Ojibwe tradition continues with young men in Bemidji area

A new gaming phenomena may be catching on in Bemidji. Young men have been going offline, putting away the consoles and controllers and meeting -- in person. The boys have been getting together on Thursday nights at Bemidji State University’s American Indian Resource Center to play Makazinitaagewin. Three years ago Charles Grolla, a teacher at Cass Lake-Bena High School, saw a need to create a positive social environment where boys and men could get together to fraternize. Grolla saw Makazinitaagewin (moccasin game) as a perfect fit. He teaches the traditional Native American game to his students in Cass Lake. “We are using our old ways of men teaching young men how to be positive men,” Grolla said. “This is missing in our communities nowadays and elders say this is the root of many dysfunctions.” Grolla has been playing the game since he was 10-years-old. He and Vincent Staples-Graves are volunteer advisors who host moccasin game night at the American Indian Resource Center. “The game goes back thousands of years,” Staples-Graves said. The game is traditionally played by men only. Young men usually start playing when they are middle school or high school age. However, Grolla said the game is open to anyone who wants to attend. “Any tribe or race, men and women,” Grolla said. Generally after the pipe ceremony and talking circle, he added, women usually go to another room where they preserve another culture -- beading. Yvonne Hardy (Memengwaa ikwe) chaperoned four boys with the Leech Lake Sons of Tradition group on Thursday. The boys ranged in age from 10 to 12. “Culture is one of our main components in the Leech Lake youth program,” Hardy said. “Not just with the moccasin game, but with ceremonies, Ojibwe language, ricing.” Young men attending Thursday’s game were from bands in Red Lake, Leech Lake, White Earth and Boise Forte. There were seven in all, other nights have hosted up to 30 participants. “All young men and men wanting to learn how to play the game, and men and young men who already know how to play, have a place to come and practice and help teach the game,” Grolla said. A Sioux version of the game is also played , but Grolla teaches the Ojibwe style that is still played on the Red Lake, Mille Lacs, White Earth, Leech Lake, Roseau River and Lac La Croix Reservations. Moccasin games often accompany powwows and vary depending on the regional rules. “My grandma Fanny said everyone carried an extra pair of moccasins around with them because you would walk so much you would wear out a pair and have another to put on to keep going,” Grolla said. It is stories like Fanny’s the men share during Makazinitaagewin nights. Makazinitaagewin Historically, the moccasin game was played with pairs of moccasins. Modernization has changed the use of moccasins to decorative mits. “Everything we needed to play was around us and we could get shooting and counting sticks out of the woods and rocks for marbles,” Grolla explained. “You would take the moccasins off your feet and use them.” The game is played using two teams (made of two or three boys) each stationed on opposite ends of a blanket spread out on the floor or ground. Four mits are laid out in front of each team and one boy is in charge of hiding marbles under his team’s mits. Three marbles are the same color, one is different. It is up to the opposing team to find the odd colored marble using shooting sticks made of oak. The game teaches teamwork and communication while preserving some of the old Ojibwe traditions.
Points are calculated using 20 counting sticks and nine scoring sticks that are placed in a wooden board, kind of like a cribbage board. Counting sticks are “paid” for each attempt at finding the odd marble. Once the marble is found, the sticks are paid to the marble hider, which leads to earning a scoring stick, or soldier (Zhiimaaganish). The team to acquire five soldiers first wins the game. “Moccasin game is very complex, like our Ojibwe language is, and is very hard to explain without actually playing it,” Grolla said. “It is said that the only way to learn how to play the game, is to play it.” Grolla said a game can last from one hour to several hours, and tournaments usually start on a Saturday afternoon and continue the following day. However, games at the American Indian Resource Center are only on Thursdays beginning at 6 p.m. and wrap up at about 8:30 p.m. The game also incorporates the traditions of drumming and singing. “The beat used to pound the drum is unique to moccasin game and sounds like a horse trotting,” Grolla said. Sharing the culture Speaking of beats, members of the Minnesota Orchestra were invited to perform at the center Thursday. Mele Willis with the orchestra said the group seeks out unique venues to bring orchestra members into the community. “It’s a hallmark of Common Chords to bring orchestra members into the community where their music isn’t usually expected,” Willis said. The musicians experienced something both unique and unexpected during their visit to the American Indian Resource Center -- an Ojibwe naming ceremony. As is Ojibwe protocol, the 32 people sitting in an arranged circle, passed a talking stick around and introduced themselves with their name, clan and where they are from prior to the Makazinitaagewin. Not everyone had a clan and not everyone had an Indian name, but some orchestra members did. Receiving an Indian name does not come at a specific age or time. It’s not dictated by achieving any certain goal, Grolla clarified. It simply just comes to the person through another person who becomes their godparent in essence. Staples-Graves said names can come from dreams or the environment and people can have multiple Indian names given to them in a lifetime. Grolla (Ogimaagiizhig odoodeman Adikwan) and Staples-Graves (Booniiyaash odoodeman Migiziwan) gave 14-year-old Dario his Indian name, “Niizho-Bines odoodeman Makwan.” Fittingly following the naming ceremony, one of the Minnesota Orchestra groups performed a ditty titled “Simple Gifts.” Once the orchestra parted company with the group, Ogimaagiizhig odoodeman Adikwan, Booniiyaash odoodeman Migiziwan, Memengwaa ikwe, Waawaate, Ozaaweshiinh, Niiyogaabaw, Niizho-Bines odoodeman Makwan, Josh, Miika, Noah and Binayshee were left to their life lesson, their Makazinitaagewin. Tweets by @DLNewspapersA new gaming phenomena may be catching on in Bemidji. Young men have been going offline, putting away the consoles and controllers and meeting -- in person. The boys have been getting together on Thursday nights at Bemidji State University’s American Indian Resource Center to play Makazinitaagewin.Three years ago Charles Grolla, a teacher at Cass Lake-Bena High School, saw a need to create a positive social environment where boys and men could get together to fraternize. Grolla saw Makazinitaagewin (moccasin game) as a perfect fit. He teaches the traditional Native American game to his students in Cass Lake.