The pioneer express. [volume] (Pembina, Dakota [N.D.]) 1883-1928, 1909-01-22

ludICcI VI NdIuOllC CuuTCu WOrk among
the Metis of this valley. Bishop Shan
ley with the accumen and technical edu-
cation of the churchman disputes cer-
tain ''history" IN Vol. I. of the publ
cation of the State Historical Society,
edited largely by DR.. Libby of the
N. D. U.
Bishop Stanley seems most incensed
that the history referred to in giving the
supposed derivation of the word "Pem-
bina' says that Gin reality Pembina is an
Indian word the meaning of which is
sanctifed bread and was given by the
Sioux to designate the region between
the Red and Dakota rivers within whose
limits at designated places the Holy
Eucharist was administered**In the ab-
sence of bread the priests used the
pemmican (mixed with high bush cram
berries) as substitute for bread in the
administration of the sacraments''
Bishop Stanley says ''Thls is the
most objectionable stupidity have ever
seen in print; **The section of country
was called Pembina long before priest
ever visited there" Continuing the
Bishop adds: "Pemb bina IS not Sioux
but a Chippewa word. Heating wrote
in 1823-Two principal settlements were
formed, one at Fort Douglas, and the
other hundred and twenty miles above
that by water. and near the mouth of
the small stream named by the Chippe-
was Anepeminan Slpi, from small ber-
ry termed by them anepemlnan, which
has been shortened and corrupted into
Pembina. The theme of the word is
Nepin, summer and Ninan, berry"
The two historians do not seem to
differ much as to the real original deri-
walton of the word Pembina as both re-.
fer it to Indian words meaning "high
bush cranberries' but do differ consider
ably as to later applications.
The writer has no idea of entering
upon any argument in the support of the
theories of either gentlemen. Indeed,
historically,we are the poorest of author
tiles, for to us in historical time, one day
is as hundred years and hundred
years is as one day.
Bnt there is one thing that seems
quite certain, if the priests necessarily
must use unleavened bread to celebrate
the communion then there must have
been long periods of time in which that
ceremony was omitted, as flour was at
times in those early days impossible to
procure and always was luxury to the
original Metis. 1t was never given out
by the Hudson Bay and other stores on
credit as powder shot and other things
were; if the Metis wanted -four he must
pay cash or it's equivalent.
In our opinion we think that this mat
ter is rather a question of probability
rather than what might have been posi-
BILE. Even Bishop Stanley will have to
acknowledge that some priest might
have used pemmican as a substitute for
bread, even though the probabilities
would be against it. While DR.. Libby
will have to acknowledge that the Bis
hop has made his theory rather doubt
full.
After all, the history of these early
Metis people, even if all were written
and written truly, would not mean much
to the present generation.
Their lives were spent in hunting the
buffalo. Two expeditions were made
annually, the winter hunt and the sum-
mer hunt. In the intervals they returned
to the valley for supplies and rest. In
the spring, before leaving, they some-
times planted a few potatoes expecting
to find them grown when they returned
from the west. Few had log houses but
most lived in tepees and they had no
permanent villages. The very old or
weak remained behind, but all the rest,
men, women and children, went to the
buffalo pastures.
Like the buffalo with whom they we're
contemporaneous and on which they
wholly subsisted, they are nearly all
gone and that without leaving hardly
mark of their existence. They were
happy, careless race, with but few desires
above the love of the chase and the sim
pie life of the nomad. When the white
man came in the "car of progress" but
few of the Metis were able to take the
pace and were left behind. Mostly the
survivors went farther west and COM
paratively few are now left, and these
are generally examples of the survival of
the fittest.