ABSTRACTBABAAMIINWAJIMOJIG (PEOPLE WHO GO AROUND TELLING THE GOOD NEWS): TRACING THE TEXT OF OJIBWA HYMN NO. 35 FROM 1910 TO 2010 ByJanis Angela FairbanksMy dissertation is based on a question: Why do Ojibwa people continue to sing Ojibwa hymns in Ojibwa even though many of the singers no longer understand the words they are singing?To find answers, qualitative methods were used. I found 22 people to participate in interviews that took place around the Great Lakes in both the United States and Canada. The people interviewed are known as the Anishinaabeg (Ojibwa People), although one person interviewed is not indigenous, but has worked with indigenous students teaching Ojibwa language and hymns for over half a century.As an Ojibwa woman, I felt it was important to consider primary-source oral history of current-day Ojibwa people, and to include secondary sources of information, such as CDs, phonograph records, books, articles and Internet websites in my research.Five themes emerged from analysis of the interview transcripts. These are (1) language translation issues, (2) the importance of the Thunderbird as a cultural icon, (3) spirituality, (4) community and individual identity, and (5) continuity of culture. Within these categories is evidence that the continued use of hymn no. 35 in the Ojibwa Hymnal 1910 (Kah-O-Sed 1910:35) demonstrates both continuity and change in the Anishinaabeg western Great Lakes Diaspora. This includes how the hymn fits into oral tradition, how it was produced and continues to be reproduced as a literary textual cultural icon, how it is used by community members, and how it is understood to impact perceptions of identity.I think the most significant findings of the research are the following: I propose that the Anishinaabeg took ownership of Ojibwa hymns as a unique but distinct aspect of Ojibwa culture, adapting Midewiwin (Grand Medicine Society) ceremonial singing practices to Ojibwa hymn-singing practices that have carried forward to the current day, and that today’s Midewiwin ceremonial singing and Ojibwa hymn-singing purposes are very similar. The Anishinaabeg did this to establish and maintain a sense of continuity of culture that exists today, despite variances in spiritual beliefs and differing levels of fluency in Anishinaabemowin (Indian language, especially Ojibwa) among local and wide spread geographical expanses around the Great Lakes. The hymns in some cases are being used to learn the Ojibwa language.There is a deeper meaning to the continuous use of Ojibwa hymns from the Ojibwa Hymnal 1910 and it is this: that spirituality of Ojibwa people is much more complicated than previous researchers and ethnographers have indicated. It is a tangled picture and complicated by the conversions, first, from Midewiwin to Christianity, and, more recently, from Christianity back to Midewiwin. There has been a shift in spirituality during the last 100 years that is continuing today. The Anishinaabeg community is bound by cultural markers, such as the Thunderbird icon and the Ojibwa Hymnal 1910, that have become cultural icons that which each generation passes down to succeeding generations. For the Anishinaabeg of the Great Lakes region, the practice of singing the century-old Ojibwa hymn no. 35 is one way for babaamiinwajimojig (people who go around telling the good news) to continue. (Alphonse Pitawanakwat, in discussion with the author December 9, 2010)
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