This document discusses the importance of water to Anishinaabe people and contains three quotes: 1) Fred Ackley says that just because land contains gold it doesn't need to be mined, as you can't eat gold, and Anishinaabe people look out for water as others once looked out for them. 2) Mary Moose says "What we do to the water, we do to ourselves." 3) Josephine Mandamin says water has a spirit and is very precious, and that as women they are protectors of water and life-givers, so they must respect mother earth and water.

1. Nibi
Anishinaabe Reflections on Water
Dawn M. White
Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission
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3. Find MCR
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4. Symbolic Petition of Chippewa Chiefs, 1849
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“Just because the ground below our feet has gold,
doesn’t mean it needs to be mined - because you can’t eat gold.”
(Fred Ackley, Sokaogon Community)
“We are here for our relatives. Looking seven generations ahead –
looking out for water because somebody has looked out for us.”
(Fred Ackley, Sokaogon Community)
“What we do to the water, we do to ourselves.”
(Mary Moose, Canada)

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7. Water has a Spirit
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8. • Dr. Masaru Emoto, The Messages of Water8

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“Water has to live, it can hear, it
can sense what we’re saying, it
can really, really, speak to us.
Some songs come to us through
the water. We have to understand
that water is very precious.”
Josephine Mandamin
“The water of Mother Earth, she
carries life to us, and as women we
carry life through our bodies. We as
women are life-givers, protectors of
the water, and that’s why we are
very inclined to give mother earth
the respect that she needs for the
water,” Josephine Mandamin

10. 10Jessica Gokey 2015