THE OJIBWA INDIANS OF PARRY ISLAND, 
THEIR SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS LIFE 
CHAPTER I 
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 
The Ojibwa of Georgian bay appear to have no name for the whole 
of Parry island, but call that part of it that has been converted into 
an Indian reserve Wasoksing , and its inhabitants W asoksivmnini. The 
present population numbers about two hundred and fifty, of whom nearly 
a hundred consider themselves Potawatomi Indians, descendants of some 
bands that migrated to Canada over a hundred years ago from Michigan. 
Many of their relatives still reside on Christian island, 30 miles to the 
south, but a number of families moved north to Parry island around the 
year 1865. The Ottawa tribe has a few representatives on the island, but 
the majority of the inhabitants call themselves simply Djibive, i.e. Ojibwa, 
although some of them state that their original name was Kitchibuan, 
“ Great Medicine Men.” There are two groups among them, families that 
migrated recently from farther north and west, and older families who 
consider themselves the earliest inhabitants of the district. Since this part 
of Georgian bay belonged to the Ottawa tribe when the French first 
penetrated to the Great Lakes in the seventeenth century, the older group 
also must have migrated from the west within the historical period, and 
in fact it still preserves a tradition of its western origin as follows: 
Originally the Indians all came from another part of the earth in the west. 
They came in bands one behind another at intervals of two or three weeks, following 
the leadership of a man who had received a ble&sing from the 'Great Spirit. During 
the journey the leader placed his boy inside a stump to gain a blessing from some 
manido or spirit; other Indians placed their children in specially built huts. One 
night a girl received a vision that instructed her to bid her people move camp on 
a certain day and travel in a certain direction, when they would reach a great 
expanse of water. If they built boats there and paddled out, the Great Spirit would 
guide them quickly to a new land 1 on the other side.” 
Partly through their earlier wanderings, partly through education and 
travel, the Parry Island Indians are acquainted with several surrounding 
tribes. The Cree Indians in the north they call nokmitchini “ Inland 
people,” and they have heard that beyond the Cree dwell Eskimo, aishime 
“Eaters of raw food.” To the east they have met Algonkins, whom some 
call seshkwagami “People of the bog land,” others yaskwagami or dask- 
wagami , “Musk-rat people.” They know that the hated Mohawks, nodawe 
“People who pursue in canoes,” still linger to the southward, and that the 
Menomini “Rice people,” live at the bottom of lake Huron, in the territory 
of the United States. In the west they have heard of the Rlackfoot, whose 
name they translate as makadeuzide “Black sole of foot”; and some of 
their forefathers encountered and acquired medicine power from the Assini- 
boine, sinebuan “Stone medicine-men.” 
