Naawigiizis - Memories of the Center of the Moon

by Jim Clark

This book would be an important enough document if it only collected the memories and cultural wisdom of one of the most respected of the Anishinaabe elders living in Minnesota, Naawigiizis, Jim Clark. It is even more valuable in that it captures his remarkable impressions not just in English, Jim's second language, but also presents several stories in Ojibwe, his first language - and for good measure, gives us two stories only in Ojibwe. All readers have a first person account of growing up in two cultures in the early decades of the 20th Century as the Ojibwe people struggled to keep their traditions in the face of the mounting pressures to assimilate into White culture. People who know or are learning the Ojibwe language, and want to preserve it, also have a vital record of a way of thinking and speaking that embodies these traditions as no mere artifact can.

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