Tapastanum: “A Noted Conjurer for Many Years, Who Long Resisted the Teachings of Christianity” ANNE LINDSAY University of Winnipeg On 24 September 1875, Lieutenant Governor Alexander Morris and his party aboard the steamer Colvile arrived at Norway House, in what is today Manitoba. Morris was expecting to negotiate Treaty 5 with a single group of Aboriginal people. He was also expecting to negotiate for a specific area, as defined in the orders he had received from the Privy Council. It was not until negotiations were underway and Morris asked the assembled people to elect a chief that he discovered he was dealing with not one, but two distinct groups, each with its own leader. Only when negotiations began did Morris realize that the second group, led by a powerful local leader, Tapastanum, sought to introduce into the negotiations a territory that extended beyond the limited area for which he had a mandate from the federal government and the Crown to acquire. Tapastanum had been a traditional leader in the area for many years. His story is remarkable not only for his negotiation with Morris, but also because, unlike other Treaty 5 leaders at Norway House and Berens River, he maintained his leadership into the post-treaty period. The Cree community of Cross Lake lies to the north and slightly to the west of Norway House, north of Lake Winnipeg, on the Nelson River where the river enters Cross Lake. The Cree people of the area are known as the Pimicikamak people. “Pimicikamak” has been translated as “Cross” Lake in English, but a more accurate translation might be “flowing across.”1 In 1875, when the Pimicikamak people entered into Treaty No. 5 with the Crown under Tapastanum’s leadership, he was about seventy years old and had witnessed a great many changes during his lifetime; yet through these changes, for more than three decades, he maintained his leadership role among the Pimicikamak people. 1. Colin Gillespie, personal communication, 16 October 2008. 223 224 ANNE LINDSAY Tapastanum was born about 1805.2 His first appearance in the Hudson’s Bay Company records is in an 1838 census of Aboriginal people trading with various inland posts related to York Factory that lists him as a single adult hunter in the Nelson House trading area.3 It is also probably at this time that he began his lifelong relationship with his wife, Mary.4 Tapastanum left trading at Nelson House to trade at Norway House in 1843.5 Norway House journals and accounts suggest that he traveled to Norway House to trade about once a year. Traders from the post occasionally traveled to Tapastanum’s territory to trade, as well. The post journal entries suggest that in the 1850s Tapastanum and his group began to increase the number of times per year they traded with the Hudson’s Bay Company, either in their hunting territory or at the Norway House post. The records also indicate his leadership role, in notes such as “Tepastenum and his party took their departure for their hunting grounds”6 In 1856, the Norway House Journal noted, “Budd and McIver with two sleds of dogs went off to visit ‘Tepastennum the Indian & his band.’ ”7 In 1867, when two of his daughters, Eliza Ross Oig and Mary Papanakis were baptized at the Rossville Mission at Norway House in what is today Manitoba, the 2. In 1838, Tapastanum was listed as a single adult hunter in the Nelson House Indian Survey, (HBCA B.236/z/10 York Factory Miscellaneous Records folio 88, 87). In this census he is noted to be the brother of Wachackenasees (also a single adult hunter) and nephew of “Pucky,” and Pucky is listed as a relative of “Star,” all of them trading at Nelson House. Wesleyan Methodist Register of Baptisms Norway House, 1840–1889. 3. HBCA B.236/z/10 York Factory Miscellaneous Records f. 87, 88. 4. See Methodist Baptismal and Marriage registers. When Tapastanum and Mary were married, the Methodist minister John Ruttan noted, “After living together about 40 odd years and having a large family lately being baptized are now married.” (Wesleyan Missionary General Register, 1840–1892, Original Registers of Marriages, Rossville: 1875, Rossville, number 316, October 1, 1875). 5. HBCA, B.195/z/1, Fort Seaborn [Nelson River House] Miscellaneous. 6. HBCA B.154/a/43, Norway House Post Journal 1844–1845 to B.154/a/67, Norway House Post Journal 1868–1869. See particularly, B.154/a/53, Norway House Post Journal, 1850–1851: Sept. 4 folio 6. 