“I think this is a pretty delicate situation,” Rick Filanti said this morning. We have to straighten it out. There may be too many mistakes made in the museum version.”
It was May 28, 1990 and Mr. Filanti, the man who built the Saamis Tepee, had hit a roadblock. 600 Kainai from the Blood Reserve near Lethbridge had endorsed the project, but were also objecting to the legends currently circulating about the origin of Medicine Hat’s name. Though the City had never adopted any legend officially it was subtly promoting two different versions. The brick mural by Jim Marshall in City Hall depicts the James Sanderson legend. Another version, the Earl Gillett legend, was printed on cards and passed out to visitors at the city's museum. The Blood Tribe was about to release a third version—a Blood legend that could be traced back 500 years passed down through the oral tradition. It had just been transcribed and was in the process of being translated. The Blood Tribe was asking the City to choose this legend as its official genesis story. The situation had escalated to the point where Mayor Ted Grimm had to weigh in.
The Sanderson Legend by Jim Marshall.
How can you objectively choose between legends, which by definition are unverifiable? Even if you could somehow figure it out why should be there be such a fuss over which legend we choose? Are you kidding me? Not only is this a really important issue, it’s also really exciting! I just finished reading the Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels. The book recounts the early days of Christianity and the conflict between different factions of the Christian Church to establish orthodoxy. The judgment of which is the true genesis story, of what counts as your religion’s canon sets the foundation for so much down the line—subtle differences can have big effects. It’s no surprise this was such a sensitive issue. From this incident you can understand how it must have felt in the decades after Jesus’ death. That’s very interesting if you’ve studied the history of Christianity. The Bible didn’t magically appear neatly as the book we see today. The fight over which stories to include as the official version was fierce.
James Sanderson and Earl Gillett, both active community members interested in local history, recorded their versions in the early days of Medicine Hat. Dan Weasel Moccasin, a respected Blood elder, spoke for his tribe. He felt that neither Sanderson’s nor Gillett’s accounts could be accepted because they had not asked the Blood Tribe. Danny White, the museum curator at the time, said that the museum had relied on historical sources, but admitted that he couldn’t verify the kind of consultations Sanderson and Gillett had done.
When Jim Marshall was researching the City’s origins for the City Hall commission he found 12 versions, each with many similar elements. Other community members wrote letters to the News and spoke plainly that they were not swayed by the new legend. Lee Anderson, part-Cree and former councillor, was unconvinced by the Blood petition. “I give no credit to that legend at all, from my point of view. I don’t think it’s authentic. I’ll stick with the [current] one (the Gillett story),” which he had heard from his grandfather.
Rick Filanti and City Council tried to strike the right balance. Filanti said, “I am doing this [setting up the Saamis Tepee] for them, but I do respect other legends too.” Mayor Grimm said it was unlikely that the City would ever choose one version over another. And that is the way things have stayed in the 27 years since the controversy.
But to dismiss the Kainai story as just another legend and thus equally unverifiable would devalue the oral tradition. The oral tradition is an accepted form of communicating knowledge. This story had come through 25 generations to Dan Weasel Moccasin, 78 at the time. He was described as a ‘reliable source of oral tradition’ by the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Hull, Quebec. It was through his stories that this Blood legend had been transcribed and translated. And it was this legend that prophesied of a great tepee that the Bloods believed the Saamis Tepee would fulfill.
Medicine Hat News. April 25, 2017.