American Indian Culture and Research Journal

Like most native North Americans, the Ojibwa people of Ontario -or the Anishinaabeg, as they prefer to be addressed-have a complex system of belief and ritual associated with thunderstorms. Included in this system are a number of names by which storms, or Thunderers, are not only invoked and propitiated but, at the most basic level, by which they are known. This paper establishes the importance of the name as symbol in the Anishinaabe context and explores the meaning of the most common thunder name-animikeek. Animikeek designates not just the storm, not just the Thunderbird manitouk, but the very sound of the thunder-its voice, if you will. Living, as they do, in a personalistic lifeworld, the Anishinaabeg-both traditional and contemporary-experience the action of the animikeek as speech events. These events signal the arrival of powerful visitors and initiate a kind of dialogue. Through verbal and ritual responses, the Anishinaabeg demonstrate their attention to, respect for, and relationship with highly powerful and individualistic manitouk. In order to meet these Thunder beings, or Thunderbirds, one must understand their names; one must learn how to call them. While anirnikeek is the most common and inclusive name given to the Thunder rnanitouk, they are also known as pinesiwak, pawaganak and atisokanak, depending upon both the area and the circumstances. In the Anishinaabeg lifeworld, one’s name is no arbitrary moniker. Among the traditional Anishinaabeg, a name was given to a child by a relative or tribal elder who had dreamed the name. This name had tremendous spiritual significance for its holder inasmuch as it partook of the power realm of dreams and signaled a close relationship between child and namesake. While each person might collect a number of names and nicknames over the course of her life, only this birth name and a name received during the vision quest were considered to describe the essential person. These names were always guarded, especially from real or potential enemies, for to know and speak a name was, in effect, to establish ownership, or at least influence over the one named.