'For 500 years they've tried to kill us off, and for 500 years we keep coming back.' — These activists are trying to make 2018 the year Native Americans change an election.  This video, "Voting While Native American in Montana", first appeared on nowthisnews.com.

A young hunter was hunting on the prairie and he came upon a strange, circular shape on the prairie, without any trail leading to or from it. The grass there was smooth and well-beaten, and looked as if footsteps had trod in it recently. This puzzled and amazed him, so he hid himself in the grass nearby see who or what had caused this strange phenomenon.
 
After waiting for a short time, the young man thought that he heard music coming from the sky.  He listened and could clearly hear the strange sound, but when he looked upwards, all he could see was a small speck in the sky.  In a short time the speck became larger and larger and the music sweeter and sweeter. The object descended rapidly, and when it came near it proved to be a strange basket which landed in the center of the circle.  From out of the basket came twelve beautiful girls, who each had a kind of a ball-shaped drum in their hand which was struck with the grace of an angel.  The girls began to dance in the circle, at the same time striking the shining ball in their hands.
 
The young hunter had seen many a dances, but none were as beautiful or graceful as this. The music was sweeter than any he had ever heard.  But nothing about this strange sight could equal the beauty of the girls themselves. He found them all to be beautiful, but he was most infatuated with the youngest. He wanted her for his wife and wanted to speak to her.  As quietly as he could, he moved towards the girls and their basket, but before he could speak to his chosen girl, the girls spotted him and they all nimbly leaped into the basket and were drawn back to the skies. 

The hunter was completely foiled. He stood gazing upward as they flew away. “They are gone forever, and I shall see them no more” he said to himself as he returned to his lodge.  Even so, he could not forget this wonder that he had seen, nor the beautiful girl he wished to speak to. That night he dreamed of her and he made up his mind to go to the circle on the prairie the next day and to better hide himself so he could speak to the girl. 
 
That next day, he went back to the prairie and placed a large log near the circle and hid himself behind it. Soon, he heard the same sweet music and the basket landed. The girls commenced their dance and as he peeked at them, he thought they seemed even more beautiful and graceful than before. He slowly crept slowly towards the ring.  Again the girls spied him, but in the confusion the youngest girl stumbled and did not make it back to the basket and it left without her.  The girl was extremely upset and cried for her sisters to return.  She fell down on the prairie and was inconsolable.  The young man spoke to her and begged her to stop crying. He wiped the tears from her eyes and spoke to her to calm down.  Once she had calmed down, he led her gently to his lodge and after a short time he and asked her to be his wife. She accepted and from that moment he was the happiest of men.
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Winter and summer passed rapidly away, and their happiness increased by the addition of a beautiful baby boy. Even though they were happy, the girl would often cry out of loneliness for her home in the stars and for her people.  She did her best to hide these feelings from her husband, but she was always thinking about her family and her home.
 
One day, she could not take it any longer and she constructed a basket that would be large enough to take her back to her people.  While her husband was away hunting, she gathered some of her things, took her son by the hand, and took her basket to the ring on the prairie.  As soon as she and her son stepped into the basket, the basket rose and she ascended to the sky.  Her husband saw the basket rising into the sky and he ran to the prairie, but he could not reach the ring before they disappeared. In misery, he walked back to his lodge and spent a long winter and a long summer alone without her and his son.  

In the meantime his wife had reached her home in the stars.  She had almost forgotten the beauty of her home and her people, and she reveled in it all and started to forget her time on earth until one day when her son told her that he missed his father.  The girl’s father heard this and he said to his daughter, “Go, my child, and take your son down to his father, and ask him to come up and live with us. But tell him to bring along some of the animals of the earth for me.” She accordingly took the boy and descended back to earth.  
 
The hunter, who was never far from the circle on the prairie, heard the sound of her basket as she came down from the sky. His heart beat with excitement as he saw her and their son step out of it.  He rushed forward and grabbed them in his arms.  She told him of her father’s message, that he could come live with her in the stars. He was overjoyed by this and began to hunt with the greatest activity to collect the specimens that her father desired.  He spent whole days and nights searching for every curious and beautiful bird or animal he could, and when all was ready, they went to the circle, and were carried up in her basket.
 
