Basil Johnston was an Ojibway writer and language keeper who grew up within Anishinaabe oral tradition, and this book, published by HarperCollins, retells and documents Ojibway spiritual beings and cosmology in his own words as an insider to the culture rather than as an outside academic observer. Its strength is exactly that position, Johnston writes from direct inheritance of the oral tradition and from fluency in the Ojibway language, giving access and nuance an outside ethnographer often cannot fully capture. Its limit is that as one storyteller and knowledge keeper's own retelling, it represents his particular community's and family's version of these traditions among what is, across many Ojibway and Anishinaabe communities, a naturally varied oral tradition rather than one single fixed text.
Facts
Citation
AuthorBasil Johnston
PublisherHarperCollins
Publication Year1995
URLhttps://archive.org/details/manitousspiritua0000john
Source Typeprimary-text
Assessment
Reliability Tier1
Basil Johnston's account of Ojibwe spiritual beings, written by an Anishinaabe author from within the tradition he documents. NotesAdded wave8: Anishinaabe author on Ojibwe spiritual beings
Claims Backed By This Source (87 claims)
This source backs 87 claims across the atlas. As facts: 60 well-attested, 3 scholarly debate. As cited relationships: 12 holds. Plus 12 entities citing it as a general reference with no single fact or relationship attached.
Disposition By Topic
- Deities, 25 claims: 18 well-attested, 2 scholarly debate, 2 holds, 3 general references.
- Mythical Creatures, 24 claims: 16 well-attested, 5 holds, 3 general references.
- Articles, 10 claims: 10 well-attested.
- Sources, 8 claims: 8 well-attested.
- Subtle Energies, 6 claims: 4 well-attested, 1 holds, 1 general references.
- Religions, 5 claims: 1 well-attested, 1 scholarly debate, 2 holds, 1 general references.
- Cultures, 4 claims: 1 well-attested, 2 holds, 1 general references.
- Subcategories, 4 claims: 2 well-attested, 2 general references.
- Languages, 1 claims: 1 general references.
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