The Otter: Laughter and Treaty Three

Transcription

1 The Otter: Laughter and Treaty Three MICHAEL M. POMEDLI Saskatchewan Indian Federated College and St. Thomas More College, University of Saskatchewan I don't mean to trivialize the importance of Treaty Number Three by referring to laughter, because for those Ojibwa affected, treaties are a serious life-altering matter. Without erasing that importance and seriousness, I want to consider the impact that an animal, the otter, had, and continues to have, on that treaty. This paper has four parts: (1) Otter considered in an external way, its habits, context, characteristics, and its relationship to the Ojibwa. (2) Otter as represented, thought of, spoken of, heard, whose figure is present in stories, pictographs, birchbark scrolls, and other artistic works. (3) Otter as patterned in a non-figurative, non-representational way. (4) Otter's relevance in understanding Treaty Three. PHYSICAL OTTER My overall project examines Treaty Number Three, a treaty in 1873 between the Ojibwa in northwestern Ontario and the Federal government of Canada. Overall, I am investigating the role that animals played, and continue to play, in the consciousness of the Ojibwa and in that of their Mide leaders, several of whom were signatories to Treaty Three. Animals which were meaningful were the ones they experienced and the ones they depicted. I claim that animals and their depictions provide(d) one of the regulating experiences for treaty signing. Several animal images appear in these cultural forms, with otter often as the main one associated with the first stage in the Grand Medicine Society's ceremonies. 1. According to Ruth Landes (1968:145), "Otter, in particular, seemed to guard the first-grade entrance [of the Grand Medicine Society's lodge]; Weasel, the second; Mink, the third; and Bear, the fourth... Sometimes Bear was said to supervise generally all the grades." Richard E. Nelson (1984:403) notes that the first-degree skins in his collection include weasel, mink, martin and otter. I have no information as to the levels of the Midewiwinriteattained by the signatories to Treaty Three.

2 360 MICHAEL M. POMEDLI The otter (nikik), a member of the weasel family, is a highly successful animal. It has survived 35 million years and is still numerous (Cahalane 1975:7). Otters are crafty and cunning entrepreneurs seeking better ways of living (Chief Ron Manitowabi, p.c.). Such a description conjures images of otter as protective of itself and its kin, as perhaps ferocious and even menacing to others. An otter has a diversified diet, eating "fish, crayfish, rabbits, ducks, frogs, salamanders, muskrats, and aquatic insects" (Paine 1993:5,11,107). In addition to its resourcefulness, otter has an acute sense of smell, hearing, and sight. Because of these qualities, including efficiency, it has time for what appear to be leisure activities and play. Delphine Haley (1975:12) describes river otters as "delightful clowns of the kingdom,... tumbling and tobogganing down snow-covered hillsides or sliding down muddy riverbanks," very magical moments, with lots of play, apparently pursued for the "sheer joy of sport and frolic." Such a passion for play leads it to play alone, "in groups, with other animals, or with people. The otter spends much time rolling in the grass, somersaulting underwater, frolicking in the snow, chasing its tail, or playing hide and seek. It will juggle a pebble in its paws or balance a stick on the end of its nose like a trained seal. Sometimes, in larger rivers, it will shoot the rapids, riding along with head erect on the watch for rocks and snags" (Haley 1975: ). According to Liers (1953), "They're as good at log-rolling as experienced lumbermen, and so friendly that they'll play with dogs and bears - even children!" Otters often help one another, and manipulate objects to pull them apart. They learn how to do things by observing. The otter displays great versatility both on land and in water. On land it runs with a rippling motion in a fast inchworm fashion, and its footprints are of a diamond form, an imprint copied on Ojibwa garments and utensils (Leonard and Briscoe 1964:79). Grace Rajnovich (1994:58) writes about the zigzag pattern of the path of otter "which, when chased, tries to deceive its enemies by varying its course... The otter's tracks form a long hexagon between diamonds; the animal rises on its haunches to jump, forming the diamonds, then as it leaps it drags its tail making the hexagon." An otter displays intellectual traits and emotions similar to those of humans. Its playfulness and cunning have already been examined. Part of this intellectual display is its informational coding. Otters spend consider-

