2025 Theses Doctoral

Anaakanigewin: Weaving bulrush mats in the Algonquian Great Lakes, 1860-1960

Migwans, Mikinaak

This dissertation investigates the importance of the bulrush lodge mat for Indigenous peoples of the Great Lakes and its post-removal diaspora between 1860 and 1960, focusing on the material practices and technical knowledge of weavers. It begins from a survey of bulrush mats and related items in museum collections in Canada and the United States and works toward an account of specific weavers, their contexts and relations, through a combination of close looking, technical analysis, and storying. It concludes that lodge mats, as a technology of mobility powered by women and their land-based labors, constitutes a form of multi-sited sovereignty.