by Robert Robson
Department of Indigenous Learning, Lakehead University
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Katherine Pettipas, Severing the Ties that Bind: Government Repression of Indigenous Religious Ceremonies on the Prairies, Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1994, xxiv, 304 pp., ill. ISBN 0-88755-638-8.
Katherine Pettipas’ Severing the Ties is, the author suggests in the Preface of the book, “a study of the conceptualization and implementation of Canadian Indian policy that can best be described as the repression of indigenous religious systems among Aboriginal peoples.” It is, however, much more than that because Pettipas not only documents the policy of repression but also, and perhaps most important, documents the response of the Plains Peoples to the policy. In the process it becomes readily apparent that the Plains Cree (and undoubtedly other First Nations Peoples as well as Indigenous Peoples elsewhere) not only maintained a strong sense of self-determination even when the repressive policies of government were implemented, but they also reaffirmed “their commitment to their spiritual beliefs and cultural values” as part of the response mechanism. Whether it was Chief Thunderchild’s petition to Ottawa, Panapekesis’ legal appeal or Chief Ermineskin’s presentation to the RCMP, the Plains Peoples continually asserted their rightful place in the decision making process. Through it all, the Aboriginal community utilized what Pettipas has termed the “predominant means of resistance,” namely “persistence.” The nipahkwesimowin (Sun or Thirst Dance), the Rain Dance, the mahtahitowin (the Giveaway Ceremony), the Hay or Grass Dance, the Circle Dance, the Midewiwin ceremony, the Tea Dance, the wihtikohkanisimowin (the Masked Dance) and the piciciwin (the Moving Slowly Dance), all to one degree or another continued to be practised by the Plains People regardless of the activity of government. Some were modified, some were practised secretly, and some were combined with other spiritual practises, but in almost every case the custom or tradition of the ceremony remained an integral part of the Plains community. Indeed, as Pettipas argues, the ceremony and the ideology of the ceremony became a “practical strategy for survival.”
The spiritual beliefs of the Plains Cree have traditionally formed the basis of the Cree community. As the author says, it was and/or is these beliefs that “define and sanction the cultural values and behaviour” of the Cree People. The belief structure is the common thread that unites the hunting practises, family relations, dwelling orientation, trading patterns, and leisure activities of Cree Peoples into a world-view or perspective that is particular to the Cree Peoples of the Plains. Holistic, communal, nurturing, respectful, and above all else cognizant of the gifts that the Creator had shared with the Peoples of the Plains, the world-view of the Cree and, as a consequence, the day-to-day activity of the Cree community, were/are intrinsically connected to the belief structure of the population.
In the mid-to-late-nineteenth century, Euro-Canadian governments began the assault on the belief structure of Aboriginal Peoples. In 1884, through amendment to the Indian Act, the federal government enacted the “Potlatch Law” which made participation in a potlatch ceremony a so-called “misdemeanour,” punishable by imprisonment of up to six months. In 1893, the Potlatch Law was applied for the first time on the Plains when Sun Dance participants at a Battle River ceremony were arrested and the Sun Dance lodge destroyed. In 1895, with the further amendment of the Indian Act through the enactment of Section 114, any one participating in an “... Indian festival, dance or other ceremony ...” was guilty of an indictable offence. From that point onward and well into the twentieth century, the federal government attempted to use the Indian Act and related legislation in an effort to establish Euro-Canadian standards of behaviour and further to impose “wardship political status” on Aboriginal Peoples. By attacking the religious ceremony/spiritual beliefs of the Plains Peoples, the federal government attempted to enforce assimilation.
Pettipas’ treatment of the federal government’s policy of repression traces the evolution of the same from its imperial roots which were planted during the era of the expanding British Empire through to post-World War II Canada and the expansion of Aboriginal representation complete with what the author has called the “re-appropriating” of culture. The author does well to place the discussion into the context of the evolving colonial relationship. First, with the activity of the Colonial Office and the likes of Herman Merivale or Lord Glenelg and later with the activity of the Indian Affairs and the likes of Hayter Reed, William Graham or Duncan Campbell Scott, Pettipas highlights the policy continuum that stretched across the centuries. At the same time, the author also considers the broader ideological questions of the decision making process. Pettipas factors into the equation everything from social Darwinism to evangelical humanitarianism. In the end the Reeds, the Grahams, or the Scotts all, to one degree or another, justified government’s policy of repression with the ideological rhetoric of the time as they applied the policy initiative that was intended not only to repress cultural activities but also eventually to eradicate what Duncan Campbell Scott referred to as “the Indian problem.”
Cultural activities may have been repressed but few if any of the customs, traditions and/or ceremony of the Plains Cree were eradicated by government policy. Indeed, as Pettipas has aptly demonstrated, it was in part “the very system that has been developed to eliminate Indian cultures that ensured at least some degree of ideological persistence.” The richness of Cree culture has clearly withstood the onslaught of the federal government’s policy of repression.
While Pettipas has more than adequately documented the process of government repression, she offers at best little more than an overview of Cree culture. Admittedly the author’s intention was to focus on government policy but by also attempting to consider the response of the Cree community to government policy, Pettipas has the opportunity to provide not only a fuller understanding of the day-to-day life experience of Cree Peoples but also a greater appreciation of the customs and traditions of the Plains. The Sun Dance, the Rain Dance, and even the Midewiwin ceremony all might have been considered more specifically in the context of the community.
American anthropologist David Mandelbaum (center) was allowed to observe aspects of the traditional Cree Sun Dance in the 1930s. Photographed at the Sweetgrass Reserve in Saskatchewan, 1934. From Severing the Ties that Bind by Katherine Pettipas.
Source: Saskatchewan Archives Board
Page revised: 26 September 2012