3 THE OTTER: LAUGHTER AND TREATY THREE 361 able time and use elaborate techniques to produce fecal pellets which they coat with scent and carefully position. Such signs in the forms of heaps, trenches and urine on bushes and trees, known as spraint, provide information on the individual identity of an animal, its age, sex, breeding condition and status, and also the time since its deposition (Chanin 1985:102,104). In states of alarm or anger an otter can emit a mustelid musk and use a series of calls, "a snort or cough in alarm, a scream in anger, sometimes a friendly chirp. One common group sound is a low-keyed chuckling noise that seems to be associated with pleasant feelings while grooming, copulating, or communicating at close range" (Haley 1975: ). This sound may be imitated by closing the lips and saying "huh-huh-huh" explosively and as deeply as possible in rapid succession, like our Conservative leader Joe Clark. C.J. Harris (1968:4,40-41) mentions additional ranges of sounds: a low humming or growling signaling a threat or apprehension; an intimidating raucous scream accompanying an attack; mere bad temper or frustration voiced as a querulous moaning wail; screaming and whistling when wounded or when its young or mate is lost; conversational noises displaying emotions other than fear, anger or distress - varied, bird-like, twittering, chirping; chuckling, whiffling or chittering, sounds of a "soprano motor mower." Contrasting forms of conversation-like sounds are grunts or rumbling noises in a low key. Here occasionally the last syllable will suddenly emerge an octave higher, in a sort of questioning tone, a multipurpose noise which can be emitted both above and below water. OTTER AS REPRESENTATIONAL Thus far we have engaged in a description of the otter's physical characteristics. Hunters and trappers, generally males, experienced these external traits. While such experiences draw on the spiritual world, since the inspiration and expertise in the hunt proceeds from the guardian spirits of these animals, representational depictions of concrete experiences provide an important additional outreach in the spiritual power of the otter. These figurative depictions in turn are also limited as the more circumscribed and concretized images of otter become the foundation for a movement toward the abstract and geometrical. This movement toward the non-figurative involves predominantly the work of women (Desveaux 1988,1993).

4 362 MICHAEL M. POMEDLI A representational consideration of animals and that of otter in particular is that of story and myth. According to Julia Harrison (1986:46-53), "In all myths concerning the Midewiwin, the messenger who brings the rituals to the Ojibwa has the ability to travel over land and through water." As we have seen, the otter, with other animals, possesses this amphibious adeptness, a quality also displayed by the Anishinabe as they travelled from the "big sea," along a great river and finally to land surrounding Lake Superior. The events of travelling, entering and exiting, observed in otter's life, are telescoped into the image and reality of the medicine lodge. Lake Superior and its environs becomes a large lodge-scape, which the Ojibwa enter and exit, with the Sault as its eastern entrance. Such themes are also captured in stories (Vennum 1987, Warren 1885). In other forms of verbal artistry, the otter is the Ojibwa's messenger (Rajnovich 1994:71). William Hoffman (1891: ) and others narrate a legend of the place of the otter in the Midewiwin story of Nanabozho. The Ojibwa are helpless. Nanabozho desires to give them the means of warding off diseases, and to provide them with animals and plants as food. Nanabozho thoughtfully hovered over the center of the earth when he heard something laugh, and then perceived a dark object on the surface of the water to the west, and then in all four directions, as a creature brought the directions together in the center. It was otter. Nanabozho instructed otter in the mysteries of the Midewiwin, gave it the sacred rattle for the sick (Berbaum 2000:45-46), the Mide drum for rites of initiation and at sacred feasts, and tobacco to be used during invocations and in making peace (Hoffman 1891, Jones 1917, Redsky 1972). Otter is a prominent Manitou figure on birchbark scrolls and has several other roles. Healing in the Mide lodge is associated with otter. A scroll song states: "I bring life to the people," with Hoffman's interpretation: "The speaker, as the impersonator of the sacred Otter, brings life. The Otter is just emerging [a line drawing indicates this] from the surface of the water, as he emerged from the great salt sea before the Ani'shina'beg, after having been instructed by Mi'nabo'zho to carry life to them" (Hoffman 1891:282). Additional representations of otter occur on song scrolls of the third and fourth degree of the Midewiwin. The otter Manitou appears with a diagonal line across its body signifying the spirit character of the animal and gives the reply, "brother spirit," to the invocation of the speaker (Hoffman 1891: ,208,211,253). Maria Seymour and Grace

