The Ojibwe are one of the largest groups of Native Americans in North America. They total over 200,000, concentrated mostly around the Great Lakes in both the United States and Canada, and extending into the Great Plains. There are nearly 90,000 speakers of the Ojibwe language, mostly in Canada. This makes it one of the most widely spoken indigenous languages in North America. It is of the Algonquian family.

As they are present over a large area, the Ojibwe language not surprisingly has a number of dialects, two of which are present in the United States. In the East is the Ottawa (or Odawa), mainly in the lower peninsula of Michigan, and adjacent Ontario, Canada. In the West is the Southwestern Ojibwe, or Chippewa, located in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, northern Minnesota, and northern Wisconsin.

The Book of Common Prayer was first translated into Ojibwe in 1844 in the U. S., and in 1846 in Canada. We have the first US translation (Ottawa dialect - actually of only a small portion of the BCP) online. The first Canadian translation (Griffiths 129:1; 1846) is available as PDF graphics from Google Books; other translation may be found on our Languages page.
 

The text presented here is a translation of the 1892 Book of Common Prayer in the Southwestern, or Chippewa dialect of Ojibwe. It was translated by a native Ojibwe, the Rev. Edward Kah-O-Sed, and was published in 1911 for use in the Diocese of Duluth, which comprised the northern part of Minnesota. It is, to our knowledge, the last Book of Common Prayer published in the Ojibwe language. It includes most of the BCP, less the Ordinal and some of the lesser-used services. There is also a Hymnal added at the end, which apparently is still used.

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