Note: The excerpt below is a myth of the Ojibwa tribe, a member of the Algonquin people. It is passed on from generation to generation and explains how the Algonquin people came to live on their territory. From this myth, can you tell whether the Algonquins were nomadic or sedentary? Explain your answer.

 

Excerpt: “Long ago, the Great Spirit made two cranes1 appear, one male, the other female. They left the Great Spirit and flew back to Earth. They flew for a very long time over the land looking for the perfect place. They visited the prairies and stopped to taste the flesh of bison. Although it was good, the two cranes feared it would one day run out and so they left. They flew over the large forests and tasted the flesh of the deer, the caribou, the beaver and several of the other animals of these regions. They found all of them to be delicious, but were once again seized by the fear that they, too, might one day run out. After flying over the Great Lakes and tasting the different species of fish which were plentiful in these waters, they approached the rapids at the mouth of Lake Superior. There they saw fish trying to swim against the turbulent current. They noticed that the fish were easy to catch and that their numbers seemed infinite. They looked at each other and said, “Food is abundant here, this will be our land.”

 

1 Birds

Source:   CARDIN, Jean-François. Le Québec: héritages et projets, Montreal: HRW, 1984, p. 44.