III.

Culture

Historically, the Ojibwa were not a single tribe in the political sense. Rather, they were organized into a large number of bands or subtribes sharing language and culture. Among these bands, however, customs varied. Some northern Ojibwa bands lived a lifestyle typical of tribes of the Subarctic culture area. Others eventually moved to the Great Plains and adopted the Plains Indian lifestyle, becoming known as the Plains Ojibwa. Ojibwa bands were divided into permanent clans. Originally, the clans were subdivided into five phratries, or groups, from which more than 20 clans developed. One of the clans claimed the hereditary chieftainship of the entire tribe; another claimed precedence in the councils of war.

The economy of the Ojibwa was based on hunting and fishing, as well as farming corn, beans, and squash, and the gathering of wild fruits and seeds, particularly the abundant wild rice (a plant of the grass family with a seed resembling rice). The Ojibwa also made sugar from maple syrup. Housing consisted of wigwams constructed with pole frames, typically covered with birchbark. Tribal members traveled through the many lakes and rivers in their forested homelands in light birchbark canoes, practical for portages between waterways. Birchbark sheets were also used for keeping pictographic records of tribal affairs. Ojibwa mythology was elaborate; the chief religious and superstitious rites centered around the Medewiwin, or Grand Medicine Society.