Anishinaabek revitalization of ethnomycology, from Keewaydinoquay’s 1998 Puhpohwee for the People to the present, what has emerged from the ground?

Ethnobiological scholars long claimed that the Anishinaabek tribes (Ojibwe, Ottawa, Potawatomi, Menomini) did not use fungi traditionally as food and medicine (Smith 1923, 1932, 1933; Densmore 1928, 1974, Gilmore 1932). This claim was not refuted until Keewaydinoquay Peschel published her Narrative Account of Some Uses of Fungi Among the Ahnishinaubeg (1978). As an Anishinaabe woman who grew up in a traditional family in the Beaver Island archipelago, immersed in the Midewiwin Medicine Society during the 1920s, she retained cultural knowledge lost on the mainland of Michigan. During her life, “Kee” as she was known to her inner circle, went onto earn degrees from Wayne State University and was a school teacher in the public schools of northern Michigan before returning to study ethnobotany under Dr. Richard Ford at the University of Michigan. Since her book was published as a second edition in 1998 with a forward by Dr. Ford, it gained some attention among Anishinaabek and others. During the past 11 years, this seminal work has been used at the University of Michigan Biological Station to introduce ethnobotany students to emic knowledge about fungal use in food, medicine, fire starting and transfer across place. Recently, the tribal communities of Michigan have begun to revitalize their use of fungi, by broadening their knowledge base, using both western scientific and traditional knowledge systems (Schultz 2013). An account of this reclaiming of ethnomycology by the tribal communities across Michigan, and the role an ethnobotany class and its professors (Herron and Ford) had on its reemergence will be detailed.