Arranged Marriage

Kinship to the Kanina is simplistic. It is traced bilaterally but is not of much importance. The primary social unit of the Kanina is nuclear or extended family. In fact, they neither form clans nor examine ancestry that went further than their grandparents. Residences are made up of one nuclear family. Though they may take in extended family, acknowledgement of relatives by marriage is rare. Because of this unfamiliarity with their genealogical ancestors, latter generations of cousins might marry despite the fact that incestuous marriage is taboo. In an old tradition of the Kanina, the husband-to-be would give a gift to the father of the bride. However, the opinion varies greatly. Some men do not give gifts, and in that case the father does …show more content…
Arranged marriage is not uncommon and is ordinarily based on the bride price. Temporary matrilocal residence is customary and may last for an extended period of time if the wife’s mother does not have male hunters. Polygyny is not forbidden to the Ojibwa, but is rare. Residential units are often a combination of several generations living in one household. Even now, grandparents still may reside with a nuclear family. Although this opposes normal patrilineal patterns, inheritance is passed separately for women and includes passing a mothers items to her …show more content…
The Ojibwa are forced to live amongst modern society, which causes concerns amongst their people. Ojibwa are the victims of governmental relocation, forcing them to live in small areas where they are no longer able to live off of the land. In northern Ontario, this conflict causes greater harm than one may think, and as stresses and violence become more powerful on the reservations. Youth suicide is on the rise in this area. In fact, suicides took up over thirty-six percent of reservation deaths in 1987, when the national average of that year was only fifteen percent (Minore). Surprisingly, the numbers show that suicide rates are higher among teenage females in the locations closer to non-Indians. Minore quotes in Looking in, looking out: coping with adolescent suicide in the Cree and Ojibway communities of northern Ontario, “The southernmost communities show the highest rates of suicide and have also been the most affected through contact with non-Indians. The more remote northern communities, and especially those that minimize non-Indian influence even further by banning alcohol, have lower suicide rates” In a community as small as 2,400, almost one hundred Canadian born Ojibwa have taken their own lives in the last twenty