Title: How The Ojibwe People Got Maple Syrup

General Information About Item:

• Origin Story
• Language: English & Ojibwe
• Country of Origin: United States
• Informant: S.K
• Date Collected: May 26, 2020

Informant Data:

•  Informant S.K is a female Dartmouth student in the class of 2021. She was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, and currently lives there. She is a Native American Studies major at Dartmouth and is involved with Native Americans at Dartmouth (NAD). Informant S.K. is affiliated with the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe and grew up learning a lot about her culture through the high school she went to. She dances in pow wows and is one of the best traditional beaders that I know.

Contextual Data:

• Cultural Context: This is a story that is often told in Informant S.K’s Ojibwe culture. There are several Ojibwe words used in the item and they are italicized for easy spotting. In the Ojibwe culture, storytelling is prevalent and is revered as a sacred activity. Stories are normally only told during certain times of the year because there are seasonal jobs to be done. In the summer, you are fishing and gathering for your family. In the fall, you are heading to wild rice camp and preparing for winter. In the winter, you normally tell stories and go hunting. In the springtime, you gather maple sap and make maple syrup.
• Social Context: Informant S.K. learned about this story in grade school through a picture book, similar to her first interview. Her grade school generally had a lot of books about Ojibwe culture for her to read. She also told me later that this story would generally be told sitting in a circle with everyone paying complete attention to the storyteller, which would generally be an elder.

Item:

• How the Ojibwe people got maple syrup tells a story of how the Ojibwe people were starving & the maple tree saw this and took pity on them. He said to cut one of his branches off and maple syrup would come out. The Ojibwe people then quit hunting and gathering any food, just eating maple syrup. The trickster Nanaboozhoo saw this and poured a pail of water into the maple tree, diluting the syrup and turning it into maple sap. He said if you want to enjoy maple syrup, you have to work for it. In order to get one gallon of maple syrup, you must boil 40 gallons of the sap. This is why the Ojibwe people still make maple syrup today.

Transcript:

• “A long time ago, winter had ended, or was about to end, and there was no more food left. People were hungry and this man was walking around foraging for food. An ininaatig (Maple Tree, Man Tree) saw him and felt bad for this poor human who could not sustain himself or his people. He took pity on him and gave part of himself to the man. He said, “Listen Anishinaabe (Original People, another name for Ojibwe), I pity you. What I think you should do is cut off one of my branches and something will come out that has a great caloric density that will last you a very long time. You can cut it out and harvest it and give it to your people. All trees that look like me will do this.” When the man cut off the branch, a thick brown sweet liquid fell out and it was maple syrup. It was really good, sweet, and relatively easy to get because all you had to do was cut a branch off. A lot of Ojibwe people began laying under the trees and cutting branches off with their mouth open to eat the syrup. They were getting lazy and fat, so the trickster, Nanaboozhoo, came along and asked them why they weren’t doing their jobs and fulfilling their jobs instead of eating syrup. The people were too lazy even respond to Nanaboozhoo, so he went to the river and got a pail of water and poured it into the maple tree. It diluted the maple syrup and what came out of the tree was sap. The Anishinaabe were shocked and then Nanaboozhoo said, “if you want syrup you have to work for it. you have to tap the trees and boil it. You need 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup.” This is how the Ojibwe people got maple syrup and we still do it today.

Informant’s Comments: 

• “Before I tell the story, I want to say that maple syrup harvesting is the primary activity of the springtime. It is considered one of the sacred foods to the Ojibwe people. It is considered a luxury item. The sap is considered medicine and if someone offers you maple syrup it’s kind of a big deal.”
• “This story is representative of how in our culture you have to work hard for what you get, especially food.”

Collector’s Comments:

• I have heard this story from a family friend on my reservation, and it was interesting to hear another version of it from someone else who is also familiar with my culture.

Collector’s Name: Caitlin Wanic (’21)

Tags/Keywords:

• Oral Storytelling
• Origin Myth
• Ojibwe
• Maple Syrup