Cover: Our Hearts Are as One Fire: An Ojibwe-Anishinaabe Vision of the Future, by Jerry Fontaine. illustration: a circle split by a left-leaning white line at a diagonal angle, with a red background to the right of this line and a blue background to the left. A peace pipe diagonally crosses the white line, extending from one end of the circle to the other.
280 pages, 5 1/2 x 8 1/2
3 maps
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Release Date:15 Aug 2020
ISBN:9780774862882
Hardcover
Release Date:15 Aug 2020
ISBN:9780774862875
PDF
Release Date:15 Aug 2020
ISBN:9780774862899
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Release Date:15 Aug 2020
ISBN:9780774862905
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Our Hearts Are as One Fire

An Ojibway-Anishinabe Vision for the Future

UBC Press

A vision shared. A manifesto. This remarkable work draws on Ojibway-, Ota’wa-, and Ishkodawatomi-Anishinabe world views, history, and lived experience to develop a wholly Ojibway-Anishinabe interpretation of the role of traditional leadership and governance today.

Taking as his starting point the idea that Anishinabeg need to reconnect with non-colonized modes of thinking, social organization, and decision making in order to achieve genuine sovereignty, Jerry Fontaine (makwa ogimaa) looks to historically significant models. He tells of three great Ota’wa, Shawnee, and Ojibway-Anishinabe leaders – Obwandiac, Tecumtha, and Shingwauk – and of the N’swi-ish-ko-day-kawn Anishinabeg O’dish-ko-day-kawn (Three Fires Confederacy). These leaders challenged violent and aggressive colonial expansion that would shape the future of Manitou Aki (Creator's Land). In Our Hearts Are as One Fire, Fontaine recounts their stories from an Ojibway-Anishinabe perspective using Ojibwaymowin language and knowledge, woven together with conversations with elders and descendants of the three leaders.

The result is a book that reframes the history of Manitou Aki and shares a vision of how Ojibway, Ota’wa and Ishkodawatomi-Anishinabe spiritual and cultural values, language, and legal and political principles will support the leaders of today and tomorrow.

This work will speak to members of Ojibway-, Ota’wa-, Ishkodawatomi-Anishinabe and other Indigenous communities. More broadly, it offers a new vision for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous students and scholars of law, history, politics, and reconciliation.

RELATED TOPICS: History, Indigenous Studies
Fontaine locates the context for the reader before introducing his own personal narrative and this lends even more credence to the book… This account deserves to be read carefully and particularly by those who may not wish to know its truths. Réamonn Ó Ciaráin, director of education, Celtic Junction Arts Center, Celtic Junction Arts Review
Our Hearts Are as One Fire shines when taken as a teaching text... This book is a powerful reminder that Anishinabe resistance has been ongoing for hundreds of years and continues to this day. Anna J. Willow, Ohio State University, American Indian Culture and Research Journal
makwa ogimaa presents an intimate story of Anishinabe traditional leadership, one that reflects the place of ‘an ethics of relationship’ that is so urgently needed as we search for paradigms of leadership that once again connect us to each other and to the Earth. Gregory A. Cajete, professor of Native American Studies and Education, University of New Mexico
A critically important manifesto written by an Anishinabe leader. Every First Nations leader in North America must read Our Hearts Are as One Fire. It is the book we have all been waiting for. Matthew L.M. Fletcher, director of the Indigenous Law and Policy Center, Michigan State University

Jerry Fontaine, makwa ogimaa, is from the Ojibway-Anishinabe community of Sagkeeng. He currently teaches Indigenous Studies at the University of Winnipeg.

Foreword / Lee Anne Cameron

Ah-di-so-kay Anishinabeg / Traditional Storytellers

Maaitaa / Prologue

Nitam igo / Introduction

1 Gah-o-mah-mah-wahn-dah-wi-zid gah-ki-nah-gay-goo ji-gi-kayn-dah-so aki / A prophet is someone who has a completed view of the world

2 Obwandiac / The Man who Travelled and Stopped at Many Places

3 Tecumtha / He Walked Across

4 Shingwauk / The White Pine, Boss of All the Trees

5 N’swi-ish-ko-day-kawn Anishinabeg O’dish-ko-day-kawn / Our Hearts Are as One Fire

6 Meegwetch bi-zhin-dah-wi-yeg / Thank you for listening to me

Wayekwaase / It is finished

Appendix

Timeline

Glossary; Notes; Index

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