Before and Beyond Colonization-- Birchbark Biting or mazinashkwemaganjigan
I’ve recently learned about birchbark biting or mazinashkwemaganjigan, an Anishinaabeg practice that has been around for a thousands of years that is done by biting into the barks from paper birch trees with one’s teeth to create designs, and makers envision the designs in their head[1] Every piece is unique, other than the mental labour of replicating the same patterns, and though the harvests in spring has thinner barks that are easier to work with while retaining better, there are works that are made on darker, reddish barks harvested in winter time due to the higher level of concentrations of tannins and phenolic acid, according to Sonia Kata, conservation curator of McCord Museum in Montreal. While birch bark is used for making designs, its water resistance and lightness allows this material to be made into cooking vessels containers and canoes; other parts of the tree would also be utilized-- wood for furniture and tools and sap to consume fresh or make into syrup[2].
Cree artist Pat Bruderer aka Halfmoon Woman explains that it traditionally used for ceremonial documentation and beadwork patterns with references from symbolic and naturalistic motif in mind, and the process is greatly calculated and challenges the maker’s spatial sense and mathematic. Half Moon Woman has been practicing for over 30 years[1], and she goes through 13 stages to finish a piece after visualizing what she wants to make; this process was taught to her by family members, and she has been doing workshops for school children in recently years as there are not many active birchbark biting artists in the world. I am going to show examples from the early 20th century and some by Halfmoon Woman so we can see how this art form is preserved and transformed in the contemporary lens.
While birch bark is used for making designs, its water resistance and lightness allows this material to be made into cooking vessels containers and canoes; other parts of the tree would also be utilized-- wood for furniture and tools and sap to consume fresh or make into syrup. The principle of finding purposes in all parts of the tree once again reflect the Indigenous gratitude towards nature.
[1] Halfmoon Women. "Birchbark Biting] YouTube video. 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7Z9cUIT23w&t=179s [2] Kata, Sonia, “Embellishing birchbark: All bark, and some bite” McCord Museum Montreal. May 26th, 2022. https://www.musee-mccord-stewart.ca/en/blog/embellishing-birchbark/