5 THE OTTER: LAUGHTER AND TREATY THREE 363 Rajnovich (1994:98-101) consider similar song records from Northern Minnesota depicting spirit powers of otter; the song for the otter medicine bag is "I am helping you." Pictographs with power lines occur at Agawa Rock on Lake Superior, and at Deer Lake in Northwestern Ontario. Such rock paintings are associated with picture writing, both experiences associated with medicine, dreams and songs. Different media convey the same message differently. The origin-migration songs of the Midewiwin also contain otter's actions. According to Thomas Vennum (1978), their sweat bath songs "convey various images of emergence" while referring to events in their stories - Nanabozho hears otter's laughter each time he emerges from the water; otter "emerges from the first medicine lodge to begin his trek; wherever Otter emerges from the water, mitewiwin is established, and so on). In the mite initiation ceremony, the candidate's reenactment of Otter's journey begins upon the completion of the ritual sweating, when he exists, or emerges from the sudatory (the dot 'in the center of the earth'). His movement from the sweat lodge westward to the medicine lodge represents Otter's journey along the water route as well as the candidate's own 'path of life,' which ends symbolically when he leaves by the west exit of the mitewikan at the conclusion of the ceremony." According to some stories, otter is the originator of the medicine bag, giving its body as the container and uttering healing sounds from that receptacle (Densmore 1910). Basil Johnston (1982:107) also indicates otter's presence in the rituals of the Midewiwin. Nicholas Deleary gives contemporary testimony to the living nature of medicine bags and their cultural contents. According to Deleary (1990:26), a bundle "is a living, animated object that contains our beliefs, history, identity, strength, faith, generosity, and kindness. Our bundle also contains our frustrations in the face of adversity and denial; our collected tears and sorrows as we watch continual ethnocide and warfare destroying our way of life." According to Norval Morriseau (1965:43), "these hides were seen to come alive [during ceremonies]. The bearskin began to growl and the fox skins began to bark." Otter gives its hide, utters medicinal sounds for initiates and members of the lodge, touches candidates, but also engages in cosmic changes. According to a Mille Lacs depiction by Sikas'sige, Hoffman's informant, and also Red Lake song scrolls, interpreted by Little Frenchman and Leading Feather, otter spirit clears the sky so that ceremonies can begin.

6 364 MICHAEL M. POMEDLI Other depictions of the otter, particularly as part of the chieftain clan of marten, are that of warrior, hunter, and strategist (Council Fires 1993:12). In addition to otter appearing in stories, on scrolls, in songs, in pictographs, and as medicine bags, Fred K. Blessing (1977:51-52) notes a bowl game, a seniors' game, with bone carvings of otter as one of the players. The style of bowl depicted, Blessing notes, "seems preferred by the old men, especially those closely associated with the Grand Medicine Lodge." The game itself is play, and images of the otters recount and reinforce the animals' playfulness. As the visionary and acoustic experiences derived from otter are given representational form, they retain the blessings of the guardian spirit. One problem, however, is to keep the visions and sounds private lest they be lost. Here, Ruth Phillips (1984b:418) points out, originates an inventive adaptability in the portrayal of these experiences: on the one hand, the depictions had to represent the animal; on the other hand, they had to portray some ambiguity to protect their necessarily private manifestation. Creative ingenuity came to the rescue, a combination of both the manifest and the hidden, a portrayal of both concrete animal forms, and of line drawings and designs. Spirits could transform themselves or be transformed into both representational images and geometrical patterns, with the representational as more concretely revelatory and the abstract as a more ambiguous and hidden expression. Both of these forms expressed visions, sounds, and reality in multiple ways, a "combinatory variant principle," Desveaux (1998:41) notes. OTTER AS PATTERNED The otter is the sign and sound of the first stage in the incorporation of individuals in the Midewiwin. 2 But the patterned otter has ramifications for the entire nation, a type of corporate personality, an "owner" or spiritual boss (Hallowell 1934: ). In the patterned otter, the meaning of the otter is transferred onto costumes, ornaments, weapons, utensils and sacred objects. In these cultural forms, otter takes on a more spiritualized and universal outreach. Through these creations, particularly by 2. See Landes 1968:114f, for a more detailed description of the initial four "earth grades" and the latter four "sky grades" of the Midewiwin rites.

