2e vuur

You will know the Second Fire... 

because at this time the nation will be camped by a large body of water. 

In this time the direction of the Sacred Shell will be lost. The Midewiwin will diminish in strength. A girl will be born to point the way back to the traditional ways. She will show the direction to the stepping stones to the future of the Anishinabe people.

The oral traditions of the members of Council of Three Fires say that the realization of the Second fire came about the "Third Stopping Place" located somewhere near what now is Detroit, Michigan. 

The Anishinaabeg had divided between those who went up Ottawa River and those that went up the St. Lawrence River. After leaving the area about Niagara Falls, this group proceeded to the "Round Lake" (Lake St. Clair) and found the third "turtle-shaped island" marked by miigis shells. 

They continued westward until arriving along the southern shores of Lake Michigan, but by this time, the evidence of the miigis shells were lost, and the southern Anishinaabeg became "lost" both physically in their journey as well as spiritually in their journey. 

The southern group of Anishinaabeg disintegrated into what today are the Ojibwa, Odawa and the Potawatomi. The northern group along the Ottawa River divided into Algonquin, Nipissing and the Mississaugas, but they maintained cohesion that was not maintained by the southern group.

Eventually, a Potawatomi girl had a dream... 

and pointed the southern group back towards and past the "Round Lake". 

The southern group rejoined not as a single Anishinaabe peoplehood, but rather as a unified alliance called Council of Three Fires. Travelling east and north, and then west, the Council crossed a series of small islands known as "the stepping stones" until they arrived onto Manitoulin island, described as the "Fourth Stopping Place" of the "turtle-shaped island" marked by miigis shell. 

There on the island, the Council met up with the Mississaugas, who then spiritually fully re-aligned the formerly lost southern group with the northern group who were never lost. The Odawa facilitated the "healing" and the island became synonymous as the "Odawa's Island" in the Anishinaabe language. 

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