Wikibooks: Introduction to Anishinabe Culture and History/The Anishinabe and the Land

• Format: Book
• Language: English
• Subjects: Canada; anishina*
• Online Access: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Introduction_to_Anishinabe_Culture_and_History/The_Anishinabe_and_the_Land

TOC This chapter is an overview of the Anishinabe s relationship with the land where they lived. =The land and the seasons= The traditional homelands of the Anishinabe the western half of the Great Lakes region are heavily wooded and have a short growing season long winters and poor soil unsuited to large scale agriculture. The Anishinabe therefore were hunter gatherers who lived in harmony with the seasons and their land as a necessity. To have not done so would have meant starvation and death. Southeastern Canada Michigan Minnesota and Wisconsin the primary territories of the Anishinabe by the late 17th century are heavily wooded both with deciduous and coniferous trees. Lakes rivers and freshwater are abundant as is game berries and other wild edibles. However the winters can be bitterly cold and long and snow drifts and fall to heights of over ten feet in record years. Thus the Anishinabe had to be careful not to overharvest and to preserve enough food to survive the winter. In the spring it was maple tapping time time to gather the sap that would be turned into maple sugar as a seasoning and preservative for other foods. In summer huge groups of up to four hundred (though smaller gatherings of one to two hundred were far more common) gathered around the myriad lakes of Minnesota Wisconsin Michigan and the nearby regions of Canada in areas where resources were known to be plentiful. Fall was ricing time wild rice is one of the primary sources of food for the Anishinabe. In the winter it became necessary to break up into many small groups usually twenty to twenty five members of an extended family for a time of rest storytelling and crafts when there was little else one could do in the cold. =Maple sugar and wild rice two food staples of the Anishinabe= =Sugaring time= Between February and April or the Anishinabe moon of Izhkigamisegi Geezis (Boiling Time) was the month of maple sugaring an important ritual in the Anishinabe year that was celebrated more like a festival than work. Because of the climate of ...