What did the Ojibwa do with their dead?

Answer 1

There were many rituals and traditions associated with the dead in Ojibwe culture - these differed slightly among the different Ojibwe groups.

A corpse was first washed, dressed in fine clothes and wrapped entirely in birchbark sheets before the body was laid in a shallow grave or a low mound. Among the Southern Ojibwe, the corpse was also painted and laid in state inside a special bark-covered wigwam before being placed in the grave. The soul of the dead person was believed to take four days to travel into the afterlife (four being a sacred number among most native Americans).

Among the Mille Lacs Ojibwe, the foreheads of babies and young children were painted black to protect them from any evil spirits; small strips of bark were folded and fixed to the doors of all the other wigwams in the village to represent snakes, since bad spirits were thought to dislike both snakes and the colour black.

In more recent times, a small, low house of planks was built over the grave, where offerings of food and drink were left for the dead person's soul to use while travelling into the afterlife.

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