Emma Cape and Carley Malloy, who both collaborated on the Schoolcraft Collection of Books in Indigenous Languages, wrote the following essays that further deepen the connections between these materials and Indigenous communities.

 

Ojibwe Abundance and Absence: A Short Reading within the Schoolcraft Collection Archive

Emma Cape

Anishinaabekwe/Lënapèxkwe by descent

 

Archival Tensions

The archives are a place of tension, especially for Native folks. In the archives, I often see mirrored the lived experiences of simultaneous invisibility and hypervisibility. Archives are not sites of neutrality, but carefully curated and imaginative spaces that tell (or choose not to tell) certain stories in certain ways. They are sites of both abundance and absence, where tensions are palpable and central to the stories themselves. The Schoolcraft Collection is no exception.

I felt this tension, this abundance and absence, in The speller and interpreter[1], and through its presence within the Schoolcraft Collection. Wesleyan Methodist missionary James Evans produced this text primarily for use among mission schoolteachers so that they could better communicate with Ojibwe students, to more effectively christianize, and thereby “civilize” them, weaponizing language as a tool of destruction. With this in mind, I wonder: What was Schoolcraft’s intent, his hope, even, in keeping materials like The speller and interpreter in his collection? What does his collection tell us about the types of knowledges he valued, or even recognized as valid? His knowledge of and proximity to Anishinaabemowin and Ojibwe ways of knowing and being are all thanks to his spouse, Bamewawagezhikaquay (Woman of the Sound the Stars Make Rushing Through the Sky, Jane Johnson Schoolcraft). What did she think of the texts Henry collected– those that painstakingly sought to reorganize Ojibwe life to mirror that of white, Christian households? Her voice’s profound absence in catalog records is but one example of this tension. And while missionization was largely a project of erasure, texts like The speller and interpreter harbor small sites of abundance that persist between the pages. The speller and interpreter, despite its intended use, contains sites of Ojibwe abundance and survivance[2]. Below are a few notable examples of such.

 

Opichi: A Robin Story

Few Anishinaabemowin words within The speller and interpreter are accompanied by any sort of context, though one of the words Evans expands upon is “O-be-je” (opichi), the Ojibwe word for robin. In a footnote, he explains his flawed understanding of an Ojibwe robin story: “There is a sort of veneration among the Ojibways for this little bird, having once been a boy, who as punishments for neglecting his religious duties of fasting and abstinence, was changed to a robin. This is a foolish story” (77). The way I know this story is much different: a boy transforms into a robin as both a lesson and a teaching for his father. His father is trying to force the boy down a path that’s unnatural for him, instead of supporting his son’s organic pursuit of self-discovery.

One of the teachings embedded within the opichi story is that we should not try to interfere with another person’s journey toward wholeness and self-realization. Ultimately, we have no way of knowing why Evans chose to include context for opichi in particular, but I find pleasant irony in the fact that he did. Someone must have shared this story with him, perhaps hoping he might look inward and benefit from the lesson. I like to imagine Bamewawagezhikaquay as the storyteller.

 

Relationality: Animacy and Gender

Much of Evans’s Speller and interpreter is concerned with gender roles. Missionaries sought to restructure Native households to mirror those of white, Christian, nuclear families, and did so as a means of attempted assimilation. This mirroring thus called for the entire reorganization of Ojibwe life. This reorganization included not just gender roles and societal structures, but also attempted to erase the ways in which Ojibwe understand the world around us and our place within the universe.

The relationality of Ojibwe knowing and being is seen within Anishinaabemowin. Anishinaabemowin revolves less around gender and more around animacy–whether or not something has life/has a spirit, or doesn’t have life/doesn’t have a spirit. And while there are words for man and woman, there are also words like aawi, meaning “they are a certain thing or being” or “they are who they are supposed to be.” One of the largest tensions and absences within The speller and interpreter is this lack of mention regarding Ojibwe being. Perhaps the language didn’t exist to translate this wholeness of being into English. Though I think more likely, this absence was necessary for Evans’s attempted restructuring of Ojibwe knowing and being to a universe in which Ojibwe women were subservient to men, and third-gendered Ojibwe simply didn’t exist.

This is not to say, however, that gender roles do not exist within Ojibwe societies, but that they take a much different form. At one point, Evans translates a word for a private water kettle, with the short footnote, “Used only by females” (117). In my first read through, I remember thinking, “That’s it? That’s all he’s going to say?” And while Evans’s may not have had additional context, I imagine it’s more likely that he purposely didn’t include it. A kettle used only by a female or females would indicate one’s Moon Time (i.e., menstrual cycle). For Ojibwe, one’s Moon Time is a great source of power; so much so that traditionally, women on their Moon wouldn’t prepare food or take part in ceremonies, and might drink from one’s own kettle.

