Cemeteries Tell the Silent History of a People—page 2
"I have been after councillors for years to level up the area
and put crosses on all the graves. It doesn't matter we don't know
exactly where graves are, as long as they are close by the marker.
Some of the people fix their graves, some others... well, they
don't."
His family graves are marked—parents, uncles, sisters, brothers,
a son and great-granddaughter. His mother Minnie, who died at age
80, was a Steel. She is a descendant of Steel, born in 1850 and
dying April 7, 1940. The great Blood warrior-chief is buried near
the Belly Buttes, Plume says, but his medicine wheel, the most
recent and only totally understandable one, is found on the
southeast corner of the reserve. Near Plume's mother's grave site
is jockey Mike Steel, another relative, who died in 1992. Plume's
father-in-law, Harry Big Smoke, was a minor chief and a lifetime
councillor before his death.
Plume is also recording grave sites of Blood war veterans, so all
their markers can have official service headstones. Many veterans'
graves are marked, but some are not.
"There are no records I know that tell how many people are
buried here at St. Catherine's, or any of the cemeteries,"
Plume says. "The cemeteries have been used for a long time,
back before Charcoal's time. I know Father Levern used to keep
records of grave sites, but I do not know where those records are
today."
Charcoal was a young Blood who ran afoul of the RCMP and was
hanged March 15, 1895 in Fort Macleod. His body was brought to St.
Catherine's by a priest and buried. Plume doesn't know exactly
where Charcoal rests, but he thinks it could be down in the
northwest area, where the old fence boundary once stood.
Also unmarked are the graves of two great Blood Chiefs, Red Crow
and Crop Eared Wolf. But Plume does know their location.
He finds a marked grave in St. Catherine's, paces off a distance
to the west and comes upon two sunken areas. The upper site he
says is Red Crow, at his feet is Crop Eared Wolf.
"If it wasn't for Jim Big Throat I would never have known
where these graves would be. Jim told me at the start that since I
was working in the cemetery I'd better get Jim Red Crow to show me
exactly where these graves are."
He says the older boys from St. Mary's Residential School came to
St. Catherine's to dig the graves for the two chiefs when they
died. Red Crow lived from 1830-1900, Crop Eared Wolf from
1846-1913.
Dominating the cemetery's front is a large white concrete marker,
acknowledging the presence of the two chiefs in the cemetery. Red
Crow signed Treaty 7 and Crop Eared Wolf followed him as chief.
However, their exact burial location is known to few.
"I have told these new councilors we have to try to have
headstones or something like that for these two great
chiefs," says Plume.
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