OJIBWA. The Ojibwa or Chippewa form a large, loosely knit group of Algonkin Indians, said to have held originally the northern shores of lakes Huron and Superior, but extending in the historic period also westward across northern Minnesota and into Manitoba as far as Turtle mountain. Their expansion was largely at the expense of the Dakota, whom they bested with firearms obtained from the French. They were friendly to the French, and later to the Brit ish against the Americans, but have never been aggressive in warfare, at least not unitedly so, although esteemed brave. They were a timber people, farming only in part, and subsisting large ly on game and wild rice. They are a large and widely spread group, numbering 30,000 or more, about equally divided be tween Canadian and American soil. (A. L. K.) OKAPI (6-kah'pi), large ani mal allied to giraffes, inhabiting the Semliki forest between Lakes Albert and Albert Edward in Central Africa. First obtained by Sir H. H. Johnston, in 1900, the
okapi (Ocapia johnstoni) has shorter legs and neck than the giraffe, standing 5ft. at the shoulder. In colour it is purplish, with the sides of the face puce and the limbs barred with black and white. The horns, only present in the males, are capped with a small polished tip which alone penetrates the covering skin. The skull is intermediate between that of the giraffe and that of the extinct Samotherium of the Lower Pliocene of Europe. The okapi dwells in the densest parts of the primeval forest, feeding on leaves of trees, shrubs and epiphytes. Its colouring renders it practically invisible at a short distance. It belongs to the family Giraffidae (see PECORA).
See for further details Ray Lankester, Trans. Zool. Soc. of London (xvi., 6, 1902).