 

“Truth in Mind”

The focus on gender morphs into lessons around poverty, in the tradition of material poverty’s association with moral failure. My eye-rolling in response to Evans’s attempts at lecture transforms to a silly grin. Words translated to “poverty, [in mind]” remind me of a concept I’d seen 20 or so pages earlier, translated as “faith, belief, (truth in mind)” (153, 129). These words, for Evans, are just members of a list. But for me, they serve as a welcome reminder of the abundance harbored within pages that seek to silence. To be impoverished in mind and to have truth in mind provides glimpses into Ojibwe worldviews. Poverty isn’t always material, but instead can often refer to how someone relates to the world around them, and whether they live their life in a good way. To have “truth in mind” acknowledges the Ojibwe belief of multiple truths, or that more than one truth can exist at the same time, each being equally valid.

 

Archival Abundance

This response is a humble attempt at my own articulations of tension. Within The speller and interpreter I find whole universes within poorly or mis-translated words, while also struggling to reckon with what and who’s missing. But although Evans designed The speller and interpreter as a tool of colonial erasure, it ultimately fails to silence Ojibwe voices. The Anishinaabemowin words throughout this text are themselves sites of Ojibwe abundance, despite Evans’s misunderstandings or intentional omissions. His inclusion of particular Ojibwe words and stories, even when poorly contextualized, contributes to an enduring narrative of Ojibwe presence within the colonial archive. My reading here also contributes to this presence. And Bamewawagezhikaquay’s absence within the catalog, while frustrating, is perhaps in and of itself a testament to the fact that Ojibwe voices, stories, and ways of knowing and being cannot be contained within the texts of a catalog or the walls of an archive, but are living, breathing, and will continue to flourish, in Vizenor’s vein of survivance, into the future.

[1] Evans, James. The Speller and Interpreter in Indian and English for the Use of the Mission Schools, and Such As May Desire to Obtain a Knowledge of the Ojibway Tongues (1837). Schoolcraft Collection of Books in Indigenous Languages. Boston Athenaeum, Boston, MA. https://cdm.bostonathenaeum.org/digital/collection/p16057coll24/id/60. 

[2] Survivance is defined as “an active sense of presence, the continuance of native stories, not a mere reaction, or a survivable name. Native survivance stories are renunciations of dominance, tragedy and victimry” and was first coined by Ojibwe cultural theorist Gerald Vizenor in Manifest Matters: Narratives on Postindian Survivance (1999). Vizenor’s “survivance” pairs well with Unangax̂ scholar Eve Tuck’s desire vs. damage-based framework, as explained in her piece “Suspending Damage: A Letter to Communities.” 

Emma Cape (Anishinaabekwe/Lènapëxkwe by descent) was born and raised in rural Kansas, though has spent much of her adult life in the Native Northeast. She graduated magna cum laude from Amherst College, where she received a B.A. in English and American Studies with concentration in Native American Studies. In 2024, she received her M.A. in Native American and Indigenous Studies from the University of California, Davis. She is currently the Program Manager for the Native American and Indigenous Studies Initiative (NAISI) at Brown University.

Ojibwe-Authored Recommendations

  • Child, Brenda J. Holding Our World Together: Ojibwe Women and the Survival of Community. Penguin Books, 2012.
  • Doerfler, Jill, et. al. Centering Anishinaabeg Studies: Understanding the World through Stories. Michigan State University Press, 2013.
  • Krawec, Patty. Becoming Kin: An Indigenous Call to Unforgetting the Past and Reimagining Our Future. Broadleaf Books, 2022.
  • Simpson, Leanne Betasamosake. As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom Through Radical Resistance. University of Minnesota Press, 2017.
  • Simpson, Leanne Betasamosake. Theory of Water: Nishnaabe Maps to the Times Ahead. ARP Books, 2011.
  • Vizenor, Gerald. Survivance: Narratives of Native Presence. University of Nebraska Press, 2008.

Matrilineal Survivance: Remembering Charlotte Instead of Schoolcraft

Carley Malloy

Citizen Potawatomi Nation

Memories or Stories

There are moments when I see her. It doesn’t matter where I may be, but when I think of her, I’m standing in the driveway of my grandparents house, looking out to the backyard and the memorial garden. That’s where she is, with her back to me and fists lightly set on her hips. I don’t call out to her, just watch her bend down to snatch weeds from the garden. It’s a warm day in the summer, with a breeze dancing through the silver maples that are much younger than they stand today. When I see her, she is middle aged– her hair hasn’t grayed and she stands straight and confident.

My mother tells me stories of my great-grandmother. My mom shares about Charlotte’s long, jet black hair that reached her waist. The hair that she always took the time to tuck into a long braid, wrapping it around her head like a halo. Mom tells me about her favorite perfume, and how she prayed to God everyday. Although Charlotte and I didn’t meet in this life, I can picture her with such clarity, I feel as though these are my own childhood memories. While my memories are created by my mother’s storytelling, my mom heard stories from Charlotte about Oklahoma.

