Specialization among the Northern Ojibwa : a paradigmatic process

Abstract

This thesis is concerned with the Northern Ojibwa as a whole, in which the Bloodvein River will serve as a representative community. The Bloodvein community, then, will not be treated as geographically confined by the territory known as "the reserve", with its accompanying traplines. Nor will it exclude non-native individuals, who are either resident or those non-resident individuals who have become a part of the community's social alignments. Northern Ojibwa communites with which the author is well acquainted through numerous personal visits, a few of them extended, are Bloodvein River, Pauingassi, Little Grand Rapids, Hole River and Island Lake, all of which are located east of Lake Winnipeg. Also under consideration, mainly for purposes of comparison, are the Berens River, Round Lake and Pekangikum communities... The supposed danger for anthropology to become unacademic as a result of applying its categories to existing problems will be ignored here. To run the risk of diluting the discipline seems certainly to be no greater than to live with the reputation that anthropologists are interested mainly in embalming the pristine past. Using insights for purposes of easing human tensions in difficult processes of cultural change is here regarded as a valid function of anthropologists...