Voices from our Past

The mystery of the snake horn

Page 33

While many present-day Natives are superstitious in varying degrees, the extent and depth of their beliefs does not even remotely approach that of their forebears.

The true story told of an old Native trapper named Munchoose (The Insect) is illustrative of the real nature of most Cree Elders residing at Sturgeon Lake, Alberta when our family first moved there to live 69 years ago ? a few months before my seventh birthday.

Munchoose was a short, stocky, powerful man who trapped in the area of Pruden's Crossing ? now Watino ? early in this century. The Crees regarded him as a mysterious character; very learned in Native religion and medicine, and very knowledgeable of the history and legends of his people.

The old fellow had been hunting along the banks of the Little smoky River, about five miles from its junction with the Big Smoky, in the summer of 1913, when he came to a sharp bend in the river where the south bank formed a high rocky point.

A strange looking object lying on that rocky point caught his eye. Parts of it seemed to glisten in the sunlight, yet it looked like the curved trunk of a small dead tree, cleaning stripped of bark.

The old fellow, his curiosity now aroused, made his way to the strange object.

But Munchoose readily saw it was not part of a tree. No, indeed; it was an object the likes of which he had never seen before, nor had he ever heard of anyone who had seen one.

What he had found was a mystery to him. It was only about 30 inches in length, about four inches thick at its base, tapering to a point at the other end. It was curved like an ordinary elephant's tusk, yet it was extremely heavy ? "far heavier than the heaviest wood," Munchoose assured himself.

He searched his memory for a Cree legend that might explain his astonishing find. He had a faint recollection of hearing stories about a great two-horned snake which was supposed to have existed in the ancient days.

Munchoose couldn't be certain there was any connection between the large horn, as he called it, and the legendary reptile, but, looking the object over, he noted it was, indeed, snake-like in appearance.

That was good enough for Munchoose. He decided the mysterious object should be called a "snake horn."

Munchoose now believed the spirit of the creature that had sported the "horn" must have looked with favor upon him and had guided Munchoose's steps to the spot where he made the find.

As he looked upon the horn, he said to himself: "Here, indeed, is powerful medicine." Munchoose decided the horn's spirit wouldn't mind him taking a small piece of the tusk for a medicine charm.

The best the old fellow could do with his small hand-axe was to break off the very tip of the snake horn.

While Munchoose told all his friends about finding the snake horn, he adamantly refused to show hsi medicine charm to anyone except his fellow medicine men. Only they could fully appreciate such sacred things and would help preserve it.

But, when the medicine men asked Munchoose to tell them the location of the snake horn, he flatly refused to oblige them, saying, "I do not wish to anger the spirit of the snake horn by prematurely revealing its resting place."

Early in the summer of 1918, having heard about Munchoose's 1913 discovery of the snake horn, two expert Sturgeon Lake woodsmen, Jeremy and August Aimard, visited Munchoose to try to learn the location of the snake horn.

But the Aimards were not successful. Nevertheless, the brothers conduced a search of the general area where Munchoose was believed to have discovered the horn. But even though the searchers were guided by Old Sunshine, a Cree hunter familiar with the territory involved, no sign of the snake horn had been found by the Aimard party.

Shortly after the Aimard search was concluded, Munchoose had another visitor who wished to learn of the snake horn's whereabouts. This man was certain he would succeed in securing the information he sought ? he had brought along someting he believed would get Munchoose's tongue wagging.

Although the sight of the two quarts of whiskey in the hands of his visitor soon had Munchoose licking his lips, the old fellow refused to reveal his secret. "I will tell where the snake horn can be found, but only when I feel I am about to die ? not before. I will be faithful to the Great Snake's spirit," said Munchoose.

No doubt Munchoose would have carried out that promise, but, death ? always capricious in its timing stole the old fellow's life and cut off his breath as he slept.

After Munchoose's death, there were those who claimed that the old fellow's story about finding the snake horn was nothing but a pipe dream. But was it really?

In February, 1958, I wrote the story about the snake horn and sold first rights only to the Edmonton Journal.

I pointed out that, so far as I knew, the snake horn had never been rediscovered.

Shortly after it appeared in The Journal that month, Mr. H. Hemmingway of Watino, wrote to that newspaper saying he had read my snake horn story and was able to inform me that the horn had been rediscovered in 1919 by two prospectors. Happy Hooligan and Slim Harvey, and was on display in the Natural History Museum of the University of Alberta.

Mr. Hemmingway also mentioned that the tip of the snake horn had been broken off.

When I visited that university a short time later, I was shown the snake horn which the professors in charge declared was the tusk of a wooly mammoth. These animals had lived throughout the Northern Hemisphere during the Pleistocene Epoch, which ended about 10,000 year ago, I was informed.

The snake horn, together with other tusks, is there today. But, unlike my old Cree friend Munchoose, who was so afraid he might offend the spirit of the snake horn, the learned university professors didn't appear too concerned with the possible likes and dislikes of that spirit.