Jacob Owen of Pauingassi was always cheerfully willing to explain the complexities of Ojibwe history and philosophy with stories from his own life.  Margaret Simmons, who conducted this interview, was the Director of Education in Pauingassi at the time. She is a warm and open person with a positive genius for respectfully conversing with old people and her unique talent made my visits to Pauingassi and over 300 hours of Anishinaabe language recordings possible.  The equally brilliant and even more patient Anishinaabe linguist, Roger Roulette, has been gradually transcribing and translating the Pauingassi recordings.  He just finished this one today and it contains a remarkable discussion In Anishinaabemowin about the old Anishinaabe and their skill at making pots out of clay.

Jacob Owen, Pauingassi Manitoba. 1996.

Jacob was over 90 at the time of the interview, the oldest man in the community. He spoke very little English and had lived his whole life in Pauingassi.  He most definitely had not read scholarly reports about archaeological discoveries of 500 year old clay pots made by his ancestors and yet, here he is, talking about how incredibly skillful his ancestors were at making these beautifully decorated pots.  The conversation veers off after this, in part because Margaret, a very good modern speaker, doesn’t know the word for “clay, waabigan” but this short quote from Jacob’s conversation is an indication of the extent to which one can rely on First Nations oral historical accounts for the truth about the distant past.  By the way, Roger says that the verb to fire a pot is  zakizo (va) to burn an animate thing.  The idea of a kiln is expressed in the verb boodawaash (ca) which means to superheat something animate.