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Abishabis

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Abishabis or Small Eyes[1] (died August 30, 1843) was a Cree religious leader. He became the prophet of a religious movement that spread among the Cree communities of northern Manitoba and Ontario during the 1840s. His preaching caused some Cree people to stop hunting furs, angering employees of the Hudson Bay Company (HBC) and reducing the company's profits. After losing much of his influence in 1843, Abishabis murdered a First Nations family living near York Factory. He was arrested and imprisoned at Fort Severn, where a group of Cree forcibly removed him from his jail cell, murdered him, and burned his body. His followers slowly disavowed his teachings and destroyed their relics from the movement or practiced their religion in secret.

The religious philosophy of his teachings was an admixture of Christianity and Cree beliefs. Abishabis preached that he had visited heaven and that followers could use a Cree writing system to create religious relics, the purpose of which is disputed among academics. His followers did not worship him as a deity but believed his teachings were a revelation from their god. Stories of Abishabis were passed down by the Cree people, who claimed that Abishabis introduced Christianity to them.

Early life and background

Abishabis was from a district that contained York Factory. He was Cree, a member of a group referred to as "Home Guard Indians" by HBC. The group that he belonged to were frequent traders with HBC, and relied upon guns to hunt. In the years preceding Abishabis's religious pursuits, the group believed something was wrong with their hunting grounds as they struggled to hunt caribou.[2] James Hargraves, an officer with HBC, noted that there was nothing remarkable about Abishabis before the arrival of Methodist missionaries to the area.[3]

Religious activity

Religious activity associated with Abishabis was first recorded in the fall of 1842.[4] His movement spread in late 1842 and early 1843 among the Cree between Fort Churchhill (in what is now Manitoba) to Moose River (in what is now Ontario).[5] Abishabis’s preaching divided the Cree people.[6] His followers expected Abishabis to provide gifts that equaled the resources that were provided by Methodist missionaries and HBC.[7] Meanwhile, colonists and businessmen from Europe were concerned about Abishabis’s preachings as his followers were less likely to hunt for furs, hurting their profits. They also reported that followers relied upon wooden carvings for salvation and, as a consequence, starved to death.[5] HBC and the Methodist missionaries were united in refusing to recognise Abishabis's authority amongst his group.[7]

Abishabis’s influence decreased in mid-1843, partially because employees of HBC advocated against Abishabis’s preachings.[8] One day after prayers, Abishabis approached Hargrave to shake his hand, which would signal support from HBC towards him and his group. Hargrave refused, indicating to the Cree people that Abishabis could not provide resources from the company.[7] Support further weakened when Abishabis asked for his followers' wives as a form of tithing[8] and Abishabis's claims of receiving food and clothing in exchange for the faith of his followers went unfulfilled. Hargrave reported that by July 1843, Abishabis was begging for food and supplies in order to survive.[5] Abishabis’s missionaries, including an unnamed woman and boy, were reported by employees of HBC to be spreading Abishabis’s teachings. In response, HBC employees spread a rumour that Abishabis was a windigo, a spirit that would eat people.[9] Many of his wives returned to their families after Abishabis struggled to provide them with resources.[10]

Arrest and death

In July 1843, Abishabis attempted to gain supplies to travel to Severn House.[5] According to accounts at the time, Abishabis murdered his father-in-law and four of his father-in-law's family members in York Factory and took their supplies.[8][11][12] Researcher Norman James Williamson stated that it was difficult to corroborate this story as this version of events was reported to HBC by the Cree and elaborated upon by Hargrave's wife, Letitia.[12] Abishabis arrived in Severn several days after the murder and spent a couple of days there, bothering the population and refusing to leave while the people of Severn harassed Abishabis.[11] Hargrave sent an interpreter named John Cromartie to Severn with orders to incite the Cree population to kill Abishabis by accusing him of being a windigo. Hargrave gave this order to prevent an uprising of the Cree people against HBC.[13]

Indigenous people approached Cromartie upon his arrival in York Factory, claiming that Abishabis was threatening them if they did not give him resources. Cromartie disobeyed Hargrave's orders and arrested Abishabis on August 9; Williamson attributes this to Cromartie's anxiety about the situation and the possibility of not having enough food for the upcoming winter.[5][14] In his account, Cromartie claimed to have questioned Abishabis about the murders in York Factory, but did not receive a response to the accusations.[14] Cromartie allowed Abishabis to escape, believing he would leave the area. Abishabis did leave for a time, but returned shortly afterwards and was arrested again on August 28.[5] On August 30, three men took him from his cell and hit his head with an axe, destroying his brain.[5] Letitia, in a letter to her mother, reported that the man who struck the final blow that ended Abishabis's life was named Towers.[15] The men then brought Abishabis's body to a nearby island and burned it, declaring that he might have been a windigo and thus wanted to prevent him from haunting them.[5][11]

Religious views

It is difficult to establish Abishabis's religious beliefs before his religious preachings because the Cree were not forthcoming about their beliefs when speaking to Europeans.[16] The ultimate goal in the Cree religion was to journey to the afterlife, located in the remote west. This differed from the Christian concept of heaven as a place in the sky for morally good people, and thus the Cree struggled to understand the Christian concept when explained to them by missionaries.[17] Abishabis's group was probably monotheistic, believing in a self-existing creator of the world. Their deity was distant from the group and difficult to approach. Methodists, in their preachings to the Cree, described Jesus as an intermediary between humans and God, allowing humans to make requests to their deity. Abishabis used the Methodist teachings as a foundation for the Cree to communicate with their own deity.[18]

James Evans is pointing at a chart of letters while a group of people listen
James Evans teaching his Cree syllabic writing system. Abishabis's religious relics were based upon Evans's system.

