Ojibwe scholar speaks at St. John’s about Ojibwe culture in the modern world
The Indigenous Students Association hosted Anton Treuer to speak to the CSB/SJU community. His presentation focused on the tradition and culture of the Ojibwe tribe as well as how Ojibwe culture could help prevent the ongoing crisis of climate change in today's society.
Students were given the opportunity to learn about Ojibwe culture and Indigenous persons.
Last Wednesday, Feb. 23, the Indigenous Students Association hosted Ojibwe scholar Anton Treuer, who spoke to a crowd of over 100 people in Quadrangle room 264.
His presentation titled “The Cultural Toolbox: Traditional Ojibwe Living in the Modern World” largely consisted of explanations of what being Ojibwe means in the context of his family.
“When he was saying… that there is a range of Ojibwe cultures and he was telling the stories of his family, a lot of them were similar but were also different to the stories of my own, and it was very nice to be able to reflect on that in this space where it’s primarily focused on an Indigenous perspective” said Marissa Johnson, a CSB junior who is a member of the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and a leader of the Indigenous Students Association (ISA).
Ted Gordon, visiting assistant professor of Anthropology, encouraged two classes he is teaching, Minnesota Native Nations and Native Food Sovereignty, to attend the event.
“We saw this event as… a really unique opportunity for our students to learn directly from someone who is living Ojibwe practices… they’ve been able to see how this isn’t just a culture that only existed in the past… but that Ojibwe identities are just as real and just as viable, just as significant as any other identity in contemporary Minnesota,” Gordon said.
Similarly, Richard Guerue, an SJU sophomore who is Native American and a member of ISA, found the event to have relevance in the present.
“I found it interesting because he talked about ‘how do you connect your Indigenous Identity to the modern world?’” Guerue said.
The event began with statements from two members of ISA, Johnson and CSB senior Adrianna Warden. They read the CSB/SJU Land Acknowledgement and introduced Treuer. Treuer began the presentation by speaking in Ojibwe for about a minute before he stopped and transitioned to English. He mentioned later that his mother didn’t speak the Ojibwe language due to an Indigenous boarding school preventing her mother from practicing it. Treuer said he “reclaimed” the language, and Ojibwe children are increasingly doing so through language immersion schools, although most still do not learn it while growing up.
Treuer emphasized that the traditions a person holds in their “cultural toolbox” have an impact on their behavior, and he showed this in a variety of ways.
Looking out for one’s elders and for the people who do not have enough is a prominent message in the tradition that follows the first time an Ojibwe person successfully hunts a deer. In this practice, the hunter takes on the new role of being a provider and refuses the first few bites of meat because they’re thinking about others who need the food more.
Treuer explained that another facet of Ojibwe culture encourages a way of thinking which could help prevent climate change from becoming such a crisis. This tradition emphasizes recognizing that a person’s life impacts those of people seven generations in the future, and also is impacted by people from seven generations in the past.
“Respect all things and respect all beings,” Treuer said, explaining the message that emerges from this mindset.
Treuer also shared that in an Ojibwe creation story, humans were created after the animals. This indicates that animals can persevere without humans, but humans depend on animals for survival.
The idea to ask Treuer to speak at SJU came from ISA.
“I’ve looked up to Anton since I was in high school. I’ve read a lot of his books… and seen a lot of his lectures online… For me personally, having followed him for so long, and then also as an Indigenous person on this campus, it was really empowering but also emotional for me because this is Native inclusion…this is Native representation, and we were able to make this happen,” Johnson said.
Guerue said that Treuer met with members of ISA to talk before the event.
“He told us we don’t have to do code-switching,” Guerue said, referring to the practice of expressing oneself differently in order to meet the expectations of different cultures. “I’m half Native and half Hispanic… so [in code-switching] you end up sacrificing parts of identity.”
In addition to ISA, the Initiative for Native Nation Revitalization (INNR), Becoming Community and the Jay Phillips Center for Interfaith Learning also helped facilitate bringing Treuer’s presentation to campus.
“Our goal is to support Indigenous communities on and off campus…in whatever ways they identify that we can help with,” said Gordon, director of INNR. “So when the Indigenous Student Association says ‘we’d like to bring Anton Treuer to campus,’ one of the pieces that I see as the role of the initiative is ‘alright, so how can we make that happen?’”
Treuer showed throughout the presentation that Ojibwe culture contains lessons that can be helpful for a variety of people to consider.
“We all spend a lot of time talking to people, but that can be very invalidating,” Treuer said, speaking about the tendency of some Indigenous people to speak sparingly and deliberately.