Upon arrival at her home-world her father invited all of his people to a feast, and when they had assembled he proclaimed aloud that each person in attendance could take of the earthly gifts.  Some people chose birds, others chose other animals such as rabbits, deer, and muskrats.  Soon, a very strange confusion arose and the people changed themselves into the animal that they had selected and ran off (or flew off).  The hunter, his wife and his son chose hawks.  Then they changed to become hawks. They spread their wings and descended to the earth.  In this form they could fly between the earth and her home in the sky whenever they wanted to.
 
They were happy.

​Women have often achieved great fame as warriors (ogichidaa).
 
Sometimes, when a man went to war, his wife would insist on accompanying him, and sometimes she was lucky enough to succeed in obtaining a war honor by killing an enemy or another act of valor, in which case she received a customary feather for her efforts.  In most cases the ogichidaa woman didn’t wear her feather, but instead designating one of her male relatives, usually a son or grandson, to wear it for her.  Nonetheless, she was thereafter called by the title ogichidaakwe.

​An ogichidaakwe was entitled to go to the ogichidaag lodge at any time when the warriors were dancing, and to join them. When the warriors reenacted their valorous deeds, and counted their coups, she was entitled to do the same, and her narration was received with the same respect as any other ogichidaa.
 
One ogichidaakwe from Long Plain obtained her title by joining with the warriors when they went to battle.  On one occasion when a Sioux was shot from his horse, she ran to count coup upon him, finally she killed the Dakota with her turnip digging-stick.  The men in the war party then scalped the Dakota, and she painted her face with his blood.

​Another renowned ogichidaakwe was out on the plains digging turnips when the group she was with were attacked by Sioux. The women hastily dug a rifle pit to conceal the party.  As the battle was waged, one brave woman ventured forth and dragged the men who were wounded to safety.  The Sioux were firing at her each time that she did this, but under fire she rescued each of the wounded men.  In this manner she became an ogichidaakwe.

The following is a description of the yearly life of an Ojibwe family living in the woodlands of Minnesota. The narrator is Nodinens, a member of the Mille Lac Band of Ojibwe, who was 74 years old when giving this information. The narrative is given practically in the words of the interpreter:

When I was young everything was very systematic. We worked day and night and made the best use of the material we had. My father kept count of the days on a stick. He had a stick long enough to last a year and he always began a new stick in the fall. He cut a big notch for the first day of a new moon and a small notch for each of the other days. I will begin my story at the time when he began a new counting stick. After my mother had put away the wild rice, maple sugar, and other food that we would need during the winter she made some new mats for the sides of the wigwam. These were made of bulrushes which she had gathered and dried. She selected a nice smooth piece of ground and spread them out.

I, as the oldest daughter, boiled basswood bark, and made cord, and grandmother made the bone needles that we would use in weaving the mats. When the rushes were ready, we laid a cord on the ground and measured the right length for the mats. My mother knew just how long they should be to go around the wigwam, and we made five long ones, four of middle size, and two small ones. The long ones were two double-arms' lengths, and the middle-sized ones were about one and a half double-arms' lengths. We laid the rushes two layers deep on the ground with the ends resting on the cord, and then fastened the ends of the rushes to the cord, after which we fastened the cord to the pole that was the upper, horizontal part of the weaving frame. My grandmother directed everything, and she had a large quantity of the thorns from the thorn-apple tree in a leather bag. She had been gathering these all summer, but she made sure she had plenty. We all three worked hard getting ready for winter. When my mother had finished the bulrush mats she made more mats for the floor, using either fresh reeds or some that she had gathered during the summer, and she made more of the woven-yarn bags in which we kept our belongings.

