The stone tomahawk: Ojibwe tradition, resourcefulness, and survival in northeastern Minnesota

Since the time of European impact, when functional and decorative roles of the art of the Ojibwe Indians of northeastern Minnesota began to be influenced by the demand for goods and the need for the Ojibwe to survive, the integration of Western materials into Ojibwe tourist art has been linked to traditional tribal values. The creation of those objects has been viewed by anthropologists and art historians as separate from the traditional means of making items that were utilitarian, aesthetic, or both; yet the time-honored values of the Ojibwe are alive and manifest in those very objects, combining traditional values, the making of art, and interaction with others. Often viewed by scholars and collectors as kitsch, compromised, and contorted by the intrusion of Western goods and technology, tourist art deserves to be viewed through the frame of what is considered to be the traditional way of the Ojibwe: Mino Bimaadiziiwin, "the Good Life.".