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Historical notes on the Trade Blankets and Jingles,
by Emerson Nanigishki’ing
Migration Story
Aaniin Emerson Nanigishki’ing ndiiznikaaz Rama Anishnaabe ndaw, I am Rama Indian. Yes, what I know about this story is what I can only imagine, as it happened long ago. Some say it took 500 years to get here from the eastern seaboard when food was found on the waters of what we now consider as our country, from the Waabaanong East to the many lakes and waters of Minnesota and Manitoba. This history is an important part of our migration ceremony and our prophecies, and is instilled in our blood memory.
In this time, we lived relatively in peace (bzaantemagad). Knowing many places, we were camping and were able to travel and live as the Great Spirit intended for us to live as Anishinaabe, with our ceremonies and epistemologies intact. We know there were seven major stopping places: Turtle-shaped island Montreal, Big Sound Water Niagara Falls, Detroit River Walpole Island, Manitoulin Island, Rapids Sault St. Marie, Spirit Island Duluth and Madeline Island, Lake Superior.
Systemic Extermination
Trade Blankets historically were used as gifts, presents to nations signifying agreements concerning land use, i.e., travel over a nation’s land. Maybe the most important agreements happened with the British Government’s 1763 Royal Proclamation, where our two nations would travel separately and not disturb one another but always be in peace together, each in our own canoes, each having our cultural ways and the white-man with their ways.
Respectfully
In this time, it was tumultuous for our people. Life was harsh as land and resources were being stolen from us in both the U.S. and Canada. There were massacres of full Anishinaabe Nations through wars, epidemics, relocation and forced marches, broken treaties and starvation ministered by President Andrew Jackson, Prime Minister John MacDonald and many other foreign leaders.
We were a trading people, often sealing the deal through smoking the Pipe (Zaagaaswaa’idin), the Creator being witness to celebrations of feasts when coming to agreements. It seemed our ways were too simple or too slow for the Mayagwewniniwag Foreign Men. They wanted to accelerate their manipulative idea of Manifest Destiny or terra nullius (1) by infecting blankets with smallpox to kill our people who were defenseless against a foreign disease. To close this section off, there are many stories of atrocities being struck upon our people in the whole of Turtle Island (2). Lara Kramer’s work with the Trade Blanket is a reminder of that time and an education of the history of the Anishnaabe People during the period of Trade Blankets.
“We are still here”
History and meaning of jingles: this is a story of how the Jingle Dress came to be, into our time. Some say it came with the last pandemic 100 years ago, some say it came at the same time as Spanish Flu (1917-1918), one from Whitefish Bay, Ontario, and one from Mille Lacs, Minnesota. In the grandfather’s dream a young girl became well through the healing of the making of a woman’s Jingle Dress, the jingles (snuff tins) making a sound much like rain, us Anishinaabe knowing spiritual powers move through air whether in song or language. So today the mantra is “dance for the people who can’t” and it is very important healing. There is much love and respect to the Jingle Dress. There is a comparable feel to these blankets, offering comfort and healing to our people.
In closing
The tinkling of jingles is healing. I started to think this way when Lara was performing last year 2020 at Dancemakers in Toronto, her wild rice installation, Eating bones and Licking bread, moving from the ancestor period to the last 500 years under, should I say, extreme indignities to hopefully the future, which is light for our nation.
Those seven stopping places are related to the seven fires prophecies (3). We are now in 2021, at the seventh fire. Our future children need to pick up these important teachings and in fact teach mankind because as everybody knows we are the stewards, caretakers of this land, and whoever witnesses the images Lara has created will take the teaching under consideration. As well, our young people must pick up the ceremonies and language. The present pandemic is taking our elders and teachers. Losing their knowledge, we are at a critical stage. Mii i
1. The Doctrine of Discovery was the international law that gave license to explorers to claim vacant land (terra nullius) in the name of their sovereign. Vacant land was that which was not populated by Christians. If the lands were not occupied by Christians they were vacant, therefore could be defined as “discovered” and sovereignty, dominion, title and jurisdiction claimed.
However, North America was far from vacant when European explorers began arriving. When Christopher Columbus arrived in 1492, the lands were indeed occupied by 100 million [2] Indigenous Peoples or one fifth of the world’s population at the time. But, as they were not Christians, they were not humans.
It remains the basis for Canadian law and as such continues to impact Indigenous Peoples.
It gave sovereignty or title of Indigenous traditional lands and territories to the Crown. It remains today “the legal justification for the colonial occupation of our lands and our nations. As long as Canada bases its existence on that Doctrine, it is hard to characterize it as anything other than a racist state where one race has been given the right to subjugate and confiscate the lands of another.”
"Indigenous Title and The Doctrine of Discovery", [January 26, 2020], [Online], Indigenous Corporate Training Inc., [https://www.ictinc.ca/blog/indigenous-title-and-the-doctrine-of-discovery], (Accessed April 2021).
2. “Turtle Island is a part of the whole creation story, it was/is a vision. It is foundational in who we are, where we come from. Ojibwa country, territory is what we call Mother Earth, the land we are on. Turtle Island and Mother Earth share similar concepts, beliefs.”
– Anishinaabe Elder and language carrier, Emerson Ninigishki’ing (Chippewas of Rama First Nation member) 2021.
3. “THE SEVEN FIRES" IS THE TIME WE ARE LIVING NOW. It was foretold that in the Seventh Fire, a new people would emerge, a new generation who would not let all the pain and anger and lies stop them from finding out the truth about who they are and what has happened.
It would be a time when the new people would look back over the Trail of Tears of so many generations and ask “why?” In looking back, they would notice things others had left beside the trail and they would go back and pick them up and bring those things with them into where we are now. The things that were left behind were the various ceremonies, the medicines, the drums, the songs, the dances, the languages, the stories— all those things that gave meaning to being an Ojibway.
In trying to find the Original Meaning of these things, the new generation had to seek out and find the remaining Teachers and Elders who had this knowledge. They had to find those who had not “fallen asleep”. In finding and reclaiming meaning for themselves and their lives, it becomes their task to stir the remaining embers of the Original Instructions into a Fire of Healing in order to bring as many others as possible into rebuilding a Sacred Circle of Life. They are the ones who spent their lives stirring others to waken, discover, and reclaim Culture and Spirituality back into the Circle of their lives. They are the ones who inspire others to walk again, the Good Red Road.”
Gaikesheyongai, Sally, The Seven Fires: An Ojibway Prophecy, Toronto : Sister Vision Press, 1994.
Dazibao thanks Lara Kramer, Ida Baptiste, Emerson Nanigishkang, Stefan Petersen, MAI, the Café Cherrier (Alexandre and Jacques Boisseau) and the Bonsecours Market (Claude Pronovost) for their invaluable assistance as well as the Musée d’art urbain for the donation of the billboards.
Dazibao receives financial support from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Conseil des arts de Montréal, the ministère de la Culture et des Communications and the Ville de Montréal.
Dazibao acknowledges that we are located on unceded territory of the Kanien'kehá: ka Nation and that Tiohtiá: ke / Montreal is historically known as a gathering place for many First Nations, and today, is home to a diverse population of Indigenous as well as other peoples.