Customer Reviews

Kitchi Gami: Life Among The Lake Superior Ojibway (Borealis Books)

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If you want to know how the ojibway indians lived in the early 17th century (200 years after meeting the first europeans) this is the book to read. It is written in a very analytical way and it becomes very obvious that the Kohl falls in love with these people.

He explains how they make their canoes and wigwams. How they prepare their food. How and why they preform traditional fesitvals/initiations. He also gives a number of accounts on the stories of nanabojou, the main character in ojibway myth.

At the end of the book he remarks that the most interesting thing about these people is the stories of nanabojou. Not so much the actual stories, but the fact that he is their main mythological character and not worshipped like herakles or shiva or thor or gilgamesh were.

History is always evolving, of course. However, when it's possible to get a relatively unbiased first-hand account of a people, such as Kitchi Gami, it can be an invaluable research aid, as well as a unique look into the lives of its subjects. I used Kitchi Gami, along with other similar first hand accounts, like William Warren's personal account, "History of the Ojibway People" and George Nelson's "The Orders of the Dreamed" and Francis Densmore's "Chippewa Customs" extensively when writing my novel, Neitherworld (also on sale on Amazon). They all provide a nuanced feel for the language and customs of the time that is difficult to get from our removed time. Kitchi_gami, recompiled helpfully by the Minnesota Historical Society Press, is perhaps the largest of these treatments. The only complaint I have is that if one is trying to get a pre-colonial view of the Ojibway (or, Ojibwe, Ojibwa, or Chippewa - which are all the same nation of tribes), one won't find it here or in any of the other books mentioned. By definition, it is impossible to have both a European/American account of life among the Ojibway while at the same time, observing them before "contamination" by the European or American worlds. Mr. Kohl has to take his Ojibway as they come, which can in some cases mean taking a mixture of Christian and Ojibway beliefs, for example, when dealing with the origin of the Mide' - the religious order of the Ojibway. In this case, we might really have a better perspective on the original beliefs today than these early ethnographers had, due to additional evidence and the benefit of another century or so of analysis. However, if you want the "you are here" feeling, Kitchi Gami is definitely worth a look.