7 THE OTTER: LAUGHTER AND TREATY THREE 365 women who make various abstract art forms, the power of otter is multiplied (Phillips 1984b). The zigzag movements of the otter become a stylized form derived both from its swift inchworm progressions, and from its swaying attempts to avoid pursuers. Sister Bernard Coleman singles out the zigzag designs based on otter's trail. This design element "consists of a continuous series of broken straight lines of equal length forming equivalent angles." Some informants called it a lightning pattern. When the pattern is doubled or tripled, it can form a number of diamonds. This type of design occurs in Ojibwa quill and bead work. Another design besides the otter's trail is the otter track. "In this design there are two elements, a diamond and an elongated hexagon about three times as long as the diamond," Coleman states. This represents the otter's track, made "with its tail when it crosses the ice in the spring... It is the common design used on long narrow bead chains and borders. In this form it is called otter's tail" (Coleman 1947:2-4). Phillips (1984b:415) asserts that these stylized and patterned motifs embody not only the otter's physical meanderings but also its extended power, portrayed in the sky spirits, that of lightning and thunder. To depict these insights, women used creative styles and techniques, aided by the increased supply of colored trade yarns in the 18th century. Their geometric designs were not degenerate forms of the representational, nor purely aesthetic, nor merely marks of prestige, but the capturing of immaterial forms such as dreams and spirit powers. These outlined forms displayed moods or feelings in the weaver's life, becoming symbolic as well as decorative (Phillips 1989). OTTER AND TREATY THREE We have noted three modes of presence for otter: first, the physical otter, second, the representational one, and third, the patterned one. All three have some impact on Treaty Three. THE IMPACT OF PHYSICAL OTTER On behalf of their people, Midewiwin leaders brought their appropriation of the physical aspects of otter to Treaty Three: craftiness, adaptability, a sense of economic responsibility, an entrepreneurial spirit, an attempt to unite the water and land, an attunement to the power of the four

8 366 MICHAEL M. POMEDLI directions and the center, a defensiveness and eluding ability necessary for survival, and an attitude of playfulness (Stan Cuthand, p.c). Responses to the new peoples, the Europeans, required these types of resourcefulness and flexibility. THE IMPACT OF REPRESENTATIONAL OTTER In its representational form, otter can be multiplied in many ways. Its multiple manifestations are instances where the power of otter can be operative. These representational forms and had and continue to have an impact on Treaty Three. As a container for medicines, paints, and other elements of power belonging to the shaman, the otter medicine bag (pinjigosaun) functioned in the same way as the original otter in stories: in conveying the knowledge of the Midewiwin, it protected the essence of what it meant to be an Ojibwa (Harrison 1978:53). The otter and its physical embodiment in the medicine bag was a living being and served to prolong and restore life (Densmore 1910:93n). Otter is the servant of Nanabozho, "the master of life - the source and impersonation of the lives of all sentient things human, faunal, and floral," Densmore writes (1929:97-98). Like the trickster Nanabozho, otter also endows sentient things with life and teaches "each its particular ruse for deceiving its enemies and prolonging its life." According to Blessing (1977:76-79,87-88), otter is "the most important skin in the life of a Midewiwin member." Today the otterskin bag or its counterpart leads the first degree candidate "onto the spiritual path or his 'true life,'" a "spiritual birth." In intercultural relations, otter continues this role of bringing things to rebirth by using the appropriate means. Another important use of otter skin is as a membrane for the Midewiwin drum (Vecsey 1984, Redsky 1972). Because of this special purpose, the otterskin is elaborately decorated, including "a beaded tail and brass trade bells on the hind legs and end of tail. The bells when shaken serve to keep harmful spirits from approaching" (Blessing 87-88). Otter's power is thus woven with borrowings from European artifacts such as beads, to create a new synthesis, just as the Ojibwa thinking and cultures formed part of a new synthesis in the treaty. As the otterskin membrane vibrates, sound, otter's sound, augmented and blended with singers and dancers, becomes a representation of otter.

