Policing the plains : $b being the real-life record of the famous Royal North-West Mounted PoliceMacBeth, R. G. (Roderick George)
History
Policing the plains : $b being the real-life record of the famous Royal North-West Mounted Police
MacBeth, R. G. (Roderick George)
Northwest, Canadian -- History; Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Mistawasis, on his way home, met John McKay on the plains, and they sat
around the camp fire late that night as the chief poured out his
recollections of what he had seen. One thing had puzzled the Indian,
though he had thought much over it. "The strangest thing that happened,"
said Mistawasis, "was in Ottawa, where some good people had a missionary
meeting at a house, and they were singing songs, and a lady played on
the singing machine (piano). At last they asked me and Star Blanket to
sing. We both were ashamed, because we could not sing much. But I told
Star Blanket I would sing what the missionary taught us out on the
plains and I began, and all of a sudden the lady ran to the singing
machine and began to play and then they all joined in and I was leading
the whole band." "Now," continued the Chief, "how did they know in
Ottawa the same thing you taught us out at the reserve in Saskatchewan?"
And then John McKay told him the tune was "Old Hundred," which all good
people knew, and that the company sang it in English words while he sang
in Cree, but that they were singing the same thing. This delighted
Mistawasis, who felt that he and the white people there were really one
in the deep experiences of life. And that meant brotherhood to him.
But all the Indians were not like "Big Child," as this chief's name
meant, and so the Mounted Police had strenuous work for some years after
the rebellion, when scarcely a thousand of them had to patrol and guard
a territory twenty times as large as some European kingdoms.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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