My latest watercolor : Totems

This is my latest watercolour painting.

Totems.

It’s a very large painting … about 3’ x 4’

I am a Métis youth taking a course on Indigenous Art and History in Canada. I will share my work here along with some of the thoughts and ideas I have while creating these works. I will also share some of the Ojibwe and Algonquin language we are learning.

Totem.

indoodem :

my clan

Note:

There is no simple independent word for clan, totem. A personal prefix goes with the dependent noun stem /=doodem-/ clan to make a full word:
nindoodem, indooden, ndoodem my clan (1s-3s)
gidoodem your clan (2s-3s)
odoodeman h/ clan

A basic form of indoodem my clan is:

indoodem sg; Stem: /=doodem-/

Source: https://ojibwe.lib.umn.edu/main-entry/indoodem-nad

About the Ojibwe People's Dictionary project

The Ojibwe People’s Dictionary was established by faculty and students in the Department of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota. For many years, Professor John Nichols digitally recorded Ojibwe elders as part of a research grant for the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Endangered Languages Program. His goal was to expand A Concise Dictionary of Minnesota Ojibwe, which he co-authored with Professor Earl Nyholm (Nichols, Nyholm, 1995). Breaking new ground in Ojibwe language study, Nyholm taught Ojibwe at Bemidji State University for many years until his retirement. In time, Nichols anticipated the need for a talking dictionary where digital audio would be embedded within the dictionary entry. Nichols and his departmental colleague, historian Brenda Child, along with curator Marcia Anderson from the Minnesota History Society, began to envision a new dictionary with a broader Ojibwe cultural context. This dictionary would draw on the superb collections of the Minnesota Historical Society to create a virtual museum. As a result, instead of the simple line drawings typical of a print dictionary, the Ojibwe People’s Dictionary features beautiful illustrations of Ojibwe material culture and activities, to narrate the rich cultural heritage and present-day lives of Ojibwe people from the Great Lakes.

Source: https://ojibwe.lib.umn.edu/about