7. HBCA B.154/a/60, Norway House Post Journal, 1855–1856, 16 January 1856, folio 28. TAPASTANUM 225 missionary Charles Stringfellow identified Tapastanum as “the Indian Chief still heathen.”8 In the late 1860s some of Tapastanum’s children were baptized at the Rossville Methodist Mission, but he himself continued his traditional spiritual practices and declined missionary efforts to convert him to Christianity. In 1875, Methodist missionary John Ruttan described, in a published letter, how Tapastanum was pursued not only by the Methodists at Rossville/Norway House, but also by the Cree Church of England minister James Settee.9 Settee had been born in the Split Lake area, and was related to the “Nelson Indians” as he described them in his letters.10 This group included Tapastanum and his family as they hunted in the area around John Scott’s Lake [Setting Lake]. Setting Lake [also Nett Lake11] had been an outpost of the Split Lake Post in the early 1800s when the Orkneyman John Scott traded there.12 In a letter from Norway House to Archdeacon Cowley, dated 21 August 1873, Settee stated that the Nelson Indians had agreed to help support a 8. Wesleyan Missionary General Register, 1840–1892, Original Registers of Marriages, Rossville: 1875, Rossville, number 1312, 1313. A note in the Register of Baptisms stated: “Book shows latter persons are daughter[s] if the Indian Chief still heathen T[a]past[a] num C.S.” 9. John Ruttan, letter, Rossville, 3rd August, 1875 in Missionary notices of the Methodist Church of Canada [3rd ser. no. 4 (Oct. 1875)] (Toronto: Mission Rooms, [1875]), 63–64. Note that this is available at the Web site, Early Canadiana Online, http://www.canadiana. org. 10. Annual Letter, James Settee, Sr. to Mr Fenn, [possibly Henry Venn, Secretary of the Church Missionary Society] Church Missionary Society (CMS) Microfilm Reel A101, November 30th 1874, Folio 29ff. 11. The local name for the lake was Pukatawagan, or “Net Setting Lake.” There was another lake by that same name that retains the name “Pukatawagan” today, but it is not the same lake. 12. See Methodist Baptisms, Tapastanum and his family were noted as from “John Scott’s Lake” in these records, although Ruttan in his letter described them as from “Split Lake” in his published letter. Ruttan may have used Split Lake in his letter as a larger and therefore better known lake in the area. See HBCA Biographies: Scott, John, and HBCA Post Histories: Split Lake. The Split Lake Post was closed at this time. See also Dillabough (1938:127). Lewis G. Thomas, “Settee, James.” Dictionary of Canadian Biography online: http://www.biographi.ca/index-e.html. 226 ANNE LINDSAY church, had requested the church be built “above Split Lake where the Nelson Indians have fixed upon,” and that Tapastanum (whom Settee called “the head conjurer of the Nelson River”) would travel with him to take him to the place.13 In Settee’s subsequent Annual Letter of 1874, he recounted how, although the mission seemed to be going well, at Christmas, when the various hunting families met back at the mission, the elders of the group had decided that rather than having a mission at this location, they would prefer to have it built farther south, where there were more opportunities for employment and agriculture. Settee reported having taken a petition to Lieutenant Governor Morris on behalf of the “Nelson Indians” as well as those around Norway House, but somehow Morris does not seem to have understood that the petition represented both groups. The petition asked for a grant of lands “either in this province or in Saskatchewan to make it a home for themselves and families.”14 Settee went on to say, “on my arrival I presented the Petition, the Governor received very graciously, he said, the Petition would receive every attention, the reply would be given in Autumn, or early in the winter.”15 Settee concluded his report by stating, “The Nelson Indians would have followed me to the province, but the trader objected . if they would follow me.”16 Settee, Chief Factor Roderick Ross of Norway House and Ruttan all acknowledged Tapastanum as a prominent “conjuror.” In his published letter, Ruttan wrote that Tapastanum’s baptism, in front of a large congregation: Was an interesting, nay thrilling sight. To see such a noted conjurer as he, stand before a large congregation, and in answer to the question in his own language, “Dost thou renounce the devil and all his works, the vain pomp and glory of the world, with all covetous desires of the same; and the carnal desires of the flesh, so that thou wilt not follow or be led by them?” say, 13. James Settee Sr. to Cowley, Norway House August 21st 1873, Church Missionary Society Reel A100, 79 ff. 14. Annual Letter, James Settee, Sr. to Mr. [Christopher] Fenn, CMS Microfilm Reel A101, 30 November 1874, 29ff. 15. Annual Letter, Settee, Sr., 30 November 1874, 29ff. 16. Annual Letter, Settee, Sr., 30 November 1874, 29ff. TAPASTANUM 227 “I renounce them all,” is something long to be remembered, and for which we, with the angels around the throne of God, should rejoice together.17 And Ruttan wrote in the register of Tapastanum’s baptism: “A noted conjuror for many years, who long resisted the teachings of Christianity baptized 11 July 1875”18 Roderick Ross stated: Sunday 11 [July 1875] .