In the 1930s, young anthropologist Ruth Landes crafted this startlingly intimate glimpse into the lives of Ojibwa women, a richly textured ethnography widely recognized as a classic study of gender relations in a native society. Sexuality and violence, marital rights and responsibilities, and more are thoughtfully examined. Landes's pioneering work continues to inspire lively debate today.

"An account of Louise Erdrich's trip through the lakes and islands of southern Ontario with her 18-month old baby and the baby's father, an Ojibwe spiritual leader and guide"--

Ruth Landes (1908?91) is now recognized as a pioneer in the study of race and gender relations. Ahead of her time in many respects, Landes worked with issues that defined the central debates in the discipline at the dawn of the twenty-first century. In Ruth Landes, Sally Cole reconsiders Landes?s life, work, and career, and places her at the heart of anthropology. ø The daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants, Landes studied under the renowned anthropologist Franz Boas and was mentored by Ruth Benedict. Landes?s rejection of domestic life led to an early divorce. Her ideas regarding gender roles also shaped her 1930s fieldwork among the Ojibwa, where she worked closely with Maggie Wilson to produce a masterpiece study of gender relations, The Ojibwa Woman. Her growing prominence and subsequent work in Bahia, Brazil, was marked by outstanding fieldwork and another landmark study, The City of Women. This was a tumultuous time for Landes, who was accused of being a spy, and her remarkable work fed the envy of such prominent scholars as Melville Herskovits and Margaret Mead. Ultimately, however, the errors and excesses that her critics complained of long ago now point us to the innovations for which she is responsible and that give her work its lasting value and power.

In this collection of more than 200 stunning and storied photographs, ranging from daguerreotypes to studio portraits to snapshots, historian Bruce White explores historical images taken of Ojibwe people through 1950 and considers the negotiation that went on between the photographers and the photographed-and what power the latter wielded. Ultimately, this book tells more about the people in the pictures-what they were doing on a particular day, how they came to be photographed, how they made use of costumes and props-than about the photographers who documented, and in some cases doctored, views of Ojibwe life.

Rarely accessible beyond the limits of its people, Ojibway mythology is as rich in meaning and mystery, as broad, as deep, and as innately appealing as the mythologies of Greece, Rome, Egypt, and other civilizations. In Ojibway Heritage, Basil Johnston sets forth the broad spectrum of his people’s life, legends, and beliefs. Stories to be read, enjoyed, dwelt on, and freely interpreted, their authorship is perhaps most properly attributed to the tribal storytellers who have carried on the oral tradition which Basil Johnston records and preserves in this book.

For people living in Ontario, as throughout Canada, the period from 1920 to 1960 was one of great change and turmoil – the roaring twenties the Great Depression, the upheaval of war, and the economic boom of the postwar years. One constant in society over those years, however, was the differential treatment that females and males received before the law, especially in regard to family matters and sexuality. A patriarchal justice system, increasingly under the influence of 'expert' opinion from social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, and other medial doctors, openly espoused a sexual double standard and sough to regulate the behaviour of girls and women 'for their own good'. Indeed, women in physically abusive relationships were at times advised by judges, probation officers, and social workers to 'go home and sleep with your husband' on the assumption that keeping him sexually sated would end the violence. In this fascinating study of sexuality, family, and the law, historian Joan Sangster focuses on key issues that drew women into the courts, as plaintiffs and defendants: incest and sexual abuse, wife assault, prostitution, female delinquency, and the unique 'colonization of the soul' that Aboriginal women had to endure before the law. As Sangster writes: 'While history does not offer pat solutions to present dilemmas, it may stimulate some sobering second thoughts on current debates – by dissecting the changing definitions of criminality and the process by which law constituted gender, race, and class relations; by mounting a critique of past reform efforts; and, importantly, by suggesting how the law affected the lives of girls and women who came into conflict with it.'

A rare and inspiring guide to the health and well-being of Aboriginal women and their communities. The process of “digging up medicines” - of rediscovering the stories of the past - serves as a powerful healing force in the decolonization and recovery of Aboriginal communities. In Life Stages and Native Women, Kim Anderson shares the teachings of fourteen elders from the Canadian prairies and Ontario to illustrate how different life stages were experienced by Metis, Cree, and Anishinaabe girls and women during the mid-twentieth century. These elders relate stories about their own lives, the experiences of girls and women of their childhood communities, and customs related to pregnancy, birth, post-natal care, infant and child care, puberty rites, gender and age-specific work roles, the distinct roles of post-menopausal women, and women’s roles in managing death. Through these teachings, we learn how evolving responsibilities from infancy to adulthood shaped women’s identities and place within Indigenous society, and were integral to the health and well-being of their communities. By understanding how healthy communities were created in the past, Anderson explains how this traditional knowledge can be applied toward rebuilding healthy Indigenous communities today.

First published in 1885 by the Minnesota Historical Society, the book has also been criticized by Native and non-Native scholars, many of whom do not take into account Warren's perspective, goals, and limitations. Now, for the first time since its initial publication, it is made available with new annotations researched and written by professor Theresa Schenck. A new introduction by Schenck also gives a clear and concise history of the text and of the author, firmly establishing a place for William Warren in the tradition of American Indian intellectual thought.--

Among the most dynamic Aboriginal peoples in western Canada today are the Ojibwa, who have played an especially vital role in the development of an Aboriginal political voice at both levels of government. Yet, they are relative newcomers to the region, occupying the parkland and prairies only since the end of the 18th century. This work traces the origins of the western Ojibwa, their adaptations to the West, and the ways in which they have coped with the many challenges they faced in the first century of their history in that region, between 1780 and 1870. The western Ojibwa are descendants of Ojibwa who migrated from around the Great Lakes in the late 18th century. This was an era of dramatic change. Between 1780 and 1870, they survived waves of epidemic disease, the rise and decline of the fur trade, the depletion of game, the founding of non-Native settlement, the loss of tribal lands, and the government's assertion of political control over them. As a people who emerged, adapted, and survived in a climate of change, the western Ojibwa demonstrate both the effects of historic forces that acted upon Native peoples, and the spirit, determination, and adaptive strategies that the Native people have used to cope with those forces. This study examines the emergence of the western Ojibwa within this context, seeing both the cultural changes that they chose to make and the continuity within their culture as responses to historical pressures. The Ojibwa of Western Canada differs from earlier works by focussing closely on the details of western Ojibwa history in the crucial century of their emergence. It is based on documents to which pioneering scholars did not have access, including fur traders' and missionaries' journals, letters, and reminiscences. Ethnographic and archaeological data, and the evidence of material culture and photographic and art images, are also examined in this well-researched and clearly written history.