The Jingle Dress (ziibaaska'iganagooday) originated among the Ojibwe people long ago. 
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According to one legend, there was a powerful medicine man who had a beautiful and cherished granddaughter.  One day she became sick.  The grandfather was very concerned and he prayed to his manitou to help him heal his granddaughter.  That night the manitou appeared to him in a dream.  They showed him several women wearing beautiful dresses which made a powerful sound when they danced. The manitou taught him how to make the dress and what dance steps were to be performed. The manitou also played and sang to him the sort of songs that would make the dance work for healing his granddaughter and for healing the hearts of the Ojibwe people.  ​

In the morning, the grandfather and his wife started to make the dress together according to the directions given to him by the manitou.  When the dress was finished, the grandfather and his wife took the dress to their granddaughter.  She wore it into the center of the camp. A man took the drum and proceeded to sing a song as directed by the grandfather. Then, because the granddaughter was so weak, the grandfather and grandmother helped support the girl as she tried to dance around in a circle. On the second time around, she could walk a little more with their help, and on the third time she was dancing slowly on her own. During her fourth time around, she was dancing the Jingle Dress Dance and was healed of her sickness. 
Ever since, the Jingle Dress Dance has been regarded as powerful medicine and is considered by the Ojibwe to be the most beautiful of all dances at the pow wow.  ​

Here are some essential terms to learn this year, and to teach your family, when planting your garden.

​The Ojibwe believed that every woman possessed a power that was unknown and unavailable to men. This power was always within them and was so powerful that no man could endure it: the power to create life. This special power is so formidable that it needs to be renewed each month, and because of this women are aligned to the power of the grandmother moon. Just as she renews her power at the end of each month, women (her granddaughters) must renew theirs as well. This power starts when a girl is young and lasts until she becomes a grandmother and an elder herself.

​When a girl first reaches adolescence, Grandmother Moon looks down at her while she sleeps and says to her “Follow me, for you are now a woman”.  This starts the power. When this happens, her mother, grandmother, and aunts instruct her that for some days each month, she has to take time to remain (as much as possible) by herself; to redden her cheeks; and to protect others from her power so that she does not harm them by handling food or important sacred items that could be harmed by her gift.

At these times, some girls might separate themselves from the rest of the people. They can spend time doing work or praying. At these times, some women will receive gifts of wisdom, the ability to heal, or other sacred knowledge that can greatly benefit the entire tribe.

This is why we men must respect women, for their power is something that comes from the manitous and which only they can ever know.

Oral tradition and primary sources provide evidence that some women became honored warriors in Ojibwa society. 

Accounts speak of Aanakwad Agoodekwe (Hanging Cloud Woman), of the Lac Courte Oreilles band in Wisconsin, who became a warrior and something of a legend among her people.  

Hanging Cloud Woman was apparently a favorite daughter of her father.  As a young woman, she accompanied him and her brother on a hunting expedition where they were attacked by a war party of Dakota.  Contemporary accounts suggests that after her father was killed she pretended to be dead long enough to satisfy enemy suspicions. Then she grasped her father's gun and pursued the fleeing Dakota to exact revenge on them.  

Our people ate mostly wild game and berries that grow in the local area. They grew gardens; they ate ducks, geese, grouse, partridge, muskrats, beaver, gray squirrels, porcupines, raccoon, deer, rabbits, and etcetera.  

In the summer ducks were the main meat that was served, because they were eaten fresh. There were ducks in the lakes and sloughs, people would go and shoot ducks cook them up.  They were either boiled with salt pork, or you could make soup with them. The soup was usually “rababoo”, which is an oatmeal soup, but sometimes they used rice or macaroni.  The ducks were also roasted and sometimes stuffed. They also fried, the duck after it was boiled. 
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Partridge, goose, grouse, muskrats, beaver, raccoon, porcupine, squirrels were usually roasted.  Deer was roasted or fried in bacon grease.  Deer meat was also canned in quart jars and saved for hard-times, or for summer time when fresh meat was not available.  It the winter there were ice boxes to keep meat.  Also in the winter, rabbits could be snared and deer could also be hunted. 

Summer was kind of a bad time for fresh meat because it spoiled without electricity and a fridge. Also, you really couldn’t hunt in the summertime except for ducks. In the spring, fish were caught when they were spawning and the fish was smoked. In the summer people also caught fish to eat. The heads of the northern were boiled and used to make rice soup.  Also in the spring, “poul do” (mud hen) eggs were gathered and eaten.

Morel mushrooms were gathered in the spring of the year.  They were dried for later use if they were plentiful. People made gardens and canned the vegetables, and they picked berries and made sauce with them. The berries were also dried to cook later.  Juneberry pie is one of our traditional foods.  