It’s hard to imagine an Indian woman making it out of Oklahoma, finding her way north, closer to the homelands than Oklahoma would ever be. The Bodéwadmik have language to speak of the land up North– where our peoples’ first migration began. We have language for waterways, lush greenery, and the harsh winters. My people didn’t have the words to talk to the community and land in Oklahoma. My ancestors didn’t know the words for the beings there. When the Bodéwadmi were removed from the woodlands to the plains, much of our Bodéwadmiwen wasn’t useful. Instead, words for our hunting grounds, gardens, and ricing spots were forcefully intended to be replaced with the Lord’s Prayer, Hail Mary, and the Ten Commandments.

Despite Bodéwadmiwen belonging up in the Great Lakes and the attempted genocide and conversion of Bodéwadmi people, my community never completely lost our culture or language. A form of resistance and continuance, is through story. These stories include oral traditions that have been passed down for thousands of years, or these stories can be the ones my mom tells me about our ancestors. Bodéwadmik taught, learned, resisted– and we continue to do so today.

 

The Language of Religion

When looking through the Schoolcraft Collection, the resistance and survival of my people is both obscured and clearly highlighted. Schoolcraft’s Collection holds a prayer book in Bodéwadmiwen, by Christian Hoecken.

This prayer book, A.M.D.G. Pewani ipi Potewatemi Missinoikan, Eyowat Nemadjik, Catholiqus Endjik, includes the Lord’s Prayer, as well as Hail Mary (Hoecken, A.M.D.G. Pewani ipi Potewatemi missinoikan, 20-21). I remember these prayers as the first two I ever learned, being encouraged to recite them every night before bed by my mom, just as her mother had done for her, and as her mother’s mother, Charlotte, had done before that. There are times that I still do, when I’m feeling as though I’ve lost my footing. These prayers, much like the Bodéwadmik creation stories, have been passed down through generations, the two going hand in hand, yet competing, almost intertwined together.

Doerfler, Sinclair, and Stark speak of creation stories in Centering Anishinaabeg Studies, saying that “the Creation Story is therefore both aadizookaanag and dibaajimowin… Together they are like maps, or perhaps instructions, that teach us how to navigate the past, present, and future. They tell us about the past, but at the same time inform our present and guide our future” (Doerfler, xviii). Missionaries saw religion and prayer as superior, yet adjacent, to our creation stories. Reciting the Lord’s Prayer and Hail Mary provide instructions and guidance on how Catholic people are supposed to live life each day. The prayers remind worshippers that in the past, Jesus died for our sins, and in order to have a divine future, we must live life now in a specific way. The Bodéwadmik creation stories tell us about our past, our kin, and our home. The stories give context and ways of helping to live life in a good way, so that future generations may have the same opportunities to do so. Stories teach about the past, our ancestors, and lessons that have been learned. When creation stories are told in Bodéwadmiwen, it creates a layer of connection and appreciation for our relatives and place that is not as transparent when these stories are told in English. Language matters when people connect and try to better understand each other.

When religious texts are written in Bodéwadmiwen, it allows missionaries easier access in teaching these texts to Bodéwadmik people. However, many translations don’t accurately encapsulate the true meaning of the language, the relationships, and way of life of the Bodéwadmik. There are superficial similarities between Bodéwadmi viewpoints and the Catholic religion; including a Creator, ceremonies, and oral histories passed down through generations. These similarities allowed missionaries access into the religion of the Bodéwadmik– leading to the abuse of both the Catholic religion as a means of conversion and genocide, as well as the Bodéwadmik dedication to a higher power.

Since Bodéwadmik used to be exclusively an oral culture, stories served as directions to places, lessons for growth, and information that existed on Turtle Island long before anything else. When looking through Hoecken’s prayer book, there are two cultures colliding. The prayers are ancient texts for a religion that originated and was practiced far from the Bodéwadmik, yet it is seen in Bodéwadmiwen. There is an ancient language, Bodéwadmiwen, never traditionally written, being used to spread an unfamiliar way of being. As a Bodéwadmi kwe, I also notice in Hoecken’s prayer book, that there are many stories missing. We are missing the stories of Bodéwadmi people sharing their language in a way that Hoecken could write down. We are missing the trust that was given to those who were learning Bodéwadmiwen– trust that their language would be used in the same way the Bodéwadmik used it– in a good, relational way. We are missing the Bodéwadmik that had their language, their words, stolen from them as they exited their mouths, and used in ways that manipulated and worked to erase culture, story, and tradition.

