Chapter 10: A Formula for Expanding Consciousness: Reflections on the Story of an Anishinaabeg Man

Boozoo! (Greetings!) Mko Mose Indizhnikaz (My spirit name is Bear Walker¹), Meshekenh n’doodem (I am Turtle Clan), d’eshkan ziibi n’doonjiba (I was born and raised along the horned river [present day London, Ontario]). Anishinaabe, O’jibii’igay inini n’dow (I am an Anishinaabe Ojibway man). Anishinaabe is an Algic word said to translate to “from whence lowered the male of the species” [down onto the earth]… he was a man that “lived in brotherhood with all that was around him” (Benai-Benai, 1988, pp. 3–4). Anishinaabe is the term used in self reference by some of the Indigenous peoples who primarily lived, thrived, and perished for many generations in several disparate regions of the Great Lakes and beyond prior to first encountering visitors from a distant land in the late 1500s (Hallowell, 1975). In early literature, the French and English visitors refer to these many groups of Algic speaking people’s as Ojibway, Chippewa, Saulteaux, and a host of other names and spellings (Warren, 1984). It is believed that at one time there were at least thirty-six dialects of the Algic language. Some are so different that two Algic speakers from different regions cannot easily communicate. Our cultures were sophisticated and diverse.