Kekinowin
Kekinowin is the name of an ideographic script of the Ojibwa Indians , who belong to the large Algonquin language family and are also called Chippewa or Anishinabe .
Characteristics
The Kekinowin is not directly related to language and is completely meaningless for communication . Its individual signs (ideograms) are linked to a certain wealth of thoughts and ideas that encompass the entire cultural life of the Indians. The signs are therefore a mnemonic device , just pure mnemonic aids to keep and recall many things in memory, such as traditions, ceremonies, rituals, chants, dances, magic spells and the like. According to Haarmann , the functioning of the Kekinowin can be compared with that of Walam Olum , the tribe chronicle of Lenni Lenape , called Delawaren in Germany.
Writing material
The characters are shown on fabrics, animal skins - mostly tanned buffalo and deer skins - and birch bark. (Birch bark, which is probably the most widely used, was also used earlier in Europe as a material for lettering; a birch bark script from medieval Novgorod is famous for this .)
Initiated group of people
For the general public, the Kekinowin is completely incomprehensible, a secret that very few people are privy to, usually medicine men (shamans), who are often chiefs. These extraordinary men are prophets, doctors, poets, dancers and singers, albeit differently. To call you just a magician, as it usually happens, is probably a long way off the mark. Because it is not just magic spells, but stories of sometimes epic proportions that they speak, traditions and world experiences that they reproduce with their songs, dances and ceremonies.
Fields of activity of medicine men
The following overview shows the different fields of activity of the medicine men (with the Indian names after Faulmann ):
- Medáwin (medicine, medicine)
- the high Yesukáwin (prophecy)
- the little Yesukáwin (necromancy)
- Wábino (magical songs and dances)
- Keossáwin (Hunting Medicine)
- Nundobewunewun (battle tuning)
- Sadzawin (love medicine)
- Muzzinábikon (history, tradition)
Scrollable text
_025.jpg)
Kekiwin
In addition to the Kekinowin, the Ojibwa have a second typeface called Kekiwin . The characters in this font are pictograms and are therefore generally understandable.
literature
- Carl Faulmann: The book of writing: containing the characters and alphabets of all times and all peoples of the earth region , Greno Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Nördlingen 1985, (reprint of the Vienna edition from 1880), ISBN 3-921568-51-X
- Harald Haarmann: History of writing , Verlag CH Beck oHG, Munich 2002, ISBN 978-3-406-59218-8
- Werner Müller : Indian world experience , Klett-Cotta publishing house, Stuttgart 1991, ISBN 3-608-93172-4