Anishinaabe scholars Alan Corbiere and Mikkinuk Migwans explain that
"To the Anishinaabe eye, the world expands outward in layers...Above hangs the tiered sky with its unseen currents, traversed by celestial bodies. Below are the lightless strata of earth and water, with their secret folds and highways. In this traditional conception, humans inhabit only the thin middle slice of a many-layered world peopled with powerful beings."
Corbiere & Migwans, Animikii miinwaa Mishibizhiw: Narrative Images of the Thunderbird and the Underwater Panther" in Before and After the Horizon: Anishinaabe Artists of the Great Lakes edited by David Penney and Gerald McMaster. p. 37.
