Native Food - Ojibwe/Chippewa

John White Taking a Meal 1585 British Museum 

"The people living along the north shore of Lake Huron were migratory except for certain seasons of the year when they remained in those locations most productive of fish or when they planted and harvested their crops. The Saulteaux, Mississauga, and Amikwa undertook some gardening, but because of adverse climatic conditions their corn did not always ripen...In any event, none was dependent their crops...During the summer, Indians, on a regular basis...traveled to Sault Sainte Marie. The rapids there supported an extensive fishery during September and October...Dexterity and strength were needed to be successful. An individual had to stand upright in a bark canoe among the rapids and thrust a dip net deep into the water to se cure the fish. The operation was repeated over and over again, six to seven large fish being taken each time, until a load was obtained...The Saulteaux, Mississauga, and Nikikouek left their gathering centers in June and dispersed along the shores of lake Huron. The Missisauga before doing so gathered at the mouth of the Mississagi River where they took sturgeon and other fish...The Amikwa secured trout, sturgeon, and whitefish. The Saulteaux and Amikwa during the fall gathered blueberries, which they preserved for the winter; the Saulteaux speared sturgeon. When the crops were nearly ripe, the people returned home. At the approach of winter, they again moved to the shores of Lake Huron where they killed beaver and moose.They did not return to their gathering centers until spring when they again planted their gardens."---Handbook of North American Indians, William C. Sturtevant general editor, Volume 15: Northeast, Bruce G. Trigger volume editor [Smithsonian Institution:Washington DC] 1978 (p. 762)

"Little information exists about the way of life of the Southeastern Ojibwa during this period [1760-1830]. On many of the islands on the north shore of Lake Huron from the French River to the Missisagi River, they continued to raise limited quantities of corn. Some who resided during the summer at Sault Sainte Marie went to the west during the winter to hunt. The main animals taken were deer, raccoon, beaver, and marten. Each family had its own lands with the exclusive rights to hunt upon them...Apparently at this time 'family trapping territories' emerged in southern Ontario as a mechanism of resource allocation. A major subsistence activity of the Southeastern Ojibwa was fishing. On the borders of Lake Ontario, the Ojibwa speared salmon and other large fish by torchlight from a canoe. Along the north shore of Lake Huron, sturgeon fisheries were exploited during the summer...The Ojibwa who resided at Sault Sainte Marie and other from surrounding areas depended as formerly upon the productive whitefish fishery occurring in the Saint Mary's River. These fish, weighing between 6 and 15 pounds each, formed a large portion of the native people's winter provisions. Once caught, they were dried over a smoky fire...Where possible the Southeastern Ojibwa gathered wild rice, maple sap, and other vegetal products. The Ojibwa of Sault Sainte Marie often relied upon maple syrup for food, and its preparation was an important activity. In the spring, after the winter search for furs and during the final muskrat hunt the women left for the maple groves to make sugar, some of which they bartered to the traders. While the women collected the sap, boiled it, and completed the sugar, the men were busy cutting wood, making fires, and hunting and fishing, in part to supply food for the camps. Occasionally, Indians lived solely for a time upon maple sugar."---ibid (p. 763-764)

"Farming, 1830-1930. As the occupation of southern Ontario and Michigan by Europe-Americans continued, the Ojibwa had to restrict their movements and utilization of the land more and more...The Ojibwa rapidly adopted farming in the extreme southern part of Ontario and Michigan between 1820 and 1840 and somewhat later to the north. For a time, farming appears to have been on a rather extensive scale. The people raised hay, wheat, oats, peas, Indian corn, potatoes, and other vegetables, and kept livestock; some families had small orchards...the Ojibwa also collected wild rice and maple sap, hunted and fished...wild rice was an important food, although maple sugar was probably more so...Hunting and fishing supplied the Southeastern Ojibwa with food...Undoubtedly, considerable variation existed from group to group depending upon the availability of game resources...To the north...the Indians wen fishing in the fall, during the winter took rabbits and partridge, and then in the spring planted their cops...The Indians hunted primarily deer, occasionally bear and duck, and most other forms of wildlife...Fishing may have been more important to the Indians of southern Ontario and Michigan than hunting or trapping during the nineteenth century. The Ojibwa around Sault Sainte Marie, as in the past, lived on whitefish summer and winter...Another form of economic activity engaged in by the Ojibwa was the sale or barter of food to non-Indians..."---ibid (p. 764-765)

