Big Bear's Bundle New Answers raise additional questions

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(In the January 9, 1987 issue of Windspeaker, we ran a front page story entitled "New York Museum has major Cree medicine bundle." The story left a few questions suspended in mid-air (on purpose) as a prelude to this subsequent article. An attempt to answer those questions is the main thrust of this article. The story in question centered around a bearclaw medicine bundle that had belonged to Cree Chief Big Bear, a major personality during the 1885 Northwest Resistance in Saskatchewan.)

WHO WAS JOE PIMI?

Big Bear's bundle had dropped out of sight in 1934 when an American anthropologist by the name of David Mandlebaum acquired it on behalf of the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The bundle was obtained from a "Joe Pimi," who was a resident of Poundmaker's Reserve just east of North Battleford.

One of the questions raised in the previous article in this paper was the question

of who was Joe Pimi. Pimi was none other than Horse Child, the Youngest son of Big Bear. At age eight, he had accompanied Big Bear when he went to surrender himself to the authorities after eluding capture by the military during the 1885 struggles in Saskatchewan.

After his surrender, Big Bear was sent to Regina where he was tried for treason-felony, convicted and imprisoned at Stony Mountain Penitentiary in Manitoba. Despite the protestations of Horse Child to remain at the prison with his father, he was returned to Saskatchewan where he lived with a Metis family (Joe Sayers) at Bresaylor, which was then a prominent Metis community. A few years later, about 1890 or 91, he moved to Poundmaker's, where he remained until his death on May 20, 1952.

Albert Chatsis, who now lives in Saskatoon, is an adopted son of Horse Child and was born in 1934, the same year that Horse Child (under the name of Joe Pimi) transferred Big Bear's medicine bundle to the American Museum. He was adopted, he says, by Pimi when one month old and just after his own mother's death. Chatsis says the reason for his adoption was to replace an only son of Pimi who died as a result of a sleigh ride accident when he was about nine or 10 years or age.

Chatsis went on to explain that the clergy had a fair impact on the religion of Pimi, who became a devout Roman Catholic and gave up most of his traditional Indian beliefs and customs. That is also why he gave away many items that had belonged to his father, Big Bear, Chatsis added.

Chatsis further asserted that the (RC) clergymen were responsible for Horse Child's change of name. He provided the following account:

"When he was a child, his hair was always greasy and he was nicknamed, "Pimee," the Cree word for "fat" or "grease." When the RCs came, he was baptized and the priests wanted to have his Indian name changed so they used his nickname.

(For his first name, he was named after Jesus' father, Joseph. It was Father Lacombe who gave him the name Joseph."

So it was that Horse Chief, the youngest son of Big Bear, came to be called Joe Pimi.