Berry sauces were sometimes eaten with cream, and you dipped your bread in the sauce.  Some of the sauces, such as Juneberry sauce were used for pies. The berries were boiled and canned in quart jars so when it was time for pie you just opened a jar of berries, put them in a dipper on the stove, and heated them to a boil. You could thicken the berries with either corn starch or flour, then make the pie.   

Meat pies were also made. If there was left over meat from a meal, which wasn’t that often, you could always stretch it and use what was leftover for a pie.  Store bread was a treat for our people if you had money.  Since we didn’t usually, everyone had homemade bread, gullet, biscuits,   loaf bread, bangs, “gullet di vaen”—which was gullet made from yeast bread—and buns.    Canned meats such as hams, potted meat, corned beef, corned beef hash, and canned chicken were sometimes eaten if you could buy it.  Since we didn’t have electricity, we couldn’t store meat, so canned was easier if fresh wasn’t available.

Buying fresh meat from town didn’t happen often except in the summertime. Hamburger we probably got once a month.  Ham wasn’t so for the summer if you could afford it, because a person could buy a ham and keep it a couple of days if it was kept cool.

A lot of our foods were boiled.  My grandpa use to make boiling beef and potatoes. They would also boil ham and potatoes. Some people also raised chickens and butchered them when they needed to.  

Another source of meat was tripe—great for soup.  There was a slaughter house about 1½ to 2 miles south of Rolla and our people use to get tripe from there. They also got ox tails and made ox tail soup.  If a pig was butchered, they would hang the pig and take all the blood to make blood sausage.  

Boullets, bangs, and pie—mostly juneberry pie—and “la puchin” (boiled pudding) were the traditional New Years foods. 
 
When you went to visit somewhere, you were always fed.  It didn’t matter where you went to visit, you were given hot coffee or tea, and a lunch. Sometimes lunch was just sauce and cream with bread, bread and jelly, or pie.

People sometimes went out to the prairie to look for “le na voo” which was wild turnips, which are great in soup. 

Another thing that was (and still is) a snack with our people is what some called “round-and-round” which is peanut butter and syrup mixed.  Most people used Karo syrup. It was bought in gallon pails.

Armour lard was used to fry bangs.  Sometimes, if we couldn’t afford to buy it, we used rendered lard made from pork fat that was melted. The fat that wouldn’t melt was used to make gwar-toons (cracklings).  Almost everyone made jams and jellies from fruit and berries that were picked locally.  You could also make syrup from the berries.  

Homemade michif ice cream was made from snow during the winter—a real treat. A person used snow, evaporated milk, sugar, and vanilla to make the ice cream.  It was not really ice cream, but was rather a nice mix that kind of had the texture of ice cream. The good thing was that if you put too much liquid in the snow, or if the snow got too runny, you could add more snow to thicken it up.  

​Early fur trade journals often fail to mention Native women, except as side notes or as they pertain to the men that they dealt with. However, given the general division of labor in aboriginal society, it is clear that women made crucial contributions to their families' comfort and to the overall economy.
 
Wild rice and maple sugar were both largely the products of female labor and were highly valued as both subsistence items and trade goods. Rolls of birchbark and other plant materials were also important trade items and necessary items to the conduct of life. These were also the product of the efforts of women. Women were also vital to hunting as they processed buffalo and beaver hides for sale to traders, made pemmican and dried meat, and other by-products.  During fishing season they turned the catch into fish pemmican, sturgeon oil, and smoked the fish to ensure that there would be ample stores prior to summer hunting season.  Any surplus quantities created by the efforts of women were in constant demand by traders. Yet despite this, the efforts of women were often assigned a lower social value than big game brought in by men.

In practical terms, however, the wide range of subsistence resources that women produced were vital in compensating for the effects of environmental fluctuations. “Women's foods” — rice, maple sugar, salt, roots and berries, and the small game that they snared — were essential to a balanced and productive seasonal round, and often were the only things keeping the people from starving to death. In some cases, women might reject a husband entirely — living alone and supporting themselves. In such cases they would necessarily undertake all activities, such as trapping, canoe-making, even hunting.