The Ojibwe Cultural Toolbox

The Ojibwe, like Indigenous people across America, need healing from historical and contemporary trauma related to violence, poverty, racism, substance abuse. When people learn their tribal culture, they are equipped with a toolbox for healing that is uniquely relatable to them and especially effective at helping them heal. Most of our fluent speakers and cultural carriers are elders and small in number. Most of our people do not have direct access to them. We propose to create a book that will serve as a resource to help Ojibwe people access their culture wherever they are. It will serve to catalyze the connection of Ojibwe people to their communities, traditions, and cultural practices. This connection will help them heal emotional and spiritual trauma and improve their chances at leading long, healthy, happy lives. 

Ojibwe people are grappling with lots of historical and contemporary trauma. There is an epigenetic imprint passed through each generations from historical experiences with genocide and forced assimilation. There is a current impact from poverty and substance abuse felt by many Native people. Healing from all of that can feel overwhelming. But the opposite of substance abuse is not sobriety; it is connection. The opposite of colonization is not decolonization; it is indigenization. People hunger for and need access to their culture. The problem is that the culture that can ground, connect, and heal people is hard to access. Over half of the enrolled tribal citizenry lives off-reservation. Over seventy percent of the self-identified tribal population lives off-reservation. On reservations, it is still hard for many people to find their culture keepers and connect. Many people are at Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Tier One (in need of food, clothing, and shelter). Our culture is highly threatened and out of reach for too many of us. Helping people heal and break the cycles of disconnection and poverty requires a toolbox to catalyze their learning and connection.

To accelerate people's ability to find, connect to, and heal with their Ojibwe culture, I will create a print resource (a book) that serves to guide people on their own quests for self-discovery. The Ojibwe have a rich cultural toolbox, and the more people can learn about our cultural practices, the easier it will be for them to go deeper and heal more successfully. In our culture, some types of information cannot and will not be shared in a book. This work will help people connect to their communities, practices, and elders, rather than walk around them. It won't violate cultural taboos. But it will make a big difference. Anton Treuer, team leader for this effort, is a fluent speaker of Ojibwe and a spiritual leader who officiates at traditional Ojibwe funerals and life ceremonies. He is also a college professor and successful author. He is well-equipped to complete this effort and to do so in a way that is authentic, relatable and useful to Ojibwe people rather than in a way that is simply of anthropological curiosity for outsiders. The new resource will be a toolbox that people can and will have to use themselves, yielding healing and empowerment.

This project is intended to benefit Ojibwe people. Anton Treuer, the team leader, is from the Leech Lake Reservation (in northern Minnesota). His cultural work makes him a frequent presence at all Ojibwe reservations in Minnesota, North Dakota, and Wisconsin, as well at the First Nations in the Treaty Three area in Northwestern Ontario. This will be the primary area of focus. The Ojibwe are a large group and have significant tribal language dialect variation and differences in cultural practices. This project will also likely be of benefit and use to Ojibwe people in Michigan and other parts of Ontario and Manitoba, but it will focus on the Ojibwe cultural practices of the western Great Lakes to maintain cultural consistency and greatest ease of use for people in the Ojibwe communities of this region. 

This project is focused and well-aligned with the stated goal of this Challenge to support Indigenous language and culture revitalization. The team leader is a fluent speaker of the Ojibwe language and well-known cultural carrier and ceremonial officiant in Ojibwe country. His cultural credentials, residency on the Leech Lake Reservation, and deep track record of service to Ojibwe people throughout the region give evaluators tools to verify the authenticity and topicality of this proposal. The project description and final product of this effort will deliver a measurable outcome to verify alignment with the goals of the Challenge.

We picked "prototype" because we are developing a new cultural resource rather than deploying one already made or growing or scaling up one already in existence. The concept is already generated, it just needs to be created. Once created, Anton Treuer and other contributors will surely deploy the work in their other ongoing cultural service and language revitalization efforts, but as a stand alone project, "prototype" is the most accurate label. 

