12. Before you are born, you are at the center of the universe, with the creator. Before he sends you on your way to earth, he gives you gifts.  Once you get to earth, your goal should be to figure what these gifts are, and the only way to find out, is if what you are doing in your life, makes you happy.  So, you should be happy when you are here on earth.

11. When you drop food, a spirit wants to get feed. What you do, is make a fire, and put tobacco in the fire, and give a food offering, into the fire.  A spirit is also someone who has passed on.

10.When you shoot a moose, and it has a calf in it, you cannot look at the calf only an elder is allowed to look.

9. The word ininaatig means maple tree. Literally it means (inini meaning man, and aatig meaning, made of wood) the man tree.  It got its name when a spirit took pity on the ojibwe people, in the late spring, and turned himself into a tree, in order to nourish the ojibwe people.

8. The word wemitigoozhi, literally means the wooden cross, but is translated to, “the Frenchman”. The reason this is, is because the French were the first people to bring that religion to the Ojibwe.

7. There are little people that live in North America, they are spirits. They do not harm people and they like to play jokes on people and are known to be mischievous.  Feeding them Candy pleases them.

6. You shouldn’t smoke all your tobacco in your pipe, leave a little bit for the spirits to smoke.

5.  An apology is a big thing in Ojibwe, it matters more than the action that required the apology.

4. Moose intestines were used to wrap meat in, to make sausages.

3.  If you see a dead skunk, it is a good idea to inhale his odor, his scent is good for warding off colds/sickness

2. Did you know that when you experience a deja-vu, it is a sign that you are where you are supposed to be in life, and you are doing good things.

1. Did you know (Ojibwe teachings from Rainy Lake)? When you help an elder, you get life added on to your life.

This blog is maintained by the staff at School Support Services of Rainy River District School Board, Aboriginal Education Department.  Our goal is create resources for Teachers and anyone interested in learning/teaching Aboriginal Education.  New ideas are updated continually, please stop by regularly.  We are using the Rainy Lake dialect of Ojibwe, if you’d like some to let us know what dialect your are, we can put up your audio as well.  We are not the authority of Ojibwe language, if you use items from the site, you can download them and switch them to your dialect or your way of spelling Ojibwe. Please feel free to submit questions to “@askanelder” link on the page. KAYWAREADER CODE.  Free app  (<<<<click here)  save the code to your mobile device.   The Audio is available now.  Please download them and save them to your Itunes in order to put it on your Iphone/Ipad.  Also you can send it to your audio devices.  Soon we will be putting up “Conversational sentences” with both audio and written formats, giga-waabamininim.  For more information or suggestions please email Jason or Pam at jason.jones@mail.rrdsb.com or pamela.king@mail.rrdsb.com