The Odawa (also Ottawa or Odaawaa ) are an Indigenous North American people who primarily inhabit land in the Eastern Woodlands region, now in jurisdictions of the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada. Their territory long preceded the creation of the current border between the two countries in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Their peoples are federally recognized as Native American tribes in the United States and have numerous recognized First Nations bands in Canada. They are one of the Anishinaabeg, related to but distinct from the Ojibwe and Potawatomi peoples.
After migrating from the East Coast in ancient times, they settled on Manitoulin Island, near the northern shores of Lake Huron, and the Bruce Peninsula in the present-day province of Ontario, Canada. They considered this their original homeland. After the 17th century, they also settled along the Ottawa River, and in what became the present-day states of Michigan and Wisconsin. They also occupied other areas of the Midwest south of the Great Lakes in what became the United States. In the 21st century, there are a total of approximately 15,000 Odawa living in Ontario, Canada, and in Michigan and Oklahoma (former Indian Territory, United States).
The Ottawa dialect is part of the Algonquian language family. This large family is made up of numerous smaller tribal groups or "bands", which are commonly called a "Tribe" in the United States and "First Nation" in Canada. Their language is considered a divergent dialect of Ojibwe, characterized by frequent syncope.
Tribe name
Odawaa (syncoped as Daawaa) is believed to be derived from the Anishinaabe word adaawe, meaning "to trade", or "to buy and sell". This term is common to the Cree, Algonquin, Nipissing, Innu, Odawa, and Ojibwe. The Potawatomi spelling of Odawa and the English derivative "Ottawa" are also common. The Anishinaabe word for "those men who trade, or buy and sell" is Wadaawewinini(wag).
Frederic Baraga, a Catholic priest and missionary in Michigan, transliterated this and recorded it in his A Dictionary of the Otchipwe Language as "Watawawininiwok", noting that it meant "men of the bulrushes", associated with the many bulrushes in the Ottawa River. But, this recorded meaning is more appropriately associated with the Matàwackariniwak, a historical Algonquin band who lived along the Ottawa River.
Their neighbors applied the "Trader" name to the Odawa because in early traditional times, and also during the early European contact period, they were noted as intertribal traders and barterers. The Odawa were described as having dealt "chiefly in cornmeal, sunflower oil, furs and skins, rugs and mats, tobacco, and medicinal roots and herbs".
The Odawa name in its English transcription is the source of the place names of the Ottawa River, which in turn is the namesake of the city of Ottawa, Ontario. The Odawa home territory at the time of early European contact, but not their trading zone, was well to the west of the city and river named after them.
Ottawa, Ohio, is the county seat of Putnam County, developed at the site of the last Ottawa reservation in Ohio. There is also an Ottawa, Kansas.
Language
The Odawa dialect is considered one of several divergent dialects of the Ojibwe language group, noted for its frequent syncope. In the Odawa language, the general language group is known as Nishnabemwin, while the Odawa language is called Daawaamwin. Of the estimated 5,000 ethnic Odawa and additional 10,000 people with some Odawa ancestry, in the early 21st century an estimated 500 people in Ontario and Michigan speak this language. The Ottawa Tribe of Oklahoma has three fluent speakers.
Early history
Oral histories and early recorded histories
thumb|Mid-18th century sketch of an Odawa family by British soldier [[George Townshend, 1st Marquess Townshend|George Townshend]]
According to Anishinaabeg tradition, and from recordings in Wiigwaasabak (birch bark scrolls), the Odawa people came from the eastern areas of North America, or Turtle Island, and from a region called Dawnland along the East Coast (where there are numerous Algonquian-language peoples).
Directed by the miigis (luminescent) beings, the Anishinaabe peoples moved inland along the Saint Lawrence River. At the "Third Stopping Place" near what is now the Straits of Mackinac, Michigan, the southern group of Anishinaabeg divided into three groups, the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi. The Saugeen mounds have not been excavated.
The Odawa, together with the Ojibwe and Potawatomi, were part of a long-term tribal alliance called the Council of Three Fires. Together they fought the nations of the Iroquois Confederacy (who came from the East) and the Dakota people.
In 1615 French explorer Samuel de Champlain met 300 men of a nation which, he said, "we call " (modern French spelling: (hair lifted, raised, rolled up)), near the mouth of the French River. Of these, he said: