In Anishinaabemowin
(Anishnaabe language) the word doodem is an expression of ancestral relation to
family members, near and distant, to animals of this and unseen worlds, and to
particular places on the earth, tying back to stories of origins and how the
world came to be.
When Frenchmen first
journeyed into Anishinaabe country, the people they met referred to themselves
by their doodem, calling themselves, for example, people of the beaver,
catfish, crane, elk, bear, or snapping turtle.
More than three
hundred thousand people living today identify themselves as Anishinaabe.
In addition to a
language of words, however, there is an Anishinaabemowin of things, of
relations with a material world that simultaneously shape and express a
distinctive Anishinaabe identity.
To the Anishinaabe
eye, the world expands outward in layers. (Chapter: Animikii miinwaa
Mishibizhiw: Narrative Images of the
Thunderbird and the Underwater Panther by Alan Corbiere and Crystal Migwans)
The underwater woman
(perhaps an underwater panther or serpent in a changed form) needs protection
against the thunderbirds, and it is the turtle who has that power. (Chapter: Animikii miinwaa Mishibizhiw: Narrative Images of the Thunderbird and the
Underwater Panther by Alan Corbiere and Crystal Migwans)
In this altered
state, the person who has turned wiindigoo perceives an individual not as human
but as the animal that represents the person's clan. So a person of the Bear Clan is seen by the
wiindigoo as a bear, and the wiindigoo, who is starving, thinks he is eating
bear instead of a human. (Chapter: Animikii miinwaa Mishibizhiw: Narrative Images of the Thunderbird and the
Underwater Panther by Alan Corbiere and Crystal Migwans)