9 THE OTTER: LAUGHTER AND TREATY THREE 367 Deleary writes about the necessity of the drum in Midewiwin ceremonies, for "without the drum to accompany the Mide, his or her voice would be inaudible, powerless, and hence ineffective in prolonging life. The sound of the Water drum carried its voice loud and clear, the sound of the water drum goes everywhere. Sound itself is the essence of the Midewiwin. Mideway in one translation means Sounding voice; We-win, translates as Good all over; hence, sounding good all over. The Mide would add to this interpretation that Midewiwin means, the Way of the Heart beat, the good heart sound of Life" (Deleary 1990:78) The otter and those impersonating the otter received blessings giving them power to ensure well-being for everyone. Even though the power was individual, the communal nature of Ojibwa society meant that it would be used for the common good. Therefore, those who received power through the Mide rites would also be perceived as empowered socially and politically. Consequently, in the 19th century the Ojibwa political leaders had both spiritual powers and leadership roles. The survival of their community depended on their integrating and using both of these powers and roles (Angel 1997:17,77; cf. also Lovisek 1993). Otter is an extension of Ojibwa voices and fasting into all forms of life including the signing of treaties. Following these helpful and enabling agents and voices, the initiate becomes creative, paints, sculpts, depicts iconographic presences on birchbark scrolls, and signs treaties (Desveaux 1995:109). Since the treaties are relational, contemporary "treaty days," reinterpretations of the treaty, and their contextualization involve the animal spirits. Are not the spirits of the animals a force in the reviving and reenactment of the ceremonies depicted in the scrolls? Is not otter's laughter present, contributing to continuing relationships? "On a symbolic level," as Harrison states (1978:53), "the otter partakes in the most basic element of Mide power, the ability to integrate the worlds that the Ojibwa see in opposition: that of the land and that of the water; that of the traditional hunting bands and that of the European fur trader or settler. The Ojibwa were striving to lessen the tensions which abounded in the world that surrounded them, both in the spiritual world and the encroaching world of European civilization, and in the powers which exercised control over them. Just as the Ojibwa drew on the resources of both land and water to survive, so too the otter lived in both environments. For a people who had travelled over land and water to

10 368 MICHAEL M. POMEDLI reach the area that was to become their home and had been subjected to the hardships and the rewards of both, a creature who moved through both with ease and playfulness was to be respected and revered. The otter as used in the Mide was one attempt to structure and retain the ideology of the Ojibwa ancestors in order to confirm the continued existence of this Native American group." Although nothing is given specifically in the written form of Treaty Three regarding the otter, from an Ojibwa perspective its spirit pervades the entire treaty. We should, however, take Treaty Three in a wider context than merely the received written word. It has its roots in the early negotiations leading to the Selkirk Treaty of 1817, and in the Robinson Treaties of 1850; its sentiments abound during the negotiations in the failed treaties prior to 1873, and in the oral contacts and commentaries. "Sense images can build codes for regulating experience," Harrison states. "Codes mediate the objective determinations of social order and the subjective determinations of individual experience" (Harrison: 1982:125). The balance between an individual and society could only be maintained within a traditional lifestyle. The otter is one of the mediators of Ojibwa culture. As a mediator, it serves as a rallying call to thwart disintegration. It represents the traditional values now celebrated in ritual and in stories. Otter is like aflag,a hymn, like sacred writings, a symbol full of meaning, empowering and leading. The otter is one of the animals that promotes the objectives of the Midewiwin. Two of these objectives are to promote a long life and access to the manitous who could bestow power to accomplish this goal. A third objective of the Midewiwin, according to Michael Angel (1997: ), is "to help foster self-knowledge and a sense of identity for members". Angel suggests that the Midewiwin society provided a fourth objective, that of ensuring another way of obtaining power, besides that of the visionary experience. Otter symbolizes regeneration. During the Mide rites the neophyte is shot with shells from the otterskin medicine bags. Alanson Skinner (1920:179) called this ritual shooting of cowrie shells from the bag "the most spectacular, and one of the most important, parts of the ceremony" (Fulford 1988:67-68). In having both a phallic and vaginal shape and with the concomitant activity, the ceremonial otterskin medicine bag is a symbol of regeneration.

