Rabbit and Bear Paws Presentation
Rabbit and Bear Paws is for the young and the young at heart. This series is set in 1750’s colonized North America and features the comical adventures of two brothers, Rabbit and Bear Paws. Using Traditional Native Teachings and humour, the stories are based on THE SEVEN FIRES PROPHECIES and THE SEVEN GRANDFATHERS.
The characters are mischievous and the audience learns enjoyable life lessons from their numerous pranks and mistakes while also appreciating the unity of the Native communities and how they related to one another peacefully. Instantly recognizable and fun character art draws the reader and/or viewer smoothly into the colourful stories.
Rabbit and Bear Paws are heroes that we created to share humorous adventures based on Traditional Teachings. This allows us to carry on the teachings to the youth who wish to explore their roots, while helping to share the wisdom of the Aboriginal community with the universal audience (non-aboriginal). The Anishinabek were the middle-men of the Fur trading era. So the Anishinabek would have traveled and traded with other Nations the same goods that they traded with the French and the English. The idea is to have the family – Rabbit, Bear Paws, Clover Blossom and Grey Stone visit other communities sharing with our audiences how native peoples worked out their differences peacefully when challenges arose. At the same time the stories show how we all learn from each other and that we need to help each other out, including the new neighbours (Europeans).
The characters will travel to different parts of the country, from coast to coast in new humorous adventures. In those adventures we will learn about the different cultures and the gifts that they contributed to modern society.
All the characters are based on Traditional Teachings. Rabbit is based on the ideas from THE SEVEN FIRES PROPHECIES. He is to be the little boy who helps to guide us to the path the ancestors have made for us. While Bear Paws is based on stories that describe Naniboozhoo and the many adventures that were created around this person.
We use The Seven Grandfathers to help create all age stories that reflect a positive message that is needed for all the people of the medicine wheel. The main characters were brothers, so the adventures would be around social experiences and everyday life events that would happen in the 18th century that are as important today as they were yesterday.
Rabbit and Bear Paws are rapidly gaining enthusiastic fans for their vibrant and entertaining images of Native Traditions and Oral History and have received an endorsement from the Patrick Madahbee, Grand Council Chief of the 39 communities of the Anishinabek Nation verifying that Rabbit and Bear Paws is “an informative and entertaining way for North Americans of all ages to learn more about First Nations history, cultures and traditions.”