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

Smith, Theresa S.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0893011711 ISBN 13: 9780893011710

Publisher: Univ of Idaho Pr, 1995

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author:

Theresa S. Smith is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

Review:

“[Smith] provides valuable primary sources in contemporary religious thought and interestingly synthesizes much past material in the light of the present. Appropriate for cross-cultural theology and philosophy courses as well as Native American studies, mythology, religious revitalization, and hermeneutics.”—R. A. Bucko, Choice (R. A. Bucko Choice)

“The Island of the Anishnaabeg is excellent scholarship, empathetic interpretation, and engaging. [Smith’s] book is enhanced by a clear prose augmented by well selected pictures of artwork by Manitoulin Ojibwe which illustrate many points.”—North Dakota Quarterly (Gregory Gagnon North Dakota Quarterly)

“A thoroughly fascinating and carefully argued investigation of the Ojibwe religious cosmology exploring two critical mythic beings. . . . Extremely accessible.”—Religious Studies Review (Gary Laderman Religious Studies Review)

About this edition

• Publisher: Univ of Idaho Pr
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0893011711
• ISBN 13: 9780893011710
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 236