I was going to save this for National Indigenous People’s Day on June 21 but considering the 215 bodies found at Kamloops Residential School (and sadly, highly likely more to come at other sites), I thought I’d raise this now. The discovery also sheds additional light on the burning down of the historic McDougall Church near Morley, site of another former residential school.
I’ve been operating under a misunderstanding the last several years, in referring to the Big Hill at Cochrane as “Manachaban”. This was based on an antique map of the Calgary area I saw at my former workplace, where the hill was so labelled. In fact, according to “2001 Indian Place Names of The West” by Joachim Fromhold, the name refers to the Bow River itself. (The Bow Riverkeeper website referred to Piikani “Mahabn”: “river where the bow reeds grow”). In the Cree language, of which I understand Blackfoot is a subset, the name for Cochrane is “Tawa Atinaw”, or “steep valley”. “Tawatinaw” is currently the name of a hamlet north of Edmonton (pop. 5), so I may start calling this town by that name. Fromhold indicates that the Tsuu T’ina name for the Big Hill was actually “Nita Sita Tay” for “Sitting Bobcat”. I don’t quite see it myself, though perhaps it has that profile from a certain angle and distance, and the bench is suggestive of paws. In spring and fall, the colour is at least appropriate, and it explains why one of the school sports teams here is named the Bobcats. Fromhold also lists the Cree name for the Cypress Hills as “Paha Tanka”, or “Big Hill”, though generically it could also be applied to the hill here.
Of course, the popular name for Calgary in Blackfoot is “Mohkinstsis”, “elbow”. It’s currently not clear to me whether that refers to the bend in that river at the current Stampede grounds, the larger bend at the Glenmore Reservoir, or the angle at which it meets the Bow.
In the spirit of Truth and Reconciliation, it’s a good idea to use these traditional names for the places we know. As with Writing-On-Stone/Aisinai’pi, if actually renaming the places is impractical, at least signage could be changed to recognize them. I certainly prefer “Sleeping Buffalo” to “Tunnel Mountain”, particularly since it looks like the first, and there’s no tunnel there anyway.
June Events:
Jun 10, 4:53 am MDT: New Moon. Duir/Oak lunar month begins. Annular Eclipse of the moon visible in northern Ontario and Nunavut.
Jun 19: 65th birthday of nobody important.
Jun 20, 9:32 pm: Summer Solstice. Father’s Day.
Jun 21: National Indigenous People’s Day.
Jun 22: Mercury Retrograde ends.
Jun 24, 12:40 pm: Full (Strawberry) Moon.
