June 21 is midsummer’s day, the longest of the year. It is also the newest Canadian federal holiday—Indigenous Peoples’ Day. In addition, June is Indigenous Peoples’ Month in Canada.
I feel that Indigenous people should be remembered, and thanked, every day. My family immigrated to the USA from Europe to escape murderers and horrible tyrants and were always grateful to the people of Turtle Island for giving us shelter.
Turtle Island is the Anishinaabe name for North America. If you look at a map, you can see that the continent really does look like a huge turtle.
On June 21, the FurBabies will celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day. A new character is introduced. He has an Ojibwe name.
Ojibwe is more properly known as Anishinaabemowin, the language of the Anishinaabe people. I hope I am forgiven for using a shorter word that will be easier for my readers to understand.
I did more research for this one comic strip than I’ve done in many years. It had to be done right. At first, it wasn’t. One advisor objected to the action in the strip. I redrew the comic strip. I don’t argue with experts.
Then, I had to be sure I had the correct name for the new character. I checked the best available Ojibwe online dictionary and chose what I thought was a great name. But, another advisor told me, the name was extremely rude.
I changed the name. I don’t argue with experts. The new name is fine, too.
I wanted to be absolutely sure I got it right. Fortunately, there was a publisher of Anishinaabe language workbooks at a recent book fair here in Toronto. I showed them the comic strip. They enjoyed it. When I asked whether the name was correct, they asked “Which dialect do you want, Northern or Southern Anishinaabemowin?”
My eyes glazed over. They very kindly gave me a small glossary for Northern Anishinaabemowin as a thank you gift for the comic.
Indigenous people share with others. That is the theme of the comic strip.
Anishinaabemowin was not originally a written language. Unlike English, which is a noun driven language, it mainly uses verbs. I did not see plural nouns anywhere in the dictionary, so the character’s name is singular.
I used symbolic color in the strip. Future comics will use subtle color changes for emotions and backgrounds. The June 21 strip is the first to use this. Its backgrounds are the colors of the Four Directions—yellow, red, black and white. In this case, they symbolize the Four Seasons. Yellow is Spring, Red is Summer, Fall is Black, and Winter is White. I originally started with Black, then Yellow, then Red, then White. This was obviously incorrect. I redid the backgrounds to be sure that it was right. It now starts with Yellow, since Spring is the start of the new year in Anishinaabe culture. I often wonder why the West has the New Year in the winter (we didn’t always do that; in Elizabeth I’s time, New Year came in April. The Income Tax people still observe this.)
The comic will be published in its entirety here, and on the Furbabies Facebook and Instagram pages, as a gift from me and the FurBabies characters in honor of the holiday. Please share it and do a kindness for someone else. That is the best way to celebrate this holiday.
Miigwetch (thank you)