Ojibwe Quotes

“Nector [speaking to Bernadette] could have told her, having drunk down the words of Nanapush, that comfort is not security and money in the hand disappears. He could have told her that only the land matters and never to let go of the papers, the titles, the tracks of the words, all those things that his ancestors never understood how the vital relationship to the dirt and grass under their feet.”
― Louise Erdrich, The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse

“It seemed to Chickadee that those houses held the powers of the world. The ones who built and lived in those houses were making an outsize world. An existence he'd never dreamed of. Almost a spirit world, but one on earth. Chickadee could see that they used up forests of trees in making the houses. He could see that they were pumping up the river and even using up the animals. He thought of the many animals whose dead hides were bound and sold in St. Paul in one day. Everything that the Anishinabeg counted on in life, and loved, was going into this hungry city mouth. This mouth, this city, was wide and insatiable. it would never be satisfied, thought Chickadee dizzily, until everything was gone.”
― Louise Erdrich, Chickadee

“The buffalo provided the fuel for fires that smoked their own meat.”
― Louise Erdrich, Chickadee

“This time, the rapids sent them through a dark tunnel that seemed timeless, blind, malevolent. A yawning throat of water.”
― Louise Erdrich, The Porcupine Year

“He wondered if he would ever see the inside of one of those houses whose great windows blared sheaves of light. They made huge blurred spears that reached out into the balmy spring darkness.”
― Louise Erdrich, Chickadee

“We wolves will forever be in this land, for our spirits run heavy in this place. We are made of the very earth of this land.

Our spirits are the moon over the lake, of the vapor of the breaths when we run hard through fields on cold fall nights with the stars all above and around us and shining off the perfect calm of the water. Our spirit is when we are tracking deer on cold winter days, of the chase and the precise timing of the kill, and then sleeping curled together for warmth in deep snow, mouths covered in fresh, dried blood from our feasting. Our spirit is of the dark and wind and perfect stillness before a summer storm and the sounds of slow, rolling thunder off the lake, echoing through the trees. Our spirit is the smell of wet grass and wildflowers, and all the bright colors of the land and water and sky.”
― Thomas D. Peacock, The Wolf's Trail: An Ojibwe Story, Told by Wolves

“While I lingered about the old village and the lake, with the water lapping on the shore and the wind whispering in the big pines, I felt for a moment that I was back in time among the Ojibwe families going about their business.”
― Barry Babcock, TEACHERS IN THE FOREST: Essays from the last wilderness in Mississippi Headwaters Country

“Perspective. Storytellers tell their own stories. They don't mean to. They let their life experiences and ideas slip in between the bits and pieces of history that have come to them. There are so many versions among us, of this first woman, this mother of Manaboozhou, Nanabush, our goofy, loving, mixed up teacher and hero. They are all valid. They are all real. They are all traditional. None of us knows them all by heart. We take the parts that we need and understand. These are the stories that we share with our children. In a sense, that makes us all a little bit like Winona and Epanigishimoog. We are the creators of the Anishnabe generations who come after us. I like that responsibility.”
― Lois Beardslee, Lies to Live By

“Although she lived in town, Old Tallow was so isolated by the force and strangeness of her personality that she could have been surrounded by a huge dark forest. She had never had any children, and each of her three husbands had slunk off in turn during the night, never to be seen again. Nobody knew exactly what it was that Tallow, in her younger days, had done to drive them off. It had probably been something terrible. After the last husband left, her face seemed to have gotten old suddenly, though the rest of her hadn’t weakened. She was a rangy woman over six feet in height. She was powerful, lean, and lived surrounded by ferocious animals more wolf than dog.”
― Louise Erdrich, The Birchbark House

“Each of Old Tallow’s feet seemed to take up as much space as a small child, but Omakayas didn’t mind. Warily, but completely, she loved the fierce old woman.”
― Louise Erdrich, The Game of Silence

“She told the holy stories and the funny stories, the aadizookaanag that explained how the world came into being, how it continued to be made.”
― Louise Erdrich, The Game of Silence

“The prairie almost seemed to mock them with its beauty. Every inch of their skin was covered with bites upon bites. Their faces were purple and swollen. The mosquitoes bit through cloth, they bit through hair, they were implacable. Every being suffered. Yet they kept moving.”
― Louise Erdrich, Chickadee

“Life had sprung up along the trail. The thin film of green in the trees had become a cloud of new leaves. Robins, bluebirds, vireos, finches, songbirds of all types made the brush along the trail a wall of sharp melody.”
― Louise Erdrich, Chickadee

“Animikiins used all his skills. But the earth is good at swallowing up all traces of people. At last, in spite Animikiins's great powers, they lost his trail.”
― Louise Erdrich, Chickadee

“She just said nothing. Nothing. She let the silence between them fill the air. Unlike other people, Omakayas had noticed, silence did not make Old Tallow uncomfortable.

Now the warrior lady simply stood and smoked her pipe. The smoke drifted serenely in wavering fangs from each corner of her mouth. She was thinking.”
― Louise Erdrich, The Game of Silence