First People, First Voices 9781487571986

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First People, First Voices

\

Poundmaker

First People, First Voices EDITED BY PENNY PETRONE

University of Toronto Press Toronto Buffalo London

© University of Toronto Press, 1991

Toronto Buffalo London Printed in Canada ISBN 0-8020-2515-3 (cloth) Reprinted 1984 ISBN 978-0-8020-6562-9 (paper)

1985, reprinted 1987, 1989, 1991, 1996, 2003 Reprinted in 2018

§ Printed on acid-free paper

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data

Main entry under title: First people, first voices Includes index. ISBN 0-8020-2515-3 (bound)

ISBN 978-0-8020-6562-9 (paper)

1. Indians of North America - Canada - History Sources. I. Petrone, Penny.

E78.C2F5

971'.00497

C83-0984 74-7

Some of the research costs of this book were assisted by generous grants from

the Ontario Arts Council under its writer's grant program. Publication of this book was assisted by a generous gift to the University of Toronto Press from the Herbert Laurence Rous Estate, and further financial assistance was provided by Multiculturalism Canada.

Contents

Illustrations Preface

vi

vii

'Bad meat upon our lands' 2 'Listen to our grievances, fulfil your promises' 3 'We are yet babes in Christ' 4 'There is song in everything' 5 'Walk in our moccasins' Acknowledgments Picture credits Index

219

218

215

167

75 123

31

Illustrations

Poundmaker ii Ont;! of the Four Kings of Canada x following page 29

Maquinna's ancestor Joseph Brant Tecumseh Big Bear Crowfoot Piapot following page 73

John Sunday Henry Bird Steinhauer Peter Jacobs Allan Salt Catherine Sutton James Settee Peter Jones

following page 121

Francis Assikinack Louis Jackson John Brant-Sero Pauline Johnson Dan Kennedy Edward Ahenakew James Gladstone following page 165

Dan George Alanis Obomsawin Jim Morris Lenore Keeshig-Tobias Walter Currie

Preface

This book presents a selection of writing and speeches by Canadian Indians from the 1630s to the 1980s. Its principal aim is to show the beginnings and development in Canada of an Indian literary tradition in English; along the way, a good deal can be learned about the Indian view of Canadian history. Indians in cenain parts of Canada have been speaking in English for over three centuries. The words they spoke even earlier have been recorded and translated into English, often from the French and sometimes directly from one of the many native languages. From the early nineteenth century, Indians were increasingly educated in English and thus began to write in that language. Indians writing in Canada today draw on this long experience in English as well as on oral traditions in their own languages that stretch into the distant past. The material gathered here is generally arranged in chronological order to give historical perspective and continuity. The first chapter includes Indian speeches recorded in eastern and central Canada in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Chapter 2, stretching across the nineteenth century, deals for the most pan with the often difficult struggle, at different times in different pans of the country, to come to terms with the arrival and settlement of Europeans. Chapter 3 presents the writings of a group of Indians who were active in various Christian missions in the middle and late nineteenth century, the first Indians to write extensively in the English language. Chapter 4 looks at the more secular side of things in the late nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth, and it includes several of the ancient legends and myths that were being collected at the time; along with the songs and poems scattered throughout the book, these legends - only a few of the many available -are the real roots of Indian literature . Finally, Chapter 5 provides samples of contemporary Indian work, from essays and speeches to fiction and poetry and other genres of creative literature. In this book the term 'literature' has been interpreted in the broadest sense, embracing not only imaginative prose and poetry but also letters, speeches,

vii

sermons, reports, petitions, diary entries, songs, essays, journals and travel writing, history, and autobiography. I have tried to give the collection as wide a scope as possible in form, content, regional coverage, and authorship. Although some items translated from French have been included, there is obviously room for a separate book of Indian writing in that language, as well as for work written in the various Indian languages. This book concentrates on the wealth of material in English. There is emphasis upon earlier works, as opposed to contemporary writing, because these items are less accessible and because the purpose is to show the depth of the tradition on which today's writers are building. Likewise, relatively few myths and legends are included because so many collections of these exist. Apart from correcting a few obvious typographical errors and the standardizing of Indian names, the spelling, grammar, syntax, and punctuation of the original sources have been preserved, for these show development in the use of language. In order to give context and background, brief introductions have been provided to the items; it is my intention, however, as much as possible, that the various Indian spokesmen should speak for themselves with a minimutn of interpretation. This book resulted from a need that arose when I was asked to teach a course on Indian literature for the Native Teacher Education Program at Lakehead University. In preparing for the course I soon discovered that although many books had been written about Canadian Indians and much literature was being published by contemporary Indians, there was virtually nothing on Indian writing before this century. As time progressed I became more and more convinced of the necessity of locating works by early Indian writers if the course were to have historical base and meaning. I am grateful for financial assistance provided by the Ontario Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Colleges and Universities for field research and by Lakehead University for the costs of typing the manuscript. During the eight years of research for materials I have been assisted by librarians and archivists across the country, at historical societies and university libraries, at the Public Archives of Canada in Ottawa; at the Ontario Archives, the United Church Archives, the Anglican Church of Canada Archives, the Metropolitan Toronto Library Board, the Royal Ontario Museum, all in Toronto; the Glenbow Museum in Calgary; the Provincial Museums of British Columbia, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick; the Provincial Archives of Manitoba and New Brunswick; the Public Archives of Nova Scotia; the Saskatchewan Archives Board; the Detroit Public Library; the Lambton County Library in Wyoming, Ontario; the County of Grey Owen Sound Museum; and the Archives of the Grey Nuns in St-Boniface, Manitoba. I am grateful to all the people at these institutions who helped me, especially Neil Semple at the United Church Archives, Kevin Neary at the British Colum-

viii

bia Provincial Museum, Robert Armstrong and Bill Russell at the Public Archives of Canada, Ruth Whitehead at the Nova Scotia Museum, Lillian Montour of the Woodland Indian Centre in Brantford, Ontario, Annette Saint-Pierre of the Centres d'etudes franco-canadiennes de l'ouest in St-Boniface, Manitoba, and to others too numerous to mention. Above all, I'm grateful to the Indian people who gave me their time and permission to use their work. I am especially indebted to my editor, Gerry Hallowell, for his patience and valuable assistance in the evolution of the original manuscript to its present form. PENNY PETRONE

Thunder Bay April 1983

ix

One of the Four Kings of Canada, 1710 - a European view of the 'noble savage'

1 'Bad meat upon our lands'

'You can have your way and we will have ours; everyone values his own wares.' /esuit Relations,

111

ll61 l-16l 123

Address of a war-party to their women on leaving the village, Chippewa

Do not weep, do not weep for me, Loved women, should I die; For yourselves alone should you weep! Poor are ye all, and to be pitied: Ye women, ye are to be pitied! I seek, I seek our fallen relations; I go to revenge, revenge the slain, Our relations fallen and slain, And our foes, our foes shall lie Like them, like them shall they lie; I go to lay them low, to lay them low! Anna Jameson, Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada 11838; Toronto: Coles Cana