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The Ojibway are a North American indigenous people who originated in what is now the northern Midwestern U.S. and southern Canada. The Ojibway are a subgroup of the Anishinaabe indigenous people.
Ojibway Quotes in Night Flying Woman
The Night Flying Woman quotes below are all either spoken by Ojibway or refer to Ojibway. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Prologue: The Forest Cries
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Now the neighborhood is only four blocks long and two blocks wide, whittled down by urban renewal and the freeways which reach their tentacles all around us.
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Get LitCharts A+Our paydays were on different days and so whoever had money lent carfare and bought meat and vegetables. […] This was how we got a toehold in the urban areas—by helping each other.
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No Indian family dared approach the relief and welfare agencies of the Twin Cities. They knew that they would only be given a bus ticket and be told to go back to the reservation where the government would take care of them as usual.
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“What good are these tales in today's world?” asked many people, never realizing that the Ojibway tales teach a philosophy for living. They tell of the purity of man and nature and keeping them in balance.
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Ni-bo-wi-se-gwe
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These strangers […] are again asking the Ojibway to mark a paper. […] The Ojibway to the east have made the mark, and now they are on the big water where they must stay forever. The strangers promised never to enter their forests but they came anyway[.]
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Six Days’ Journey
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Poor Trees, we are leaving, but you will be gone too after the strangers come. […] Poor squirrels, where will you go after the strangers come?
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The Rainy Country
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The women wove reed mats and cut birch bark. They fastened the mats around the base of the lodge frames and put overlapping birch-bark sheets on the upper part. Then the lodges were ready.
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Our lives must now revolve around this lodge, because we must not meet the strangers. But remember that we, the Ojibway, have always moved freely from a summer place to a winter place, with a blueberry place, a ricing place, and a sugar bush in between.
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We know the secrets of the forest and receive the gifts of a Generous Spirit. These we repay by honoring and respecting the living things in the forests: the animal people and the plant life which in itself is life-giving. We do not waste the precious gifts, but share them with our brothers.
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White Earth
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The people […] welcomed the stranger who had traveled with him. They prepared a feast and made a place of rest for them.
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He said that they must mark a paper before a man called Agent, and afterward they would be given food and clothing.
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I do not like cutting the trees […] I think too often of the animal people. They will be few, and they will be gone from this land. When we have enough of the lumber, I shall no longer cut the trees or travel the rivers on them. My heart cries too often when I do this.
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New Homes, Old Ways
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Maybe it will start them learning civilized ways.
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The New Ways
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So it is the custom that at the very first time—and only the first time—a young girl has the physical signs of change, she must go into the forest […] and fast. […] The longer she fasts, the clearer will be her dreams of what she will do in life. If she is a Dreamer or a Medicine Person, her visions will confirm this.
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It is well that we plant and harvest and hunt, for this food given us by the White Father would not be enough.
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Oona Becomes a Woman
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Oona was so busy with the farm work that she had little time to meditate, so her powers as a Dreamer lay dormant.
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Times of Change
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Then came the laws to control the fishing, the hunting, and the trapping, even on the reservation lands.
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Oona’s heart broke many times when she saw the faces of the young ones. Many of the children had swollen necks from infections of the tubercular germ, and they easily caught the diseases of the lungs. The change of diet left them with no way to fight the germs of the strangers who were dominant in the land of the forest and lakes.
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The Circle
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I should like […] to hear the stories of our people.
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Ojibway Term Timeline in Night Flying Woman
The timeline below shows where the term Ojibway appears in Night Flying Woman. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Prologue: The Forest Cries
...to blend in, instead of her. When she tells her children traditional stories about their Ojibway culture, it seems foreign to them. Their lives are saturated with American culture and rock...
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...a lot of people discriminate against Native Americans. She ends up living with six other Ojibway people in one room with three beds. The landlady is supposed to charge five dollars...
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...like she’s in an alien materialistic culture, but she feels more at home among other Ojibway people. After the war, many Native Americans struggle to find work, as white people are...
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...learn about their culture. She’s happy to pass on the philosophies and lessons contained in Ojibway stories, so that the young generation can keep passing them on.
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Ignatia begins telling the reader her story, explaining that the Ojibway are forest-dwellers who live in harmony with many other forest tribes. Nobody owns the land—instead,...
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...then they chopped down the forest for lumber. As more settlers arrived, they surrounded the Ojibway people, pushing them into smaller pockets of land that eventually became reservations. The settlers also...
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Ni-bo-wi-se-gwe
The Ojibway people remember Ni-bo-wi-se-gwe as a great woman. Ni-bo-wi-se-gwe is born during an eclipse, so the...
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...eats berries from the bushes. She’s surrounded by love and laughter as the cycle of Ojibway life unfolds around her.
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...east. He tells Oona’s family that strange pale men are coming, and they want the Ojibway to sign some papers. When the Ojibway in the east signed the papers, the strangers...