Indigenous people have been writing and publishing books, websites, and audio resources to teach their histories and languages for decades now. But cultural information about Indigenous cultures has largely been developed by white anthropologists who have objectified Indigenous people and cultures rather than by Indigenous people who have used such media to catalyze the engagement of tribal people in their own cultures. It is tough territory to navigate because many tribes have strict prohibitions against the sharing of some types of cultural information in print form. This project is innovative because it makes appropriate use of existing book-making technology and sensitively and carefully navigates cultural boundaries by having Ojibwe cultural carriers set and enforce the boundaries and develop the authentic cultural information in a relatable and sharable form. It will bridge the disconnection between Ojibwe cultural carriers and the Ojibwe people who want to learn about their culture. It will overcome time and space—helping Ojibwe people access more of their culture where they currently live without having to spend money, travel, or find time to hunt for their culture in other places. Access creates opportunity. With the cultural foundations available through this effort, people can go deeper with their elders and cultural carriers as the grow and heal. 

The collection and synthesis of cultural information will follow our traditional  tribal protocol (with gifts and tobacco offerings). But the development of a new book will use print and photographic technologies to document phases and techniques for maple harvest, wild rice harvest, and other cultural activities. We will seek the support of reputable press to assist with publication, marketing, and distribution of the work rather than self-publish. We believe this will keep the work in print and make it more widely available and accessible. 

Anton Treuer is a successful author who is very familiar with the publishing world. His other published works have been instrumental in Ojibwe language revitalization and the research and sharing of tribal histories. His published works include Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians But Were Afraid to Ask, The Language Warrior’s Manifesto: How to Keep Our Languages Alive No Matter the Odds, Warrior Nation: A History of the Red Lake Ojibwe (Winner of Caroline Bancroft History Prize and the American Association of State and Local History Award of Merit), Ojibwe in Minnesota (“Minnesota’s Best Read for 2010” by The Center for the Book in the Library of Congress), The Assassination of Hole in the Day (Award of Merit Winner from the American Association for State and Local History), Atlas of Indian Nations, The Indian Wars: Battles, Bloodshed, and the Fight for Freedom on the American Frontier, and Awesiinyensag (“Minnesota’s Best Read for 2011” by The Center for the Book in the Library of Congress). He has also edited several works published in the Ojibwe language.

The are no health risks associated with this project. This project does involve intellectual and cultural property rights. All contributors will be duly sourced and permissions obtained in writing. If it evolves into something that warrants co-authorship, royalties would be paid to all co-authors and co-editors. While nobody owns a culture or a language, culture carriers will be respected and all producers and contributors of the work will be respected and compensated according to the law and the highest ethical standards in the industry.

"The Ojibwe Cultural Toolbox" will produce change. There are 250,000 Ojibwe people in the United States and about the same number in Canada. There are around 100 fluent speakers of Ojibwe in the United States and probably several thousand in Canada. Culture and language are inextricably link, so fluency rates is a measure of a certain kind of cultural knowledge within Indigenous communities. The Ojibwe culture is endangered. But our people are hungry for their culture and they need it to heal and connect with one another and connect to their communities. Place-based culture is the defining feature of Indigeneity. Developing a resource that helps people develop a foundation in their own culture and equips them with a toolbox to take their healing and self-discovery deeper on their own will indeed have a powerful impact on the acquisition of cultural knowledge by Ojibwe people and the healing that will flow from that. Non-Native people can learn about the basics of Ojibwe culture without appropriating it as well, advancing our acceptance and understanding by others, but that is a tertiary benefit rather than the focus of this project. 

This proposal is to develop a resource that will be widely shared and accessible when complete.

Currently served: 0

Served in One Year: 5,000

Served in Five Years: 25,000

We believe that it is reasonable and attainable to develop this cultural resource within one year. As the first print run disseminates this information over a period of years, we believe that it will directly impact thousands of people who engage with the project. They will then apply these teachings and practices in their lives, and share them with other people in their circles. It will have an exponential impact across the Ojibwe population in the United States over time. 