When reading another work by Hoecken, “The Litany of Saints,” I spent my first preview trying to translate the piece into English (Hoecken, Potewatemi nememissinoikan, 25-30). I was familiar with hearing “The Litany of Saints” during our church services growing up on Sundays. This prayer contains many names that are repeated continuously throughout, such as “God,” “Lord,” and “Christ” (“Litany of the Saints”). I thought I would be able to easily pick out the translations for these names. I had learned of Mamogasnan, Nosinan, and Kije Mennito as Creator and higher power in Bodéwadmiwen. I admit my own lack of knowledge, having not grown up speaking and learning Bodéwadmiwen, but being a later learner through my tribe’s online classes. If I had grown up with my language and traditional teachings, I assume it would have been easier to understand the language I was reading.

“The Litany of Saints” uses a translation of Kije Mennito as the chosen translation for “Lord” and “God.” However, neither term appears in the “Lord’s Prayer,” in Hoecken’s prayer book (Hoecken, A.M.D.G. Pewani ipi Potewatemi missinoikan, 20). Rather, “Osimirangi” appears to be the term for “father.” Although these terms are referred to differently in English, both “Father” and “God” refer to the same larger power in Western, Catholic texts. When I’ve looked through other renditions of the Lord’s Prayer in Bodéwadmiwen, I’ve seen “Nosinan” and “Nos’nan,” a more common term today for “father” in our language. When I first began looking through the texts from Hoecken, I became confused with the use of Kije Mennito, rather than Mamogasnan (as is used in many Potawatomi prayers as “Creator”). In my mind, I could understand the nuances, but when I went to write about them, I struggled. I wondered what had changed Hoeken’s translations– had he learned new terminology? Had the Bodéwadmik created a term that better encapsulated the Catholic, Western God that Hoeken was trying to translate to? I wondered what nuisances had occurred, and what had changed. Did the Bodéwadmik work to try to protect Creator and others from Hoeken as missions were building boarding schools throughout the Great Lakes and Indian Country?

As I grappled with my own language barriers, both to my own language, Bodéwadmiwen, and to how Hoeken tried to translate terms for “God” and “Lord,” I turned to my community for help. I reached out to the online language community to verbalize the differences in language, and why these prayer books may have used Kije Mennito. My community was ready to lend a helping hand, many people reached out to help me try to work through the differences in English. There were people that offered their own thoughts about Kije Mennito and Mamogosnan, the differences and similarities. The more advice I read, the more I realized that English could never capture the true meaning of these terms. Kije Mennito and Mamogosnan weren’t meant to be described in English, and explained why so many Bodéwadmik also couldn’t clearly articulate the differences. My community also reminded me that in order to truly understand the differences, I should return to our creation stories for clarity. Benton-Banai is quoted in Centering Anishinaabeg Studies as saying: “And so, Anishinaabe can see that if he knows his creation story, if she knows her creation story, they know also how all of life moves. They can know how life comes to be…” (Simpson, 280-281).  Our creation stories help us live a life of understanding– understanding ourselves, our people, and our interaction with every piece of the world around us. At this moment in time, I understand creation stories as highlighting that Kije Mennito is the spirit that connects us all, while Mamogosnan is our higher power.

 

The Story of Memory

When we are lost or confused, some turn to religion, while others turn to story. My great grandmother, Charlotte, grew up in a time when it wasn’t safe to be a Bodéwadmi kwe. Yet, she learned how to use religion as a mode of survival, while maintaining her cultural knowledge. I do not blame my Bodéwadmik ancestors for adopting a religion that was beaten into them through abuse, forced removals, and broken promises. Rather, it is people such as Schoolcraft and Hoecken that worked to steal our stories and land by removing us from our cultural and place-based contexts and replacing them with Euro-American ways of being. They took the words that were spoken and tried to use them as an entryway into religion and assimilation. Yet, our survivance and stories were stronger (Vizenor 2008).

Bodéwadmik stories have continued to be passed down, as has religion for many of us. Schoolcraft’s efforts of assimilation and genocide weren’t successful, and Bodéwadmik ended up using the work of colonizers and missionaries for language and cultural revitalization. Many prayer books are used now across Turtle Island to help tribes reawaken their language and cultural traditions- everything Schoolcraft was working against. Even when Indigenous people were sharing their language with colonizers and it was used to try to diminish their Indigeneity, it led to both survival and resistance in an unplanned way (“Language Department”). While there are Bodéwadmik reconnecting to their heritage, there are also many who grew up with traditional ways and stories, waiting to help and meet these reconnecting kin where they are.

Carley Malloy is an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She has lived locally on Wabanaki (Abenaki land) throughout her life. Carley graduated from Amherst College where she majored in American studies (with a concentration in Native studies), education studies, and geology. She began her career as a math teacher and equity leader at an Upper Valley middle school, before moving to support students in higher education. Currently, Carley is the Program Coordinator of Community and Leadership Development for the Native American Program at Dartmouth, and also helps to create land-based professional development opportunities for teachers in different parts of the country.

 

Works Cited