View source for Chief Earth Woman

{{Lead rewrite|date=September 2023}}
'''Chief Earth Woman''' was a nineteenth-century [[Ojibwa]] woman and a significant figure in Ojibwa history.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|last=Buchanan|first=Kimberly Moore|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Aa6EEsGmO_4C&q=%22chief+earth+woman%22|title=Apache Women Warriors|date=1986|publisher=Texas Western Press, University of Texas at El Paso|isbn=978-0-87404-157-6|language=en}}</ref> She claimed that she had gained [[supernatural]] powers from a dream, and for this reason, accompanied the men on the warpath.<ref name="Daughters">{{cite book |title=Daughters of the Earth |author=Niethammer, Carolyn |publisher=Simon & Schuster |year=1995 |isbn=0-684-82955-X}}</ref> While some Ojibwa warrior women responded to necessity, Chief Earth Woman chose to become a warrior, entering battle with the Sioux.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Smith |first=Theresa S. |date=Spring 1999 |title="Yes, I'm Brave": Extraordinary Women in the Anishnaabe (Ojibwe) Tradition |jstor=25002351 |journal=Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion |volume=15 |issue=1 |pages=51}}</ref> Her dreams provided her fellow Ojibwa warriors with protection, and guided them through the battle.<ref name=":0" /> She confided with the leader that her dreams predicted the movements of the Sioux, aiding the Ojibwa in battle.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Wolf |first=Beverly Hungry |title=The Ways of My Grandmothers |publisher=HarperCollins |year=1982 |isbn=9780688004712 |location=New York, New York |pages=169–170 |language=en}}</ref> In the battle, she succeeded in scalping an enemy, earning her traditional honors.<ref name=":2" /> [[Ruth Landes]]' research in the 1930s described Chief Earth Woman as one of few women to command a war party and receive the honors of a man,<ref>{{Cite book|last=Landes |first=Ruth|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9m5buIsqNQwC&pg=PA73 |title=The Ojibwa Woman|date=1938|publisher=University of Nebraska Press|isbn=978-0-8032-7969-8 |edition=1997}}</ref> and later research by Colleen Sheryl McIvor places Chief Earth Woman within the tradition of the Anishinaabe Ogichidaakwe, or woman warrior.<ref>{{Cite thesis|last=McIvor|first=Colleen |url=http://hdl.handle.net/10680/744|title=Gikinoo'amaagowin Anishinaabeg (Teaching the Anishinaabe People) |publisher=University of Winnipeg|year=2014|hdl=10680/744|publication-place=Winnipeg, Manitoba}}</ref>

She was born around 1878 near [[Waterloo, Ohio]] as Birtha Snyder, Snider or Snidow. She married a man named "White Owl" in 1893, and she frequently traveled from Ohio to Michigan. She lived in a place called "[[Hocking Hills State Park|Old Man's Cave]]" while in Ohio.{{Citation needed|date=June 2008}}

Chief Earth Woman's story is often associated as a parallel to those stories of [[Lozen]] and [[Running Eagle]].<ref name=":1" />

== References ==
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==Further reading==
* Smith, Theresa S. (Spring 1999.) "[https://www.jstor.org/stable/25002351 "Yes, I'm Brave": Extraordinary Women in the Anishnaabe (Ojibwe) Tradition.]" ''Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion'': 15(1).

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[[Category:Native American women in warfare]]
[[Category:American Ojibwe people]]
[[Category:Women in 19th-century warfare]]
[[Category:19th-century Native American women]]
[[Category:19th-century Native American people]]
[[Category:1870s births]]


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