JMJ
December 20: 2011
“ To save us all from Satan’s power when we had gone astray.” We hear and sing sweet Christmas carols one after another. We hear that Sweet Baby Jesus came to earth to save us.That is most certainly true but until we understand how dark and evil, we , others and the world are so what? At one time it was it was assumed that there was evil, that of course we needed Christianity and a country had a duty to protect people from evil by law and force under law. In the April 1960 of THE RCMP QUARTERLY there is the historic article, SORCERY, SUPERSTITION, SAVAGERY by Supt. J .S. Cruickshank. It describes Northern Communities, N of 55 where various tribes had never seen a white man and never heard of white man’s law. The RCMP had no compunction carrying out their duty of teaching people there is one law in Canada and everyone must follow it. They did however accept sentences that took into consideration that these people did not know any better.
It many books including that of the great explorer David Thompson, the evil spirit Whetigo is descrobed who convinces people to commit Cannibalism. These people become Whetigo themselves. They must be strangled is stop the evil from spreading into the community and to other individuals. When the person is strangled the evil goes back inside the person. Either the family does it or a medicine man in which case the family must give him a present. These beliefs and practices were pervasive throughout the North from West to East. I have heard many Whetigo stories. They are not for Fairy Tales before nightime. The trend toward “ Aboriginal Story Telling” to launder the appetite of Whetigo and the deception of Nanapus does great harm. It is dishonest and is just another attack on Christianity defending the lie that the missionaries destroyed perfectly good working cultures.
In 1906 at Sandy Lake, NWT a Mrs. Thomas Fiddler was insane and delirious most of the time. She was strangled by two medicine men. The medicine man Jack Fiddler was tried convicted and hung. The RCMP had made a strong recommendation for mercy. Hanging for murder was the law all over Canada until recently.
Missionaries who were posted just west of the Yukon, in Alaska, appealed to the RCMP to help them rescue a boy who was imprisoned in a frozen hole and was tortured. It was believed that he had hexed a woman .The woman would not recover unless he was killed. If he survived ten days of the torture then that proved he was a great wizard and Must be killed. The RCMP could do nothing because it was a foreign country. However soon four mounties dressed as miners came to the door, explained that they were acting as private citizens and rescued the boy.
Tyee and Gray, were two medicine men who were performing a ceremony of alleged healing on the Chief. They supposedly withdrew a bear, dogs, mountain lions, goats and wolves. The two were tried for witchcraft, defended themselves that this was knowledge passed on to them since the beginning. They did not mention the hexes they put on other members of the tribe for their benefit. They were convicted and given one year suspended sentences.
Today some mounties sit in the house of the local shamon, drink their coffee and endulge in other pleasures. The shamons give them direction to attack the Catholic school and missionaries. There is no law and rights enforced across Canada but rule by sorcery whim. Come Jesus and save us from Satan’s power. Gay