"The vast and eclogicaly varied region covered by the Plains Ojibwa created a cult rural canvas on which diverse connections were drawn to the plains as well as Eastern Woodlands...In the earliest mentions of their life on the plains, the Ojibwa were reported to hunt buffalo largely during the fall and winter in small groups under the direction of a buffalo dreamer or pound-maker, using surround and impounding techniques...In later years, buffalo were procured more often in two large annual hunts, one in the summer for meat and another in the fall for meat and robes...Since Plains Ojibwa lived much of the year either in the parklands proper or at parkland oases in the midst of the prairies, they also hunted and trapped a variety of other game, including moose, elk, white-tailed and black-tailed deer, rabbit, muskrat, and quail. Indeed, for those living closest to the parklands, some of these species probably remained important in local food supplies...The Plains Ojibwa also fished...those closest to the parklands continued their reliance on wild rice, maple sugar, and other woodlands plant resources, while the ones living on the plains became more dependent on vegetable foods such as wild turnips...In both prairie and parkland environments, Plains Ojibwa were reported to grow native and imported crops, from corn to potatoes."---Handbook of North American Indians, William C. Sturtevant general editor, Volume 13: Plains, Raymond J. DeMallie volume editor [Smithsonian Institution:Washington DC] 2001 (p. 654-655)

"Prior to European contact, the Ojibwa demonstrated a great deal of respect for the cycle of nature and did not exploit its resources....According to the Ojibwa spirituality, the Sun is father to the people and the Earth is aki, 'that which is sacred,' and mother of the people and other living things. The interaction between the Sun and the Earth is what provides all that is necessary to sustain life...For this reason, food gathering activities were taken very seriously, and the products of the Creation were viewed as gifts rather than as commodities...Ojibwa bands gathered in summer villages to fish and plant gardens of corn, beans, squash, and pumpkins. Bands divided in winter and moved to their hunting grounds. Hunting, trapping, and fishing were means of subsistence in the winter. Spring villages were located near rivers where large numbers of fish were spawning. Women gathered berries and nuts and maple sap to make maple syrup and sugar in the spring. Fall encampments were designed to prepare food stores of rice, which was harvested from nearby rivers and lakes; agriculture which was harvested from nearby rivers and lakes,; agriculture harvested in August; and meat, which was often smoked or dried into jerky. Nets, bone and wood hooks, and spears were used for fishing...Ojibwa used the bow and arrow, snares, and deadfalls for hunting deer, moose, bear, beaver, lynx, mink, marten, otter, rabbit, and caribou in the North...The Ojibwa were resourceful in finding items in nature for cleaning and careful in exposing of refuse. Stiff brushes were used for washing cooking utensils and the hands. Dishes were washed on a nearby beach or bank of a river with lye and sand. Refuse not eaten by dogs was burned. In Chippewa Customs Densmore [the author] described in great detail the food that was consumed by the Ojibwa. Vegetarian foodstuff included wild rice, corn, maple sugar and syrup, pumpkins and squash (fresh or dried for winter), corn silk, dried pumpkin blossoms (used to thicken and give a special flavor to broth), wild potatoes, acorns, milkweed flowers, bulrush root, basswood and aspen sap, sweet substance found under the outer bark of woodpine, and moss from white pine. The Ojibwa did not drink water until it was boiled, usually with wintergreen, raspberry, spruce, or snowberry leaves or wild cherry twigs. Dried berries, wild ginger, bearberry, and mountain mint were used as seasoning. Bread was made from flour, salt, and water; it was kneaded into round, flat loaves and cooked on a frying pan placed on the fire or fastened on sticks stuck into the ground before the fire. Fish eggs were eaten, boiled or fried. Fish were eaten fresh or stored for later consumption by being dried or frozen. Ducks and pigeons and other wild birds were boiled with rice or potatoes. Moose and deer meat was boiled, roasted, or dried. Bear meat was cut into strips and hung by a flame to dry or put on high racks to freeze. Especially delicious due to its high fat content, it was prepared boiled. The bear head and paws were boiled and eaten as a delicacy. Very fatty, the liver and intestines were fried until crispy. Bear tallow was used for seasoning, as a remedy for rheumatism, or as a hair and skin moisturizer. Rabbit meat was boiled or dried. The bones were cooked and pounded into a powder that was mixed with grease exhumed from the boiled meat and eaten. All trapped animals except the marten were eaten. Beaver tails were a delicacy due to their fatty content."---"Ojibwa," Gale Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes, Volume I, edited by Sharon Maliowski and Anna Sheets [Gale:Detroit] 1998 (p. 194)

