They are Bizhiw (Lynx), Makwa (Bear), Waabizheshi (Marten) Awaazisii (Bullhead), Ma'iingan (Wolf), Migizi (Bald Eagle), Name (Sturgeon) and Moozens (Little Moose).

[citation needed] Due to some of these Dakota ancestry, Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe have a high degree of Ma'iingan-doodem members.

[1] According to oral history, the Ojibwe, an Algonquian language-speaking people, coalesced on the Atlantic coast of North America.

[citation needed] After forcing the eastern Dakota from the area in the mid-1700s, the Ojibwe occupied the region around Mille Lacs Lake in what is today East Central Minnesota.

Many settlers chose to ignore and violate the treaties the Mille Lacs Band made with the British crown and the United States.

At that time, pressing for their assimilation into European American culture, the Bureau of Indian Affairs prohibited the Ojibwe from practicing their religion.

Indian agents tried to have the native children sent to boarding schools and forced to learn and speak English, and virtually denied their right to govern themselves.

On September 6, 1862, the speculation[4] of his joining Little Crow prompted Zhaaboshkang(Shaw-bosh-kung), head chief of the Mille Lacs Band to lead 700–750 warriors waving a US flag[5]: p.114  and Mille Lacs made flag, to Fort Ripley to volunteer to fight the Sioux and support the garrison along with the Sandy Lake, Snake River, and Chippewa River bands.

[5] However, war chief Mou-Zoo-Mau-Nee, with 200 Mille Lacs warriors, remained at the fort, as did 100 from the Sandy Lake band.

On September 8, 1862, another Mille Lacs band chief with 100 warriors was met and stopped at Watab, Minnesota, just north of St Cloud.

For that service, Lincoln repeated what Commissioner Dole had said, the Mille Lacs band could remain on their reservation for 1,000 years.12 Stat.

With the passage of the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act, the bands of the Mille Lacs region joined five others in forming the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, organized 1934–1936.

Since then, casino revenues have allowed the Mille Lacs Band to strengthen its cultural identity, return to economic self-sufficiency, rebuild its reservation, and increase the prosperity of the entire region.