Chapter 3 demonstrated, council fires were
lit, covered, or extinguished as local and regional needs determined,
decisions ratified at general councils and regional gatherings. As this
chapter has shown, once constituted, each council fire was kept by
an ogimaa of a particular doodem. Hereditary doodem governance
was then based on the position of ogimaa being transferred to doo-
dem kin for as long as that fire continued to burn. The council fire at
Sault Ste. Marie (Bawaating) is very old. It has been led by a Crane
doodem ogimaa certainly since before the arrival of Europeans. The
establishment of the Caribou doodem as keeper of the council fires at
Mnjikaning (Rama) and the Eagle doodem as the keeper of the fire at
the mouth of the Credit River can be dated to the 1690s, when they
were kindled (established) through the regional peace treaty negotiated
with the Haudenosaunee discussed in Chapter 3. Members of Caribou,
Crane, and Eagle doodemag from the north shores of Lake Superior and
Lake Huron relocated to establish the new fires or uncover slumbering
embers, while maintaining ties with their former communities. While
the Crane doodem may have led the most council fires in the region
(eight according to a French enumeration in 1736), ogimaawag of Thun-
derbird, Pike, Beaver, Sturgeon, Whitefish, Sucker, Loon, Moose, and
others kept their own council fires throughout the Great Lakes, while
74 Aimée Craft describes the spiritual dimension of council fires in Breathing Life into the
Stone Fort Treaty.
people from multiple doodemag met around those fires and conducted
their governance through alliances.
The council fire at Mnjikaning has metaphorically never been extin-
guished since it was first kindled; however, chief and council of the
Chippewas of Rama First Nation now meet around a boardroom table
on the second floor of a building which houses the band offices. The
Credit River fire was formally extinguished in 1847, when the com-
munity of roughly 200, under duress from the rapidly growing non-
Aboriginal population of Upper Canada that was nearing one million,
relocated to a new reserve on the southwest corner of the Six Nations
Reserve near Brantford, Ontario. The Mississaugas of the Credit, as
they are known, re-established their council at their new home and
then built the meeting-house that still stands on the reserve today. As
a measure of comparison, the Rama council fire is more than 300 years
old while the council fire at Bawaating is centuries, if not millennia, old.
The Dominion of Canada, enacted by British statute in 1867, is younger
than all three. Nevertheless, as the dispossession and relocation of the
Mississaugas at the Credit attests, settler colonialism disrupted doodem
governance and compromised the ability of the Anishinaabe peoples
to practice their own legal, political, cultural, and spiritual traditions.
The next chapter discusses the changes and continuities in Anishinaabe
governance – in the doodem tradition and to council fires – as settler
society worked to dispossess and assimilate the Anishinabek and to
eventually replace their traditional governance structures with an
elected model under the control of Indian Affairs, one that disenfran-
chised women and isolated common councils from one another.
5
Doodem in the Era of

Settler Colonialism
Shortly before his premature death in 1853 at the age of 29, William War-
ren, author of the History of the Ojibways, had come to believe that the
doodem-based system of Anishinaabe civil governance was “entirely
broken up.” In his view, the complex web of alliance networks and mar-
riage and kin relationships that had historically structured Anishinaabe
law and governance in the Great Lakes region was no longer effectively
operational. For Warren, the first cracks appeared in 1826, at the negotia-
tions for the Treaty of Fond du Lac on the southwest shore of Lake Supe-
rior. At that event, confident and expansionist American officials felt they
could ignore Anishinaabe protocol with respect to the recognition of ogi-
maawag and instead distributed medals and recognition to those Anishi-
naabe men who had been sponsored by traders and who would be sup-
portive of American interests. Those Anishinabek who were singled out
for such attention not only claimed the medals for themselves; they also
acted as if they had authority over people and their lands. In a damning
indictment of what happened at Fond du Lac, Warren claimed that one
young man in particular had received his medal “solely for the strikingly
mild and pleasant expression of his face.” It was to this treaty negotia-
tion, Warren felt, that one could date “the commencement of innovations
which have entirely broken up the civil polity of the Ojibways.”1

Doodem in the Era of Settler Colonialism 171
Imperial and colonial officials had been trying to interfere in Anishi-

naabe governance practices and laws since the early days of the fur
trade in seventeenth-century New France. Some of the evidence for
earlier interference in the Great Lakes region comes from Warren him-
self, who describes specific incidents from the fur trade era in which
the French tried to manipulate Anishinaabe councils, although less suc-
cessfully than by the Americans at Fond du Lac. For example, War-
ren recounted an example of how a Loon ogimaa from Chequamegon
Bay challenged a Crane ogimaa at Chequamegon Bay for precedence
in council and used as support for his claim the fact that the French
had recognized some Loon leaders as ogimaawag. Such efforts attempt-
ing to manipulate Indigenous polities though did not affect doodemag
as a political tradition. Instead, these actions created points of tension,
which Anishinaabe leaders responded to from within. In the conflict
between the Loon and Crane ogimaawag, the Crane ogimaa told an
allegory that made it clear to all that while the Loon ogimaa’s ances-
tor had in fact negotiated with the French and been recognized by the
French, it was the Crane ogimaa’s ancestor who had placed the Loon
chief in the orator’s role.2 In other words, the Crane ogimaa reminded
the Loon ogimaa that recognition by the French alone was not suffi-
cient to support his political claims – recognition of leadership required
wider ratification and regional support.
As Warren realized, the interference on the part of American officials
and traders at Fond du Lac would have come to naught had those lead-
ers who were given medals refused to accept them and instead insisted
that American officials acknowledge their hereditary leaders. But this
did not happen here. Direct confrontation was considered quite rude in
Anishinaabe councils. And at Fond du Lac, a leading Crane ogimaa
had recently died.3 Instead, Warren felt that the political tradition was
subverted from within, as those without hereditary doodem claims
to leadership assumed those responsibilities and then subsequently
signed treaties. By the late 1820s, the shift in the regional balance
of power meant that neither the British nor the Americans needed
Great Lakes Indigenous peoples as military allies. The British, for
example, moved management of Indian Affairs from the War Depart-
ment to the control of civil government in 1830. By this time, they did
2 Ibid., 88.
not consider Indigenous peoples to pose any real threat to their expan-
sion plans in the region.4 In this changed and charged environment, in
which the Anishinabek were now outnumbered, Anishinaabe leaders
faced tremendous external pressures that caused some to consider new
approaches, such as working with the colonizers in an effort to protect
what they could of their way of life as settlers flooded onto their land.
Settler colonialism is a well-studied phenomenon by which a colo-
nizing power takes possession of the lands of others through the settle-
ment of its own surplus population or of other peoples over which it
can exercise jurisdiction.5 American and British settler colonialism of
the Great Lakes region operated in slightly different ways from each
other but with the same clear intentions: (1) to take possession of the
land from Indigenous peoples by legal instrument, transferring sover-
eignty and jurisdiction to the colonizer; (2) to produce monetary wealth
from the land through logging, mining, and, where possible, turning
it into farmland; and (3) to transform Indigenous people into socially
inferior (i.e., not-quite-white) Christian farmers, domestics, and labour-
ers. American leaders negotiated their treaties with Great Lakes peoples
in some cases at the point of a sword. The British, hoping to avoid the
expense of military deployments, negotiated treaties more in keeping
with older alliance practices and maintained the practice of distribut-
ing presents until the 1850s.6 Nevertheless, the end result was the same.
On both sides of the new international border, older Indigenous ideas
of shared jurisdictions and network alliances were repudiated by the
newcomers and replaced instead by clearly demarked borders between
lots, counties, provinces, and states.
Over their lifetimes, William Warren and other mid-nineteenth-
century Anishinaabe writers such as Peter Jones and George Copway
all experienced the impact of land-hungry colonists coming into their
homelands and the subsequent consequences for the health and well-
being of their communities as they were left to subsist on marginal lands
4 Richard White, Middle Ground, 517.

5 See, for example, Hixson, American Settler Colonialism, a recent synthesis on the subject
for the North American context; and Ferris, Archaeology of Native-Lived Colonialism, a
detailed study for southwestern Ontario.
6 For Canadian treaty history, see James Miller, Compact, Contract, Covenant; for the
United States, see Prucha, American Indian Treaties; and for a more recent interpretation,
see Harjo, Nation to Nation. For Indian Department policy in British North American
see Allen, History of the British Indian Department and His Majesty’s Indian Allies.
in reserves (Canada) and reservations (United States). The reserve/

reservation communities of today were created after the War of 1812
in the eastern side of the Great Lakes region. The demographic growth
following the end of the War of 1812 was truly staggering. By 1851,
there were more than three million new non-Indigenous peoples in the
US territories and states that bordered the lakes; on the British North
American side, a million newcomers called the colony of Upper Canada,
which would become the province of Ontario, home. By 1900, follow-
ing the Confederation of Canada in 1867 and the completion of railway
networks on both sides of the border, the population had become even
larger. In contrast, the Indigenous population of the region remained
small, an increasingly tiny fraction of these new settler societies, con-
fined to reserves or reservations. By 1900, there were across the Great
Lakes region some fifty-six reserves in Canada and twenty-five reser-
vations in the United States. These reserves or reservations were not
large, some as small as a few hundred acres, on which these formerly
independent peoples now had to dwell.7
This final chapter begins the work of assessing the impact of settler
colonialism on doodem governance and law by broadly tracing some of
the impacts of British, American, and later Canadian government poli-
cies and actions on Anishinaabe political and legal traditions. The demo-
graphic and ecological transformations in the Great Lakes region of the
nineteenth century challenged and changed Anishinaabe political tradi-
tions and, by the end of the century, replaced it by legislatively enforced
elected band councils in Canada and tribal councils in the United States.
The massive influx of settlers and their urbanization of historic Anishi-
naabe gathering sites such as Bawaating, Bkejwanong, and at the Credit
River displaced Indigenous peoples from those places that had deep and
long-standing meaning. Programs of missionization and Christianiza-
tion affected marriage patterns and choice of spouse. The people who
led these programs also renamed and reorganized families according to
Christian norms with new Christian names; marriage ceased to be about
creating alliances between doodemag. Colonial laws that permitted only
men to vote and to stand for band elections robbed Anishinaabe women
of their historical roles in Anishinaabe governance and as lawmakers.8
7 Danziger, Great Lakes Indian Accommodation and Resistance, frontispiece map.

8 The 1876 Indian Act only permitted men to vote in band council elections. Women
did not get the right to vote until the Act’s 1951 amendments.
Recent scholarship offers a complex and nuanced understanding of

Anishinaabe reactions to these challenges. Their choices included acts
of political resistance and strategic adaptations in the face of pressures
to assimilate to the ways of the newcomers, pressures that became
codified in settler laws by the second half of the nineteenth century.9
For example, Anishinaabe and other Great Lakes Indigenous peoples
engaged in the new settler economy by selling fish, game, and maple
sugar; by acting as guides for Euro-American hunters; and by produc-
ing art for tourists both to supplement family incomes and to maintain
traditional knowledge.10 Efforts at regional governance through alliance
continued, but these were now increasingly shaped by the line of the
international border. In Ontario, Anishinaabe leaders continued to meet
in general council and tried to coordinate some responses to govern-
ment legislation, with mixed results.11 Preference for Anishinaabe val-
ues and cultural practices remained strong. Archaeological research has
revealed that Anishinaabe families maintained significant continuities
between eighteenth- and nineteenth-century practices in such everyday
things as the arrangement of internal living space in their homes and
their continued reliance upon seasonally available gathered and hunted
foods, even when “settled” in reserve communities and surrounded by
colonists in southern Ontario.12
Even as waves of newcomers moved into Anishinaabe lands, the
Anishinabek continued to draw on historic governance practices in
their efforts to secure a better future for themselves and their children.
Doodem and ishkode continued to be important categories through
9 Laws passed to define and regulate Indigenous peoples and control their lands
include, for Canada and its colonial predecessors, An Act to Encourage the
Gradual Civilization of the Indian Tribes in the Province (20 Victoria, c. 26 Province
of Canada); An Act for the Gradual Enfranchisement of Indians, the Better
Management of Indian Affairs, and to Extend the Provisions of the Act 31st Victoria,
Chapter 42 (Statutes of Canada 1869 c. 6); and the much amended but still in force
“Indian Act”: An Act to Amend and Consolidate the Laws Respecting Indians (S.C.
1876, c. 18). In the United States, see historic legislation such as the Dawes Severalty
Act (U.S. Statutes at Large, Vol. 24, p. 38, 1887), and Title 25 (Indians) of the current
United States Code.
10 Phillips, Trading Identities; Evans, “The People’s Pageant”; Donald Smith, Mississauga
Portraits; Ferris, Archaeology of Native-Lived Colonialism, 32–78.
11 Murdoch, “Mobilization of and against Indian Act Elections.”
12 Ferris, Archaeology of Native-Lived Colonialism, 35–7.
which Anishinaabe peoples not only defined themselves but thought

about how civil governance and law should work. This remained true as
long as people were still speaking and thinking in Anishinaabemowin,
because the language itself is a potent source of Anishinaabe law.13 The
residential school system and the twentieth-century attack on Indig-
enous languages posed the biggest existential crisis to Anishinaabe
political tradition and indeed to other Indigenous polities. Residential
schooling was a direct assault on corporate memory and knowledge of
Anishinaabe law. Nevertheless, in places where assimilative pressures
were not overwhelming, the doodem tradition maintained its capac-
ity to innovate while retaining its central role in Anishinaabe identity.
The case studies discussed in this chapter push back against the idea
that settler colonialism completely disrupted Anishinaabe capacity for
self-government, Anishinaabe identity, or the doodem tradition. Dur-
ing the first half of the nineteenth century, Anishinaabe leaders and
communities engaged in self-directed change.14 But these case studies
also reveal nineteenth-century colonialism’s harsh impact on the lives
of Indigenous peoples and their cultural and political traditions. The
fact that people were able to draw on their own laws, customs, and
practice to weather transformative changes as best they could should
not be an “alibi” for programs of forced assimilation that were imposed
on them by outsiders.15
Rivers and Reservations: “Native-Lived Colonialism”

and the Extinguishing of Council Fires
As settlement pressure began to build in southern Ontario after the War

of 1812, Anishinaabe leaders consolidated their efforts around main-
taining land rights in an effort to preserve their access to key council
sites and significant rivers and lakes important to their fisheries. These
actions expressed the Anishinaabe principles of duty of care for their
lands and the other-than-human ensouled beings with whom they were
in relationship. But access to the fisheries was also crucial for maintain-
ing political and cultural integrity. Annual gatherings to participate in
fishery remained important because the collective fishery harvest was
13 Lindsay Borrows, Otter’s Journey, 12.

14 Chute, Legacy of Shingwaukonce; Jones, History.
15 This is the central thesis of Brownlie and Kelm, “Desperately Seeking Absolution.”
also a time when important governance and legal discussions occurred.

In addition, the Anishinabek also wanted to secure their right to hunt
and to continue to be able to use their winter hunting territories.16 This
is what leaders hoped to achieve when they entered into treaties to let
newcomers settle on some of their lands. Council fires were also seeking
to preserve existing alliance relationships in keeping with Anishinaabe
law. Offering land to newcomers in this context is part of historic prac-
tices of gift exchange in which the gift was an expression of responsibil-
ity to others in alliance. By this time Anishinaabe leaders were certainly
well aware that newcomers changed the land and altered entire ecosys-
tems through their agricultural and forestry practices.17 In making land
cessions, Anishinaabe leaders sought to create space for both societies
to co-exist and for the Anishinabek to continue to exercise their respon-
sibility for the land and its beings. But settler colonialism proved relent-
less. For the Mississauga-Anishinabek of the Credit River council fire,
the pressures from settler colonists meant being forced off their lands.
The council fire at the Credit was extinguished in 1847 and the remain-
ing members relocated to the southwestern corner of the Six Nations of
the Grand River reserve in what is now the province of Ontario.
How the Mississaugas negotiated this pressure for their land reveals
much about the priorities of their leadership to protect and preserve
their way of life. When the land cession era began following the Ameri-
can Revolution, the first lands the Mississauga-Anishinabek were will-
ing to allow newcomers to settle on were those from Niagara west to the
Thames River, well away from the Credit River.18 Those lands remained
important to the Mississauga-Anishinabek; baptism records reveal
that most members of the Credit River community in the 1830s had
been born on the watersheds stretching from Niagara to what is now
Hamilton today.19 They had regularly gathered at Mississauga Point
on the Canadian side of the Niagara River across from Fort Niagara.
In 1793, the British relocated their seat of colonial government from
16 Surtees, Indian Land Surrenders, 111.

