Three Fires

 

 

The tribes of Chippewa (to pucker up), Ottawa (traders), and Potawatomi (Neshnabek or "true people") were known collectively as the Three Fires and dominated northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin along the shores of Lake Michigan from about the mid-18th century until their removal in 1835. The Three Fires found their deep ancestral roots in the Ojibwa tribe.

 

The fictional story Little Woods follows its historical protagonists in a village of Potawatomi. However, intermarriage between the nations of the Three Fires was common. Shabbona, for example, was a famous Potawatomi chief of the era but he was Ottawa by birth and married a Potawatomi woman.

 

From the perspective of the white Americans, the tribes of the Three Fires spoke the Central Algonquin tongue. But the Potawatomi called their language Neshnabewokamek.

 

There are many variations of the names of Native-American Moons and how they relate to the months of the modern calendar. For this work, I used a variation that William Tomkins offers as approved by the American Indian Association.

 

Indian Moon	21st-Century Month
Snow Moon	January
Hunger Moon	February
Crow Moon	March
Goose Moon	April
Planting Moon	May
Rose Moon	June
Blood Moon	July
Thunder Moon	August
Hunting Moon	September
Falling Leaf Moon	October
Mad Moon	November
Long Night Moon	December

 

 

Excerpt - Little Woods (Hunting Moon 1833: Hunted)

 

As Watseka wandered the grounds north of Chicago, she passed an Ottawa woman suckling an infant. Farther on, an old Chippewa matron worked a loom over a half-finished blanket of brown and red fibers near a throng of braves playing a vivid game with six dice made of flattened bones painted black on one side and tumbled in a large cup. Colorful wampum passed with the changing fortune of the players.

 

“Here’s our family beyond the Little Woods,” Watseka said, finding Little Tail in a similar roam. “The whites will never allow this beautiful mob to remain. We’re too free. We’re too wild. We’re too bold.”

 

Little Tail touched Watseka’s hair with the gentle stroke of a hummingbird’s kiss. “Our destiny has to be the same as all the people of the Three Fires. Imagine the loneliness you’d feel if you stayed behind when everyone else moves away.”