Tom Whitecloud, author of "Blue Winds Dancing" (1938), was a Chippewa Indian. Now the name is more often spelled Ojibwe or Ojibway, and many members of that nation prefer to call themselves Anishinaabe. Since you're writing a paper on the story, you'll want to know more about his cultural heritage.
The Milwaukee Public Museum has some excellent resources on the Ojibwe (when the @#$%! links are working) at its website on Wisconsin Indian tribes. Cross your fingers and try to visit the pages on culture and musical instruments. Note the relationship between dance, healing and spiritual life, if you can get to the webpages.
Also highly recommended: The six-part television series Waasa-Inaabidaa: "We Look in All Directions" at http://www.ojibwe.org/home/overview.html.
When a teenager opened fire at the high school on the Red Lake reservation in Minnesota, a reporter for the Minneapolis Star Tribune profiled the Red Lake Ojibwe community. It is one of the best sources I found. Be sure to read down to the description of a dance and an elder who said, "The answer is in the drums. ... The answer is in the circle."
A very brief overview and links are available on the Native Languages of the Americas website.
Speaking of spirituality, something we all ought to read -- repeatedly -- is Orrin Lewis' essay "Seeking Native American Spirituality: Read This First!" on the Native Languages website. Lewis is a Cherokee, and he has written one of the best common-sense guides for spiritual seekers available on the Internet. He has good advice for those of us who are not Native Americans on how to avoid being misled by fakes and how to treat Native religions with the respect they deserve.
A website devoted to maintaining Anishinaabe language and traditions put up by the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians in Michigan has a wealth of information about the culture. The Little River Band's annual pow wow or dance, called Jiingtamok
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