17 The best general study of the significant environmental change wrought by
newcomers remains Cronon, Changes in the Land.
18 Deed of Feoffment – The Messissague Nation to His Britannick Majesty, 7 December
1792, LAC RG10, Vol. 1840/IT005.
19 Baptisms, 1802–1857, New Credit, Ontario, Indian Mission, Reel 77.202L M1830,
United Church Archives.
Niagara-on-the-Lake to York (now Toronto) and brought with them a

few hundred white settlers. These newcomers did not respect Anishi-
naabe law or protocols for resource sharing. That same year the Missis-
sauga-Anishinabek petitioned Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe for redress
because incoming settlers were digging up and stealing apple and other
fruit trees they had planted on the valley flats of the rivers along Lake
Ontario and were stealing their fish.20
As discussed in Chapter 4, the colonial government of Upper Can-
ada expressed interest in purchasing all of the remaining Mississauga
lands along Lake Ontario in 1805. The ogimaa Cheechalk and the gichi-
Anishinabek of the Credit River council fire were understandably
reluctant to accede to this request. They clearly explained to the Indian
Department the need to protect access to their fishery and the site of
their council fire. In the provisional agreement signed at the Credit
River on 2 August 1805, the leaders agreed to sell the land in question
but reserved “to ourselves and the Mississague Nation the sole right
of the fisheries in the Twelve Mile Creek, the Sixteen Mile Creek, the
Etobicoke River, together with the flats or low grounds on said creeks
and river, which we have heretofore cultivated and where we have our
camps. And also the sole right of the fishery in the River Credit with one
mile on each side of the River.” In his speech at the council, Quenepe-
non, the Otter gichi-Anishinaabe from Twelve Mile Creek, reminded
William Claus, the deputy superintendent of the Indian Department,
that at previous councils, “our old Chiefs at the same time particularly
reserved the fishery of the River.”21 Not only were fish a crucial part of
their diet in this period but the annual salmon runs drew large numbers
of bald eagles to the mouth of the Credit. The council was also looking
out for the needs of the Credit community’s doodem beings by seeking
to protect that fishery.
But within a generation, the overwhelming increase in the settler pop-
ulation meant the British colonial government no longer felt the neces-
sity of attending to its historic alliance relationships with Indigenous
20 A memoreal [sic] of Different familys of Massesagoes Unto his Excellency the

Governor, 1793, Papers of John Graves Simcoe, Canadian Loose Documents,
Envelope 17, Archives of Ontario. My thanks to Donald Smith for bringing this
document to my attention.
21 Lieutenant-Governor’s Office, Upper Canada, vol. 1:288–309, Proceedings of a
meeting with the Mississaugas at the River Credit, 31st July, 1805: 96.
peoples.22 In the case of Upper Canada, Quenepenon’s descendants

found it increasingly difficult to resolve their concerns about settler
encroachments on their lands. However, they continued to raise those
issues with Indian Department officials in their meetings at the coun-
cil fire grounds that represented the alliance relationship, which were
physically located west of Fort York. After the War of 1812, the colony
of Upper Canada focused more on internal political debates concerning
the need for political reform.23 Indian Affairs moved to the back burner
of colonial priorities. Mississauga-Anishinabek nevertheless contin-
ued to meet regularly with Indian Department officials at the colony’s
council fire site. From the department’s perspective, the Anishinabek
were gathering to receive the gifts of a benevolent colonial government
and their annual annuity payment for lands sold (also paid in goods).
From the Mississaugas’ perspective, these gatherings were occasions
where their alliance relationships were renewed through the giving and
receiving of gifts, just as other Anishinaabe allies of the Crown contin-
ued to meet annually for similar purposes at other posts and forts, such
as at Drummond Island (1815–28), St. Joseph’s Island (1829), Penetan-
guishene, near Rama (1830–35), and Manitoulin Island (1836–58).24
In 1837–8, simmering internal tensions about oligarchical privilege
and the exercise of overbearing executive control erupted in the British
North American colonies of Upper and Lower Canada. While Upper
Canada experienced a minor rebellion that was quickly quashed, the
neighbouring colony of Lower Canada broke out into armed conflict, led
by French-Canadian bourgeois who had grown increasingly frustrated by
being effectively shut out of real political power. When the dust settled,
the British government responded to the concerns of French-Canadians
by merging the colonies of Upper and Lower Canada into one,
with the intention of neutralizing French-Canadian dominance in the
Lower Canadian legislature and thereby promoting the assimilation of
22 As Neal Ferris has noted, “as the context that touched on and began to constrain
the daily lived experiences of Native people, colonialism did not fully emerge until
the colonial state really began to ignore the autonomy of Aboriginal nations through
indifferent acts of transforming the region into a world of and for the colonizer.”
Archaeology of Native-Lived Colonialism, 28 (emphasis in original).
23 On the maturation of Upper Canada, see the essays in Greer and Radforth, Colonial
Leviathan. For a discussion of the rebellion in Lower Canada, see Greer, The Patriots
and the People.
24 Sims, “Algonkian-British Relations,” 1.
French-Canadians into an English-speaking colony in which the anglo-

phone population would come to dwarf the francophone.
Since the merger of the two colonies required the merger of two leg-
islative bodies, the Crown proposed moving the seat of government to
new location “within the present limits of Upper Canada” but further
east. Some members of the legislative council protested the decision, as
it would involve moving the legislative assembly “a ruinous distance
from the Western extremity”25 of Upper Canada and deprive Toronto of
its importance as a government town. But for the Anishinabek of southern
Ontario, this decision was a catastrophe. The unilateral decision of the
British government to relocate their seat of government in Upper Canada
was, from an Anishinaabe perspective, the unilateral decision to extin-
guish a council fire. The Anishinabek living in southern Ontario convened
a regional council in January of 1840, at which the ogimaawag and gichi-
Anishinabek from all the Anishinaabe council fires in the region crafted
and signed a petition explaining to the governor-general why the consoli-
dation of the legislature and its movement to Kingston was so profoundly
disturbing to them. In their petition (see Figure 31), the Anishinaabe lead-
ers of what is now Ontario drew on the metaphor of ishkode (fire) in an
effort to explain to the Governor General why they opposed the move:
Father – We have heard that a Union of Upper and Lower Canada is about
to take place, and that in all probability the Great Council Fire, which was
lighted at Menesing now called Toronto will be removed towards the sun
rising. Father – We beg to inform your Excellency that the great body of
your Red Children have been happy and contented to live within sight and
reach of the smoke of your Great Council Fire, to which our forefathers and
ourselves have resorted for wisdom, protection, and assistance. Father – It
fills our hearts with fear and sorrow when we think of the difficulties and
expenses that may attend the journey when any of your Red Children should
desire to see their Great Father. Father – We your Red Children humbly pray
that our beloved Great Mother the Queen may be graciously pleased to allow
the Great Council Fire of our Great Father to remain at Toronto.26
25 Phillip VanKoughnet, William Allan, and Alexander McDonnell, Dissentients,

http://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.9_00940, Saturday 14 December 1839,
Journal of the Legislative Council of Upper Canada (fifth session of the thirteenth
provincial Parliament), (Toronto J. Carey, 1840), 25.
26 Chief Superintendent’s Office, Upper Canada (Colonel S.P. Jarvis) – Correspondence,
Petition to Thompson, January 1840, LAC RG10, Vol. 72, 66801–4.
By their unilateral action, the Crown was repudiating their responsibili-

ties in the alliance. This petition fell on deaf ears; the docket indicates
“no reply” was given. And so the “Great Council Fire” at Toronto was
extinguished as the government of the now united Canadas moved to
Kingston. Without this fire at Toronto, how was the alliance relation-
ship to be maintained? By 1840, Indigenous travel through southern
Ontario was an increasingly complicated and costly undertaking, with
former trails now bisected by fences and tolls along the coach roads of
the colony. Just as settler colonists worried that the new location of gov-
ernment would be a “ruinous distance from the Western extremity,” so
too were Indigenous leaders, especially those from Toronto and points
west, concerned about their ability to maintain their relationships with
the Crown. The move also meant that the Credit River Mississaugas
would no longer be the host community for Anishinaabe leaders com-
ing to meet with government officials.
The petition sent to Thompson also remains a stunning example of
the continuity of doodem governance in southern Ontario at a time
when the Anishinabek were becoming rapidly outnumbered. It was
signed 24 January 1840, just two days after Musquakie read the belt
that opened Chapter 3. That reading of the alliance belt at the open-
ing of the council was in effect the renewal of Anishinaabe law of the
land. Two days later, the attendees dealt with a contemporary politi-
cal problem – their colonial allies – who in extinguishing their council
fire were repudiating their long-time allies. The signatories appealed
to the gichi-ogimaakwe of the British, Queen Victoria, to overturn this
decision. They knew all too well that only the political power of the
monarch or her representative in Canada could check the ever-present
pressure of settlers on their lands.
The signatories represented at least the ogimaa and aanikeogimaa of
each common council across what is now southern Ontario – the gov-
ernments of what settlers now called bands. Some sent three or four del-
egates. Those who were literate in English signed their own signatures,
but each gave his doodem. The host council fire, Credit River, signed
first and in rank order: ogimaa Joseph Sawyer (Eagle), aanikeogimaa
Peter Jones (Eagle), gichi-Anishinaabe John Jones (Eagle). The remain-
ing council fires signed in order as the communities were located from
east to west across the territory: Alderville (ogimaa John Sunday, Bison),
Rice Lake (ogimaa George Paudash, Crane), Mud Lake (ogimaa Squire
Martin, Birch), Balsam Lake (ogimaa James Johnson, Crane), Narrows
of Lake Simcoe (ogimaa William Yellowhead, Caribou), Snake Island
(ogimaa Joseph Snake, Catfish); Coldwater (ogimaa John Assance,

Otter), Saugeen (ogimaa Thomas Waubahdik, Caribou), St. Clair (ogi-
maa Joshua Wawanosh, Caribou), Muncey Town (ogimaa John Riley,
Eagle or Hawk, of the Chippewas of the Thames), and finally Muncey
Chiefs at Moraviantown or Moravian of the Thames Reserve (Cornelius
Westbrook, Wolf clan of the Lenape [Delaware] Nation).27
So here in 1840, both the common and general councils of the Anishi-
nabek were continuing to function as a system of government. The coun-
cils constituted by the belt read by Musquakie are here: the Credit River
and Mnjikaning (the narrows of Lake Simcoe). The other communities
named were older council fires or ones that had been constituted or rec-
ognized by general councils held in the intervening century and a half.
And there were newer council fires, too. The Muncey Chiefs represented
a community of Delawares who had relocated to the Thames River Val-
ley with their missionary in 1792 and the permission of the Chippewas
of the Thames. Coldwater had been established only ten years before in
1830 by Lieutenant Governor John Colborne as a new site for the distri-
bution of presents. Even as settlers were pushing them off their lands,
the Anishinabek continued to meet in council to discuss critical issues,
draft and sign petitions, and meet with colonial leaders in their efforts
to have the Great Council Fire of the British honour its commitments to
them. In other words, the Anishinabek were self-governing.
By 1840, the Credit River reserve was completely surrounded by
white settlement. Nevertheless, they had recovered from the losses
during the War of 1812 and by 1840 were thriving. They were nearly
self-sufficient in their own bread, butter, potatoes, beef, pork, and milk.
They had built their own timber mill and had built piers out into the
Credit River harbour for a schooner that could sell their milled lum-
ber. Most of the men were farmers, several were carpenters, and one
was a shoemaker. Most could read and write in English (something
not true of many white settlers) and twenty-four members of the com-
munity had been employed as missionaries around the Lakes. While
the Credit River community had made many accommodations and
changes to be more like their settler neighbours, they were trying to
27 Note that Thomas Wahbahdick’s caribou is only partially complete on this document
and is hard to confirm from this document alone. His identity as Caribou is clear on
the Sale of the Saugeen Peninsula, 13 October 1854, LAC RG10, Vol. 1845/178.
navigate through these accommodations while maintaining themselves

as a distinct people.28 But in 1840 the Credit River community faced
many challenges. They experienced significant pressure from the set-
tlers who lived around them to sell their land. As Smith has described,
the Credit River leadership had tried unsuccessfully for years to get title
to their reserve land outright, rather than relying on the Indian Depart-
ment to protect it.
By the 1840s, they had nearly run out of timber and they estimated
less than a decade’s worth remained. Their timber had been stolen, set-
tlers had taken their fish without permission or compensation, and the
Credit River fishery was mostly ruined in any case due to lack of access
to spawning because of the great number of mills erected upstream of
the reserve. They had no legal basis to pursue squatters and no land
security. But this had not stopped their determination to survive as a
distinct council of the Anishinabek. However, the lack of land secu-
rity and concern for their future prompted them to think about mov-
ing. Credit River leaders considered moving to the Bruce Peninsula,
but an initial survey deemed it too rocky. And after 1840, the Credit
River community no longer had the benefit of proximity to the colonial
government. So in 1847, the Credit River community accepted the invi-
tation of the Six Nations to relocate to the southwestern corner of Six
Nations reserve. The Mississaugas extinguished their fire at the Credit
and re-established themselves as the community of the New Credit.29
The pressures experienced by the Mississaugas of the New Credit also
faced other council fires in southern Ontario. The Indian Department
continued to sell off parts of other reserves, leading to the small size of
many communities today.30
Challenges to Doodem Governance and Legal Traditions

in the Age of Settler Colonialism
The experience of the Credit River Mississauga-Anishinabek raises

important questions about how the traditional civil governance of
the Anishinabek adapted to and co-existed with settler colonialism.
28 See Donald Smith, Sacred Feathers; Walters, “According to the Old Customs.”
29 Donald Smith, Sacred Feathers, 203–7, 212.
30 Danziger, Great Lakes Indian Accommodation and Resistance; Donald Smith, Sacred
Feathers; Chute, Legacy of Shingwaukonse.
Following the end of the War of 1812, it is certainly true that colonists
were intent on displacing and marginalizing Indigenous peoples. But
did these acts of dispossession mean that the doodem tradition was
completely broken, as William Warren suggests? Not necessarily; the
doodem tradition was open to innovation and did change – in no small
part because the process of dispossession and marginalization was
not immediate but took place over more than a half century. This gave
time for people to adapt the tradition to fit changing circumstances. By
the mid-nineteenth century, many Anishinaabe leaders in what is now
southern Ontario were meeting in wood frame buildings, taking min-
utes of their deliberations, and corresponding in writing with colonial
officials (and some cases, in Anishinaabemowin, with each other).31 On
the surface, changes like these may appear more as evidence of assimila-
tion than as adaptation. However, a closer look at documents produced
in these meetings reveals that doodem and council fire continue to be
important for Anishinaabe governance and law. Older forms adapted to
new circumstances. Until colonial legislators imposed band councils on
the Anishinabek and other First Nations, Anishinaabe civil governance
based on the doodem tradition was flexing before the assault of the
colonial reality, but it was not broken. Even after settler governments
imposed elected band councils on Indigenous peoples, doodem and
iskhode continued to be potent political metaphors for the Anishina-
bek, while doodem continued to have meaning as part of Anishinaabe
identity, even if its role in governance was diminishing.
As discussed in the vignette that opened this chapter, William War-
ren based part of his claim for the decline of traditional Anishinaabe
doodem governance on that fact that, by 1826 at Fond du Lac (in what
is now Wisconsin), American officials felt confident enough to ignore
hereditary leaders and promote their own claimants for leadership.
They interfered directly in Anishinaabe governance by recognizing
individuals who would be more accommodating to their demands.
Certainly the social and cultural dislocation that occurred in the nine-
teenth century made some communities open to other non-traditional
models of leadership. This could mean the emergence of new leaders
who did not ground their claim to office in hereditary title or doodem
identity but who could (or were perceived to) deal more effectively
31 Walters, “According to the Old Customs”; Alan Corbiere, “Exploring Historical

