The Universe of The Ojibwe <strong>An</strong>ishinaabeg <strong>by</strong> <strong>Zhaawano</strong> Giizhik - 2014 “Women’s Healing Journey”’ <strong>by</strong> Aki-egwaniizid (Simone McLeod ) (Nehiya-Nakawe Ojibwe). Click on image. _______________________________________________________________ ANISHINAABEWAKI: also called <strong>An</strong>ishinaabe Aki. <strong>An</strong>ishinaabe land, where once was no pollution and springs flowed still clearly through the heart of mother earth; where flocks of eagle soared in the sky, whitefish abounded in the lakes and countless deer roamed the woods in herds. Traditionally, the <strong>An</strong>ishinaabeg and the land are one. They are one complete entity. Aki, besides being a geographical and political/economical concept, also has a spiritual/philosophical meaning. <strong>An</strong>ishinaabe metaphysics interprets the countless phenomena, forms, and forces of the natural world specific to man’s immediate environment purely in a cosmological context. Yet an equally great respect is manifested for all entities within the cosmos, even those that are more remote to mankind. All life forms are considered (more or less) animated and inter-related “persons” or “relatives” possessing a consciousness, rationale, and a will of their own. The Universe of The Ojibwe <strong>An</strong>ishinaabeg <strong>by</strong> <strong>Zhaawano</strong> Giizhik - 2014 28
The Universe of The Ojibwe <strong>An</strong>ishinaabeg <strong>by</strong> <strong>Zhaawano</strong> Giizhik - 2014 Thus, taken in the widest sense, Aki not only means “earth” or “country” but also “cosmos” – a diversified and complex social circle of overpoweringly immense and timeless proportions, completely devoid of emptiness and (linear) time, and permeated with and unified through certain values and properties such as kinship, mutuality, and reciprocity. In conclusion, the earth herself, a star, a sand dune, a river, a rain cloud, the winds, a human being, a fish, and so on – all these myriads of “next of kin persons” composing the sacred web of life can be traced back to one cosmic source. Some call it JIIBAMAAMAA, or Source of Powers; others call it GICHI-MANIDOO, or Great Mystery. In the traditional <strong>An</strong>ishinaabe conception, the earth, which Sky Woman - with the aid of a muskrat - created on the shell of a huge turtle, is flat. MIKINAAKOMINIS, or TURTLE ISLAND as it is called, is filled with the usual beings (plants, animals, humans, and features of the land) as well as the supernatural. Since the Great Mystery divided the creation into four inter-reliant orders– physical world, plant world, animal world, and human world – and four powers that compose the physical world – wind, water, fire, and rock – and subsequently sent four supernatural beings to the earth to teach mankind wisdom and medicine - Majiigawiz, Papiigawiz, Jiibayaabooz, and Wiinabozho -, it is only logical that the <strong>An</strong>ishinaabeg tend to group everything in fours. <strong>An</strong>ishinaabeg recognize four divisions of time: the day, the night, the moon, and the year; four directions in the universe: east, south, west, north; four kinds of plant beings: flowers, grasses, trees, and vegetables; four plant beings connected with the four directions and considered exceptionally sacred: tobacco, cedar, sage, and sweetgrass (see image to the left); four parts in everything that grows from the earth: the roots, the stem, the leaves, and the fruit; four kinds of animal beings: those who fly, those who swim, those who crawl, and those who walk; and four hills that mark the stages of human life: ba<strong>by</strong>hood, childhood, adulthood, and old age. Likewise, in spite of the general Native American belief that a person – be it a man, an animal, a plant, or a stone - consists of three parts, being: body (the physical part), spirit/soul (the consciousness associated with the person), and a mind (which resides in the brain), traditional <strong>An</strong>ishinaabeg sometimes distinguish at least four different component parts in each life form that are, to varying degrees, interchangeable. These are called: wiiyaw, which is the outward manifestation of self (the body, which may de-materialize into jiibay, or a ghost, after death); jichaag or ojichaagoma, which is a person’s true life force (spirit and soul, the core of self); jiiban, or a perceptual essence called “shadow” (a sixth sense); and jiibaaman (aura), which is an entity that emanates from a person’s spirit/soul/shadow. By the same token, a lake, or a rock, or a tree, or a blade of grass possesses (at least some parts of) these substances as much as human beings or fish or tiny insects do. The possibility of interchanging body/ghost, spirit/soul, shadow, and aura within one and the same person, along with the occasional appearance of the jichaag of one life form in the wiiyaw of another, makes the world of the <strong>An</strong>ishinaabeg an evocative dream world filled with mystery, a sometimes adventurous or even terrifying place to live in: things are often not at all what they seem… Besides Aki, the earth’s surface, there are many other realms of cosmos, of which the four quarters of the world, the air above the earth, the sky dome, and the underworld are the most important. These and many other realms are unified in the changeless and The Universe of The Ojibwe <strong>An</strong>ishinaabeg <strong>by</strong> <strong>Zhaawano</strong> Giizhik - 2014 29
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