Ojibwe Stories from the Upper Berens River: A. Irving Hallowell and Adam Bigmouth in Conversation

During the summers of 1938 and 1940, Anishinaabe elder Adam (Samuel) Bigmouth (Sturgeon Clan) shared his insights into Ojibwe life in the Upper Berens River region with anthropologist A. Irving Hallowell. For more than fifty years, Bigmouth’s narratives, overflowing with vivid details about Ojibwe experiences and perspectives, existed only as scattered, handwritten transcripts within Hallowell’s papers at the American Philosophical Society Library in Philadelphia. In Ojibwe Stories from the Upper Berens River: A. Irving Hallowell and Adam Bigmouth in Conversation, ethnohistorian Jennifer S. H. Brown brings these essential Ojibwe sources out of the archives and into the hands of researchers. The collection edited by Brown includes dozens of tales and memories—“stories about people” (xiv)—recorded by Hallowell. According to Brown, the narratives emerged from spontaneous, widely varied conversations between Hallowell, Bigmouth, and Chief William Berens, one of Hallowell’s primary Ojibwe collaborators. Together, these stories present Bigmouth’s understanding of what Brown...