Walpole Island First Nation celebrated the installation of a statue of Tecumseh on top of their Veterans’ monument, during a ceremony on Monday morning.
Dan Miskokomon, Chief of Bkejwanong First Nation, said the soldiers group on Walpole Island wanted to complete the monument with a Tecumseh statue over 80 years ago.
“It brings closure… our veterans are happy,” Miskokomon said. “My great grandfather was involved, my grandfather, my father. It was first the soldiers club, now the Heritage group has finalized it. Veterans are smiling… it’s a celebration.”
Miskokomon added the ceremony and installation of the statue brings happiness and closure for the veterans.
“It was a long task that the veterans had,” he said.
Georgina Toulouse Bebamikawe, a First Nation sculptor from Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve in northern Ontario was commissioned to design the Tecumseh statue.
Bebamikawe said she is glad the entire community can finally see the statue.
“It’s a lot of work and it’s a lot of stress off my shoulders now so that everybody is enjoying it,” she said.
“I’ts very exciting because I put my symbology up top of the statue. I have my motif design that I use. It’s on his pouch over there. Even if the plaque isn’t always there, but it’s up there and I can just pass that down to my children and grandchildren.”
Bebamikawe said she had a tight schedule to complete the project.
“Work like this takes a year or so,” she said, adding that she completed it in four months.
She said many members of her family were involved wth created the sculpture as well.
“My son is an artist too and he can do this kind of stuff,” she said. “When I went to Royal Ontario Museum that’s when I saw the tomahawk and we just blew up the picture and I brought the picture to my son. I said ‘this is
your responsibility. I want you to do this.’ So he did the tomahawk and than the spear he did that one too. My nieces, because I am trying to move ahead to the next portion of the sculpture, so I had my nieces do the smoothing out to make the nice effects in the end the leather.”
Bebamikawe said she is from Wikwemikong (First Nation) on Manitoulin Island. She also studied in Toronto at the Ontario College of Art and Design.
“So I studied mold making there and also a foundry course we had,” she said. “So a lot of the stuff I learned there. The process in doing a sculpture.”
She said she learned a lot from her late father, Victor Toulouse Bebamikawe.
“He’s passed now but when I did the work there was always a glow around me and things went smoothly which is very exciting,” she said.
Joyce Johnson, the director at the Walpole Island Heritage Centre, said part of her job is to ensure people know the story of Tecumseh and that his remains are in fact on Walpole Island.
“It just became more apparent in the last five years, people were wondering where he was,” she said. We want to “ensure that people do really know what we did for the Chief and why his remains are here and that he fought for all of us.”
Johnson said the ceremony was an important one for all the local tribes, along with the tribes on the American side of the border as well.
“It’s in honour of Tecumseh,” she said. “That is an important thing. He was a true leader of our people. In relation to the Ward of 1812, if it were not for Tecumseh, this may not be Canada.
A community feast was held following the ceremony, all hosted by the Walpole Island Heritage Centre.
Here are some photos of the event:
I have a 1942 picture of my grandmother and I sitting on the ramp that was used to carry what were believed to be Tecumseh’s bones to the top of the cairn. They were lowered into the centre of the cairn and sealed there during a pageant that lasted a week and depicted his life. My father, James Daley, was the Indian Agent at the time and had much to do with the designing of the pageant. The bones that were lowered into the cairn sat on our piano bench in a box with a glass top. I have since been convinced that they were not Tecumseh’s but I am also convinced that his bones are still somewhere on Walpole Island Reserve.
Great article and wonderful pics recognizing this important occasion and the message of Tecumseh to all peoples.