"Native cuisine was closely influenced by the seasons, as the Ojibwa changed camps in seminomadic pattern to locate themselves closer to food sources. For example, because the Ojibwa used maple sugar or maple syrup as a seasoning, during the late spring they lived near maple sugar trees. each family or group of families returned to a traditional location where they had stored utensils and had marked with an ax cut the trees they would tap. A typical sugar camp or sugar bush encompassed an area of some 900 taps or cuttings, with up to three taps make per tree. The Ojibwa collected maple sap in birch bark containers and poured it into vats make of moose hide, wood, or bark, and later into brass kettles, where it was boiled until it became syrup. The syrup was strained, reheated, thickened, and stirred in shallow troughs until it formed granulated sugar. Birch bark cones were packed with sugar, tied together, and hung from the ceiling of the wigwam or storage building. The Ojibwa also poured the sap into wooden molds or directly into snow to form maple sugar candy. Camps were moved in the summer to be close to gardens and wild berry patches. The Ojibwa cultivated gardens of corn, pumpkins, and squash. Dried berries, vegetables, and seeds were stored in underground pits. They drank teas boiled from plants and herbs and sweetened with maple sugar. The Ojibwa fished throughout the year, using hooks, nets, spears, and traps. Fish and meat were dried and smoked so they could be stored. In late summer the Ojibwa moved again to be near wild rice fields. Wild rice (in Ojibwa, mahnomin, manomin, or manoomin) is a grain that grows on long grasses in shallow lakes or along streams. As the edible rice seeds began to mature, families marked the area they would harvest by tying the rice stalks together, using knots or dyed rope that would distinguish their claim. The rice harvest was a time of community celebration, starting with the announcement by an annually appointed rice chief or elder that the fields were ready. One team member stood in the canoe pushing a long forked pole to guide the canoe through the grasses. The other team member sat in the canoe, reaching to bend the grass over the canoe and hitting the grass with wooden stocks called beaters in order to shake the wild rice seeds from the grass without permanently injuring the plant. On sure, the rice was dried in the sun, and then parched in a kettle to open the hull. A person in clean moccasins then 'danced the rice' treading on it to remove the hull and then tossing it into the air to winnow the chaff. A medicine man blessed the first rice harvested, and each ricing pair donated rice to a communal fund to feed the poor. Rice was often boiled and sweetened with maple sugar or flavored with venison or duck broth. Up to one-third of the annual harvest was stored, usually in birch bark baskets. The rice season lasted from ten days to three weeks. Ricers often poled through their sections every few days as the rice seeds matured at differing rates. They were also deliberately inefficient, leaving plenty of rice to seed the beds for the following year."---"Ojibwa," Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America, Robert Von Dassanowsky contributing editor, Jeffrey Lehman volume editor, Volume 2, end edition [Gale Group:Detroit] 2000 (p. 1342-1343)

See: Frances Densmore's Chippewa Customs [1929]  Food section is on p. 39-44.