Front Cover; Title Page; Copyright Page; Contents; Preface to the Bison Book Edition; Preface; List of Place Names; The Naming Ceremony; Tobacco Offering/The Drum Ceremony; The Vision Quest; The War Path; The Marriage Ceremony; The Society of Medicine; The Society of the Dawn; The Ritual of the Dead; The Council; Appendices; Appendix A-Petitions of the Midewewin; Appendix B-Petitions of the Waubunowin; Appendix C-Invocation Before Council; Back Cover.
The Ojibway Indians were first encountered by the French early in the seventeenth century along the northern shores of Lakes Huron and Superior. By the time Henry Wadsworth Longfellow immortalized them in The Song of Hiawatha, they had dispersed over large areas of Canada and the United States, becoming known as the Chippewas in the latter. A rare and fascinating glimpse of Ojibway culture before its disruption by the Europeans is provided in Ojibway Ceremonies by Basil Johnston, himself an Ojibway who was born on the Parry Island Indian Reserve. Johnston focuses on a young memb.