Anishinaabe Music

The Anishinaabe peoples — including the Ojibwe (Chippewa), Odawa, and Potawatomi nations of the Great Lakes region — share a musical tradition centred on the drum as a living, sacred being. The Anishinaabe origin story describes the world emerging from sound. The Midewiwin (Grand Medicine Society) is the principal ceremonial institution, and its songs — documented on birchbark scrolls, one of the few instances of Indigenous North American music notation — form a body of healing and initiation music passed through generations of members. The Dream Dance (or Drum Dance) tradition involves a large ceremonial drum given specific protocol and treated as a sacred being. Songs in the Dream Dance tradition are received in visions and used specifically with that drum. Secular music includes love songs (nagamonan), war songs (nakamowi), lullabies, and the jingle dress dance songs of the modern powwow circuit — the jingle dress dance originated among the Ojibwe in the early 20th century as a healing dance.