Literacy.”
than traditional leadership did with aggressive colonial officials. In

some cases, the success of these individuals came through a measure of
fluency in spoken and written English and/or their relationships with –
or strategies for dealing with – the new settler society governments.
Such strategies proved effective, at least for a short period of time. Dif-
ferent ways in which new individuals could move into these formerly
hereditary leadership roles in this period can be seen in the biographies
of three Anishinaabe leaders of this time: Bugone-giisk, Kakewaquon-
aby, and Shingwaukonse. While Bugone-giisk’s rise supports Warren’s
assertion that traditional doodem governance was damaged, Kake-
waquonaby’s and Shingwaukonse’s path to leadership came through
strategies that creatively flexed the doodem tradition.
Bugone-giisk (Hole in the Day), although Bear doodem by birth, took
on an increasingly central role in regional politics of the southwestern
Great Lakes following the death of the childless Crane ogimaa Babii
zigindibe (Curly Head) in 1825.32 A Crane doodem man should have
followed Babiizigindibe, but Bugone-giisk became ogimaa instead. As
Anton Treuer explains in his remarkable dual biography of Bugone-
giisk and his son (who assumed the same name and leadership role
following his father’s death in 1827), the social disruption caused by
war between the Ojibwe and Dakota coupled with growing American
expansionism, created a set of circumstances that facilitated the rise of
Bugone-giisk the Younger in particular to prominence and influence –
despite the fact that he could make no hereditary claim to civil leader-
ship. Bugone-giisk the Younger was charismatic, ambitious, and mate-
rialistic. Although William Warren was a close friend of Bugone-giisk
the Younger, he was critical of Bugone-giisk’s tactics.
Treuer describes Bugone-giisk the Younger as displaying qualities
that were the opposite of those expected by Anishinaabe leaders: he
was arrogant rather than humble, seemed to be working for his own
interests as much as for his community, and claimed sole authority to
sell land and enter into treaty, authority that he did not have. Neverthe-
less, his skills as an orator and his willingness to confront American
officials directly (in contrast with the traditional non-confrontational
32 These council fires are in the present-day state of Minnesota. See Treuer, Assassination
of Hole in the Day, especially Chapter 1, “The Nature of Ojibwe Leadership,” for a
discussion of mid-nineteenth century changes in Anishinaabe leadership practices.
For the death of Babiizigindibe, see page 43.
style of leadership) were effective. At the age of only nineteen, he domi-

nated the council that led to the 1847 Treaty of Fond Du Lac. As Treuer
notes, the other assembled leaders must have been shocked by Bugone-
giisk’s aggressive claims, but they did not publicly challenge him, as
that would have been contrary to established Anishinaabe political pro-
tocols. From William Warren’s perspective, what Bugone-giisk did was
seize political power in a way that would force other leaders to violate
their own deeply held values in order to challenge him. This is what
led Warren to conclude that the traditional system had been system had
been “entirely broken up,” since, from his perspective, Bugone-giisk the
Elder in claiming leadership that was not his to claim in 1826, and his
son through demonstration of behaviour that violated the standards of
Anishinaabe leadership, bore at least part of the blame for subverting
the traditional system.33
In two other cases, though, the new leaders respected the historic
principles of doodem governance and Anishinaabe law. For example, in
1829, the Mississauga-Anishinabek of the Credit River made the twenty-
seven-year-old Kahkewaquonaby (Peter Jones) one of their leaders. As
discussed earlier, Jones was the son of an Anishinaabe Eagle doodem
woman named Tubinaquay and Augustus Jones, a surveyor of Welsh
ancestry. He was adopted by his grandfather, Wabenose, into the Eagle
doodem and then again by Adjutant, hereditary ogimaa of the Eagle
doodem at the Credit River prior to being made a gichi-Anishinaabe
himself. What was unusual about Kahkewaquonaby’s case was not any
subversion of the doodem tradition; if anything, his double adoption
confirmed the legitimacy of his position. It was his young age that made
his appointment stand out. His elevation to the role of aanikeogimaa
was due to his fluency in written and spoken English and his strong
relationship with the Methodist missionary William Case. Jones’s con-
nections enabled him to leverage resources for the Credit River com-
munity. In addition, he was admired for his spiritual leadership of the
Mississaugas, many of whom converted to Methodism following his
example. Kahkewaquonaby and Bugone-giisk the Younger both rose to
positions of power and influence at a young age, both in circumstances
that reveal how the challenges of settler colonialism were necessitating
33 Anton Treuer, in Assassination of Hole in the Day, was able to corroborate Warren’s
statements and expand upon them in forty-seven interviews he undertook with
respected regional Elders, all first-language speakers of Anishinaabemowin.
creative adaptations by the Anishinabek in response. But in Kahke-

waquonaby’s case, his elevation was supported and confirmed by the
community and his behaviour conformed to Anishinaabe expectations
of leaders. He remained humble and dedicated his life to the service of
his community. Moreover, he did not ever assume the role of ogimaa at
the Credit, remaining the deputy or aanikeogimaa for his entire career.
The life and leadership of Shingwaukonse is another example of
changes and challenges to hereditary doodem governance in this period.
Like Kahkewaquonaby, Shingwaukonse was born to an Anishinaabe
mother, this time of the Crane doodem, and a white father. Shingwau-
konse himself then married a Crane doodem woman. This in itself did
not pose the problem of violating the taboo of marrying within one’s
doodem, as there is no evidence that Shingwaukonse was adopted into
a Crane lineage. His descendants in interviews asserted that Shingwau-
konse was Plover, a doodem identity that he had acquired through a
dream. Historically the Anishinabek used vision quests, particularly at
puberty, to acquire guardian beings that were distinct from one’s doo-
dem. Shingwaukonse appeared to be blending the two and, as anthro-
pologist Cory Willmott has suggested, “perhaps due to his question-
able descent narrative, he based his leadership claims upon his personal
spiritual and military accomplishments,” which were considerable.34 A
noted veteran of the War of 1812 and a charismatic spiritual leader who
claimed the sun as a protective manidoo, Shingwaukonse also devel-
oped a strong personal relationship with American Indian Agent Henry
Rowe Schoolcraft and proved adept at negotiating with colonial authori-
ties.35 In adopting the Plover as his doodem (a small shore bird that in
outline and track mark resembles the Crane), Shingwaukonse was able
to connect with the idea of “crane-ness” without claiming a Crane iden-
tity for himself – a strategy that could also make possible his marriage
to a Crane doodem woman. As Willmott has explained, “in Shingwau-
konse’s case we can see a shift towards the rising power of achieved
leadership roles, which his sons could nevertheless appropriate back
into leadership claims that were based on ascribed doodem descent.”36
What the examples of Bugone-giisk (Elder and Younger), Kahkewa-
quonaby, and Shingwaukonse all demonstrate is that doodem continued
34 Willmott, “Anishinaabe Doodem Pictographs,” 140.

35 Chute, Legacy of Shingwaukonse.
36 Willmott, “Anishinaabe Doodem Pictographs,” 141.
to be a crucial category in Anishinaabe political thought during the first

half of the nineteenth century. While each of these leaders may be said
to have achieved leadership that at first glance appears to be outside of
the conventional descent-based path, each still asserted their right to
lead within a doodem framework. Other examples of conflict over lead-
ership in the nineteenth century indicate that doodem continued to be
highly relevant to Anishinaabe politics. Shingwaukonse’s biographer
Janet Chute found evidence of other doodem-based political conflict
in 1853, following the decision of the colonial government in Canada
West to merge the Batchewana and Goulais bands on the north shore
of Lake Superior near Sault Ste. Marie and to place them under the
leadership of Nebanagoching, the Crane ogimaa at the Sault. Nebana-
goching supported this move. At the same time, someone placed “a
wooden standard bearing the ‘doodem’ of the Crane” at the southern
boundary of the Batchewana Bay reserve. However, members of the
Bear doodem at Batchewana tore it down and explained their actions
to the local government surveyor, John Keating, by saying that the
Cranes did not have authority over them. Another unrelated doodem
dispute occurred on Parry Island in 1860. The issue was who would
replace Megis as ogimaa there: James Pagahmegabow of the Caribou
doodem or Ahwahquagezick of the Birch Tree doodem? The now very
elderly Musquakie of Rama spoke in favour of Pagahmegabow.37 Note
that Musquakie was also Caribou; he supported his doodem kin, as one
would have expected, in the claim.
In these disputes, Anishinaabe leaders involved colonial officials
through the petition process, attempting to educate colonial officials
in the Indian Department about which ogimaa from which doodem
was the proper ogimaa of the common council and drawing officials in
as potential arbiters of these disputes. What these disputes also reveal
is that the doodem tradition continued to be politically relevant and
important for Anishinaabe peoples on the northern shores of the Great
Lakes during the same period when William Warren thought the tradi-
tional governance was no longer operating in the southwestern Great
Lakes. However, by the last quarter of the nineteenth century in both
settler states, increasingly coercive colonial governments passed leg-
islative regimes that forcibly disrupted Anishinaabe law by imposing
elected band councils and elected tribal councils that were effectively
37 Chute, Legacy of Shingwaukonse, 154, 295n67.

controlled and managed by the respective government departments in

charge of “Indian Affairs.” These actions, along with residential school-
ing that disrupted the teaching of language, history, and politics to
future leaders, were the real cause of the system’s breakdown.
Writing Doodem in the Broader Great Lakes
Despite the imposition of programs of assimilation, the doodem tradi-

tion remained important to the Anishinabek, and in Canada leaders
continued to sign with doodem images, on petitions in particular, into
the twentieth century. These examples show the persistence of doo-
dem identity and doodem governance outside of the Ontario Penin-
sula. The first two examples come from Nipissing, the host council fire
of the 1642 gathering described in the Introduction. In 1848, Cabojijak
(Caribou doodem ogimaa and a later signatory to the Robinson-Huron
Treaty) from the Lake Nipissing Anishinabek dictated a petition to the
community priest, who wrote the petition in Anishinaabemowin. The
petition asked for lands on which to garden, a request that mystified
the Crown, given that no land surrender had yet been signed for these
lands. Cabojijak then cut out his doodem on a separate piece paper and
affixed with sealing wax to the document, the only known example of
this practice that I have seen (see Figure 32).38 Two other caribou with
ribs showing were also drawn in ink, with no names attached, and a
pike and loon were outlined in pencil. By asking that they be granted
lands to cultivate the Nipissing Council was seeking security of land
title at a time when the allied north shore of Lake Huron council fires
(of which the Nipissing were a part) were dealing with the increasing
encroachment of settlers staking mining claims. The caribou doodemag
with ribs showing is another telling detail. The petition was dated the 3
August 1848, a time of year when the caribou should be fat. By showing
their doodem images in this way, the Nipissing Council was remind-
ing their allies of their obligations under the Covenant Chain alliance –
visually expressing their need.
The doodem tradition remained important to the Nipissing. In the
early twentieth-century the Nipissing Council sent another petition,
38 Indians of Lake Nipissing ... 3 August 1848, LAC Executive Council Office of the
Province of Canada fonds (formerly RG 1), Land submissions to the Executive
Council, series RG1 E5, vol. 9:1168.
undated but addressed to Prime Minister Robert Borden (1911–20) and

written sometime between 1915 and 1920. The council, protesting the
imposition of game laws in Ontario in 1915 that significantly infringed
upon their hunting rights, undertook to write a petition to the super-
intendent of Indian Affairs, Duncan Campbell Scott. Although only
a copy now exists in the department’s files, the clerk who produced
it copied the doodem images from the original. This document dem-
onstrated the continuity of doodem governance and the composition
of the Nipissing Council some sixty-plus years after the 1848 peti-
tion was written. It is signed with doodem images of two pike, two
beaver, five caribou, and a loon. People with the Caribou, Loon, and
Pike doodemag continue to form the Nipissing Council. But the Bea-
ver doodem has a long tradition at Lake Nipissing as well. Recall that
evidence for the Beaver doodem at Lake Nipissing dates back to the
early seventeenth century and that oral histories recorded by Nicolas
Perrot put the emergence of the First Beaver (or Great Beaver) along
the “French River” and Lake Nipissing itself.39 The signatories of both
these documents were ogimaawag and gichi-Anishinabek, communi-
cating government to government, as Anishinaabe councils had his-
torically always done.
While Anishinaabe doodem images do not appear on American trea-
ties after 1817, visual petitions recorded by Henry Schoolcraft are evi-
dence of the continuity of Anishinaabe graphic practices in the United
States. In 1849, several Anishinaabe delegates travelled to Washington
at their own expense to petition for a return of some lands in Wis-
consin that had previously been sold to the Americans. As Schoolcraft
explained, their leader knew that they lacked letters of introduction to
meet with American government officials and so produced this exam-
ple, which Schoolcraft called “primitive letters of credence” on birch
bark, as a means of gaining admission to the halls of government and a
hearing. This petition, shown in Figure 34, was presented to President
James Polk and shows seven leaders represented as their respective
doodem identities: one Crane, three Martens, one Bear, one Merman,
and one Bullhead Catfish. The lines represent the unity of the dele-
gates’ hearts and minds and their connection to a series of rice lakes
39 Petition to the Honourable Robert Laird Borden, Premier of the Dominion of Canada,
n.d., p. 3, LAC RG10, Vol. 6743, file 420–8; Perrot, “Mémoire,” in Blair, Indian Tribes,
1:62–3.
in Wisconsin, where they wanted a guaranteed reserve.40 Schoolcraft,

in his work, also reproduced four other petitions with doodem images
that he said had been submitted by different Anishinaabe leaders com-
ing to Washington to have their grievances addressed.41 Despite the
lack of American treaties with Anishinaabe doodem images after 1817,
this petition is also evidence of the enduring significance of doodem
identity to governance in the US-controlled portion of Anishinaabe
historic territories.
While the border between the United States and British North Amer-
ica was fixed by the Rush-Bagot Agreement of 1817, these “lines drawn
upon the water” did not stop the movement of Anishinaabe peoples
through their traditional territories and the continuity of cultural prac-
tices in the Great Lakes region.42 However, despite these continuities,
the creation of reserves (in Canada) and reservations (in the United
States) did ultimately create a special set of problems for the viability of
the doodem tradition and its role in Anishinaabe governance and law.
Doodemag, as I discussed in earlier chapters, created a set of relation-
ships that connected kin over long distances and a set of ethical obliga-
tions towards those kin that functioned as a social safety net. It was a
system that suited the needs of a highly mobile people. The reserve and
reservation system fundamentally disrupted this way of life and elimi-
nated much of the crucial social safety net that the tradition had earlier
provided. Once again, the tradition remained capable of innovation and
was able to adapt to new circumstances.
But what strategies did people adopt to deal with these changing
circumstances? One solution may have come in the form of the types
40 Symbolic Petition of Chippewa Chiefs, presented at Washington, 28 January 1849,

headed by Oshkabawis of Wisconsin. Pictograph A. Plate 60. Drawn by S. Eastman,
USA, Printed in Color by P.S. Duval, Philadelphia, in Schoolcraft, Historical and
Statistical Information, 416–17.
41 Schoolcraft, Historical and Statistical Information, 416–21. Gerald Vizenor has
questioned whether this document was in fact a petition. Vizenor points out that
William Warren, who knew the Anishinaabe leaders supposedly responsible for
this petition, did not discuss this document or the claim itself in his History of the
Ojibways. Instead, Vizenor interprets these documents differently: “The visual stories
of the totemic cranes, and other creatures eye to eye, and heart to heart, set as a
union of views, are native scenes in visual cartography” – in other words, maps and
stories. Vizenor, Fugitive Poses, 176–7.
42 Hele, “Introduction,” viii–xxiii.
of roles ascribed to specific doodem identities. In more contemporary

works published in the 1970s by Basil Johnston and Edward Benton-
Banai, the doodemag themselves are assigned specific occupational
roles: for example, Cranes as civil leaders, Bears as defenders, fish doo-
demag as teachers. These specific social roles, I suggest, are an innova-
tion on the older idea that the physical characteristics and behavioural
qualities of doodem beings (specifically through the shared doodem
soul) shaped the person who bore that identity. These articulations of
Bears as policemen, for example, or those of the various fish doodemag
as teachers, draw from much older understandings about the ways
in which one’s doodem being shapes one’s character and personality.
Both nineteenth- and twentieth-century sources suggest that members
of the makwa (Bear) doodem had a particular association with war, for
example, and were more likely to be made war leaders in the past. War-
ren even suggests that members of this doodem kept the war-pipes and
clubs for each community and “often denominated the bulwarks of the
tribe against its enemies.”43 However, it is important to remember that
enumerated lists of warriors who served with the British in the first part
of the nineteenth century show that, during that time period, warriors
were drawn from all the doodemag known in the area – Caribou, Eagle,
Crane, Otter, and others – each of whom took their war leaders from
among members of their own doodem.44 Each doodem had its own civil
leaders as well.45 By re-associating doodem with related but new adult
social roles, the doodem tradition remained relevant to the Anishina-
bek in the reality of reserve or reservation life, as people increasingly
participated in the wage economy. Such changes to the function of the
doodem tradition retain an Anishinaabe cultural logic and reflect con-
tinuity with the past.46
The impact of Christianity on forms of doodem expression must also
be taken into consideration. Peter Jones, the Anishinaabe Methodist

44 See for example: List of Chiefs and Indian Warriors ... at the Holland Landing, 22
December 1838, Office of the Chief Superintendent in Upper Canada, LAC RG10,
Vol. 124: 69964–70; Shilling to Jarvis, 9 May 1843, Office of the Chief Superintendent
in Upper Canada, LAC RG10, Vol. 138: 78952–3. My thanks to Darlene Johnston for
bringing these two documents to my attention.
45 See Basil Johnston, Ojibway Heritage, 53; Benton-Banai, Mishomis Book, 75–7.
46 Too often such changes are seen as “inauthentic.” For a discussion of this problem
and its impact on Indigenous peoples, see Raibmon, Authentic Indians.
missionary, did not find doodem incompatible with his new faith; he
wore his Eagle doodem with pride and passed on the identity to his
children. But, as a professed Christian and devout believer, it is highly
unlikely he personally believed in having an other-than-human being
as his ancestor. In both his private and public communications, he quite
clearly distances himself from such “superstitions,” and it is clear that
he wishes his congregation, and all Anishinaabe peoples, to leave these
ideas behind. Other members of the Mississauga-Anishinabek also con-
tinued to sign petitions and documents with doodem identities long
after both they and their children had converted to Christianity and
other prominent Anishinaabe religious leaders, including John Sunday
and George Copway, also made no secret of their respective identities.
The evidence is clear that doodem identities – on twentieth-century
documents signed with doodem images and on doodem images woven
or embroidered on to ceremonial regalia – remained important for
many Anishinabek. Even as their role in governance and law decreased,
knowing one’s doodem and displaying it was still a means by which
one could demonstrate connection to other-than-human beings and
express being Anishinaabe.
Ecological Changes and Changes in the

Representations of Doodem Beings
The influx of settler colonists into the Great Lakes region did not just dra-
matically increase the area’s population; the newcomers came intent on
remaking the area into an income-generating agricultural landscape. In
Upper Canada, this included clear-cutting and intensive wheat farming.47
As the newcomers radically transformed the land, changing forests into
farms, local ecologies were rapidly changed as well. Some species were
locally extirpated or rendered nearly or totally extinct, including the wood-
land caribou and woodland bison. Settlers introduced new and invasive
species, like starlings, house sparrows, and dandelions.48 The newcomers
chopped down trees, dammed rivers, and fundamentally altered the eco-
system of the Great Lakes region. Rapid environmental change on its own
created challenges for the doodem tradition, which historically had been
predicated upon a fundamental relationship between a doodem being,
a particular landscape, and people who shared that identity. Given the
47 See McCalla, Planting the Province; John McCallum, Unequal Beginnings.

