Anishinaabe niniwag - Anishinaabe Men
Anishinaabe niniwag hold important responsibilities to protect, provide, and care for their families, communities, and nations according to their particular gifts and abilities. Men hold responsibility for ensuring harmony and wellbeing within the family unit, and providing education and mentorship for children and youth in their lives. Dodemiwan – Clans, are most often passed down from the father’s side of the family. This means that men hold responsibility for knowing and sharing teachings and responsibilities associated with their dodem or Clan. Today, men’s roles are changing, often taking on different roles within their families and communities.
As Anishinaabekwewag – Anishinaabe Women hold responsibilities and roles connected with water, Anishinaabe niniwag hold responsibilities connected with fire. Like water, fire is central to the survival of families and communities. Within Anishinaabe adziwin, fire is more than just a means of meeting one’s needs, fire is also a metaphor for governance and connects back to the beginning of creation.
Fire, ishkode, is a central element in the Anishinaabe worldview. Ishkode is the force of the creation of the Earth, reflected in the Earth’s molten core. This relationship of fire to creation is, furthermore, mapped in the sky by the northern lights - “jiibagg niimi’idiwag” (they are the northern lights). The northern lights are considered to be reflections of the ancestors’ fires, illuminating the path of souls traveling to the land of the deceased. Anishinaabeg folk etymologies have identified ishkode as the heart of the Earth and of the people and point out its apparent inclusion of the “heart.” Thus, fire appears as a central element that begins with the creation of the Earth, becomes the heart of the nation, and lights the way “home.” Fire, then, appears throughout the cycle of creation, or life.
Responsibilities connected to tending the fire include both the day-to-day practices of providing for one’s family, as well as broader governance and ceremonial practices that facilitate connection between past and future generations. Tending the Fire is a critical men’s role and responsibility at ceremonies. It is important to make sure that the fire is provided wood and protected from any negativity. Providing and protecting are men’s main roles and responsibility. During this research report’s development, a focus group with Batchewana members included someone saying, “men are responsible for ensuring the safety of other community members. Where there’s a woman being battered, men should be coming out and saying, “Hey, do not touch this woman anymore.””
Men’s responsibilities also include caring for children and partners throughout pregnancy and child raising. From Best Start Resource Centre,
Men are responsible to create, maintain, and protect the fire in the home, community and the “fire of life” that grows in a woman’s womb when she carries a child within her. When a woman becomes pregnant, so does a man. He is to behave in a way that protects and nurtures the spirit growing in the woman’s womb, providing a safe environment free of negative influences.
When the spirit is born, the man’s role within the family continues to be that of a provider and protector. His role is that of a helper, he continues to help with nurturing and raising the children. He is there to assist the woman with ensuring things are running smoothly. Men are also physical beings, more so than women. Women are the first teachers and show how to love and use emotions. Men are the second teachers for the child and show how to do more of the physical things in life as the child grows.
Discipline is also the man’s role. Men were given this role because they have the “voice of thunder,” that deeper voice to which the child listens. He provides discipline in a nurturing way, teaching the child the right way of doing things, not forcing or abusing his power.
A man’s role in the community is also of protector and provider. He hunts for his family and community members who need support. Fulfilling his role within the family and community are vital for the health and wellness of the nation.
Men were once required to restrict their hunting activity or stop altogether while their wives were pregnant. Restrictions around hunting were based on an understanding that the partner of an expectant mother was carrying life and so another life could not be taken. This approach shows how Anishinaabe men’s actions, even those taken outside of the home, impact the wellbeing of their partner and children and therefore require great care and thought during this important time.
Throughout their growth and development, young boys and men are mentored by other men within their family and community, helping them learn their roles and responsibilities and to find their place in the community. This mentorship may take the form of guidance during specific ceremonies such as vision quests or through community celebrations following a first kill. As Mrs. Davey John of Sagamok described in 1939,
When a boy brings in first big animal like a moose, deer or elk, they have a feast (nî kwún dî w0n) Before they started eating, put tobacco in the fire. The father would put tobacco on fire, drum and sing, and the woman would dance. They didn’t have any whiskey in those days, otherwise they never would have stopped dancing! people nearby would be invited. The boy would get part of the meat, but no young fellow can eat the heart.
This mentorship is critical for men’s learning and healing journey, helping young men understand their role in both their family and community. In the past,
Anishinabe nini, took their roles and responsibilities seriously because the future of our nations depended on everyone fulfilling their part. Today many men question their importance. Men role modelled and taught young men the teachings and skills needed for providing and protecting. A spiritual and land based education system that was passed on to each generation.
Brenda Rivers of Sagamok describes how “men need to know their clan responsibilities so they can teach it to their children”.
As mothers continue to support and care for their sons, grandmothers also play roles in selecting specific men to be speakers and leaders for their families and communities. Young men were mentored by older men who had life experience, wisdom and spiritual knowledge. In our past, men and women worked to together to make sure that our communities and nation was well maintained.
Between generations, men hold different and changing roles and responsibilities. As Laura Mayer of Mississauga explains,
…mothers being the ones who bear the brunt of childrearing. I think that that has passed. I feel like we as a society and not just Anishinaabe society are coming to a place where that role is being split a lot more evenly. I know in my family in particular and I’ve reflected on this a lot that my partner has been very active and involved from the day that my children were born until now and he takes that role very seriously. The role of the father is to teach their clan responsibilities. So it’s teaching their role in the community and how they take up those roles and responsibilities in the community as a whole. And it’s also to protect and provide. I hear that a lot too, protection and provision. That ability has changed because not only does a father need to just provide money and make sure there’s no physical violence, they need to be able to know that their children can navigate a colonial system that will continually challenge their Anishinaabe heritage…They have to be able to teach their children to navigate that system. So that requires an engagement that goes beyond just being the person that brings home a pay cheque. That goes into forming their being and who they are and their whole selves. And their role and responsibility in the community. And without them it’s going to be hard for them to call back what are those Anishinaabe responsibilities? What are those roles and responsibilities? And I think we’ve seen that a lot where we really need our fathers, our uncles, our grandfathers. All those kind of people are in the community and creating those connections for our younger men and women to navigate. That role needs to be rebuilt up. And I think I heard Brenda talking about that too. Sagamok have a Grandpas and Uncles program. And I think that should be everywhere.
This statement speaks to the importance of recognizing and supporting men to fulfill their specific roles and responsibilities in their families and communities as well as for men to acknowledge their complex role as fathers, teaching their children how to successfully navigate a world that has been shaped by colonial violence.