Elder Interviews

M’Chigeeng Elder Interviews

The Kinoomaadoog website has been designed to explain and provide information regarding Nishnaabe and M’Chigeeng history and stories. The website connects the oral tradition of the Nishnaabeg with archival research to produce a historical resource that is as complete and comprehensive as possible.

The Elder interviews are property of each elder and copyright is retained by M’Chigeeng First Nation and its community television channel – TV 22 Baadaajmajig. Throughout the last 15 years TV22 videographer Sam Debassige has been videotaping the elders of M’Chigeeng. Some of the interviews have been conducted in English but Kinoomaadoog has made the Ojibwe interviews more accessible. Kinoomaadoog wants to increase the number of Ojibwe language learning resources for Nishnaabemwin (Ojibwe language) students and teachers alike. The digitized segments contained here are stories that have been extracted from the videotaped interviews. Accompanying each video segment are three printable documents:

the Ojibwe word for word transcription;
the word for word English translation; and,
a transcript that is in a bilingual format.

Normally, the textual representation of elder interviews would omit the false starts, pauses and correct speech errors, however, it was decided that students utilizing this website may get confused if the transcripts were not as exact as possible.

The digitized video segments contain reminiscences, historical tales, and legends. The videos containing legends will be made unavailable during the summer months in accordance with Nishnaabe protocols prohibiting the telling of certain legends in the summer. Once the snow falls to the ground the legends will be made available again.

Mnaabjitoon nanda dbaajmowinan!