Legends of my people, the great Ojibway

by Norval Morrisseau

The relationship between Norval Morrisseau and anthropologist,Selwyn Dewdney was an important one for both. They met in 1960 when Dewdney traveled by canoe through the Red Lake district searching for petroglyphs along the waterways. Morrisseau signed on as a paddler and guide. Together they
explored the petroglyphs of the Great Lakes, which proved to be influential in his paintings, helping Morrisseau to formalize the stylized visual vocabulary with which he created his iconic paintings. The journey was fruitful for both and culminated in their collaboration in 1965 on a book of Ojibway
stories that Morrisseau wrote and illustrated with his fluid drawings and Dewdney edited, called Legends of My People, the Great Ojibway. At all times in Morrisseau’s art, the artist is conscious of including the narrative of his own life and context, searching for a way to make intelligent use of his ancestral culture and his own life in a rapidly modernizing Canadian landscape. For Morrisseau, Dewdney was a friend and colleague who provided him with an artistic vocabulary, a means of
expressing his Ojibwa heritage from his perspective as a 20th century Ojibwa negotiating the barrier between the white world and the aboriginal world.

Genres: Mythology, History

130 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1977

Reviews

[Czarny Pies · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very strong collection of Ojibway Indian legends from the repertory of the great founder of the Woodland Indian school of painting Norval Morrisseau. The great strength of this book is of course the set of black and white illustrations by Norval Morrisseau.

This book is extremely important to the overall ensemble of Morrisseau's work as Morrisseau wanted to make it very clear that he was not just a talented maker of pretty pictures but rather the advocate in art of a unique belief system and way of life.

[Eric Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stories are grouped together into similar themes under each chapter but aren't all connected fully within. The writing is very simple and comes directly from the author's memories of stories told to them and legends and narratives passed down among his people. The last few chapters deal with the mixing of Christianity and European peoples and traditions with the Indigenous people, though not written in favour of colonial perspectives, the emphasis is not very strong supporting Indigenous beliefs and autonomy. There are a couple questionable statements where the Morrisseau seems to reflect the dominant political and social climate of his time in North America, such as stating there were no homosexual people in pre-European contact times in Ojibway culture. It's not clear if he means that the term did not exist or if he is really interpreting history in such a detrimental and false revisionist way. I enjoyed the fresh and fluid writing overall and didn't feel dragged down in any clunky language or never ending tales.

[Ihor Kolesnyk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Тут я був заради Норвала Моріссо, шамана племені оджібва, який малював історії свого народу.