Anishinaabeg history

Anishinaabe (plural: Anishinaabeg) (which translates to ‘the good humans’ or ‘people from whence lowered’) is the autonym for a culturally related group of indigenous peoples that live across a vast area spanning both Canada and the United States. All of them have a sense of what we call today an ethnic and cultural unity. All can trace their origin to a common source from whence the others split off from. In ancient times part of the Alnobak (Abnakis), whom they addressed in a formal manner as ‘fathers’. The Alnobak themselves had earlier split from the Lenapes whom the Anishinaabe called ‘grandfathers’.

Later, The Anishinaabe divided into:

• Ojibwa/Chippewa,
• Nishnaabe (Odawa, Ottawa),
• Neshnabé (Potawatomi),
• Algonquin,
• Mississauga,
• Nakawék (Saulteaux),
• Anishinini (Oji-Cree,
• Severn Ojibwe).

The Anishinaabeg speak the language of Anishinaabemowin that belongs to the Algonquian language family.

The culture of the Anishinaabeg is patrilineal and of the hunter-gathering type with some in the south harvesting the wild rice.