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Naawigiizis: Memories of the Center of the Moon
by Jim Clark,
ISBN: 0971997802
General description: This book would be an important enough document if it
only collected the memories and cultural wisdom of one
of the most respected of the Anishinaabe elders living
in Minnesota, Naawigiizis, Jim Clark. It is even more
valuable in that it captures his remarkable
impressions not just in English, Jim's second
language, but also presents several stories in Ojibwe,
his first language - and for good measure, gives us
two stories only in Ojibwe. All readers have a first
person account of growing up in two cultures in the
early decades of the 20th Century as the Ojibwe people
struggled to keep their traditions in the face of the
mounting pressures to assimilate into White culture.
People who know or are learning the Ojibwe language,
and want to preserve it, also have a vital record of a
way of thinking and speaking that embodies these
traditions as no mere artefact can. |