“We are using our old ways of men teaching young men how to be positive men,” Grolla said. “This is missing in our communities nowadays and elders say this is the root of many dysfunctions.”Grolla has been playing the game since he was 10-years-old. He and Vincent Staples-Graves are volunteer advisors who host moccasin game night at the American Indian Resource Center.“The game goes back thousands of years,” Staples-Graves said.The game is traditionally played by men only. Young men usually start playing when they are middle school or high school age. However, Grolla said the game is open to anyone who wants to attend.“Any tribe or race, men and women,” Grolla said. Generally after the pipe ceremony and talking circle, he added, women usually go to another room where they preserve another culture -- beading.Yvonne Hardy (Memengwaa ikwe) chaperoned four boys with the Leech Lake Sons of Tradition group on Thursday. The boys ranged in age from 10 to 12.“Culture is one of our main components in the Leech Lake youth program,” Hardy said. “Not just with the moccasin game, but with ceremonies, Ojibwe language, ricing.”Young men attending Thursday’s game were from bands in Red Lake, Leech Lake, White Earth and Boise Forte. There were seven in all, other nights have hosted up to 30 participants.“All young men and men wanting to learn how to play the game, and men and young men who already know how to play, have a place to come and practice and help teach the game,” Grolla said.A Sioux version of the game is also played , but Grolla teaches the Ojibwe style that is still played on the Red Lake, Mille Lacs, White Earth, Leech Lake, Roseau River and Lac La Croix Reservations. Moccasin games often accompany powwows and vary depending on the regional rules.“My grandma Fanny said everyone carried an extra pair of moccasins around with them because you would walk so much you would wear out a pair and have another to put on to keep going,” Grolla said. It is stories like Fanny’s the men share during Makazinitaagewin nights.MakazinitaagewinHistorically, the moccasin game was played with pairs of moccasins. Modernization has changed the use of moccasins to decorative mits.“Everything we needed to play was around us and we could get shooting and counting sticks out of the woods and rocks for marbles,” Grolla explained. “You would take the moccasins off your feet and use them.”The game is played using two teams (made of two or three boys) each stationed on opposite ends of a blanket spread out on the floor or ground. Four mits are laid out in front of each team and one boy is in charge of hiding marbles under his team’s mits. Three marbles are the same color, one is different. It is up to the opposing team to find the odd colored marble using shooting sticks made of oak. The game teaches teamwork and communication while preserving some of the old Ojibwe traditions.
Points are calculated using 20 counting sticks and nine scoring sticks that are placed in a wooden board, kind of like a cribbage board. Counting sticks are “paid” for each attempt at finding the odd marble. Once the marble is found, the sticks are paid to the marble hider, which leads to earning a scoring stick, or soldier (Zhiimaaganish). The team to acquire five soldiers first wins the game.“Moccasin game is very complex, like our Ojibwe language is, and is very hard to explain without actually playing it,” Grolla said. “It is said that the only way to learn how to play the game, is to play it.”Grolla said a game can last from one hour to several hours, and tournaments usually start on a Saturday afternoon and continue the following day. However, games at the American Indian Resource Center are only on Thursdays beginning at 6 p.m. and wrap up at about 8:30 p.m.The game also incorporates the traditions of drumming and singing.“The beat used to pound the drum is unique to moccasin game and sounds like a horse trotting,” Grolla said.Sharing the cultureSpeaking of beats, members of the Minnesota Orchestra were invited to perform at the center Thursday. Mele Willis with the orchestra said the group seeks out unique venues to bring orchestra members into the community.“It’s a hallmark of Common Chords to bring orchestra members into the community where their music isn’t usually expected,” Willis said.The musicians experienced something both unique and unexpected during their visit to the American Indian Resource Center -- an Ojibwe naming ceremony.As is Ojibwe protocol, the 32 people sitting in an arranged circle, passed a talking stick around and introduced themselves with their name, clan and where they are from prior to the Makazinitaagewin.Not everyone had a clan and not everyone had an Indian name, but some orchestra members did.Receiving an Indian name does not come at a specific age or time. It’s not dictated by achieving any certain goal, Grolla clarified. It simply just comes to the person through another person who becomes their godparent in essence.Staples-Graves said names can come from dreams or the environment and people can have multiple Indian names given to them in a lifetime.Grolla (Ogimaagiizhig odoodeman Adikwan) and Staples-Graves (Booniiyaash odoodeman Migiziwan) gave 14-year-old Dario his Indian name, “Niizho-Bines odoodeman Makwan.”Fittingly following the naming ceremony, one of the Minnesota Orchestra groups performed a ditty titled “Simple Gifts.”Once the orchestra parted company with the group, Ogimaagiizhig odoodeman Adikwan, Booniiyaash odoodeman Migiziwan, Memengwaa ikwe, Waawaate, Ozaaweshiinh, Niiyogaabaw, Niizho-Bines odoodeman Makwan, Josh, Miika, Noah and Binayshee were left to their life lesson, their Makazinitaagewin.Tweets by @DLNewspapers