Before beginning his ministry, Abishabis separated himself from the group.[19][a] Upon his return, he stated that he traveled to the sky and received blessings and information,[17] including the deity's physical features.[19] Using a syllabic writing system, introduced to the Cree people by Methodist missionary James Evans,[1] Abishabis and his associates created texts, charts, and pictographs for their religious beliefs[5] created with lines drawn upon wood or paper.[22] Academics have given various explanations for what these lines depicted. Lee Irwin claimed they were seen as paths to heaven and hell[22] while professor Philip H. Round said they were used to determine the will of spirits, allowing the Cree to purify themselves.[1] According to Williamson, the role of Abishabis's revelations was to determine possible futures for the Cree people.[23] Abishabis taught his followers his technique so that they could create their own paths. Abishabis also claimed to receive a book from God called “Tracks to Heaven”.[22]

While HBC fur trader George Barnston wrote that the followers referred to Abishabis as Jesus Christ,[5] Williamson states that this was probably rhetoric from the Methodists. Rather, he asserts that Abishabis claimed that Jesus led his spiritual journey.[19] Abishabis's followers did not deify him and considered his teachings to be revelations of God's will.[24] They believed that the spirits called upon the Cree to recognise Abishabis as a prophet and to replace the Methodist missionary books with religious texts created by Abishabis and his associates.[1] Abishabis claimed that he was the "High Priest of the Tribe" and demanded that his followers give him clothing and weapons.[8] Williamson stated that Abishabis's ministry was successful because he was the first person to declare himself a Christian leader among his Cree community. This allowed them to open themselves to the possibility of a Cree person leading their Christian theological teachings.[25] Round said that Abishabis's success stemmed from merging Christian ideas with the familiarity of the Cree writing system that promised Cree empowerment.[1]

Legacy

Upon Abishabis’s death, Abishabis's followers were persecuted by HBC and the Methodist church.[20] A woman and boy spread Abishabis’s teachings to the Albany Cree community;[20] upon their discovery by the Methodists, they were forced to put their relics of Abishabis’s teachings into a bonfire that was attended by Cree people and HBC employees.[26]

Hargrave sent a report to the British government in London, who responded by praising Hargrave's actions to have Abishabis killed as an act of normalisation.[27] In February 1844, a Methodist missionary named George Barnley reported that the Cree people in Moose Factory were still under the influence of Abishabis’s teachings. He also reported that his teachings had spread to Cree people in Eastmain. Abishabis’s followers began to conceal their faith when the influence of HBC increased and their workers showed disapproval of this interpretation of Christianity.[5] Other followers slowly disavowed Abishabis’s teachings and destroyed materials that were inspired by him.[28]

In 1930, anthropologist John Montgomery Cooper reported that Cree people in Moose Factory had passed down oral stories about the movement. The Cree stated that Abishabis had introduced Christianity to them.[5]

Notes

  1. ^ A person named Wasetck,[20] Wasitay[21] or Wasiteck, translated as "the Light"[5] may have accompanied Abishabis on this journey, and records from the James Bay area describe two men in Abishabis's ministry. However, records from York Factory and Severn House only describe Abishabis.[20]

References

Citations

  1. ^ a b c d e Round 2010, p. 116.
  2. ^ Williamson 1980, p. 226.
  3. ^ Williamson 1980, pp. 228–229.
  4. ^ Brown 2004, p. 107.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Brown, Jennifer S. H. (1988). "Abishabis". www.biographi.ca. Archived from the original on May 27, 2022. Retrieved May 12, 2022.
  6. ^ Semple 1996, p. 176.
  7. ^ a b c Williamson 1980, p. 230.
  8. ^ a b c d Francis 1983, p. 165.
  9. ^ Devens 1992, p. 65.
  10. ^ Williamson 1980, p. 231.
  11. ^ a b c Brown 1982, p. 399.
  12. ^ a b Williamson 1980, pp. 231–232.
  13. ^ Williamson 1980, pp. 232–233.
  14. ^ a b Williamson 1980, p. 234.
  15. ^ Williamson 1980, p. 235.
  16. ^ Williamson 1980, pp. 236–237.
  17. ^ a b Brown 2004, p. 109.
  18. ^ Williamson 1980, p. 237.
  19. ^ a b c Williamson 1980, p. 238.
  20. ^ a b c d Williamson 1980, p. 240.
  21. ^ Brown 2004, p. 105.
  22. ^ a b c Irwin 2014, p. 242.
  23. ^ Williamson 1980, p. 239.
  24. ^ Williamson 1980, p. 236.
  25. ^ Williamson 1980, p. 229.
  26. ^ Devens 1992, pp. 65–66.
  27. ^ Williamson 1980, p. 232.
  28. ^ Round 2010, p. 117.

Works Cited

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