11 THE OTTER: LAUGHTER AND TREATY THREE 369 Dean R. Snow (1976: ) notes the heavy sexual content in Penobscot petroglyphs. The shaman had both spiritual and leadership qualities and powers. And the shaman could validate his powers in these two areas. But there was another area to express his powers, that is, through sexual prowess. This dalliance and alliance could take the form of having multiple sexual partners, an animal helper into which he could be transformed, or even of sinking and disappearing into a stone ledge. The Mide are the main keepers of the word, of cultural knowledge through the retelling of stories, the ceremonial ritual, one of which is the birch-bark scrolls (Deleary 1990:36). Otter derives its power both from the water and from the land. It thus partakes of and has a role in mediating between the powers above and the powers below (Smith 1995:187). The Midewiwin ceremony itself is thus, as John A. Grim writes (1983:79), "established as a unique event of cosmic centration and participation by the assembled personalistic powers... [and is]... ritually presented as the accumulated force of the multi layered cosmos..." Insofar as otter is represented on rock art we have what Fred Pine calls "true teaching," for it is more than a story, it is "a map for your mind," leading all people to discover "the path to travel in the spiritual world." Rock paintings are "a familiar record of the dreamscape - a perception as real to aboriginal nations as that gained from the outward world" (Sah-Kah-Odjew-Wahg-Sah 1993:9,19). These paintings are an ancient art gallery, spirits on stone, and painted dreams. THE IMPACT OF PATTERNED OTTER I note two patterned forms of otter. The first pattern is that of otter as coterminus with the person of Midewiwin practitioners. The second is otter in stylized, abstract and geometric patterns. The Midewiwin influenced the otter manitou so that they, the Mide, would appear in the form and power of otter. The visual and verbal representation of otter, then, is the power of otter manifest in the person of the Mide (Vecsey 1983: ). The Midewiwin were and are the otter manitous. Thus the deliberations regarding Treaty Three, the encounters with the Canadian government, and the representation of the interests of their people were inspired by the otter through the Midewiwin negotiators. The treaty signing itself, the interpretation and representation of the spirit of the treaty came under the aegis of otter manitou. Like leaven fermenting dough, this spirit permeated both all of Ojibwa life and the con-

