6 
Now if the families had controlled their own hunting territories any 
assignment by the chief and elders would have been superfluous. It is 
quite clear, therefore, that in pre-European times, and for a short period 
afterwards, the eastern Algonkians, including the Ojibwa, recognized 
ownership of land by the band alone. 
Today the Parry Island Ojibwa have progressed half, and only half, 
the distance towards individual ownership of land. They still claim that 
the entire band owns all the territory, both the reserve on the island that 
the Government has set aside for its use and the wooded districts on the 
opposite mainland not developed yet by European settlers. Nevertheless, 
they concede to individual families a permanent lease, as it were, of certain 
tracts of land for hunting and trapping. These hunting territories are held 
in usufruct only; theoretically the band may permit other families to squat 
upon them and transfer their possessors elsewhere. Similarly, on the 
reserve itself, no family owns in fee simple, or has a complete title to the 
land on which it has built its permanent home. The house itself it may 
sell or destroy at its pleasure, for the family has built it at its own 
expense; but the land on which it stands belongs to the band, and cannot 
be alienated without the consent of the entire band. 
The rights to settle on the reserve, or to hunt within the territories 
claimed by the band, is the cause of much friction even today, proving 
how strong is the feeling that the land actually belongs to the entire 
band. Thus many of the Ojibwa on Parry island resent the presence 
of the Potawatomi, because, as they say, the band never formally acceded 
to their immigration, although the Dominion Government may have sanc- 
tioned it. Any Indian, or wdiite man, -who wishes to make his home on 
the reserve, cut timber there, build a road or a wharf, prospect for 
minerals, etc., should obtain the consent not only of the Dominion 
Government (through its Department of Indian Affairs) but of the 
Indians themselves gathered in full council. The council now votes on 
such matters by ballot, or by the holding up of hands; in former times 
they were settled by the chief and the more influential men of the band, 
who alone could alienate a tract of land, or sanction the enrolment of new 
members. The Indians have occasionally surrendered small portions of 
their territory in compensation for murder, as appears from the follow- 
ing incident. 
About sixty years ago Manatuwaba, one of the most prominent Indians on 
Parry island, died rather suddenly, and a conjurer 1 pronounced that Abram Esse, 
an Indian of Christian island, had ‘shot’ him with evil medicine because Mana- 
tuwaba had trespassed on what Esse claimed as his own hunting territory. Mana- 
tuwaba’s descendants now assert that Esse confessed his guilt, and that his band 
surrendered all claim to this tract of land by way of compensation. The Christian 
Island band denies this, however, and the dispute has engendered ill-will between 
several families on the two islands. 
Not only could a family change its hunting-grounds season after 
season within the territory of its band, but it could travel outside that 
territory, enrol itself temporarily in a different band, and be assigned a 
winter’s hunting-ground in the new district. The Parry Island Indians 
assert that the Ojibwa bands of lake Huron frequently exchanged families 
1 1.e. djiskiu. See p. 65. 
