Gitche Manitou (Gitchi Manitou,Kitchi Manitou, etc.) means "Great Spirit" in severalAlgonquian languages.Christian missionaries have translatedGod asGitche Manitou in scriptures and prayers in the Algonquian languages.
Manitou is a common Algonquian term for spirit, mystery, ordeity.Native American Churches inMexico,United States andCanada often use this term.
In more recentAnishinaabe culture, theAnishinaabe language wordGichi-manidoo means Great Spirit, the Creator of all things and the Giver of Life, and is sometimes translated as the "Great Mystery". Historically, Anishinaabe people believed in a variety of spirits, whose images were placed near doorways for protection.
According toAnishinaabeg tradition,Michilimackinac, later named by European settlers asMackinac Island, in Michigan, was the home of Gitche Manitou, and some Anishinaabeg tribes would make pilgrimages there for rituals devoted to the spirit.[1]
InHenry Wadsworth Longfellow'sThe Song of Hiawatha, Gitche Manitou is spelledGitche Manito.
Other Anishinaabe names for God incorporated through the process ofsyncretism areGizhe-manidoo ("venerableManidoo"),Wenizhishid-manidoo ("FairManidoo") andGichi-ojichaag ("Great Spirit"). WhileGichi-manidoo andGichi-ojichaag both mean "Great Spirit",Gichi-manidoo carried the idea of the greater spiritual connectivity whileGichi-ojichaag carried the idea of individual soul's connection to theGichi-manidoo. Consequently, Christian missionaries often used the termGichi-ojichaag to refer to the Christian idea of aHoly Spirit.
In addition to the Algonquian Anishinaabeg, many other tribes believed inGitche Manitou. References to the Great Manitou by theCheyenne and theOglala Sioux (notably in the recollections ofBlack Elk), indicate that belief in this deity extended into theGreat Plains, fully across the wider group ofAlgonquian peoples.
Cognate terms recorded in other Algonquian languages include:
Gitche Manitou has been seen as those cultures' analogue to the Christian God. When early Christian (especially French Catholic)missionaries preached theGospel to the Algonquian peoples, they adoptedGitche Manitou as a name for God in the Algonquian languages. This can be seen, for example, in the English translation of the "Huron Carol".
Spirits who were either aspects of Gitche Manitou or lesser spirits under Gitche Manitou include:
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Manitou is the spiritual and fundamentallife force amongAlgonquian groups in theNative American mythology. Manitou is one aspect of the interconnection and balance of nature and life, similar to the East Asian concept ofqi. In simpler terms it can refer to a spirit. This spirit is seen as a person as well as a concept. Everything has its own manitou—every plant, every stone and, since their invention, even machines. These manitous do not exist in a hierarchy like European gods/goddesses, but are more akin to one part of the body interacting with another and the spirit of everything; the collective is namedGitche Manitou.