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...has seen the strangers before. Everywhere they go, they cut down trees and force the Ojibway to live in small pockets of land that they can’t leave. Grandfather thinks that the...
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...runs out to Grandfather, remembering to keep her eyes downcast until he greets her. In Ojibway culture, the elders must always speak first. Grandfather and Mother are packing bundles. Grandfather explains...
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Six Days’ Journey
...safe. A-wa-sa-si and Grandmother agree, knowing that forests have always been safe havens for the Ojibway. A-wa-sa-si explains that the Ojibway always hear the sound of the rustling trees, and that...
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Oona Dreams
...her their people’s story, so that Oona can pass it on to her grandchildren. The Ojibway believe that a great spirit (Gitchi Manito) gives power to the earth, and that the...
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A-wa-sa-si continues, telling Oona that the earth loves the Ojibway children. When Ojibway children grow older, they receive their calling. The special girls receive charcoal,...
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...sons say that the pale people have chopped down many forests to make logs. Many Ojibway people have fallen ill and died from a terrible sickness. The big chiefs have signed...
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White Earth
...the villagers to move far away, where they can live in peace with the other Ojibway. It seems that this boggy part of the forest belongs to the strangers. The villagers...
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After several days, the family arrives at a place with many Ojibway people, who make them feel welcome. Another stranger wants to send them away to a...
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...like a strange place to Oona: all the huts look different, and some of the Ojibway dress up like the strangers. The family meet an agent who makes them sign a...
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...Luckily, the harvest is kind to them. Oona and her family travel to the big Ojibway village to celebrate the harvest with a big feast. Two winters pass peacefully, and the...
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One day, Oona dreams that a man will come. Soon after, an Ojibway man named Sam arrives. Sam’s dressed like the strangers, and he reads a piece of...
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...to learn the strangers’ language. Mother trusts Oona, knowing that she will also remember the Ojibway’s traditions and pass them on to her own children. They also learn about something called...
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New Homes, Old Ways
...even learns the strangers’ language. The agent’s wife is a kind, generous woman, and the Ojibway people like her, so they give her many gifts. Meanwhile, Oona goes to school. Her...
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...strangers’ new ways. Their homes have Christian pictures in them, next to traditional items. The Ojibway people wear muslin clothes like the strangers’ clothes, but they keep their old clothes for...
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...agent—he wants to ban traditional medicines. Soldiers surround the village to make sure that the Ojibway people don’t use herbs. Many Ojibway people die, but those that remain are grateful to...
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The New Ways
...comes home from school and explains that her teacher wants the family to forget their Ojibway traditions and become Christians so that they can become better people. Mother makes the same...
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...are the same as Christian beliefs. Grandfather explains that the strangers probably don’t know about Ojibway beliefs, so it’s up to Oona to accept the new ways. But she should also...
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In Ojibway culture, when a girl becomes a woman, she goes into the forest to fast for...
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...he’s decided to leave the village and go with the strangers to teach them about Ojibway culture. Oona’s cousin E-quay falls in love with a man named Walter. Walter has learned...
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Oona Becomes a Woman
...time of transition very well. Soon after, Oona marries a man named Michael, who’s half Ojibway. When Oona moves to Michael’s farm, she takes her whole family with her. She also...
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...soldiers some birch bark from her bag, and the soldiers recognize the bark as the Ojibway people’s peace symbol, so they stop. Instead, the soldiers keep Oona, Michael, and Little Brother...
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...Michael, and Little Brother escape, hidden in the fog. Instead of heading north to the Ojibway village as the soldiers would expect, they travel west, because Oona saw herself walking toward...
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Times of Change
Oona has two sons, and she gives them both Ojibway and Christian names: Warm Sky (or David) and Brother (or John). Her family respects her...
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...corn. They also have milk cows, though they sell the milk because they prefer traditional Ojibway drinks, which Oona makes with wild berries. Her sons, Warm Sky and Brother, go to...
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By the time Oona is in her forties, the Ojibway village grows into a suburban town. The government makes Ojibway children go to boarding schools...
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...growing ill with many new diseases. She knows their food is less healthy than traditional Ojibway food. Ojibway people also begin consuming alcohol, and this saddens Oona too. She thinks that...
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Despite the hardships of unemployment, the Ojibway people rely on ancient traditions to get by, such as digging out medicinal roots and...
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By the 1930s, new taxation policies begin driving the Ojibway people further into poverty. The government forces their children into boarding schools that are far...
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The Circle
...Two Standing) is running the farm. When people who are around Oona’s age die, the Ojibway bury them according to Christian rather than Ojibway rituals. Oona feels such a deep sense...
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...they’ve fared in the strangers’ culture, as doctors, teachers, and soldiers. She thinks that today’s Ojibway children don’t care about the past, and she worries about Ojibway history being lost forever....
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