Pitikwahanapiwiyin Totally Explained

Everything about Poundmaker totally explained

Pitikwahanapiwiyin (c. 1842 – 4 July, 1886), commonly known as Poundmaker, was a Plains Cree chief known as a peacemaker and defender of his people.

Name

According to Cree oral history, Pihtokahanapiwiyin, known to English speakers as Chief Poundmaker, inherited his name from his grandfather who had a special ability to attract buffalo into pounds. A buffalo pound resembled a huge corral with walls covered by the leaves of thick bushes. Usually herds of buffalo were stampeded into this trap, or on other occasions, the buffalo were drawn in by a person like Pihtokahanapiwiyin, who was gifted by spirit helpers to use a special song to lure in the buffalo. As he sang, he used a drum. The song enticed the lead Buffalo Cow to bring her herd in. One time, it's said that he lured 500 buffalo into a pound using this very method grasping the name Pihtokahanapiwiyin, 'The One Who Sits at the Pound'. So this name was carried onto Chief Poundmaker.

Biography

Poundmaker was born in the Battleford region, the child of Sikakwayan, an Assiniboine medicine man, and a mixed-blood Cree woman, the sister of Chief Mistawasis. Following the death of his parents, Poundmaker, his brother Yellow Mud Blanket, and his younger sister, were all raised by their mother's Cree community, led by Chief Wuttunee, but later known as the Red Pheasant Band. In his adult life, Poundmaker gained prominence during the 1876 negotiations of Treaty 6 and split off to form his own band. In 1881, the band settled on a reserve about 40 km northwest of Fort Battleford..
Looting of the abandoned buildings of the town took place, but the identity of the looters is disputed. Some reports claimed Poundmaker's people were responsible, but one observer alleged that most of the looting had already been done by whites.. Oral history accounts claim that the looting was done by Nakoda people, and that Poundmaker did his best to stop it. Either way, Poundmaker's people left the next day.
On May 2, 1885, a military force of 332 Canadian troops, led by Lieutenant-Colonel William Dillon Otter, attacked Poundmaker's camp near Cut Knife Hill.. At his trial, he's reported to have said: ť "Everything that's bad has been laid against me this summer, there's nothing of it true. ... Had I wanted war, I wouldn't be here now. I should be on the prairie. You didn't catch me. I gave myself up. You have got me because I wanted justice."

Because of the power of his adopted father, Crowfoot, Poundmaker's hair wasn't cut in prison, and he served only seven months in prison. Nonetheless, his stay there devastated his health and led to his death (from a lung hemorrhage) in 1886, at the age of 44. He was buried at Blackfoot Crossing near Gleichen, Alberta, but his remains were exhumed in 1967, and reburied on Cut Knife Hill.

Legacy

The Poundmaker Cree Nation continues to this day, near Cutknife, Saskatchewan.

Further Information

Get more info on 'Poundmaker'.

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