Saskatchewan’s Indians and Their Religious Beliefs
Perhaps no greater injustice was ever perpetrated by one race of people against another than when the Crees and other Indians of Saskatchewan and Alberta were officially styled “Pagans” by the Dominion Government. After having had a somewhat exceptional chance of enquiring into the obscure subject of Indian religious beliefs, I think it safe to say that the word Pagan is not in any sense applicable to these people, and I think that if the missionaries to them would first apply themselves to the study of what the Crees and the Blackfeet believe, their efforts to Christianize them would be attended with a much greater degree of success than they have achieved hitherto.
But no, with scarcely a single exception the missionaries, both Catholic and Protestant, that I have met with approach the Indian they desire to convert thoroughly imbued with the idea that what the so-called Pagan believes in is such a weird, childish tissue of fancies that it is scarcely worthy of the serious attention of any sane man. The Indian’s beliefs, as I have been fortunate enough to ascertain, are as sacred, as real as ours are to us, and I have yet after fourteen years’ experience in this country to meet with the clergyman who had the least idea of what he had to combat in the minds of the Indians, or had ascertained if there was any mutual belief that he and they both held which might be used as a starting point to work from. As a rule it must be admitted that to the missionary, the Indian’s creed is Anathema Maranatha.
This may seem to you to be a rather sweeping condemnation of the methods that have been followed by Protestant and Roman Catholic missionaries in this country for almost two generations, but when I reflect, and, by your leave, when you reflect upon the enormous sums of money that have been expended, upon the loss of life and health, and upon the real devotion and zeal that have been and are even now being displayed by the clergy and other workers for Christianity, it must make us sad. It must give us pause. To what results can we point? The only answer that has been given to this question is “Give us more time, more money, more workers,” but I reply, and hope to prove that I am correct, “Your efforts are misdirected, you have started wrong, and in the meantime the good you have accomplished is largely discounted by the tide of civilization which has undoubtedly undone and is pernicious to the races of Indians which you and I are so anxious to elevate.”
In what then do the aboriginals of this country believe? The following is what I found, and it cannot be more than a mere outline on account of the short time in point of years that I have devoted to this, to me, extremely interesting subject. They believe in two deities, the Great and the Small, the Great they call Manitou, which has the power for all good, and the Small Matchee-Manitou, which has the power for all evil. The possession of power being to the Indian’s mind the greatest and dearest attribute, he will, naturally apply himself to whichever of these two deities will most further his ends for blessing or cursing, but, whereas, he will through another, submit supplications and make great sacrifices through a mediator to the Great Spirit, he will pray, occasionally, to the Small Spirit without any intercessor or formalities or sacrifices. He dare not pray direct to the Great Spirit, but will, recognizing his own innate baseness, go through almost anything in order to secure the interest of a mediator or intercessor, who he trusts will have more influence with the Great Spirit, or Manitou, than has his unworthy self. It is in the selection of this mediator that the influence of dreams, in all ages and climes a great and powerful agent in their operation on men’s minds, comes into force. These mediators must themselves be spirits, and only can reveal themselves to man in dreams, or sometimes they have been known to possess the insane, or mentally afflicted. These latter, however, are often possessed by the Matchee-Manitou, and then the evil spirit must be driven out, resulting in the barbarities familiar to us, when a human being is supposed to have a Weh-ta-ko, or Wehtigo. The Indian believes that his own influence with Manitou is as good as anyone’s except a Spirit’s. What is then his definition of a Spirit? It is hard to define, but the explanation of the term according to the Cree and Blackfoot is this. It is the invisible essence that formerly animated the body of a human being or animal when living, also it is reflected in and by the shadow cast by inanimate objects when the sun shines. This latter idea appeals to me as a very beautiful and poetic one. We know that all things above ground change and go through their appointed periods of bloom and decay. Nothing in nature is everlasting, the very face of the world itself alters, and that even within a single lifetime, so that when the Indian says, “Must there not be a spirit or soul in inanimate things as well as in those bodies which we deem endowed with life,” it is not an extravagant or even a peculiar thing that he should believe that there is a spirit of a stick, a rock, the prairie grass, or the mountains. He will therefore attach as much importance to the revelations conveyed to him by dreams of these objects as he will to those of his dead fellow creatures, dreams of his dead forefathers or relations, or of any animals or creatures which we call living creatures.
All of these spirits alike were called into being by Manitou and are being recalled into his presence as one by one they die or depart from mortal ken.
Now if the Indian dreams frequently on any object dead, or inanimate, that is to say, of any person or animal dead or any object above ground that casts a shadow, he believes that the spirit of that particular person, animal, or thing casting a shadow, as the case may be, has either some power for him, or some message for him or perhaps that the spirit wishes to signify to him that he or it will protect and patronize him by presenting his petitions to Manitou. The spirits themselves have no personal power except only that they are acceptable mediators between the poor Indian and Manitou. Therefore it is to these spirits of which the Indian has frequently dreamed that he will address his prayers, devout supplications and sacrifices in order that Manitou may be pleased to send to the suppliant power to gratify his wishes, whether they be for success in haunting or in the council tent, or for power to work harm to his enemies or for whatever particular thing it may be that at the time is most earnestly desired. Even though he may be dying the Indian will not even presume to make these prayers or sacrifices more than twice a year, as he fears to intrude so unworthy a being as he feels himself to be upon the notice of his patron spirits more often, and is afraid to be so presumptuous as to have a petition from him presented to the Great God more frequently than this, owing to the reverent fear in which he holds his very idea.
Let me go back for a moment. I found that among the older so-called Pagans, the Lesser Spirit, or Matchee-Manitou, is a being that they would hardly consider seriously, although they believed in his existence firmly. They seemed to attach little importance to the power of the Evil Spirit who they thought was held strictly in subjection to Manitou, and they apparently only used Matchee-Manitou as a sort of figure-head on which to lay the blame for any misfortune that might overtake them. In fact they would always try to turn aside my inquiries with a laugh, when I asked them about Matchee-Manitou. I need not perhaps refer to him again, as it is only very rarely that an Indian will pray for power to do evil, to this ideal of everything that is bad, called Matchee-Manitou, and, as already pointed out, they would never invoke the aid of an intercessor, or make any sacrifice to obtain the power he might have to bestow. But their silence and refusal to answer my questions may, nevertheless, be due to fear.
You will observe that the so-called Pagans are great believers in dreams which they regard as an intimation from some spirit which desires the dreamer to make use of it as intercessor or mediator with the God who is so holy in comparison with the suppliant, that he would otherwise be unapproachable. Therefore the Indians relate to one