12 370 MICHAEL M. POMEDLI nections between Ojibwa and their Canadian relatives. For when the Midewiwin strove to bargain with governmental representatives, when they laughed and rejoiced, when they envisioned a communal and consensual relationship, it was the spirit of the otter that they manifested, for in a real way they were otters. To adapt the words of Martin Heidegger (1996), otter became a being in the world, and one class of these beings was the members of the Midewiwin. In addition to being incarnated in the Midewiwin, otter was subsumed into several non-figurative forms. Thus, stylized otter in abstract and geometric displays extends its power and influence into both ceremonial and everyday life, for women, as the bearers and transmitters of culture, created patterns of the otter's tracks and trails on garments and medicine bags, on ornaments, utensils, and ceremonial objects. These women are the origin and often the distribution of spiritual energy. Such artists and spiritual persons used new techniques and expressions in response to changing lifestyles and materials. While the Native male's response was more utilitarian than decorative, women succeeded "in defining culture amidst the complex mosaic of post-contact Native American History," David W. Penney (1989:17) states: Again, these non-figural motifs are not merely decorative, nor merely aesthetic, nor marks of prestige, but rather they give images of voices and dreams of the otter. These geometric designs are the embodiment of special powers from dreams, sometimes representing voices, or moods and feelings from the weaver's life, now given quasi-immaterial expressions. These symbols of meaning and power which often imitated the appearance of manitous in visions and dreams, speak in muted or articulate voices to settlers, business interests, government representatives, missionaries, and geographers (Desveaux 1993). The artists tried to embody the spiritual in immanent form, to give "visual expression to experiences which were mystical and elusive, and which, being secret, could not be fully divulged even to the wife or mother who embroidered and wove the designs he described...," Phillips asserts. "[The artists] sought to capture in static form qualities of light, movement and sound that were an integral part of his dream." The designs tried "to symbolize the energies unleashed by the manitos" (Phillips 1984a:25,26,30). These patterned forms of experienced images and sounds have a flexible nature and a universalist application; they have shapes which repli-

13 THE OTTER: LAUGHTER AND TREATY THREE 371 cate the order of the cosmos as they are transferred onto objects. These patterned forms have application to all peoples and not merely to the original hearer and seer, for they suffuse the treaty document itself. While they may need interpretation, they have the power to delight and to elicit the otter's laughter for both Natives and non-natives alike. REFERENCES Angel, Michael The Midewiwin: discordant voices, conflicting visions. Ph.D. the sis, University of Manitoba. Berbaum, Sylvie Ojibwa powwow Thunder Bay: Northern Institute. world, ed. and trans, by Michael M. Pomedli. Blessing, Fred K Some uses of bone, horn, claws and teeth by Minnesota Ojibwa Indians. The Ojibway Indians observed. St. Paul: The Minnesota Archaeological Society, Chanin, Paul The natural history of otters. New York: Facts on File. Coleman, Sister Bernard Decorative designs of the Ojibwa of Northern Minnesota. Washington: The Catholic University of America Press. Council Fires, February 1993, 12. Deleary, Nicholas The Midewiwin, an aboriginal spiritual institution. Symbols of continuity: a native studies culture-based perspective. M.A. thesis, Carleton University. Densmore, Frances Chippewa music I. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin Chippewa Customs. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 86. Ddsveaux, Emmanuel Metamorphosis as a limit to the symbolic values of animals. Papers of the 19th Algonquian Conference, ed. by William Cowan. (Ottawa: Carleton University), Les Grands Lacs et les Plaines, lefiguratifet le geometrique, les hommes et les femmes. Papers of the 24th Algonquian Conference, ed. by William Cowan (Ottawa: Carleton University), Fulford, George Manabus and Mitawin. Papers of the 19th Algonquian Conference, ed. by William Cowan (Ottawa: Carleton University), Grim, John A The shaman: pattern of Siberian and Ojibway healing, Norman: University of Oklahoma. Haley, Delphine, Sleek and savage, North America's weasel family. Seattle: Pacific Search. Hallowell, A. Irving Some empirical aspects of Northern Saulteaux religion. American Anthropologist 36: Harris, C.J Otters, a study of the recent Lutrinae. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Harrison, Julia. "He heard something laugh": otter imagery in the Midewiwin Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts, 62: The Midewiwin: the retention of an ideology. M.A. thesis, University of Calgary. Heidegger, Martin Being and time, trans, by Joan Stambaugh. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York.

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15 THE OTTER: LAUGHTER AND TREATY THREE Midewiwin myths of origin. Papers of the 15th Algonquian Conference, ed. b William Cowan (Ottawa: Carleton University), Vennum, Thomas Ojibwa origin-migration songs of the Mitewiwin. Journal of American Folklore 91: Warren, William W [1885]. History of the Ojibway nation. Minneapolis: Ross and Haines.