Sunday, July 4, 2010

BLOOD RESERVE CENSUS 1901

The Blood Reserve was Canada's largest reserve at one time. The Blood were also known as the Kainai. 
This census from 1901 shows names that would not necessarily be accurate. Were these names given by the people themselves or were they written by a census taker using his own criteria for naming? Many were very insulting and I didn't use a photo of those pages. This is why I question how the names were arrived upon. You can click on the picture to make it bigger.

Some of the names are:
  • Long Time Pipe Woman
  • Crop Ear Wolf
  • Taking Gun in Night
  • Bruised Head
These are not insulting at all but I assure you on subsequent pages there were many that were. I could be wrong but I don't think they referred to themselves in some of those derogatory terms.
There is a beautiful book by George Webber about this reserve called People of the Blood.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Amazing...I have never sen a Indian Reservation Census before.....I have such empathy for these people....in Wisconsin, they had massive areas of land that the different tribes lived in and after the US gov't. was done they lived in about 100 square miles.....it was such a travesty...and I was told in history class in high school that every treaty the American gov't. made with any tribe in the US...not one was ever honored...the gov't broke all of them!!!! How foolish the white man was....