I learned a few years ago that my maternal ancestors are Shawnee from Mackinaw Island (Michigan) and Ojibwe from Manitoulin Island (Ontario, Canada)
My maternal DNA is X2a which is the known Haplogroup for the Ojibwe (Called Chippewa in the USA)
Growing up Catholic I am just starting to study the rituals and beliefs of the Ojibwe in North America. One thing I have learned is how close the concepts of the Creator, the Great Mystery known as the "Gitchee Manitou" align with my current understanding of the mystical formation of the Universe.
I am going to share what I find here since it is all so very interesting....
The Objibwe beliefs center around the belief in Gitchie Manitou, the “Great Mystery” of all that exists...... everything is spiritual and play a role in the great spiritual interaction.
The Ojibwe saw themselves as another element of nature; no greater and no less than everything else on the earth. Thus, the Ojibwe held animals and all of nature in very high regard.
Source: https://ojibwenativeamericans.weebly.com/religion.html
The Midewiwin (also spelled Midewin and Medewiwin) or the Grand Medicine Society is a secretive religion of some of the indigenous peoples of the Maritimes, New England and Great Lakes regions in North America. Its practitioners are called Midew, and the practices of Midewiwin are referred to as Mide. Occasionally, male Midew are called Midewinini, which is sometimes translated into English as "medicine man".
The word "mide" can be translated as "mystery," "mysterious," "spiritual," "sacred," or "ceremonial", depending on the context of its use. The derived verb midewi, thus means "be in/of mide." The derived noun midewiwin then means "state of being in midewi." Often mide is translated into English as "medicine" (thus the term midewinini "medicine-man") though mide conveys the idea of a spiritual medicine, opposed to mashkiki that conveys the idea of a physical medicine.
A practitioner of Midewiwin is called a midew, which can also be rendered as mide'o... both forms of the word derived from the verb midewi, or as a medewid, a gerund form of midewi. Specifically, a male practitioner is called a midewinini ("midew man") and a female practitioner a midewikwe ("midew woman").
Due to the body-part medial de' meaning "heart" in the Anishinaabe language, "Midewiwin" is sometimes translated as "The Way of the Heart." Blessing shares a definition he received from Thomas Shingobe, a "Mida" (a Midewiwin person) of the Mille Lacs Indian Reservation in 1969, who told him that "the only thing that would be acceptable in any way as an interpretation of 'Mide' would be 'Spiritual Mystery'." However, fluent speakers of Anishinaabemowin often caution that there are many words and concepts that have no direct translation to English
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midewiwin
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