Odżibuejska ontologia, zachowanie i światopogląd

In this paper I have assembled evidence, chiefly from my own field work on a branch of the Northern Ojibwa, which supports the inference that in the metaphysics of being found among these Indians, the action of persons provides the major key to their world view. While in all cultures “persons” comprise one of the major classes of objects to which the self must become oriented, this category of being is by no means limited to human beings. (...) Although not formally abstracted and articulated philosophically, the nature of “persons” is the focal point of Ojibwa ontology and the key to the psychological unity and dynamics of their world outlook. This aspect of their metaphysics of being permeates the content of their cognitive processes: perceiving, remembering, imagining, conceiving, judging, and reasoning.