The Island of the Anishnaabeg: Thunderers and Water Monsters in the Traditional Ojibwe Life-World

Ojibwe religion has experienced a great revival in belief and practice, and this study explores the lived experience of contemporary Ojibwe (or Anishnaabeg). Scholars have contended that traditional Ojibwe religion has been lost in the three centuries following Euro-American contact. Even though traditional religion no longer exists as a plausibility structure for a hunting-gathering culture, historic and contemporary accounts and a revival in the arts attest to the changing and vital nature of Ojibwe religion.The Ojibwe life-world, as experienced and described through religious symbols, beliefs, and practices, is alive with the presence of other-than-human people, known as manitouk. This is the first thorough and systematic interpretive treatment of the relationship between Thunderers and Underwater manitouk. Dr. Smith's work reveals the Thunderers and Water monsters as determinative beings and symbols in the Ojibwe world, and explores how their relationship inscribes a dialectic that both reflects the lived reality of that world and helps to determine the position and existence of the human subject therein.