48 See Cronon, Changes in the Land.
belief that ensouled beings are connected to the animals or plants that give
Anishinaabe doodem kin their name and their existence, a habitat needed
to be able to support all of the beings bearing that identity, both human
and other-than-human. In this situation, what happens to the doodem
tradition when there is rapid environmental change?
I have found two specific examples where environmental changes
were clearly reflected in the ways in which doodem images were drawn
on treaty and other documents. Woodland caribou, for example, were
extirpated from the eastern Great Lakes region by the 1780s. By the
1850s, some sixty years later, some people with known Caribou iden-
tities, especially in southern Ontario, were drawing pictographs that
resembled the white-tailed deer; as Figure 35 illustrates, they no lon-
ger emphasized the distinct hoof shape and antlers of the caribou in
the images that they drew. As members of the Caribou doodem of this
period found themselves restricted to reserves, their opportunities to
hunt limited by settlers, and the caribou long gone, their knowledge of
what their doodem being looked like began to recede from community
memory. With the deaths of any remaining Elders who remembered
what caribou looked like, treaty signatories in the 1850s and later had to
draw their Caribou doodem images from remembered descriptions and
by looking to the closest available analogues. As the caribou retreated
northward, white-tailed deer migrated up into the same habitat. It is not
surprising then that, over time, Anishinabek from the Lake Simcoe area
would come to draw a white-tailed deer and then, later, use the image
of the deer as a symbol of their people. Today, a stylized leaping deer is
now the logo on the casino located on the lands of the Chippewa-
Anishinabek of Rama (Chippewas of Rama First Nation). While the doo-
dem tradition remained relevant to the community, the specific identity
of some doodemag shifted to adapt to the changing ecosystem, and for
some, the Adik or Caribou doodem changed as well.
A similar problem occurred for those who had the Bison as their
doodem (see Figure 36). The woodland or eastern bison (Bison bison
pennsylvanicus) used to range well into eastern North America. By the
early nineteenth century, the woodland bison had been extirpated from
the lands east of the Mississippi as, like the caribou, it experienced sig-
nificant habitat destruction with the arrival of Euro-American colonists
and their radical transformation of the land into farms.49 The loss of the
49 Rezendes, Tracking and the Art of Seeing, 279–301.

woodland bison, in turn, affected later representations of the doodem

image by those belonging to the Bison doodem. While there was an
image of a distinct bison on the 1701 Peace of Montreal, bison images
begin to look more like an ox or a cow on documents signed in the late
eighteenth century and into the nineteenth. Neace’s 1787 bison in Fig-
ure 36 was drawn as a cow by the clerk who reproduced the image (as
British clerks in Upper Canada at this time would also have little or no
awareness of the by then extirpated bison). As with the caribou, it is not
surprising that Anishinaabe artists turned to a new local analogue – the
domestic cow – for visual inspiration when those Elders with knowl-
edge of the bison were no longer alive to advise their grandchildren
on what a bison actually looked like. The Mississauga-Anishinabek in
southern Ontario drew their Bison doodem as a cow when there ceased
to be extant bison in southern Ontario; the Chippewa-Anishinabek
of Mnjikaning (Rama) substituted a white-tailed deer for the caribou.
In each case, when a species representing an Anishinaabe doodem
identity was regionally extirpated, people adapted their traditions to
accommodate the new reality by selecting a related species that had
recently made the region its home. By doing so they could continue to
emphasize the inter-relationships between doodem beings in human
and other-than-human form and their mutual interdependence in a
shared ecosystem. In other words, these changes remained consistent
with Anishinaabe worldview.
Missionaries and Marriages
While the doodem tradition remained important during the nineteenth

century, the use of doodem exogamy to create alliances between dif-
ferent doodemag was significantly eroded by century’s end. As
Anishinaabe peoples transitioned from relocating seasonally to living
year-round on the same reserve, the frequency of regional gatherings
dropped greatly, and populations came to contain a nearly static set of
doodemag belonging to those families present when the reserve was
created. By the 1840 council at the Credit River, only ogimaawag and
gitchi-Anishinabek travelled to attend. These facts had a significant
impact on the historic practice of doodem exogamy and by extension
weakened the formerly very strong ties that historically were woven
between different council fires through marriage practices. The pool
of potential spouses shrank to those on reserve or in nearby settler
communities.
Furthermore, nineteenth-century missionaries to Anishinaabe com-

munities worked hard to change marriage practices and, by extension,
to make Anishinaabe kinship categories conform to Western Christian
models. In this model, doodem exogamy and even doodem identity,
had no place. While missionary efforts were not universally successful,
their work, when combined with the changes wrought upon Anishi-
naabe lifeways by the reserve system, meant that marriage and kinship
practices did change. Over time, Anishinaabe kinship vocabulary more
closely aligned with Western norms, which came into more common
use by the twentieth century. Increasingly, the distinction between par-
allel cousins (formerly akin to a sibling) and a cross-cousin (a potential
marriage partner) was lost.50 And sometimes people married within
their doodem.
Marrying within one’s doodem eroded a fundamental purpose of the
identity: providing two axes of doodem-kin support for each married
couple. It is also a reflection of the fact that people traveled less (and
travel was more difficult through now colonized lands), so a wide-
spread safety net was no longer needed. Breaking the taboo had been
an occasional societal problem that Anishinaabe people had dealt with
prior to the reserve and reservation era. One contemporary teaching
equates the disappearance of the Deer doodem to the violation of the
taboo against intra-doodem marriage. According to Edward Benton-
Banai, “The people of the Deer Clan once violated this natural law
and began marrying within their clan. The Deer Clan people were sent
warnings. Their children started to be born with defects and abnormali-
ties. They made no correction in their ways. Finally, the Creator was so
disturbed by this departure from the way of harmony that he destroyed
the Deer Clan in its entirety.”51 Violating this taboo may have become
more common, though, with the onset of the reserve/reservation era
and the loss of mobility for Anishinaabe peoples.
By the twentieth century, the use of doodem tradition to regulate
marriage was not only breaking down but that breakdown was also
being interpreted as a cause of the hardships caused by settler colonial-
ism. Anthropologists in the early twentieth century found Elders from
Parry Island on Georgian Bay to Walpole Island near Detroit, from the
50 Valentine, Nishnaabemwin Reference Grammar, 107–112; Willets, “Correlated Changes

in Ottawa Kinship.”
51 Benton-Banaii, Mishomis Book, 77.
Michigan Peninsula and west to Thunder Bay, who all independently

expressed the opinion that the violation of the incest taboo against
intra-doodem marriage had been a significant factor contributing to
their current state of poverty and isolation.52 This idea was expressed
more recently by Benton-Banai, who wonders how much stronger the
Anishinabek would be had this taboo not been violated.53 Doodem
identity was so strong even then, and so central to Anishinaabe concep-
tions of self, that it retained the ability to act as an explanatory agent for
social change, even as the historic governance, legal, and social roles
of tradition itself were weakened. That these Elders would isolate the
violation of the doodem taboo as an agent responsible for settler colo-
nialism and the cultural and physical dislocation imposed by settlers
on them, is both poignant and powerful evidence that the Anishinabek
have continued, throughout the centuries since the arrival of Europe-
ans, to look within their own cultural tradition to understand and nego-
tiate changes in their world.
One significant innovation to the doodem tradition in the twentieth
century has been the practice of acquiring a doodem identity through
dream revelations. Anthropologist Cory Willmott has investigated this
route of doodem acquisition, as it seems to depart significantly from
the historical evidence for patrilineal descent of doodem identity. She
was especially surprised to meet siblings with different doodem iden-
tities, which seemed at first to her to be a major difference from her
historical understanding of doodem identity as one acquired through
patrilineal descent. But what Willmott found in her detailed study is
that this method of doodem acquisition is entirely consistent with older
Anishinaabe practices of dreams and visions as important sources of
knowledge, as the example of Shingwaukonse and his Plover doodem
discussed earlier shows. By the mid-nineteenth century, the Anishina-
bek and other Indigenous peoples were under increasingly coercive
state and missionary pressure to assimilate to settler society and to for-
sake their worldview, language, and belief system. Missionaries were
keen to disrupt any aspects of Anishinaabe spiritual practices that were
seen as “pagan,” including the fasting rituals through which people
had traditionally acquired helper beings. The Anishinaabe belief in
two souls, discussed previously, persisted, though, and what Willmott
52 J.B. Peuessie, “Fort William, John Perrot, Fort Francis” in William Jones,
Ethnographic and linguistic field notes on the Ojibwa Indians, folder 1, APS; Jenness,
Ojibwa Indians of Parry Island.
53 Benton-Banaii, Mishomis Book, 77.
found is that the “shadow soul” or jiibay, historically associated with

the doodem being as the soul that remains with the body after death,
increasingly took on the role of the helper or guardian being.54 Doodem
was a public or civic identity well known to colonial officials and not
perceived to be in conflict with Christianity, especially when people dis-
avowed descent from other-than-human beings. While on the surface
this seems a significant change, the reality is that doodem remained
central to Anishinaabe identity. And what Willmott has found is that
reliance on dreams and visions by Anishinaabe people to reveal a doo-
dem identity lost to them through the activities of settler colonialism is
not a departure from Anishinaabe tradition but, rather, draws directly
from it.55 Dream revelation as a source of doodem identity is also not
connected to the idea of “blood” inheritance.
Despite challenges and changes, and also in response to them, the
doodem tradition has endured. It is in the oral histories of the Anishina-
bek that evidence of political change was and is preserved through the
doodem tradition, providing explanations of how disputes and conflicts
arose between people and how those disputes were resolved. Anishi-
naabe Elder and cultural teacher Basil Johnston has said that “the totem
[doodem] was probably the most important social unit taking prece-
dence over the tribe, community and immediate family.”56 Addition-
ally, in the rich narrative tradition of the Anishinabek, doodem beings
provided a central source of metaphor that shaped and explained both
social and political change. There can be no doubt that the activities
and actions of settler colonists in the nineteenth and twentieth century
radically disrupted Anishinaabe governance practices and the role of
doodemag in law. The newcomers also had no room in their world-
view for the concept of shared jurisdictions or alliances of interdepen-
dence. As a result of the land surrender process, colonial legislation,
residential schools, and other policies, the networks of doodem rela-
tions connecting nodes of Anishinaabe governance were nearly severed
from one another. In their place is an international border that bisects
four of the five Great Lakes, within which are the enclosed polygons of
state/provincial and municipal boundaries. Reserves or reservations
created isolated enclaves of Anishinabek and fixed the composition
of those resulting spaces to the descendants of those assigned to that
54 Willmott, “Anishinaabe Doodem Pictographs.”

55 Ibid., 165–6.
56 Johnston, Ojibway Heritage, 59.
particular polygon at the time each reserve was created. Nevertheless,

doodem remained important to being Anishinaabe, even if communi-
ties reshaped fundamental aspects of the tradition to adjust to the real-
ity of settler colonialism.
The historic role of doodem identity in Anishinaabe civil governance
and law itself was initially eroded under the influence of British and
American colonial officials. It was eventually pushed aside in the late
nineteenth century by twin legislative regimes, in both Canada and the
United States, that replaced Indigenous governments with imposed
elected band or tribal council systems. The impact of missionization
programs and targeted assimilation projects also affected the practice of
the doodem tradition. The belief in a kinship connection to a particular
other-than-human ancestor was lost for some and suppressed by oth-
ers, and, by the late nineteenth century, kinship terminology in Anishi-
naabemowin began, more and more, to parallel Western categories.57
The most significant harm was done by the residential school system,
which moved children out of their parents’ care and custody, disrupted
the teaching roles of parents and grandparents, and actively sought
to suppress culture and political traditions by punishing students for
speaking their own language.58
The knowledge and practice of the doodem tradition survived and
continued to have meaning in the nineteenth century and into the twen-
tieth, although that meaning, and the social and political work that doo-
dem did, changed. While the network of relationships created by the
intersection of councils connected through doodem relations was sig-
nificantly disrupted during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the
nodes and networks of the Anishinaabe world remained visible. There
has been continuity between doodem identities documented in associa-
tion with particular places in the seventeenth century and descendants
with the same identities in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The
importance of doodem to being Anishinaabe continues to this day, as
communities work to revitalize their historic governance practices and
imagine their future as a nation of Anishinaabe people.
57 Valentine, Nishnaabemwin Reference Grammar, 107–12.

58 Milloy, A National Crime; Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Honouring
the Truth.
Conclusion
“The way I think of it is, every time we forget something from the past, that’s
an alternative future that’s lost … If you pick it back up, you’re actually open-
ing another future. The more that we do that, the more it allows some people
to have their future.”
– Wanda Nanibush, Curator of Indigenous Art
at the Art Gallery of Ontario, 20161
Attend a summer gathering at Anishinaabe communities in the Great

Lakes region today and the recovery and resurgence of the doodem tra-
dition is clearly visible. Young dancers might wear their doodem image
on their regalia. Many speakers now begin their speech with at least
a few phrases in Anishinaabemowin. Before giving their name, each
gives the place they are from and, if the speaker knows it, their doodem
identity. Where families have become disconnected from their doodem
identities as a result of the assimilative programs of the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries, people are undertaking genealogical research or
are consulting with Elders and Medicine People.2 In some families,
there is partial knowledge. Professor Darlene Johnston of the University
1 Berry, “How the AGO is Finally Paying Tribute.”

