The Bois Forte Band of Chippewa of Minnesota has reclaimed 42 sacred scrolls that are more than 200 years old.

The scrolls are the records of the Bois Forte medicine society. They ended up in the hands of a man from Kentucky, whose grandfather once worked near the reservation in the early 1900s.

Raymond Cloutier treasured the scrolls but decided to return them. He called up the tribe's new museum in October, surprising elders and the curator.

"The people the scrolls came from were not some dead Indians from a dead culture; they were still there, and they may have been suffering somewhat for having lost part of their culture," Cloutier told The Minneapolis Star Tribune.

The scrolls are now kept by the museum. Only members of the Midewiwin, the medicine society, and the curator are allowed to view them.

Get the Story:
Ojibwe scrolls come full circle (The Minneapolis Star Tribune 12/11)
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Relevant Links:
Bois Forte Band of Chippewa - http://www.boisforte.com