Indigenous Embrace of Religious Diversity

Although the Dakota and Ojibwe have typically been depicted as foes whose conflicts were ramped up under the pressure of Euro-American expansion, these two peoples have shown principled respect for internal and external religious diversity. Perhaps this respect stems from the theological humility encoded in their respective languages: both the Dakota term for spirit, wakan, and the Ojibwe term for spirit, manidoo, can be translated as mystery; their respective words for the Creator — wakan tanka in Dakota; giche manidoo in Ojibwe — can be translated as Great Mystery.

Quarriers pull pipestone from the earth in Pipestone, MN.

To be sure, the two languages, cultures, and religions are anything but variations on the same thing; Dakota and Ojibwe languages stem from different language families altogether. Their respective and religious practices, too, generally follow entirely different lineages–more like the difference between Christians and Hindus than between Catholics and Protestants. Yet despite these differences, the Dakota and Ojibwe peoples share a posture of generosity to religious and cultural difference. In each of the two nations, internal differences were settled and alliances cemented in ceremony. Both Dakota and Ojibwe traditional religions encompassed many individual variations, and people could be gifted by spirits with new visions, new ceremonies, new songs, and new dances: the Jingle Dress dance, involving the ringing out of prayers from metal cones on dresses, came to a young Ojibwe woman through a vision to bring healing during the Flu Pandemic of 1918.¹ With pipe ceremonies and prayer involving pipes carved from the sacred stone of Pipestone, MN, diplomacy followed ceremony. The Seven Fires, or Oceti Sakowin of the Dakota/Lakota is itself an expression of this ceremonial practice of diplomacy and peacemaking. The term Dakota, or its equivalent in the dialects of the West, Nakota, and Lakota means “ally”. For their part, Ojibwe peoples cemented alliances with Potawatomi and Odawa peoples to form the Three Fires confederacy of Anishinaabeg.

In each of these cases, religious exchange of story, dance, vision, and ceremony were part and parcel of the relationship building that kept the peace in Mni Sota Makoče/Anishinaabe Akiing.

Brenda J. Child, “When Art is Medicine,” New York Times (May 28, 2020).↩

Mne Owi Sni, or Coldwater Spring, was a site of religious exchange between the Dakota and Ojibwe people, during the celebration of the Grand Medicine Ceremony.

As important, even as they could challenge one another on the battlefield, hostilities never broke along religious lines. In fact, Dakota and Ojibwe people practiced deliberate respect for one another’s spiritual teachings, even conducting ceremonies together at key moments of diplomacy. Mni Owe Sni, or Coldwater Spring, near the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport was one such location for not infrequent celebrations of the Grand Medicine Ceremony.²

In the late nineteenth century, religious exchange between the two people was dramatic. Lakota people brought the Big Drum, or Peace Drum, to the Ojibwe, along with its attendant songs and ceremonial traditions. The annual June White Earth Powwow, which was such a going concern that Minnesota’s governors and other elected officials didn’t dare miss, was one hub for the ceremonious sharing of visions, stories, songs, dances, and other religious practices happened.

Bruce White and Gwen Westermann, Mni Sota Makoče: The Land of the Dakota, (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2012).↩