2 Willmott, “Anishinaabe Doodem Pictographs,” 155–6.
of British Columbia’s Faculty of Law learned about her connection to

the Otter doodem through her father’s mother; her paternal grand-
mother relayed that information and much more during their winter
conversations. But it was not until Johnston studied treaties signed
by her father’s grandfathers that she discovered her own identity as a
Marten. Only by working with both Anishinaabe and Western record-
keeping traditions could Johnston begin to fully approach the study of
her family and broader Anishinaabe history.3
As cultural and political revitalization efforts continue, doodem iden-
tity is re-emerging as a system of categories relevant for law and gov-
ernance today. First Nations are revitalizing old alliance relationships
with each other and renewing practices of annual gatherings. Since
2010, the Mississaugas of the Credit have been hosting an annual three-
day historical gathering, where community and academic researchers
come together to share what they know about local and broader Mis-
sissauga history and sources for that research. And on 29 October 2016,
the six Mississauga First Nations – Alderville First Nation, Curve Lake
First Nation, Hiawatha First Nation, Mississauga 8 First Nation, Mis-
sissaugas of the Credit First Nation, and Mississaugas of Scugog Island
First Nation – signed what they describe as a “historic relationship
accord.” The accord is a contemporary alliance, creating the framework
for collaboration on areas of shared interest.4 In September of 2016, on
the anniversary of the treaty signing, the Robinson-Huron Treaty First
Nations gathered at Whitefish Island in Sault Ste. Marie, the site of the
original treaty negotiations. While the chiefs and councillors of these
nations had collaborated in the past, this was a much larger gathering
of several thousand people to both learn about the treaty and its his-
tory and to revitalize and celebrate Anishinaabe culture and history,
with feasting, music, dancing, and games. This initial gathering was in
conjunction the launch of the Robinson-Huron and Robinson-Superior
court case, Restoule v Canada, concerning the question of annuities in
the treaty.5 The treaty gatherings have continued, with Atikameksheng
Anishinabek First Nation hosting in 2017, Shawanaga (at Shawanaga
3 Darlene Johnston, “Litigating Identity,” 45.

4 “Mississauga Relationship Accord,” 20 October 2016, https://www.mississauganation
.com/accord.html.
5 Restoule v. Canada (Attorney General), 2018 ONSC 7701 Reasons for Judgement, 21
December 2018.
Conclusion 201
and co-hosted with Wausauksing) in 2018, and Wiikwemkong in 2019.

These multi-day celebrations invite members of all treaty signatory
First Nations and interested guests to attend. They are inclusive, multi-
generational gatherings where the host nation provides feasts and
where there are a range of activities for young and old, in addition to
formal conversations about governance. Both the Mississaugas and the
Robinson-Huron Treaty signatories have innovated, too, using social
media, livestreaming, and podcasting to ensure that those who cannot
attend can witness the proceedings, hear their leaders speak, and keep
abreast of current challenges, the treaty litigation process, and events
in an open and transparent way. The Anishinaabe general council and
with it the broader principles and structures of Anishinaabe governance
are being reactivated.
The research project that produced this book began more than sixteen
years ago. My intention has been to contribute to restoring a past once
envisioned as fragmentary and beyond recovery.6 Although I began this
work before the rise of scholarship that critically examines what Patrick
Wolfe has described as the “logic of elimination” embedded in settler
colonialism,7 it was clear to me that conventional academic scholarship
on Indigenous peoples in what has become Canada and the United
States has also contributed to discourses that have marginalized and
erased Indigenous peoples. As the descendant of long-time settler colo-
nists (my own paternal ancestors were Loyalists), I grew up hearing
and being told histories that reflected my settler ancestors’ experiences
and those of other subsequent generations of newcomers. It is as if they
had laid a drop cloth over the Indigenous landscape and built their own
historical narratives on top. However, the outlines of Indigenous his-
torical experiences have remained visible; we just have to choose to see
them and to understand what it means that Indigenous peoples are still
here, that they, in the words of Hawaiian scholar Kēhaulani Kauanui,
“exist, resist, and persist.”8 As someone born in Oshawa, in the province
of Ontario, in the country of Canada – all names derived from Anishi-
naabe and Haudenosaunee languages – I could not help but wonder
about the deeper history behind those names. Fortunately, the rich and
dynamic scholarship produced in the last two decades, including much
6 Richard White, Middle Ground, 1.

7 Wolfe, “Settler Colonialism.”
8 Kauanui, “A Structure, Not an Event.”
contributed by Indigenous researchers, is making these histories more

visible, as they weave together evidence from oral histories and archi-
val records in innovative ways.9
Recovering these histories and rethinking our understanding of the
past in the Great Lakes region is important for all of us who live on
these lands; it is the only way we are really going to meaningfully grap-
ple with the implications of settler colonialism. While the Indigenous
historiography has been marginalized by past practices, histories of
settler experiences have also been distorted by these erasures. To fully
understand our shared histories we must remove that metaphorical
drop cloth, so that Indigenous and settler histories inform each other
and the relationships that we have had and continue to have with each
other. What was the spirit and intent of original treaty relationships?10
How can they be meaningfully reactivated in the twenty-first cen-
tury? How can we reconcile the significant differences in worldviews
between Indigenous peoples and the settlers who came here from over-
seas? The Anishinaabe peoples’ relationship to the land and waters of
the Great Lakes region structured not only the doodem tradition but
their broader practices of governance and law derived from doodem,
which defines them as a distinct people, as a distinct society, and as a
civilization, with its own legal tradition and an expanded concept of
personhood, all anchored in deep time.
At a more abstract level, this book asks us to think more carefully
and critically about applicability of outsider or etic categories to the
writing of Indigenous histories. Do categories such as band, tribe,
nation, and village distort Indigenous histories? Instead, do histori-
ans need to understand and then make use of Indigenous categories
of social, political, and geo-spatial organization when writing history?
The short answer is yes, to both questions. It is difficult to understand
Anishinaabe history without using doodem as a category of analysis or
without thinking about council fires – places that were sites of seasonal
gatherings, for tens, hundreds, or even thousands of years. The Anishi-
naabe practice of governance, through alliance relationships between
9 In particular, see Witgen, Infinity of Nations; Cary Miller, Ogimaag; Treuer, Assassination
of Hole In the Day; Stark, “Marked by Fire”; Child, Holding Our World Together; Whetung,
“(En)Gendering Shoreline Law.”
10 For an influential model of one collaborative answer to this question in a different
treaty context, see Treaty 7 Elders and Tribal Council, et al., True Spirit and Original
Intent of Treaty 7.
Conclusion 203
human and other-than-human beings, connected doodem beings across

the region. Doodem shaped the composition of Anishinaabe political
institutions from the nuclear family to widespread regional alliances.
It was through their doodem that people articulated their relationship
to place. Doodemag explain patterns of seasonal travel and choices in
relocation. Doodemag were and are at the heart and soul of Anishi-
naabe conceptions of collective identity. Alliances between doodem cre-
ated Anishinaabe families, defined local and regional polities, and were
expressions of Anishinaabe law. Doodem defined the responsibilities
that one had to doodem kin, to allies, and to the land.
Anishinaabe governance also happened in a place, around a coun-
cil fire. By bringing the concept of doodem together with the region-
ally significant metaphor of ishkode, or fire, the political geometry of
the Anishinabek becomes visible. The contrast between Anishinaabe
practices and Western ones is stark. Settler colonists brought with them
ideas of jurisdiction as bounded, enclosed, and ideally exclusive poly-
gons (which could be nested, one within another, but were still clearly
defined). The political geometry of the Anishinabek consisted of nodes
or sites of governance and law, represented metaphorically and figu-
ratively as circles connected by intersecting lines of doodem relations.
Such a system created negotiated, overlapping, and shared jurisdictions.
It was possible for the Anishinabek to imagine a world in which French
and English newcomers were relatives who maintained their own coun-
cil fires and had their distinct political identities; by the nineteenth cen-
tury, it was nearly impossible for colonists to imagine that they too could
inhabit such a world. Instead, what they offered the Anishinabek, and
other Indigenous peoples of North America, was assimilation and the
effective annihilation of their distinct societies, because settlers couldn’t
imagine a different kind of legal and political practice that would permit
mutually respectful and beneficial co-existence.
This work recovers a political tradition that has a very long history.
The existence of doodemag can be inferred from linguistic evidence and
by reading against the grain of primary source documents authored by
Europeans. Doodemag met the social, political, and diplomatic needs of
people who traveled widely, gathering in the warmer seasons, dispers-
ing in the winter. Through exogamous marriage practices (marrying
outside of one’s doodem), families created lateral alliances that secured
access to the resources and support of their spouse’s families, as well as
ensuring the hospitality of those families when travelling. Over time,
families developed long-standing and deeply embedded ties between
particular doodemag. Cross-cousins married cross-cousins, further

deepening these ties. The development of a political tradition founded
on reciprocal alliances explains how Anishinaabe people could survive
as a distinct people in the face of epidemics and the violent conflicts
in the mid-seventeenth century and subsequent imperial wars. While
some Anishinaabe families were undoubtedly affected directly, oth-
ers were well removed from both contagion and conflict. Lived his-
torical experiences varied widely. Kinship networks provided the basis
for cohesion and continuity of cultural tradition, even in the case of
temporary relocations. At times of crisis, people knew where to move,
with whom to stay, and how to negotiate access to resources. They
knew their law. Anishinaabe relocations within the Great Lakes region
must be understood within this context of doodem kin, as doodem
informed the demographics and movements of Anishinaabe people
and communities.
The documentary record of doodem imagery is ironically richest dur-
ing the land dispossession process from 1783 through to 1867, as that is
how Anishinaabe leaders represented themselves on treaty documents.
This evidence is most visible at the very time their distinct system of
governance was under attack. The political tradition of doodemag was
only eroded by late nineteenth and twentieth-century colonialist prac-
tices. Language loss, coupled with legislative interference in Anishi-
naabe politics, contributed to the weakening of the tradition, a process
that parallels the experiences of other colonized peoples around the
globe. However, aspects of the doodem identity have at least been par-
tially handed on in some families. Today, there is a revival of interest
in doodem identity and in restoring traditional systems of governance.
This book may contribute to this process.
With respect to the state of the European-authored documentary
record on the Great Lakes region, it is fair to say that these sources
remain highly problematic for writing Indigenous histories. Colonial
records disproportionately record the actions and experiences of adult
men. As scholars of imperial archives have made clear, reliance on
that record alone will continue to disappoint – and will continue to
produce historical narratives dominated by war and description of
violence.11 Yes, Anishinaabe men were sometimes warriors, but they
were primarily hunters and providers. The work of Elders and adult
11 Burton, “Introduction”; Stoler, Along the Archival Grain.

Conclusion 205
women, the laughter of children, and the daily and seasonal rhythms of
Anishinaabe life appear far less often in the colonial archives. While the
holdings of libraries and archives that historians are typically trained
to work with are useful and valuable for many reasons, they do not
house the knowledge of this land, its waters, or the aadizookaanag of
the Anishinaabe peoples. But centuries of contact, missionization, pop-
ulation loss, residential schooling, and the oppressive weight of coloni-
zation have also disrupted many Anishinaabe oral traditions and that
route of cultural transmission for Anishinaabe people as well.
The way forward may be to continue to weave these different sources
together in collaboration with Anishinaabe communities to address the
problem of fragmentation. Such collaboration is not only a gesture of
respect (which it is) but also as a critical methodology. The opportu-
nity exists now for teams of researchers (both Indigenous and non-
Indigenous) to work together with Elders and community members in
a cooperative manner to stitch the human history in the Great Lakes
back into a coherent whole. Such a record will serve as the basis for
more accurate understandings of the complex world Anishinaabe peo-
ples built and the impact of settler colonialism upon them and their
political traditions. It also will serve as a basis for reinterpretation of
Anishinaabe–Crown relations and the pre-Confederation treaties and
will have implications for contemporary international law.
It is my hope that this book, in picking up some pieces of the past, lets
them contribute to shaping the future.
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Illustration Credits
From left to right, the doodem images on the first page of the Preface are:
Marque des Mississaugues (Thunderbird doodem), 1701: Archives nation-

ales d’outre-mer, France (hereafter ANOM), Aix-en-Provence, “Ratification
de la paix,” 4 August 1701, Fonds des Colonies. Série C11A. Correspondence
générale, Canada, vol. 19, fol.41v – Tous droits réservés.
Pahtash (Crane doodem), 1818: Library and Archives Canada (hereafter LAC),
“Provisional Agreement with the Rice Lake Chiefs for the surrender of 1,951,000
Acres of Land,” 5 November 1818, RG10, Vol. 1842/IT061.
Kitchi Negau (Caribou doodem), 1798: LAC, “Indian Deed of Sale for the Island
of Michilimakinac,” 12 May 1781, RG10, Vol. 1840/IT001.
Penise (Birch Tree doodem), 1818: LAC, “Provisional Agreement with the Rice
Lake Chiefs for the surrender of 1,951,000 Acres of Land,” 5 November 1818,
RG10, Vol. 1842/IT061.
Kaukonce (Pike doodem), 1798. LAC, “Deed of Conveyance of the Island of

St. Joseph from the Chippawa Nation to His Majesty,” 30 June 1798, RG10,
Vol. 1841/IT035.
226 Illustration Credits
Photo Section
1 LAC, “Deed of Conveyance of the Island of St. Joseph from the Chippawa
Nation to His Majesty,” 30 June 1798, RG10, Vol. 1841/IT035.
2 Ethnologisches Museum Berlin (Staatliche Museen ƶu Berlin),
IV-B-6508.
3 Beltrami Collection, Museo civico di Scienze naturali di Bergamo, Italy.
4 Ethnologisches Museum Berlin (Staatliche Museen ƶu Berlin),
IV-V-7587.
5 National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution
(24/2012).
6 GM 4726.7.009, Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma.
8 © musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Art.
71.1917.3.10 D. Photo: Patrick Gries.
10 Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison, Jr.
11 ANOM, Aix-en-Provence, “Ratification de la paix,” 4 August 1701, Fonds
des Colonies. Série C11A. Correspondence générale, Canada, vol. 19,
fol.41v) – Tous droits réservés.
12 Schoolcraft, Historical and statistical information, respecting the history,
condition and prospects of the Indian tribes of the United States (Philadelphia:
Gambo, 1857) vol 5: Plate 50. Image Courtesy Fisher Rare Book Library.
13 Images © Bonhams. Printed with the permission of Wiikwemikoong
Unceded Territory.
14 Image © National Museums Scotland (A.1989.208).
15 Courtesy of the Royal Ontario Museum © ROM. 911.3.119,
Dr. Oronhyatekha Ethnology collection.
16 Courtesy of the Royal Ontario Museum © ROM. 911.3.179,
Dr. Oronhyatekha Ethnology collection.
17 GM 65.19, Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma.
18 © Government of Canada. Reproduced with the permission of LAC
(2020), inventory no. 200519.
19 1764 Niagara Covenant Chain Wampum Belt, reproduction by Ken
Maracle, Canadian Museum of History, LH2016.48.2, IMG2016-0267-
0250-Dm.
20 © National Museums Liverpool, Museum of Liverpool, 58.83.16.
21 The Andrew Foster Collection, National Museum of the American Indian,
Smithsonian Institution (24/2000, 24/2001, 24/2002, 24/2003, 24/2004,
24/2006, 24/2012, 24/2016, 24/2022, 24/2034). Photo by NMAI Photo
Illustration Credits 227
Services. Assembled in this form for the exhibit Infinity of Nations: Art
and History in the Collections of the National Museum of the American
India.
22 Shingwauk Residential Schools Centre, Algoma University.
23 Pouch, Eastern Great Lakes, middle 18th century, Canadian Museum of
History, III-X-374, S82-4211.
24 Wabicommicott, 1764: Kent Archives Service.
Wabakanne, 1787: LAC, “Indenture made at the Carrying Place, Head of
the Bay of Quinty,” 23 September 1787, RG10, Vol. 1841/IT040.
Wabakanne, 1792: LAC, “Deed of Feoffment - The Messissague Nation to
His Britannick Majesty,” 7 December 1792, RG10, Vol. 1840/IT005.
Wabanip, 1797: LAC, “Surrender of Land at the head of Lake Ontario by
the Mississague Nation,” 21 August 1797, RG10, Vol. 1841/IT030.
Cheechalk, 1806: LAC, “Lease and Release from the Mississagua
Indians,” 6 September 1806, RG10, Vol. 1842/IT042.
Adjutant, 1818: LAC, “Provisional Agreement with the Mississagues of
the River Credit, for the surrender of 648,000 Acres of Land,” 28 October
1818, RG10, Vol. 1842/IT059.
Joseph Sawyer, 1831 and 1844: Peter Jones fonds, Victoria University
Library (Toronto).
25 Marque des Sauteurs, chef Wabanqué, 1701: ANOM, Aix-en-Provence,
“Ratification de la paix,” 4 August 1701, Fonds des Colonies. Série C11A.
Correspondence générale, Canada, vol. 19, fol.41v – Tous droits réservés.
Meatoowanakwee, 1798: LAC, “Deed of Conveyance of the Island of St.
Joseph from the Chippawa Nation to His Majesty,” 30 June 1798 , RG10,
Vol. 1841/IT035.
Nebanagoching: “Aboriginal Chief, Chippewa, the Eclipse or
Wabumagoging,” M1878 © McCord Museum
Marque des Algonquins, 1701: ANOM, Aix-en-Provence, “Ratification de
la paix,” 4 August 1701, Fonds des Colonies. Série C11A. Correspondence
Pahtash, 1818: LAC, “Provisional Agreement with the Rice Lake Chiefs
for the surrender of 1,951,000 Acres of Land,” 5 November 1818, RG10,
Vol. 1842/IT061.
George Paudash, 1856: LAC, “Surrender by the Mississagas of Rice, Mud
and Skugog Lakes of the Islands in Rice Lake...,” 24 June 1856, RG10,
Vol. 1845/IT195.
26 Eagle with fish and perched eagle: Shutterstock.com
Marque des Mississauges, 1701: ANOM, Aix-en-Provence, “Ratification
de la paix,” 4 August 1701, Fonds des Colonies. Série C11A.
228 Illustration Credits

