CHIPPEWA. The Canadian branch of the Chippewa, one of the largest tribes north of Mexico, lives in the woodlands north and west of Lake Superior. Their culture was typical in many respects of the central Algonquians. Moose, deer, beaver and rabbits were snared or killed with arrows ; wild-fowl were shot or clubbed, and fish were speared or taken with hook and line. Wild rice was collected as a staple food in the vicinity of Lake Superior; maple sugar was manufactured, and nuts, berries and edible roots are still gathered in large quantities. In their search for game the Chippewa travel long distances, by canoe in summer, or in winter on snow-shoes, dragging their goods on toboggans. These wander ings, however, usually lead back to semi-permanent settlements, where formerly bark houses were used in warm weather, and oval, rush-covered lodges in winter. In pre-Columbian days, utensils were almost entirely of wood or bark, basketry being weakly de veloped. Clothing was of skins, while bags, belts and garters were woven on peddle looms out of bark or wild hemp fibre. Ex pert artificers in wood, Chippewa stone work was limited to arrow points and a few tools, while native copper, mined near Lake Superior, was pounded into serviceable shapes.
Politically, there is no Chippewa "tribe," since the numerous sub-divisions have no single, central authority. Each inhabits a certain locality, and the members enter into definite relations with one another.
There is an ill-defined kind of council, con sisting of practically all the males of the community, which elects a chief, whose powers are even more shadowy than those of the body that selects him. Social divi sions are more definite, since, in addition to the family, there are exogamic patrilineal clans of a totemic nature. Individual own ership of material objects prevails, but land was probably held, in former times, by groups of kindred.
The Chippewa have firm belief in a cosmic force animating all nature which frequently manifests itself in animals, mythical or real. Like their eastern kinsmen, the concept of a guardian spirit was important, and shamanism with conjuring flourished. Entry to the next world depended largely upon membership in the Midewiwin, "Great Medicine Society," a secret organization en tered after elaborate initiation. Symbolic pictographs drawn upon bark were perhaps originally connected with this society. (See Handbook of the American Indian, 1906.)