Historian urges Anishinabek to reconnect with the language

By Rick Garrick

THUNDER BAY — M’Chigeeng First Nation’s Alan Corbiere highlighted the locations where Nanabosho left his mark during his Lakehead University Aninishinaabe Perspectives from Sacred Stories and Written Sources virtual presentation on Jan. 28.

“I’m currently putting this online with Waawiindaamaagewin, the Robsinson Huron Treaty people,” says Corbiere, Canada Research Chair in Indigenous History of North America and assistant professor at York University. “Specifically, I’m working with Nicky Recollet of Waawiindaamaagewin — we did a test run of this and we started mapping this out. I’ve long wanted to map this all out and put it with pictures, so she’s helping me out to do that, and to put all these sources together.”

Corbiere says he hopes to see people doing a “pilgrimage” to all of the locations where Nanabosho left his mark, which stretch from Minong at Isle Royal to Manidoo-amik at Montreal. Other locations include Nigigo-shtigwaaning, Mishibikwadoo-minising and Nenaboshnaang on Lake Superior, Bawating near Sault Ste. Marie, Biiwaanagong on Lake Michigan, Waabooz-nemadabid and Michigiwaatig on Lake Huron, Amiko Baawiting near Georgian Bay, Waabooz-nemadabing north of Lake Nipissing, and Nenabozhoo bimikawed on the Ottawa River.

“People do all these pilgrimages to Jerusalem and there’s one in Spain as well that people do,” Corbiere says. “I see a lot of young people doing these canoe trips, and it’s great, but what I hope is they start to visit these places where Nanabosho left his mark.”

Corbiere says he also hopes that people will familiarize themselves with the places where Nanabosho left his mark, learn the story and see that Nanabosho walked all over the land.

“And he named everything,” Corbiere says. “He deliberately left his mark so that he would be remembered not only for all the good things he did but also the bad things so that we don’t do those bad things, that’s what the Elders say. He did everything so we don’t have to do it. He did bad things, he did good things, but we don’t have to do everything he did, we have to just learn from him.”

Corbiere says he used to visit people mostly in his community’s area to hear their stories.

“The other thing was I was just curious so I often looked in books, and one of the things here today that I wanted to talk about is our language,” Corbiere says. “That’s why I try to speak as much as I can and use it. My parents spoke [Anishinaabemowin] every day to each other when I was a kid and my siblings and I never picked it up. They spoke to us in English.”

Corbiere says he later told his parents to speak to him in the language, and his father now speaks to him in about 95 per cent Anishinaabemowin.

“Now I’ve started to make that connection to reconnect, so I want to tell you that … my fellow Anishinabek, my relatives, I want you to speak to your grandparents, your parents, whoever speaks Anishinaabemowin, that you try to use it every day,” Corbiere says. “And that you record them — I recorded my mom, I recorded my dad, and I recorded my aunts and my uncles and then also other Elders in our community to preserve that.”

Corbiere says many of the Elders in his community who were born with Anishinaabemowin as their first language are now “going home.”

“They are not being replaced, so I urge you all to use as much [Anishinaabemowin] as you can every day,” Corbiere says. “Our language isn’t going to survive on its own, you have to use it or we’re going to lose it.”