Shawanapenisse, 1798: LAC, “Deed of Conveyance of the Island of
St. Joseph from the Chippawa Nation to His Majesty,” 30 June 1798,
RG10, Vol. 1841/IT035.
Peewaushemanogh, 1807: Library of Congress.
Wabinaship, 1792: LAC, “Deed of Feoffment - The Messissague Nation to
His Britannick Majesty,” 7 December 1792, RG10, Vol. 1840/IT005.
Chechalk, 1806: LAC, “Lease and Release from the Mississagua Indians,”
6 September 1806, RG10, Vol. 1842/IT042.
Peter Jones, Eagle doodem, 1844: Peter Jones fonds, Victoria University
Library (Toronto).
27 Sandhill crane, bowing, location call posture, and jumping: Shutterstock.
com.
Marque des Sauteurs, chef Wabanqué, 1701: ANOM, Aix-en-Provence,
“Ratification de la paix,” 4 August 1701, Fonds des Colonies. Série C11A.
Kewukance, 1836: LAC, “Provisional Agreement for the Surrender of the
Manitoulin Islands...,” 9 August 1836, RG10, Vol. 1844/IT120.
George Paudash, 1856: LAC, “Surrender by the Mississagas of Rice, Mud
and Skugog Lakes of the Islands in Rice Lake...,” 24 June 1856, RG10,
Vol. 1845/IT195.
Toquish, 1800: LAC, “Copy of Deed No. 12, the surrender of part of the
Huron Church Reserve,” 11 September 1800, RG10, Vol. 1841/IT037.
28 Woodland caribou: Shutterstock.com.
Ningwason, 1798: LAC, “Conveyance of the Harbour of
Penetanguishene...,” 22 May [1798], RG10, Vol. 1840/IT017.
Ogaa, Witness, 1798: LAC, “Deed of Conveyance of the Island of St.
Joseph from the Chippawa Nation to His Majesty,” 30 June 1798, RG10,
Vol. 1841/IT035.
Mesquescon, 1816: LAC, “The Chiefs of the Mississague Nation of Indians
to His Majesty George III,” 5 August 1816, RG10, Vol. 1842/IT051.
Maytoygwaan, 1819: LAC, “Provisional Agreement with the Chippawa
Nation to Surrender lands,” 9 March 1819, RG10, Vol. 1842/IT065.
Annamakance, 1819: LAC, “Deed of the Sale of lands on the North side
of the River Thames or La Tranche in Upper Canada from the Chippewa
Nation to Alexander McKee,” 7 September 1796, RG10, Vol. 1840/IT021.
Channel Catfish: Shutterstock.com.
Kiskakons, 1701: ANOM, Aix-en-Provence, “Ratification de la paix,” 4
August 1701, Fonds des Colonies. Série C11A. Correspondence générale,
Canada, vol. 19, fol.41v – Tous droits réservés.
Illustration Credits 229
Mitchiwass, 1796: LAC, “Deed of the Sale of lands on the North side of
the River Thames or La Tranche in Upper Canada from the Chippewa
Nation to Alexander McKee,” 7 September 1796, RG10, Vol. 1840/IT021.
Boquaquet, 1807: Treaty of Detroit, 1807, Library of Congress.
29 © Government of Ontario. Reproduced with the permission of the
Archives of Ontario (2020). Archives of Ontario, Crown Lands, RG1-
1v2p145-6. True copy of the original deed.
30 LAC, RG10, Vol. 27:16317.
31 © Government of Canada. Reproduced with the permission of
LAC (2020). Image courtesy Canadian Institute for Historial
Microreproductions.
32 LAC, “Indians of Lake Nipissing …,” 3 August 1848, RG1 E5, vol. 9:1168.
33 Census of Population of Lake Nipigon, 1 June 1850, LAC, Census
Records, Department of Indian Affairs. Image courtesy Canadian Institute
for Historical Microreproductions.
34 Pictograph A. Plate 60. Drawn by S. Eastman, USA, Printed in Color
by P.S. Duval, Philadelphia, in Schoolcraft, Historical and Statistical
Information, 416–17. Image courtesy Fisher Rare Book Library.
35 Ningwason, 1798: LAC, “Conveyance of the Harbour of
Penetanguishene..,” 22 May [1798], RG10, Vol. 1840/IT017.
Big Shilling, 1835: LAC, “Request for Payment,” 3 June 1835, RG10 Vol.
58, 59705 © Government of Canada. Reproduced with the permission of
LAC (2020).
David Abetung, 1857: © Government of Canada. Reproduced with the
permission of LAC (2020).
Deer Sun Logo: Courtesy Chippewas of Rama First Nation
36 Marque du village, 1701: ANOM, Aix-en-Provence, “Ratification de la
paix,” 4 August 1701, Fonds des Colonies. Série C11A. Correspondence
Neace, 1787: LAC, “Indenture made at the Carrying Place, Head of the
Bay of Quinty,” 23 September 1787, RG10, Vol. 1841/IT040 © Government
of Canada. Reproduced with the permission of LAC (2020).
Moses Pahdequong, 1831: Peter Jones fonds, Victoria University Library
(Toronto).
James Smoke, 1837: LAC, “Record of council decision to pay John Sunday,
Alderville,” 28 December 1837, RG10, Vol. 67:64216. © Government of
Canada. Reproduced with the permission of LAC (2020).
Index
aadizookaanag (sacred stories), Ahwahquagezick, 187

37–8, 42–3, 43, 53; creation story, Algonquian languages, xvn5, xviii
44; ideas of leadership in, 141; on allegory: of alliance, 119; doodem
origin of doodem tradition, 41–2, as, 38, 61, 112, 116, 117–18,
45–9, 59–60, 137; origin of humans, 171; doodem souls as, 90; in
45–6, 47; re-creation story, 44–6, oral histories, xvi, 119, 136–7;
47; as source of law, 138 in reading of wampum, 109,
aanikeogimaa/-wag (second chief, 111, 112; use in constituting
deputy): appointing of, 11, 86; governance, 105
individuals serving as, 135, 142, alliances: Anishinaabe
160–1, 167, 185–6, representatives understanding of, xxi, 8, 28–30,
of doodemag, 154; role in 68, 119; as basis for political
leadership, xvii, 111, 137, 139, 143 relationships, 26, 123; British
Abenaki, 42, 46 abandoning of, 177–8, 180;
absolutism, 26 ceremonies used in, 7, 91–2;
Act of Union (1840), 106 colonial performance of, xx, xxi;
Adjutant, James, 81, 161, 185 comparison of Anishinaabe and
adoption: adopting clans, 87; European understanding of,
into doodemag, 73–4, 85–90; 29–30, 148, 178; as consensual
in European tradition, 57n47, relationships, 11; between
85; of French voyageurs, 87; of doodemag, xv; examples of,
outsiders, 18, 21, 95 123; governance through, xvii,
Agawa Canyon, 22, 24 xx, 29–30, 147–53; leading to
232 Index
marriages, 82; metaphorical response to settler colonialism,

descriptions of, 91; renewal of, 6, 174–5; use of term, xivn4, xvn6;
14, 151 views of death, 74; Wendat,
American Revolution, xvi, 31, 86, coexistence with, 14. See also
106, 144, 160, 163, 176 governance; law; leadership;
Americans: adoption into Mississauga-Anishinabek; Ojibwe;
doodemag, 88; expansionism, 130; Potawatomis
gift-giving, 97; treaties between Anishinaabe studies, xixn16, xxv
Anishinabek and, 31, 35, 99n83, Anishinaabemowin: grammar of,
170–1, 172, 183, 189–90 xivn2, 45n11; importance of using,
Amikwa council fire, 12, 16, 21–2 xxvii; speakers of, 17, 42, 138; as
analogies: between Anishinaabe and source of law, 175; terms in, 72–3,
settler governance, 19, 25, 27, 58, 84, 127; writing in alphabetic
120; need to avoid, 44 script, xxviin42
ancestors: other-than-human, 46, 59, Aquinas, Thomas, 54
61, 110, 192, 198; remembrance of, archival sources: bias in, 30, 132; as
60, 75–6; ties to, 38, 55, 71, 72, 74–7 source of council fire locations,
Anderson, Benedict, xvn6 123–5, 128–9; as sources for treaty-
Anderson, Captain, 166 related documents, xxii; sources of
André, Father Louys, 22 doodem images, 30ff
Angel, Michael, xivn3, 72n6 Aristotle, 53, 57
animals: human relation with, 43, 46, Asimettic, 33
54; responsibility towards, xviii, Assance, 81, 166–7
27; stories about, 44–6, 52, 137. Assiginack, Francis, xvn6
See also other-than-human beings Assiniboine, 89, 129
and individual animals Atlantic Ocean, 51, 53
animikii. See thunderbird
Anishinabek/Anishinaabeg: Babiizigindibe, 184
burial practices, 4, 14, 55–6, 59, Batchewana Bay, 187
74–7; calendar, 3n2; Christianity, Bawaating, 8, 16, 21, 22, 32, 47, 95,
comparison of worldview with, 104, 107, 121, 122, 125, 157–8; 1671
xiiin1, 46, 50, 53–6, 62, 195; general council at, 22–3, 29, 93n67;
Haudenosaunee, alliances with, connection to Crane doodem, 59,
103–4, 106, 149, 156, 162, 168; 107–8, 112–13, 127–8, 139, 154, 162,
Haudenosaunee, conflict with, 168; in doodem origin narrative,
21–2, 107, 114, 115, 148, 204; 51; establishment of, 108; fire-
migration of, 37, 51, 69, 112, 121, keeper for Lake Superior council
204; peoples identifying as, xv; in fires, 117; French names for, 128;
relation with Jesuits, 15; response Jesuit visit to, 17, 94; leaders
to social and political change, 53; from, 12
Index 233
beadwork, 67n71, 99, 152 British: adoption into doodemag,

Bear doodem, 16, 33, 47–8, 49, 71, 87, 89; Anishinaabe business
126, 130, 159, 164–5, 184, 187, 189; with, 18; attempts to relocate
characteristics of, 61, 62, 63n62, council fires, 100; comparison of
64, 191 polities to Anishinaabe, 120–1;
Beardmore, 89 concern with authorship in
beaver: hides, 5–6, 12, 23, 92, 148; treaty documents, 34–6; gifting
Great Beaver, 59, 102, 116; in of clothing, 96–7; imposition of
aadizookanag, 47, 113 Upper Canada constitution, 105–6;
Beaver doodem, 16, 21, 33, 59–60, misunderstanding of Anishinaabe
114, 130, 140, 144, 168; association governance, 28–9; performance
with Parry Island, 106–7, 109–10, of Anishinaabe protocols, 92–3;
162; connection to French River, treaties with Anishinabek, 98, 101,
59, 102, 112, 116, 189; connection 151, 172. See also Treaty of Niagara
with Lake Nipissing, 189 and individual treaties
Beishlag, John, 49n22 British colonial officials:
Benton-Banai, Edward, 63, 87–8, 190, participation in ratification of
195–6 ogimaawag, 12
Berens, William (Chief), 79 Bruce Peninsula, 53, 67n71, 182
Big Shilling, 166 Bruchac, Marge, xxvi
Bigwind, James, 167 Brulé, Etienne, 147
birch tree: as animate, 27; as Bugone-giisk (Older and Younger),
material, 12, 13, 189 184–5
Birch Tree doodem, 82, 164–5, 167, bulrushes, 13
180, 187 burial practices, 4, 59, 74–5;
bison: extirpation from Great Lakes, connection to landscape, 74; as
192, 193–4 expression of relationship with
Bison doodem, 164–5, 180 ancestors, 77; protection of burial
Bkejwanong, 69, 125, 173 grounds, 56; re-burial, 14, 55, 76–7;
Blackbird, Andrew, xvn6 Wendat, 4n3
blood: as European political Burton, Antoinette, 5n6
metaphor, 57–8, 87
Bond Head, Sir Francis, 94 Cabojijak, 188
Borden, Robert, 189 Caldwell, Sir John, 98
Borrows, John, xviin12, xixn16, Callière, Louis-Hector de, 95
xxvi, 137 calumet ceremony, xviiin14, 91
Borrows, Lindsay, 45n11 Calumet Island, 126
Bradstreet, Colonel, 158 Cameron, Duncan, 70–1, 75, 80
Bradstreet’s Treaty, 146 caribou: extirpation from Great
Brant, Joseph, 33 Lakes, 192–3
234 Index
Caribou doodem, xxv, 52, 62, 64, 167, 185, 192; comparison to
71, 76, 82, 104, 115, 140, 166, 180, Anishinaabe worldview, xiiin1,
181, 187, 188, 189, 191; association 46, 50, 53–6, 62, 195; connection to
with Mnjikaning, 107, 110, 115, settler colonialism, 172–3; effects
139, 154–6, 162, 164, 167, 168; on marriage practices, 173, 195;
transformation into Deer, 193 impact on doodem expression, 39,
Case, William, 185 86, 191–2, 196–7; Methodism, 82,
Catfish doodem, 49, 61, 62, 83, 84, 163, 185, 191; missionaries, 5, 17,
126, 140, 167, 181, 189 52, 121, 135, 167, 181, 185, 192, 195.
ceremonies: alliance, 24, 91–2, 97, See also Jesuits
137, 147; calumet, xviiin14, 91; Chute, James, 187
doodemag acquired through, Civil War, American, 35
73, 86; jiisakaan (shake tent), 88; Claus, William, 177
memorial/re-burial, 4, 12–13; Clench, J.B., 35–6
missionaries’ disruption of, 196–7; clothing: ceremonial, 98, 153,
naming, 74, 87–8; as performances 192; coats, 96, 99; connection to
of law and philosophy, 19; in doodemag, 66–7; dance regalia, 67;
treaty councils, 91; as ways of gifting of, 94–6, 100; headdresses,
making relation, 26, 148. See also 12, 94, 95–6, 98, 99; moccasins,
prise-de-possession 13, 67n71, 99, 152; in museum
Chabacy, Maya, xxvii collections, 98; neck ornaments,
Champlain, Samuel de, 11, 25, 56, 12, 94, 99; of new ogimaawag,
147–9 11–12, 94
Charlevoix, Pierre, 56, 77, 81 Coldwater Road Allowance, 109n12
Chechalk, 161, 164, 177 Confederation of Canada, 92n63, 173
Chechogwas, 33 Constitution Act (1791), 106
Chequamagon, 76, 112, 117, 117n20, constitutionalism, Anishinaabe, 38;
122, 171 link between doodem and council
Chicoutimi, 77 fires, 133; need for renewal, 105;
children, 6, 13, 22, 121, 145, 195, 198; performance of, 105, 108; role of
adoption of, 57n47, 89; education narratives in, 112; role of oratory,
of, 71–2; of non-Anishinaabe 106–7
fathers, 73, 80, 85–7 Copway, George, 42, 135–6, 172, 192,
Chippewa of Nawash First xvn6
Nation, 56 Corbiere, Alan Ojig, xxii–xxiii,
Chippewas, 31, 77, 158, 181 xxiv–xxv, xxvi–xxvii, 93n64
Chippewas of Rama, xxvi, 166, council fires: as “where” of
169, 193 Anishinaabe governance, xxvi,
Christianity: Anishinaabe 125, 133, 203; as Anishinaabe
conversion to, 8, 43, 81, 85, 161, polities, 39; British attempts
Index 235
to relocate, 100; centrality to 1805 common council at, 142;

