The Winter Count

Description

Although relatively few First Nations joined the 1885 Métis insurgence, the Canadian government reacted punitively, instituting draconian "Indian" policies whose ill-effects continue to resonate today. The Winter Count traces these developments alongside another narrative - the debate over the sanity of Métis leader Louis Riel. Dilys Leman weaves original poems and reconstituted archival texts, including medical reports, diaries, treaties, recipes, even a phrenological analysis, to create a montage that both presents and disrupts official history. Her narrative questions politically expedient myths that First Nations were allies of the Métis, would rise again in greater numbers, and needed to be scrupulously controlled to secure the opening of the West. Leman evokes the voices of historical and imagined characters to convey a political landscape teetering into lunacy and a government obsessed with its own vision of nation-building. We hear a bureaucrat extol the merits of the pass system, a court interpreter's ludicrous translation of treason felony into Cree, and Dr Augustus Jukes agonizing about his role on the secret medical commission tasked with reassessing Riel’s sanity, which would determine if he could be executed. The Winter Count is a cautionary tale about moral responsibility. As Leman laments, our failure to be accountable human beings will surely haunt us: "Laudable pus / Political speeches / This water / brought too late / to a boil / Lance and forceps / rattling / their pot Cover Copyright Contents Cypress Hills Recipes New Recruit It Is the Desire of Her Majesty to Open Up A More Suitable Protection On Being a Home Farm Instructor For the Love of Drink (1) It is the Desire of Her Majesty to Feed Words for Buffalo A Grander Calling: Explanations at Tea On Conditions in Cypress Hills Indian Act 1876, Chapter 18, Section 12 Treaty Six Adhesion, Fort Walsh, 1882 The South Saskatchewan River Will Not Recede Big Bear’s Speech Three Classes of Half-Breeds in the Territories Why a Clairvoyant Border Collie Is Not Enough My 1874 Phrenological Analysis Indictment for the Crime of High Treason Testimony: Riel’s Trial Rules For Polite Tea Gilbert Sanders’ Diary, 1885 Four Clocks in the Toronto Asylum: Notes on Dr Daniel Clark’s “Medical Evidence in Courts of Law” Reporting on Prisoners Heads Mounted on Walls Dear Mother, Please Find Enclosed Moral Judgment Just Call Me the Filly from Moosomin Notes from Interviews Dear Father, I Am Feeling Much Encouraged My Sister’s Recipe for “Queen Pudding” Endeavouring to Restore Animation Remembering St Catharines Peaches in Mason Jars For the Love of Drink (2) On the Beauty of the Pass Recipe for “Indian Candy” It Would Be Well to Have a Spy or Two What Mr Percy Allen Looks Like Future Writing Lessons Indian Act 1876, Chapter 18, Section 62 Toward a Definition of Treason-Felony, Translated for the Cree Notes On Band Behaviour During Rebellion Reporting on What Big Bear Said at His Trial How to Hang Eight Indians (at Once) at Battleford Ten Steps to L-U-N-A-T-I-C on Walls The Lunacy Commission You’re a Patient Woman, Mrs Jukes The Commissioner’s Report To Punish Four Clocks Dictionary On the Double Sources of Typho-Malarial Fever Contagion What Water Looks Like in Dreams Historical Note and Acknowledgements