This is a subject to me that has been held in high regard for the past couple of years. Why the past couple of years and not my whole life? My answer to that is that I was not born on a reservation, neither have I lived on a reservation. For the first eighteen years of my life I was completely like a white person. In the year 2003, I was tribally enrolled in the band of the Ojibwe people known as Red Cliff.
The first reservation I visited or saw with my eyes, not via a T.V./ computer screen or a photo, a Cherokee rez in the Smoky Mountains, in Appalachia. I didn’t like the state of affairs that I saw there. This was when I was in the third month of me being eighteen. I began to feel for these Native people who lived in bad conditions in the Appalachian Mountains. At this point, I did not know that there were tribes that lived in worse circumstances. That happened during my Spring break of my senior year of high school.
I was puzzled and when I’m confounded, I begin research. I am thankfully for the internet because it allowed me to find information based upon that Cherokee rez. And, at 18 years old, I was opened up to the corruptness of a government that I held dear to my very white heart. At this same point, I remembered that I was part Anishinaabe. Biologically, I am 1/64th Anishinaabe. Legally — because of some law — I am a little over a quarter Ojibway. (I feel better every time I get that out).
In November of the year 2008, I wrote a novel that a fictional Lakota man made an appearance in. I researched some of the Lakota language and I came upon a website that allowed me to hear how words and sounds were pronounced via audio clips. I used some words I found on this website in my novel. Using the same website I also learned to count from one through 99 in Lakota.
Then I asked myself, ‘why am I learning the Lakota language when I could be learning the language of the Ojibway people? It would make more sense that, because I’m part Ojibwe, that I would learn that language.’ So I looked online for resources and found a source that was looked over by a speaker of the Anishinaabemowin, the language of the Ojibway people. I was overwhelmed by the sounds, the look, and the length of Ojibwe words, as compared to those of the Lakota language. It was truly a completely different language. I became frustrated and simply decided to move on with my life. This all happened from November of 2008 through July of 2009.
It wasn’t until September of 2009, with the help of a class that I took called Native American Literature I, that my heart, spirit, mind, soul, and ways of thinking really changed. My spirit and heart were never full, even through my childhood. I knew something was wrong there, I just couldn’t put a finger on it until I took this class on Native American Literature. I realized that while my cousins, who were all 1/64th Ojibwe, and my aunts and uncles, who were all 1/32nd Ojibwe, were all writing this on college applications and job applications just so they could be a better candidate for a position, I began to feel it. I feel that this has come full circle to me. I am the one in my family who will continue the Ojibwe traditions and such.
On December 16, 2009, I attended my first Inter-Tribal Student Organization meeting on campus. There I met people who have become family to me. There I met Natives of Menominee decent, of Oneida decent, of Ojibwe decent, and of Stockbridge-Munsee (a band of Mohican) decent.
Over the month of January, in the year 2010, I made my first batch of fry bread, courtesy of @amazingflora & @peacefrog1997. And I smudged for the first time. I thank @TashinaBanks for that. I also found my guide in all this in @Thisoutlawtorn. I am really grateful to all of these people.
This semester I am taking an Anishinaabe literature course. Through this I’ve found that the three things an Ojibway person needs to know are: what their Ojibwe name is, what clan are they in, and where are they from. I know that my Ancestors hail from the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. As stated before, I am 1/64th Ojibwe biologically. So I’d have to go back six generations, not including myself, to find the clan I belong to. This makes it very difficult for me because I feel like a homeless person sometimes, looking at all the houses I could belong in, knowing that I do belong to one of them, yet not being able to go in one in fear of not belonging. After I graduate from college with my Bachelor’s Degree, I’m moving to Red Cliff for a period of time to get an Ojibwe name and hopefully find my clan if I haven’t by then. And also for some experience with living on a reservation.
I am going to find the clan I belong in so my children will NEVER have to deal with it like I have.
I must say that now that I’m a spiritualist, praying to Gitchie-Manitou, and talking to the spirits of my Ancestors, my spirit is full now and my heart is healed. I am so absolutely elated now and excited about my future because my spirit is happy and my heart is not sick anymore.
Any questions? Feel free to ask me @starsintheskies on Twitter.
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