Anishinaabe governance, 17–18, association with Eagle doodem,
121, 130; common and general 107, 114–15, 139, 154–6, 177;
councils, 18–19, 29, 39, 111, extinguishing of, 156, 169, 176;
136, 150, 151, 153–4, 168, 181; general council hosted by, 103;
connections between, 11, 16–17, land cessation, 154; relocation
79; different roles within alliance, of community, 176, 181–2;
111; establishment of new, 38, responsible for external affairs,
105–6, 107, 113–18, 129, 168; 111. See also Mississaugas of the
extinguishing of, 156, 169, 176, Credit River
179–80, 182; multiple doodemag
within, 154–6, 169; non-exclusive Dakota, 83, 90, 129; conflict with
and non-hierarchical, 119, 150; Anishinaabe, 83–4, 130, 184;
ratification of leadership, 10–11; intermarriage with Anishinaabe, 83
recognition of British individuals dances, 8–10, 67, 199
by, 98; responsibility for land, 19; Debassige, Lewis, xxiv–xxv, xxviii,
seasonally occupied, 122; sites 16n43, 79n30
where law is put into action, 136; Deer doodem, 66, 193–4, 195
treatment of colonial governments Delawares, 33, 180–1
as, xxi, 94, 179–80; uncovering of, Deloria Jr., Vine, xiiin1, 46n16
107, 157, 168 Detroit, 32, 98, 145–6, 156–9, 196
council of women, xvii, 80, 105, Dewdney, Selwyn, 65
138, 141–6, 159; role in land sale dibaajimowinan (histories),
agreements, 143 43n7, 112
council of young men/warriors, doodem: as “who” of Anishinaabe
xvii, 38–9, 105, 142 governance, xxvi; acquired
Covenant Chain, 146, 149, 151, through dream, 186, 196–7;
157–9, 162, 188 adoption of settler symbols as,
Crane doodem, 16, 21, 49, 51, 52, 114, 88–9; as assertion of responsibility,
115, 126, 127, 130, 144, 145, 146, 80–1; as category of kinship,
159, 171, 180, 184, 186, 187, 189; xiii–xiv, 38, 48, 57–8, 60; as central
characteristics, 62, 64, 115, 140, to political system, xv–xvi,
191; connection with Bawaating, xvii, 60, 113, 118, 125, 130, 187;
59, 107–8, 112–13, 117–18, 127–8, comparison to Scottish clans,
139, 156, 162, 168; connection with 71; connection to territory, 46,
Rice Lake, 156 105, 112, 114–18, 192–3, 202;
Crayfish doodem, 62, 140 connection to the sacred, 58–9;
Credit River council fire, 81, 86, earliest European-authored
103–5, 110–12, 114, 115, 125, 129, sources on, 44; exogamy, xvii,
156–65, 156n43, 169, 179, 185, 194; 79, 80, 81–2, 125, 143, 194–6, 203;
236 Index
expressed in clothing, xxv, 66–7, 87, 88; association with Credit

99; as metaphor of physical and River, 32, 107, 109, 110, 114–15,
personal characteristics, 61–2, 64; 139, 154–6, 163, 177
origins of, 41–9, 51–2, 59–60, 112, Elgin, Lord, 94, 98
113, 116, 168; patrilineal descent epidemics, xxi, 19, 161, 163, 204;
of, 48, 72–3, 196–7; reflection of different impact on Anishinabek
metaphysical relationship, 88; and Iroquoian-speaking peoples,
related to particular roles, 113–14, 20–1
191; resurgence of, 199–200; Erie people, 20, 21
survival of, 39; as system of
categories, 67–9, 112; taboo against family relations: Anishinaabe,
hunting, 65–6; as word, xivn2, xv. structure of, 72–3, 87, 132, 139,
See also souls: doodem souls 164, 203; European, 27, 57; as
doodem images: adaption due key to alliance, 71, 72, 92. See also
to ecological change, 193–4; children; marriage practices
Anishinaabe understanding of, farming: adoption of by Indigenous
30; as articulation of political Peoples, 35, 163, 167; imposed by
and legal categories, xiii, xvii, 39; settler colonialism, 172, 192–3
British concern with, 30, 35–6; Farrell Racette, Sherry, xxvi–xxvii
changes in representation, 32–4, Ferris, Neal, 178n22
132; form of, meanings, 139–41, Finger Lakes district, 107
188; French understanding of, fire: as Anishinaabe political
25, 48, 131; on grave markers, metaphor, xxvi, 107, 118–23, 150,
56–7; identifying leadership, 179–80, 203; used as metaphor by
xvii, 167; material description of, Haudenosaunee and Wendat, 118.
33; sequence and frequency on See also council fires
documents, 108–9, 111, 116; shift fishing, 3n2, 18, 22, 121–2, 125, 154,
from using to X-marks, 36; sources 174, 175–6, 177, 182
of, 30; time taken in inscribing, flood: in aadizookaanag, 44–5, 47, 50
109n12; use in place of signatures, Fort William First Nation, 87
xiii, xvii, xxii, 24–5, 30–2, 133; Foster, Andrew, 98
women’s, 143–4 Four Directions, 38, 70, 72, 90, 102
Duchesneau, James, 128–9 Fox, 78, 95, 129
Duck doodem, 160 French: adoption of, 87–8; in
alliances, 6n11, 12, 91, 94, 101,
eagle: connection to thunderbird, 147, 171; comparison of political
114–15; decorations of, 9 structures to Anishinaabe,
Eagle doodem, 62, 82, 127, 139–40, 28–9, 100, 120–1; connection to
152, 158, 160, 161, 162, 164, 168, Bear doodem, 61; emissaries
180, 181, 191; as adopting doodem, at Bawaating, 23, 93n67; gift-
Index 237
giving, 12, 92, 95, 97; kinship governance, Anishinaabe:

traditions, 57n47; military aadizookaanag as foundation
reliance on Anishinabek, 130–1; of, 38; adaptability of, 161;
names used for Anishinaabe consultative, 136, 141; continuity
groups, 127–8, 130; performance of, 129, 168, 180–1, 187, 189;
of Anishinaabe protocols, 92–3; decentralized nature of, xvii, 17;
prise-de-possession ritual, 23–6, defined through doodem, 37,
28, 92, 93n67, 113; recognition of 117; disruption of, 197; effect
ogimaawag, 171; understanding of of settler colonialism on, 39,
Indigenous polities, 25–6, 28, 48, 137, 169, 182–8, 190–1; families
80, 84–5 as foundational constructs
French River, 114; connection to of, 72; French and British
Beaver doodem, 59, 102, 112, misunderstanding of, 28–9;
116, 189 interference in, 171, 203; marriage
Freud, Sigmund, xvin7 as model for, 90; metaphors
used in, 111–12; non-hierarchical
games and contests, 10, 15, 17, 22 nature of, 38, 139; recognition
Georgian Bay, xxv, 59, 75, 107, 109, of by colonial and settler
139; council fires around, 3, 14 governments, 136; revitalization
gichi-Anishinabek (councillors), xvii, of, 39, 198, 200; sources for, 138n6;
11, 39, 48, 111, 139, 154, 163–4, 167, types of councils within, 17–18
179, 189 Grant, Jasper, 152–3
gichi-ogimaa/-wag, 11, 138–9, 180 Great Hare, 41, 45, 57, 59,
Gidigaa Migizi (Doug Williams), 137. See also Hare doodem;
xxvi Nanabozhoo
gift-giving: antiquity of practice, Great Lakes Research Alliance for
94; between colonial powers and the Study of Aboriginal Cultures
Anishinabek, 23, 28, 91–3, 100–1, (GRASAC), xxii–xxiv, xxvi,
136–7, 147–9, 178; as contract, 93n64, 96n76
90; description of, 5–7, 12–14; Great Peace of Montreal. See Peace
as economic function of, 15–17; of Montreal
expression of duty of care, 90–1; Grizzly Bear doodem, 89
as mark of good leaders, 139;
meanings communicated through, Hallowell, Irving, xiiin3, 79
xxvii, 7, 100–1; offering land to Hare doodem, 58, 59, 66, 112
newcomers as, 176; as part of law, Haudenosaunee confederacy, xiv,
xxiv; relationships maintained xviii, xxiii, 144, 201. alliances
through, 15, 28, 92, 102; speeches with Anishinabek, 103–4, 106,
on, 91, 95, 100–1 123, 149, 156, 162, 168; alliances
Goose doodem, 164 with European powers, 149, 160;
238 Index
Anishinaabe diplomacy with, 91, Jesuits: as guests at 1642 gathering,

108, 111; attendance at 1840 Credit 4–5, 15, 93, 94; inclusion in social
River council, 103; conflict with relationships, 15; invited to
Anishinabek, 21–2, 107–8, 114, Bawaating, 17, 94; observation of
115, 148, 204; effects of epidemics Anishinaabe culture, 25, 77, 78, 95;
on, 20–1; expansion to north understanding of souls, 54. See also
side of Lake Ontario, 21; gifting Charlevoix, Pierre; Lalemant,
of clothing, 96; Great Law, 108; Charles; Lalemant, Jérome; Le
intermarriage with Anishinabek, Jeune, Paul; Nicolas, Louis; Râle,
84–85; symbols used by, 107, Sebastian; Vimont, Barthélemy
110–11, 115, 118, 149. See also Six Jogues, Isaac (Jesuit), 17
Nations Johnson, Sir William, 34–5, 96, 151,
Havard, Gilles, 7n11 156–9
Henfrey, Benjamin, 33 Johnston, Basil, 62, 63, 66n67, 123,
Henry, Alexander, 95 191, 197
Herkimer, Lawrence, 86–7 Johnston, Darlene, xixn16, xxii, xxiv,
Heron doodem, 124, 126 xxvi, xxvii, 55, 56, 67n71, 199–200;
Hewitt, Jeffrey, xxvi on death, 74
Hickerson, Harold, 4n3 Joncaire, Philippe-Thomas de,
hunting, 16, 18, 65, 74, 81, 164, 174, 129–31
176, 189; decisions related to, Jones, Augustus, 86, 185
105, 151, 153; migration for, 121; Jones, John, 180
qualification for leadership, 138, 139 Jones, Peter (Kakewaquonaby),
Hurons. See Wendat xvn6, xxvi, 17–19, 48, 66, 81–2, 113,
hydrology, 50–1, 52–3 135, 150, 163, 172, 191–2; adoption
into Eagle doodem, 86, 185; on
Illinois people, 42, 46, 129 land transactions, 153–4; as leader,
Inashiquay, 143–4 161, 180, 184, 185–6; translation of
Indian Affairs, Offices of, 35, 76, 77, Musquakie’s speech, 104–5
96, 169, 171, 178, 188, 189 Jones, William, 48, 127
Indigenous Studies, xixn16
indinaakonigewin, xvii, 138 Kakewaquonaby. See Jones, Peter
Iroquoian language communities, (Kakewaquonaby)
xviii, 83; effects of epidemics on, Kauanui, J. Kēhaulani, xxi, 201
20–1 Keating, John, 187
ishkode. See fire Kee Sap, 33
Iskigamizige-giizis, 87 Kegg, Maude (Elder), 66
Kettle Point and Sauble
James Bay, 14, 18, 121 communities, 143
Jarvis, Samuel, 76 kettles, 6, 10, 100–1
Index 239
King George III, 150; King George Lalemant, Jérome, 5–12, 15–16, 18–9,
medals, 96, 97, 99, 158–9 22, 43, 76–7, 94, 121; breach of
Kingfisher doodem, 71; origin protocol by, 7–8
of, 83 land sale agreements, 18, 23, 39;
Kingston, 179–80 British monopoly on, 150–1; by
Kinouchespiriri, 21 Credit River council fire, 162, 165;
kinship relations: with animals, doodem images on, xvii, xxii, 34,
63–4; as both endogenous and 108, 141–3; negotiated by common
exogenous, 79; changes in, 195, councils, 150, 153; provisions
198; comparison of Anishinaabe for in Proclamation of 1763, 34,
and Western conceptions, xiv, 133; treaties as more than, 101;
26–7, 39, 57–8, 79; with doodem women’s role in, 141–4
beings, 48; in European social law, Anishinaabe, 12; aadizookanag
sciences, xvin7; expression of as foundation of, 38, 137–8; and
bimaadiziwin through, 102; alliances, 37, 90–1, 92, 143, 176;
problems with concept, 68, 69n75; of belonging, 87; borrowings
temporality of, 38 from other sources, xviii; colonial
Kitchi Negou, 101 understanding and performance
Krieghoff, Cornelius, 99 of, xxi, 100, 101, 133; comparison
to European traditions, xviii,
La Potherie, Sieur de Bacqueville de, xxvii; concept of personhood in,
24n64, 32, 84, 132 27, 53–4; continuity of, 20, 22,
Labelle, Kathryn, 14 129; disruption of, 171, 173, 175,
Lac Courte Oreilles, 7n11, 87 177, 187–8, 197–8, 202; doodemag
Lake Huron, 8, 99, 109, 116, 122, 126, as source and expression of,
145, 167; council fires around, 3, xiii–xiv, xvii, 61, 113, 183, 192;
14, 21, 114, 168, 188 gifts as expression of, xxiv, 91,
Lake Michigan, 78, 126 93; language as source of, 175;
Lake Nipigon, 70–1 mutual nature of, 11, 135–6; and
Lake Nipissing, 60, 116, 121, 189; oral tradition, xviin12, xix, 137–8;
1642 gathering at, 3–17. See also other-than-human beings in, 27,
Nipissings 45, 50
Lake Ontario, 21, 32, 86, 107, 108, Le Jeune, Paul, 55, 56, 125–7
114, 142, 154, 156, 160, 177 leadership, Anishinaabe:
Lake Simcoe, 32, 76, 81, 103, 104, 11. aadizookaanag as source of,
See also Mnjikaning 141; anchored in genealogy, 76,
Lake St. Clair, 145, 181 143; Anishinaabe and French
Lake Superior, 8, 17, 21, 104, 118, understandings of, 28; changes
122, 168, 170, 177 under settler colonialism, 184–7;
Lalemant, Charles, 121 connection to different doodemag,
240 Index
61–2, 64, 88, 113, 139–41, 167; non- Marten doodem, xxii, 90, 189,
hierarchical, 139; participation of 200; as adopting doodem, 87;
women in, 38, 141–6; recognition characteristics, 64, 88
of, 11, 100, 171 McDonnell, Michael, 26, 37, 131
Lee, Damien, 87 McKay, Alex, xxvii
Lenape Nation. See Delawares medals, xxiii, xxv, xxvii, 75, 98, 99,
Lévi-Strauss, Claude, xvin7, 37 158, 170; as gifts from colonial
Littlehales, E.B., 56–7 officials, 12, 97, 99
Loon doodem, 34, 49, 70–1, 117, medicine, Anishinaabe, 13, 15, 75, 80,
127, 168, 171, 189; characteristics, 88, 199
61–2, 64; connection to wampum, Megis, 187
61–2, 117 Menissinownninne, 98
Louis XIV, 25–6 Menominee, 101, 129
Lower Canada, 106, 178–9 Merman doodem, 83–4, 189
Michabous. See Nanabozhoo
Mahiingan, 21–2, 139 Michilimackinac, 34, 42, 46–7,
Mahmahwegeahego, 143 98, 158; connection to Hare
Manatowabi, Edna, 71n5 doodem, 112
Manicheanism, 53–4 Midewiwin, 50n24, 65, 88
manidoog, 10, 54, 91; underwater, Migwans, Mikinaak (Crystal), xxvi
60, 89, 140 Mille Lac, 83
Manitoulin Island, xxv, xxviin42, Miller, Cary, 7n15, 15, 143, 146
16, 22, 53, 79n30, 104, 158, 178; Miller, James, 29n74
association with Whitefish Mills, Aaron, xixn16
doodem, 106, 162 Mindameness, 76
marriage practices: as alliance, 71–2, mining, 172, 188
78–85, 90; between Anishinaabe Mino-bimaadiziwin (living life
and non-Anishinaabe, 70, 72, well by following Anishinaabe
82–4, 86–7; changes under settler teachings and laws), also
colonialism, 173; creation of Anishinaabe-bimaadiziwin (the
connections between council Anishinaabe way of life), 72, 101–2
fires, 79, 124; doodem exogamy, Miskouensa, 95
29, 79, 80, 81–2, 125, 143, 194–6, Mississagi, 21
203, xvii; effects of settler Mississauga-Anishinabek, 48, 86,
colonialism on, 194–6; marrying 124, 154; agreements with British,
out, 11, 13, 143, 145; as micro- 142, 144, 154, 159; impact of War of
alliances, 29; patrilocality, 78; 1812 on, 163; provision of territory
polygamy, 80–1; strengthening to Six Nations, 160; as signatories,
alliances, 14, 38, 143 32, 114, 141, 154, 192. See also
marten: decorations of, 9 Mississaugas of the Credit River
Index 241
Mississaugas of the Credit River, 81, Anishinaabe polities, 19, 119–20,

