"The Spirit of Humility"
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Updated: January 7, 2022
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Boozhoo, aaniin, hello,
This blog story is the 21th already in a series titled "Teaching Stories."
The series features my jewelry and works of art, occasionally along with images of paintings by kindred artists. The stories thematically connect the jewelry and artwork displayed with the Seven Grandfather teachings of the Ojibwe Anishinaabe People.
Today's story features a set of storytelling rings and a sterling silver belt buckle, both made by hand in my studio. The jewelry serves as storytelling tools and are not available for purchase.
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Bimaadiziwin!
The gold rings - which are not for sale - feature a free-form interpretation of the age-old Ojibwe design of the Midewiwin Life Road, with a stylized wolf paw on the insides; the silver belt buckle features a hunter who seeks strength from the wolf who is his guardian spirit. Both pieces, made with the aid of the overlay technique, remind us that there is wisdom in walking the road of Life with a humble spirit and a grateful heart.
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The capricious, smooth-flowing outline drawing designs of the rings, styled after the rock art-inspired imagery founded by the Canadian Woodland School, combine a highly stylized Midewiwin Life Road with the sign of the Wolf, in the form of a paw. This wolf paw, visible in the ring interiors, is introduced as a symbol of humility in the context of the story that I share with you today.
The rings, which are not for sale, are part of a theme series titled Bimaadiziwin! Bimaadiziwin! Bimaadiziwig! (Live! Live! Live, Everybody!)
It is widely understood that like the wolves, Ojibwe Anishinaabe communities throughout the centuries have struggled for survival. This means that the health and survival of the People are undeniably and inseparably linked to that of the wolf. The design of these rings symbolize the fact that the paths of the Wolf and the People have always run parallel to each other.
The rings, which I titled Wiidosendiwag (They Walk with Each Other) are 0.315 inch (8 mm) wide and consist of an exterior of white gold and an interior of yellow gold. The designs of both interiors and exteriors of the rings – a sheet of white gold and a sheet of yellow gold - were cut out with the aid of a jeweler’s saw, after which both sheets have been soldered together and shaped into a ring by hammering it around a ring mandrel.
The cut out design of the rings’ exteriors is a capricious path
surrounded by “energy speckles” and characterized by seven
tangents, or “side roads.” The design symbolizes the Life Road –
which can either be seen as a path with seven sharp bends or a
path consisting of four hills representing the stages of human
life. It is a sacred diagram originally engraved in midewiigwaasag
(sacred birch bark scrolls) and ceremonially kept within the
caches of the age-old Ojibwe Spiritual and Medicinal Society (or
Lodge) called Midewiwin. Throughout the ages, Midewiwin has been, and still is, the most
prominent keeper of the rituals, songs, science, and migratory
traditions of the Anishinaabeg Peoples.
Symbolically, for a Mide, a member of the Medicine Lodge, to depart
from mino-miikana bimaadiziwin, the true path of life, and not return is equivalent to death. But
since digression has rarely a permanent character, he or she is
expected to withdraw annually in vigil and prayer, to ask the aadizoogaanag (supernatural grandfathers, spirit helpers) for guidance, and to
review their life to determine if they are still on the true
path.*
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"Humility is one of the seven Grandfathers/Grandmothers who accompany us on the Road of Life. The others are: Love, Respect, Wisdom, Bravery, and Truth."
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Wisdom consists in being humble
Gimishoomisinaan Giizis, our Grandfather the Sun, shows us that there is a higher power out there that enables us to see, breathe, feel, hear, smell, have thoughts, have dreams, and speak... he reminds us that we should be humbled surrounded and driven by all this manidoo.
To express thankfulness to this great manidoo, this GICHI-MANIDOO
that we observe through and in the Sun and all of Creation, and
through the realization and acceptance that all beings are equal
and of same value, is to capture the true spirit of
HUMILITY.
Our ancestors knew that if there is one creature who walks the face of the earth who truly understands the principle of humbleness, this virtue of humility, it is Ma’iingan, the Wolf. As they observed how wolf did not live for himself but for the pack he was part of, being the kind of hunter that would never take the food until it could be shared, they looked upon him as a Grandfather and a Teacher of this valuable lesson. So, it is Ma’iingan’s lack of arrogance and respect for the pack that are lessons to us all to be humble and unselfish and to have respect for the community (and our parents and Elders) that bred and raised us.
Our ancestors knew that if there is one creature who walks the face of the earth who truly understands the principle of humbleness, this virtue of humility, it is Ma’iingan, the Wolf. As they observed how wolf did not live for himself but for the pack he was part of, being the kind of hunter that would never take the food until it could be shared, they looked upon him as a Grandfather and a Teacher of this valuable lesson. So, it is Ma’iingan’s lack of arrogance and respect for the pack that are lessons to us all to be humble and unselfish and to have respect for the community (and our parents and Elders) that bred and raised us.
When we walk the trail of life, learning hard lessons along the
way, maturing through hardship and experience, let’s not forget
the lessons that Grandfather Sun and Grandfather Wolf taught our
ancestors; simple but wise guidelines that are still here today
for us to live by.
Walk quietly, not boisterously, walk with an open mind and a
humbled heart! Accept that you are just one small part of the
whole and always express deference and gratitude to the sunrise
and the Great Mystery and your community and to the Elders who
sustained and helped to shape it. And always act like the wolf,
who shows altruism in the hunt and bows his head in the presence
of other wolves…
Giiwenh. That´s how far this blog story goes.
Dabasenindizon, weweni bimaadiziwin nahaaw! (Be modest, be careful and live a full life!)
Miigwech for reading and listening!
Bi-waabamishinaang miinawaa daga: please come see me again!
* Source: Basil Johnston, Ojibway Heritage, University of Nebraska Press, First Bison Book printing 1990, p. 86.
About the author/artist and his inspiration
My name is Zhaawano Giizhik.
As an American artist and (non-commercial) jewelry designer currently living in the Netherlands. I like to draw on the oral and pictorial traditions of my Ojibwe Anishinaabe ancestors from the American Great Lakes area. For this I call on my manidoo-minjimandamowin, or "Spirit Memory"; which means I try to remember the knowledge and the lessons of my ancestors. The MAZINAAJIMOWINAN or ‘‘pictorial spirit writings’’ - which are rich with symbolism and have been painted throughout history on rocks and etched on other sacred items such as copper and slate, birch bark and animal hide - were a form of spiritual as well as educational communication that gave structure and meaning to the cosmos. Many of these sacred pictographs or petroforms – some of which are many, many generations old - hide in sacred locations where the manidoog (spirits) reside, particularly in those mystic places near the coastline where the sky, the earth, the water, the underground and the underwater meet.
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