Measuring healing and cultural impact is more nebulous than some projects, but we believe that there will be measurable results from this effort. Direct measurable results include:

• Number of publications
• Number of events focused on this project
• Number of event attendees

Indirect measurable results include:

• Mental health outcomes disaggregated by race and tribe
• Physical health outcomes disaggregated by race and tribe
• Survey data on rates of participation in cultural activities 

The primary barrier to accomplishing this project is time. This undertaking requires time collecting cultural information and organizing what material is helpful and acceptable for sharing in a public venue like a book. It also requires time doing the write-up, editing, and marketing. The secondary barrier is with regard to institutional support. In order to get something published by a reputable press, it has to be accepted for publication. That is not a guarantee in today's publishing world. The third barrier is in proliferating access the work in ways that secures its impact as described in this proposal.

Anton Treuer has done a lot of solo publishing and also publication work with teams as large as fifty contributors. He is capable, driven, and good at what he does. The first barrier is manageable with the team developed to this proposal. Research and write-up will happen within year one. Since Dr. Treuer has published 20 books to date and has great relationships with a number of publishing venues, we believe that the second barrier is easily overcome. Finding a publisher willing to take this project on is reasonable and attainable. The third barrier will take more sustained effort, as it involves the engagement of numerous other stakeholders to share, use, and proliferate the new resource. We have full faith in our team and community response and believe this barrier will be overcome as well.

1 full-time team member: Anton Treuer, CEO, Indigenous Enterprise LLC

10 contractor team members: brought in as researchers and support staff on project-by-project basis

Anton Treuer is one of the most prolific scholars of the Ojibwe language and history. He has produced an average of a book every single years for the past 20 years in a row. He works independently and in teams as large as fifty people on major projects. Marshaling a team to research and help write up a project like his is squarely in his wheelhouse. In addition, cultural work has to be done in a cultural way, rather than as an academic enterprise. This team lives and breathes Ojibwe culture every day. Nobody could take this project on from outside the culture and succeed. We are uniquely well-qualified to carry this effort out. 

100% of the team members for this project are Ojibwe. We believe that Ojibwe people should be in charge of the Ojibwe culture. There should be no filters or outsiders who make our cultural decisions or filter the access of our people to our culture. That belief is reflected in the composition of our project team. As a part of Indigenous Enterprise LLC, this project is one of many related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. We also do expert testimony for tribal treaty cases and train educators, social services, and law enforcement on DEI and Indigenous cultural competency. We are Indigenous-owned, Indigenous-led, and employ 100% Indigenous employees. 

We are thrilled at the prospect of joining the community of innovators connected to Solve. We know that we become who we hang out with, and we want to connect to and learn from other great thinkers and innovators. For the success of our proposed project, while we have full faith in our ability to accomplish this goal, we feel that the support strategic advice of the Solve community will help us advance our mission with greatest alacrity and effect.  While we are prepared to make our own luck with regard to funding the research and travel goals for this project, we also believe that the connections we make will help catalyze our efforts.

Because our project will impact the mental, spiritual, and physical health of people across a broad array of tribal communities, we can most benefit from assistance in developing a good plan for data collection and analysis. Tribes operate independently from state governments, the federal government, and from one another, making this kind of data analysis complex. Also, some institutions and tribes only track enrolled tribal members. Others, like the Indian Health Service track enrolled members and their descendants, but only those who interact with an agency in their service region. We could use some help developing a plan and tools to better measure our impact across the region and across the complex tribal population we hope to serve. We are also open to advice and guidance on pitching our work to investors. Often cultural carriers are less highly valued than well-established professionals in the grant-making universe. While our team has credentials, the elders we work with and many people in the communities we serve often do not.

We are open to your advice as to which individuals an organizations can help us with data collection and analysis. Looking at the list of previous awardees, we can see several potential individuals and organizations that might be a great fit for us.