Free Big Bear by Rudy Wiebe

knobs and hollows, and he felt the weight of the dead in his lifetime, dead by disease and guns and starvation and whiskyand raids and attacks and war—the Cree had made war at the Oldman River, and White police had marched in and built their fort within half a day’s ride of the battle place—he had helped make war, too often, and left the dead of his People mutilated and rotting in the sun like buffalo slaughtered for nothing but hides. The buffalo stone burned in his hand, all the dead, the dead, and now the Whites an unstoppable flood and he stared at the magnificent cairn floating on the horizon before him while his body simmered with
Buffalo … trust the buffalo.
    Imasees rode up the driving lane, and Big Bear looked at him. His son said, We found them, on our side of the river. A small herd.
    Ahhhhh, Big Bear said and lifted himself to his feet. He walked between the lanes to the cairn and offered up the buffalo stone,
Iniskim,
between rocks level with his eye. Then he and his son together rode down a ravine dusted white as snow by saskatoons blooming and across the river, back to the buffalo.

 
     
     
     

CHAPTER FIVE
The Rope of Treaty Six
     
     
    Lieutenant-Governor Alexander Morris required two weeks to haul himself and a large party up the Carlton Trail from Red River to the North Saskatchewan. On Friday, August 18, 1876, the scarlet-coated police band with their tootling trumpets surrounded the royal blue and gold uniforms of the commissioners riding over the river hills above Carlton, where the huge Grandmother flag flipped open in the gentle wind. After half an hour of Cree drumming and dancing and singing, their full-feathered chiefs approached Morris with their pipe presentation. The pipe was, as he later wrote, “… stroked by our hands. After the stroking had been completed, the Indians sat down in front of the council tent, satisfied that in accordance with their custom we had accepted the friendship of the Cree nation.” Morris did not comprehend that the pipe had initiated him into a sacred peace ceremony.
    The treaty lay ready, English words on parchment, but it had to be spoken into Cree so the People could hear what it said and talk about it. An uneasiness arose abouttranslators—regarding Peter Erasmus, whom the Cree trusted and had themselves hired, and government men Peter Ballendine and John McKay; the complex tongues of Plains Cree, Woods Cree, and Saulteaux needed to be carefully spoken. But finally Morris could repeat what every missionary had already told them: “My Indian brothers … you are, like me, children of the Queen. We are of the same blood, the same God made us, and the same Queen rules over us. I am her Governor of all these territories, and I am here to speak from her to you … face to face.”
    He then explained, through the translators, that Treaty Six was exactly the same as Treaty Four, which had already been accepted by the southern plains chiefs last year at Qu’Appelle. To summarize:
Every band could pick the land they wanted, one square mile per family of five.
They were promised schools, specific farming and carpentry tools, cattle, $1,500 a year for ammunition and twine, liquor prohibition, and uniforms and medals and flags for chiefs.
Upon signing, a $12 bonus would be paid to every man, woman, and child.
Payments of $25 per chief, $15 per headman, and $5 to every Person would be made annually, forever.
    In four days of discussion with Morris at Carlton, the leading area chiefs followed the Cree tradition of having younger councillors speak for them first, so that the chiefs could speak later without being embarrassed by having their comments rejected. In his report Morris said nothing about young Poundmaker’s speech concerning land, but Peter Erasmus recorded Poundmaker’s words in his memoirs:
“‘The governor mentions how much land is to be given us. He says one square mile for each family, he will give us.’ And in a loud voice [the councillor]