156–65, 169, 176–82, 200 124, 126
Mnidoo Minising. See Manitoulin Nawac, 33
Island Nawahjegezhegwabe. See Sawyer,
Mnjikaning, 32, 69, 109, 111, 121, Joseph
129, 166–9, 181; association with Nebanagoching, 98–9, 187
Caribou doodem, 32, 107, 110, 115, Neutral, 20, 21
129, 139, 154–6, 162, 167, 168; fish Niagara, 20, 98, 144, 150, 156, 158–60,
weirs, 125 176, 177. See also Treaty of Niagara
Mohawks, 6n11, 76, 148, 149 Nicolas, Louis, 58, 66, 127
Montreal, 51, 76. See also Peace of Nicolet, Jean de, 126–7
Montreal Nipissings, 12, 21, 74, 116, 188–9;
moose: hunting of, 16, 122 host of 1642 gathering, 4, 14–15,
Moose doodem, 49, 71, 90, 18, 74; physical movements of,
127, 168 18–19
Moravians, 33, 181
Morrisseau, Norval, 89 Odawa Minising. See Manitoulin
museums, xxvi, 9, 98; acquisition of Island
Anishinaabe items, 93, 153 ogimaa/-wag (chiefs): assertion
muskrat: in aadizookaanag, 45, of treaty rights, xx–xxi; as civil
62, 137 leadership of council fires, xvii;
Muskrat doodem, 62, 115 comparison to French political
Musquakie, 52, 76, 103–11, 118, 122, roles, 28; confirmation of new,
166–7, 180, 187 11; doodemag of, 32, 154, 160,
168, 171; gichi-ogimaa, 11,
Naishenum, 162 31, 138–9; marriage practices,
Nanabozhoo, 43n7, 45n11, 58, 59, 80–1; ogimaakwe, 141, 143–4;
158; acquisition of fire, 118–19; as qualifications for, 138–9; recognition
establisher of doodem tradition, of with gifts, 94–5; roles of, 18,
51–2; recreation of the world, 45–6, 105, 111, 125, 160–1; treatment of
47, 50 colonial officials as, 94, 100
Nanakonagos, 89 Ojibway Island, 3n1
Nanegishkung, Joseph, 167 Ojibwe, 58, 79, 88, 124, 184, xxv.
Nanegishkung, Thomas, 166–7 See also Anishinaabe; Chippewas;
Nanibush, Wanda, 199 Warren, William
Naokwegijig-Corbiere, Mary Ann, Omushkego peoples, 14
xxvii Onkwehon:we, xix. See also
Nathanena, 33 Haudenosaunee Confederacy
nation: French use of term, 10, 18, oral tradition, xxivn29, 49, 64,
25; misapplication of term to 89, 108, 109; Anishinaabe law
242 Index
embedded in, xvii, xviin12, 137–8; as source on doodem tradition,

disruption of, 205; preservation of 44–5, 49–50, 58–9, 137; on village
evidence in, 88, 167, 189, 197, 202; life, 122
re-creation story, 44–5, 47; role in Peshinaniqua (Margaret Ball), 145
Anishinaabe society, xix, 197; use Pewash, 144
of allegory in, xxvi, 119, 136–7 Phillips, Ruth B., xxii–xxiii, xxvi,
Oshawana, 96, 99 93n64, 98
Oskabewis, 76 Pijart, Father, 7, 17
other-than-human beings: in Pike doodem, 62, 116, 126, 140, 154,
Anishinaabe law, 27; extension of 164, 168, 189
personhood to, xviii, 40; human pine tree: symbol of Haudenosaunee
descent from, 47–8, 50, 192, 197, 198; confederacy, 110–11, 115
human relationship with, xiv, 27, Pine, Fred Sr., 22n59
46, 63–4, 114, 175, 194, 203; souls of, pipes: decoration on, 10, 94; as
54; as term, xivn3; transformation diplomatic gifts, 6, 93, 94, 101,
between human and, 64–5 152; use in ceremonies, 19, 80, 91,
Ottawa River, 19, 56, 116, 121, 105, 157
124, 126 Plover doodem, 186
Ottawa-Anishinabek, 31, 47, 78, Polk, James, 189
124, 158 Pontiac’s War, 95, 150, 156
otter: in aadizookanag, 47; Potawatomis, 17, 31, 78, 124, 129, 158
decorations of, 9 Pouchot, Pierre, 74
Otter doodem, 9, 67n71, 81, 82, 126, primitivism, xvin7, xxiii
142, 164, 166, 167, 177, 181, 191, 200 prise-de-possession ritual, 23–6, 28,
Ouiebitchiouan, 22 92, 93n67, 113
Owen Sound, 56 Proclamation of 1763, 133
Pagahmegabow, James, 187 Queen Victoria, 66, 86, 163, 180

Parry Island, 3n1, 75, 187; Quenepenon (Quenebenaw,
association with Beaver doodem, Kineubenae, Golden Eagle), 142,
107, 162 160–1, 164, 177
Paudaush, Robert, 52 quillwork, 11–12, 13, 94, 152
Peace of Montreal, 24, 32, 84, 95, 116,
154, 194 Radin, Paul, 51–2
Peace of Paris, 133 Radisson, Pierre, 7n11, 128n42
Peawamah, 141, 144 Râle, Sebastian, 41, 42; as source of
Peers, Laura, xxvi aadizookanag, 46–7, 50, 59
Perrot, Nicolas, 4n3–4, 16, 41, 61, 80, Rama, 52, 82, 103, 164, 178, 187.
91n61, 115–17, 189; description See also Chippewas of Rama;
of, 42; as interpreter, 23–4, 32; Mnjikaning
Index 243
Raymbaut, Father, 7 194–6; expansion of, 43, 161,

reserves/reservations, 39, 43, 52, 122, 167, 173; imposition of new
164, 167–8, 174, 193, 195, 197–8; geography/ecology, 122, 192–4;
creation of, 161, 166, 173, 190 logic of elimination, xx, 201
residential schools, xix, xx, 39, 175, Seven Years’ War, xvi, 30, 133, 149,
188, 197–8 150, 156
Rice Lake, 32, 82, 86, 116, 152, Shawanaga, 75
156, 180 Shilling, Thomas, 76
Rickard, Jolene, xxvii Shingauch, 101
Robinson-Huron treaty, 94, 109, Shingwaukonce, 98–9, 184, 186, 196
188, 200 Simcoe, John Graves, 57, 177
Robinson, William Beverly, 98–9, Simpson, Leanne Betasamosake, 71n5
109n12 Sinade, 33
rock art, xiv, 22, 132 Sinagos, Chief, 78
Rogers, Mary Black, 101 Siouan language communities, xviii,
Ruffed Grouse doodem, xxii 83, 84
Rush-Bagot Agreement, 190 Sioux, 78, 123, 164n68
Six Nations, 104–5, 110, 141, 144,
Sagard, Gabriel, 25 160, 169; relocation of Credit River
Saginaw Bay, 145, 159 community to, 176, 182
Sakis, 78, 158 smallpox, 20
Sault Ste. Marie. See Bawaating souls: of adopted Anishinabek, 88;
Savignon, 147 comparison of Anishinaabe and
Sawyer, Joseph, 161, 164, 180 Christian beliefs, 53–6; connection
Schenck, Theresa, xvin7 to landscape, 59; doodem souls,
Schneider, David, 69n75 38, 43, 48, 55, 61, 64–5, 90, 191,
Schoolcraft, Henry Rowe, 51, 186, 196–7; possessed by non-human
189–90 beings, xiv, 27, 40, 45; plurality
Scots, 85; comparison of clan system of, 55–6; possessed by human
to doodem, 71 remains, 12, 55–6, 74–5
Scott, Duncan Campbell, 189 St. Croix, 83
settler colonialism, xxiii, xvn6; St. Joseph’s Island, 100, 178
Anishinaabe response to, xxi, St. Lusson, Sieur de, 23–5, 42,
100, 174–5; characteristics of, 172, 93n67, 113
202–3; dispossession resulting Stark, Heidi Kiiwetinepinesiik,
from, 176, 180; domination of xixn16, xxvi, 118, 162
historical accounts, xix; effect Stony. See Assiniboine
on Anishinaabe governance, 39, stories. See aadizookaanag (sacred
87, 134, 137, 169, 175, 182–8, 197; stories); dibaajimowinan
effects on marriage practices, Sturgeon doodem, 64, 168
244 Index
Sucker doodem, 47–8, 168 Tubinaquay, 86, 185

Sunday, John, 192 Tugwaugaunay, 76, 112–13,
Swan doodem, 127, 159 117–18, 122
sweetgrass (wiingashk), 8n18, 13
Upper Canada, 75, 163, 169, 173,
Talon, Jean, 23, 24n64, 25, 28 178, 179, 192, 194; creation of,
Tecumseh, 96 106; government of, 57, 86, 94,
Tessouat, 56 142, 162
thunderbird: connection to eagle,
114–15; decorations of, 25, 98 Valentine, Rand, xxvii, 74n8
Thunderbird doodem, 21, 60, 96, 98, village: misapplication of term to
114, 140, 168 Anishinaabe polities, 120–1
Toronto, 116, 128, 156, 157, 160, 177, Vimont, Barthélemy, 6–7, 7n11
179–80 Vizenor, Gerald, 190n41
Tory, Alvin, 145
totem, xvin7. See doodem Wabakayne, 159–60
treaties: between Americans and Wabanip, 160–1, 164
Anishinabek, 31, 35, 170–1, Wabbicomicott, 144, 146, 156–9
172, 183, 189–90; Anishinaabe Wabenaki. See Abenaki
understanding of, xxi, 119; Wabenose, 86, 162, 185
different understandings of, Wabionishkoubi, 152
23, 30, 101, 132; as means of Wacanoghaqua, 141, 144
facilitating white settlement, xx; Wahbahdick, Thomas, 181n27
as more than land purchases, 101. Walpole Island, 96, 195
See also individual treaties wampum, xviiin14, xxiii, xxv, xxvii,
Treaty at the Rapids of the Miami, 31 101, 152–3; Ayenwahta Wampum
treaty documents: British concern Belt, 108; belts as constitutions,
with authorship, 34–6; order of xxvi, 105, 106, 181; connection to
signatures on, 31–2, 111, 160; use Loon doodem, 61–2, 117; given as
as sources, xvi, xxii, 30–1, 108–9, gifts, 5, 7n11, 95, 148, 152–3, 157,
128, 132–3, 154, 166, 168; women’s 158; as mnemonic device, 6n11,
signatures in, 142–4 91, 110; in museum collections,
Treaty of Fond du Lac, 170–1, 183, 185 93; role in governance and law,
Treaty of Fort McIntosh, 31 92; use as payment, 10; use of
Treaty of Niagara, 38, 133, 149, 151, visual synecdoche, 108; used
158, 162 in decoration, 9, 12, 98; used to
Treuer, Anton, 72n7, 83n41, 184, recount history, 103–5, 114
185n33 Wapanatashiqua
Truth and Reconciliation (Wapamonessychoqua), 141,
Commission of Canada, xix–xx 144–6, 159
Index 245
War of 1812, xx, 96, 103, 161, 181, White Sucker doodem, 47–8
186; effect on Mississauga- White, Richard, 37
Anishinabek, 163; period Whitefeather, Vernon, 83n41
following, 35, 100, 166, 173, 175, Whitefish doodem: association with
178, 183 Manitoulin Island, 106, 109, 162
Warren, William, xvn6, xxvi, 41, 42, wiindigoo/-g (winter cannibal
48–9, 61, 63, 112, 113, 117, 122, monster(s)), 66
172, 184–5; on breakup of doodem Wilmott, Cory, xxii, xxv–xxvi,
system, 170–1, 183; on doodemag, 186, 196
58, 84, 127; on doodem names, Wisdom, Charles, 77
127; on origins of doodemag, Witgen, Michael, 26, 28, 37, 83n44,
48–9, 60 119, 124, 131
Wasson, 146 Wolf doodem, 90, 127, 181; origin of,
Wausauksing. See Parry Island 83–4
weapons: as gifts, 91, 100, 101, 153; Wolfe, Patrick, xx, 201
as works of art, 9–10 women: as arrangers of marriages,
Weggishgomin, 161, 163 85; connections made through
Wendake, 3 marriage, 78–9; construction
Wendat, xviii, 6n11, 129, 158; at 1642 of buildings by, 6, 12; dances
Lake Nipissing gathering, 10; of, 9; doodemag distinct from
Anishinaabe alliances with, 4–5, husbands, 48, 143; expression of
15, 106, 123, 147–9; Anishinaabe mino-bimaadiziwin, 102; impact
conflict with, 76; Anishinaabe of settler colonialism on, 146, 173;
diplomacy with, 91; breakup invisibility in archival record, 146;
of Confederacy, 21, 106; burial involvement in land sales, 141–4;
customs, 4n3; co-existence with memorial functions performed
Anishinabek, 14, 74; deaths due by, 12–13, 15, 102; relation to natal
to smallpox, 20; intermarriage communities, 11, 13, 21; roles in
with Anishinabek, 82, 84; relation governance, 11, 38–9, 80–1, 136,
with Jesuits, 15, 17; understanding 138, 144, 159; Sky Woman, 44;
of souls, 55n39; use of fire as work in making gifts, 99. See also
symbol, 118 council of women
Wenro, 20, 21
Weskarini, 129 Yellowhead, William. See Musquakie
Whetung, Madeline, 13 Young, George, 167
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DOODEM AND COUNCIL FIRE

Anishinaabe Governance through Alliance

Professor Constance Backhouse, University of Ottawa

The Osgoode Society is supported by a grant from

The Society also thanks The Law Society of Ontario

Published for The Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History by

ISBN 978-1-4426-4731-2 (cloth)

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: Doodem and council fire : Anishinaabe governance through alliance /

University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its

Funded by the Financé par le

1 The Doodem Tradition 41

2 Family in All Four Directions 70

3 Anishinaabe Constitutionalism 103

4 Governance in Action 135

5 Doodem in the Era of Settler Colonialism 170

illustration credits 225

Colour photos follow page 112

Language key: Anishinaabemowin-speaking Siouan-speaking

61 Batchewana First Nation of Ojibways 97 Saugeen First Nation (Chief’s Point)

67 Serpent River First Nation 103 Delaware Nation at Moraviantown

68 Sagamok Anishnawbek 104 Chippewa Of The Thames First Nation

69 Aundeck Omni Kaning First Nation 105 Munsee-Delaware Nation

70 Whitefish River First Nation 106 Oneida Nation of the Thames

71 Wikwemikong Unceded Territory 107 Six Nations of the Grand River

72 Taykwa Tagamou Nation 108 Woodland Cultural Centre & Mohawk

82 Timiskaming First Nation 115 Curve Lake First Nation

84 Nipissing First Nation 117 Alderville First Nation

131 Communauté Atikamekw De Manawan 156 Nottawaseppi Huron Band of the

138 Kahnawake Mohawk Territory 163 Hannahville Community Band of

146 Tuscarora Nation Reservation 168 Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin

187 Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux 203 Miskwaagamiiwi-zaaga’igan: Red Lake

Map created by Nicky Recollet, Geospatial/GIS Specialist, Crane’s Atlas (https://www

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Anishinaabe leaders

consider each other closely related, as close as siblings are constructed

2 In Anishinaabemowin the word doodem belongs to a special class of nouns known

or can be used as an adjective, as in the Anishinaabe language. Anishinabek (or

and uses in English.7 This book focuses on the Anishinaabe meaning

deliberative bodies that were constituted and recognized through and

9 Cary Miller, Ogimaag, 76–7.

This book is an interdisciplinary socio-legal and ethnohistorical

13 Girard, Phillips, and Brown, History of Law in Canada, 1.

on Michi Saagig Anishinaabe territory and in a province (Ontario) and

they “exist, resist, and persist,” while continuing to confront a structure

26 “About GRASAC,” https://grasac.org/about.

for vocabulary relating to doodem and governance will fundamen-

31 Alan Corbiere, “Anishinaabe Headgear”; “Dbaad’dang Wiigwaaskeng”; Bohaker,

34 Willmott, “Clothed Encounters”; Willmott and Brownlee, “Dressing for the

the loss of knowledge that collections represent. It is why I am there.”

39 Farrell Racette, “Pieces Left along the Trail,” 225.

in alphabetic script as a political strategy in the mid-nineteenth century. See Alan

encouraging me to see my work as legal history and for inviting me to

unable to obtain a publication-quality colour images, and in other cases,

Anishinaabe Governance through Alliance

council sites, or because age or infirmity made the prospect of a jour-

intended to renew a long-standing alliance.5 The Jesuits’ record of what

people greeted each other with tremendous excitement – for many it

7 Lalemant, “Relation of 1642–1643,” in Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 23:211.

16 Lalemant, “Relation of 1642–1643,” in Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 23:213.