less to do and the animals are sleeping. Trickster The Trickster is a common character in Anishinaabeg storytelling and goes by many names, including Coyote, Raven, Wesakejac, Nanabozo, and Glooscap. They appear in many forms and genders. Stories involving the Trickster "often use humour, self-mocking, and absurdity to carry good lessons." The Trickster helps teach cultural lessons by "learning lessons the 'hard' way." Within such stories, "Trickster often gets into trouble by ignoring cultural rules and practices or by giving sway to the negative aspects of 'humanness' ... Trickster seems to learn lessons the hard way and sometimes not at all." Contrary to some depictions of Trickster figures, the Trickster in Anishinaabeg stories "has the ability to do good things for others and is sometimes like a powerful spiritual being and [is] given much respect." Stories involving the Trickster serve to "remind us about the good power of interconnectedness within family, community, nation, culture, and land. If we become disconnected, we lose the ability to make meaning from Indigenous stories." Before the 1800s Before the arrival of the Europeans, and until at least the 1800s, many Anishinaabeg were subsistence farmers. For example, the Odawa, centered in Michilimackinac grew corn in the summers and generally moved south in smaller family groups in the winters to hunt game. They tapped sugar maples in the spring, and moved back to the main villages to prepare for the lake sturgeon spawning season and planting. They were "renowned" for their skills at making and using canoes and traded widely. The Anishinaabe practised cannibalism, sometimes boiling and eating their foes after battles. They also practised slavery, usually as a way to "cover their dead". Their kinship was patrilineal and most Anishinaabe doodemag enforced exogamy, the wife keeping and representing her father's doodem while her children would take on their father's doodem. For the first few years of a marriage, a husband would live with his wife's family, and then they would typically return to the husband's people. As a result, many Anishinaabe villages included people speaking different languages not only from different clans, but also from entirely different peoples, such as the Huron and even occasionally Sioux. Education In June 1994, the Chiefs at the Anishinabek Grand Council gathering at Rocky Bay First Nation, directed that the Education Directorate formally establish the Anishinabek Education Institute (AEI) in accordance with the post-secondary education model that was submitted