FYI Thought this might be of interest.
Jenny Kernan
List Mom
----- Original Message -----
From: "donald anderson" <donald.scotrepublic(a)ntlworld.com>
To: <ANDERSON-L(a)rootsweb.com>
Sent: Thursday, April 15, 2004 9:51 PM
Subject: [ANDERSON-L] Herald (Glasgow, Scotland). Homecoming
The Orkney Isles are a long way from the woods and lakes of
Saskatchewan,
but for a group of native Americans of the Cree people a forthcoming
journey
to Scotland is also a journey home.
The Scottish Arts Council has given £10,000 towards a fund that will
see a
group of Cree Indians from Canada visit Scotland and re-discover their links
with the people of Orkney - a genetic link forged more than 200 years ago.
The 25 members of the Cree tribe will travel to the northern isles in
September to explore their "roots" and celebrate them in a series of
musical
and artistic events.
It has been estimated that by the end of the 18th century more than
two-thirds of the Hudson Bay Trading Company workforce in Canada were men
from Orkney. The Orcadians married local women and Scottish blood entered
the family trees of the Cree people across Canada.
In 1876, when Cree chiefs signed away 121,000 square miles of Canada
to
Britain, in exchange for reserve lands, many had names that are more common
in Scotland - Spence, Tait, Macdonald, and Calder.
Kim Foden, the secretary of the Saskatchewan First Nations
"Coming Home"
Orkney Committee, became interested in the links between
Orkney and the
native peoples of Saskatchewan when she investigated the history of her own
family.
An ancestor, Magnus Twatt, had left Orkney to work in Canada more
than 100
years ago. Mrs Foden discovered that he had married a local Cree woman and
she has travelled to the Sturgeon Lake area to meet her new, if distant,
relatives.
She was made an honourary member of the tribe, then introduced to Mr
Twatt's great- grandson, Harold Kingfisher, her distant cousin.
The Hudson's Bay Company administered a vast territory in Canada
between
1670 and 1870, but the Scottish workers were banned from getting married,
Mrs Foden said.
The children of these marriages were given the traditional family
names of
their fathers and were often fluent in Gaelic, Scots-English, and Cree.
Mrs Foden said that on her visits to the Cree reservations she had
noticed
people with lighter hair and skin - the genetic remnants of Scots.
She said that the Cree and Orcadians share more than a bloodline -
the
Cree used to live off the land in sometimes harsh conditions, and the
Orcadian men, used to making their living from the land or sea, would have
felt a bond with their new friends.
Among the performers coming to Scotland will be Joseph Naytowhow, a
well-known storyteller in Canada. There will be a series of concerts,
workshops, about eight school visits, and outdoor displays of their
traditional culture.
There will also be a musical performance by the Cree visitors and
Orcadian
musicians in St Magnus Cathedral.
Along with the grant from the SAC, the Canadian visitors are trying
to
raise more money to fund their trip across the Atlantic.
"It is a chance to explore the common heritage of our homes and
listen to
each others' music," Mrs Foden said. "Although a lot of them
may have
Scottish blood, they are Cree, and call themselves Cree.
"They are taking a risk coming here, they are trusting us that
this will
be a beneficial visit for them. If it is successful we can move on to
other
things, and hopefully it will be a foundation for the future."
She added: "The Cree have been badly treated over the years, but
they
believe discovering more about their past, such as events like this, helps
them look forward to the future with more optimism."
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