El término Ojibwe proviene de Utchibou, nombre dado al XVIImi siècle à un groupe qui vivait au nord de ce qui est aujourd’hui Sault Ste. Marie, en Ontario.Voici un de leur conte : Skunk woman (en anglais).
los Ojibway formaban parte de una serie de grupos muy cercanos, pero distintos, que ocupaban un territorio ubicado entre el noreste de la bahía georgiano y el este del Lago Superior. Estos pueblos que se reunieron cerca de la actual Sault Ste. María también se llaman Saulteaux, un término que hoy se refiere principalmente a los pueblos Ojibway del noroeste de Ontario y el sureste de Manitoba.
Una vez hubo un hombre Ojibwe que era un buen cazador, pero tenía muy mal genio. Siempre les gritaba a sus hermanos oa los demás hombres cada vez que cometían un error. Pronto ya nadie quiso ir a cazar con él.
Finalmente, el cazador se casó, por lo que él y su esposa se fueron solos. Ella era una mujer trabajadora y él era un buen proveedor, por lo que eran felices juntos solos. Pero un día él también perdió los estribos con ella. Ella hizo mucho ruido mientras él intentaba atraparla. castor and spoiled his trapping, so he really yelled at her a lot. His wife ran back to the wigwam and took their son. She sang a song, but I don’t know how it goes. It had the same idea as « Your father doesn’t want us anymore, your father doesn’t want us anymore. » And she went away.
That night when the hunter came back, he saw that they were gone. And he felt bad, because he knew he shouldn’t have lost his temper. So he decided to follow them. He found their tracks in the mud and hurried after his wife and son. He was good at tracking and he thought he could catch up to them soon. So he hurried along, but as he went, he started to see that something was happening to their footprints. They didn’t look like moccasin prints anymore. They were starting to look like skunk footprints.
Suddenly the hunter arrived in a marsh. The footprints ended, and he was surrounded by skunks. There was nothing there but skunks. He couldn’t tell which ones were his wife and child. So he had to go back home.
After a while the hunter remarried, and he always told his children, « Don’t eat skunks. You must never eat skunks, because your brother is a skunk now. You might be eating your brother. » And they never did. That family never ate skunks again. And as for the hunter, he changed his attitude, and he didn’t yell at his family members any more.
