To Banff and the Rockies! The Prince, the Premier and the Stoneys.
The summer of 1927 saw some extraordinary events unfold in the Rocky Mountain township of Banff, Alberta. Here, on the steps of the Banff Springs Hotel on the twelfth day of August, a prominent British political leader was invested as an honorary chief of the local Stoney Nakoda (Assiniboine) Nation and had bestowed upon him numerous articles of ceremonial regalia of that tribe. This regalia, potent symbols of his adopted office, comprised a splendid eagle feather trailer warbonnet, finely beaded shirt and leggings and other items, the history of which forms the basis of the present article.The Rt Hon Stanley Baldwin, MP (1867-1947), eventually known as the 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, was a British Conservative politician and statesman who served three times as prime minister in 1923-24, 1924-29, and 1935-37. In August 1927, Mr Baldwin and his wife Lucy were accompanying Edward, the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII) and the Prince's brother and sister-in-law, the Duke and Duchess of York on an official goodwill tour of Canada. The intention of the tour was to commemorate the Diamond Jubilee of the Confederation and strengthen ties between the Crown and the Commonwealth in the aftermath of the First World War.
The hectic tour took in towns and cities across the whole of Canada, the itinerary including numerous official engagements performed by the Prince of Wales--on 6th August, the official opening of Toronto's Union Station; on 7th August, the dedication of the Peace Bridge across the Niagara River; and, on 9th August, a Hudson's Bay Company rent paying ceremony, held at the Canadian Pacific Railway station in Winnipeg.
The Prince of Wales Becomes Chief Morning Star
The young Prince of Wales had a huge fondness for Canada, its wilderness and its people. During an earlier Canadian tour of 1919, as the guest of Mr George Lane, one of the principal founders of the Calgary Stampede, Edward had visited Lane's extensive Bar U Ranch at Pekisko, near High River in the foothills of southern Alberta, and found a welcome break in his schedule to play cowboy for a few days. Upon impulse, he purchased a neighboring ranch, calling it EP Ranch after the initials of his royal signature, 'Edward Prince'.
For Edward, the romance of the Canadian mountains and prairies had become a part-time reality. Over subsequent years, he developed the cattle ranch as a serious livestock investment and center for breeding excellence.
In 1919, the year of his first Canadian tour, the Prince of Wales was himself invested as an honorary chief of both the Bloods and the Stoneys. Chief Little Thunder (or Young Thunder?) performed the Stoney investiture in Banff on 17th September, conferring upon Edward the name of Morning Star.
Chief Shot Both Sides presided over the Blood ceremony held at Lethbridge on 2nd October, and Mountain Horse, father of a dead First World War soldier, conferred the chieftainship, together with the name Me'kaisto or Red Crow. (The same name would eventually be bestowed upon Prince Charles, a future Prince of Wales, in July 1977).
Douglas Newton, in his account of the 1919 royal tour, described the Stoney investiture in the following words:
On a platform at the hub of half-circle of Indians the Prince listened to the addresses and accepted the Chieftaincy of the Stoney tribe. Some of the Indians had their faces painted a livid chrome-yellow, so that their heads looked like masks of death; some were smeared with red, some barred with blue. Most, however, showed merely the high-boned, sphinx-like brown of their faces free from war-paint. The costumes of many were extremely beautiful, the wonderful beadwork on tunic and moccasins being a thing of amazing craftsmanship, though the elk-tooth decorations, though of great value, were not so attractive.
Standing in front of the rest, the chief, "Little Thunder," read the address to the Prince. He was a big, aquiline fellow, young and handsome, clad in white, hairy chaps and cowboy shirt. He spoke in sing-song Cree, his body curving back from straddled knees as though he sat a pulling horse.
In his historic tongue, and then in English, he spoke of the honor the Prince was paying the Stoneys, and of their enduring loyalty to him and his father; and he asked the Prince "to accept from us this Indian suit, the best we have, emblematic of the clothes we wore in happy days. We beg you also to allow us to elect you as our chief, and to give you the name Chief Morning Star."
The suit given to the Prince was an exceedingly handsome one of white buckskin, decorated with beads, feathers and fur, and surmounted by a great headdress of feathers rising from a fillet of beads and fur. The Prince put on the headdress at once, and spoke to the Indians as a chief to his braves, telling them of the honor they had done him. [Newton: chapter XVI]
Stanley Baldwin Becomes Chief Sitting Eagle
In mid-August of 1927, the royal tour proceeded to Banff, Alberta, and Mr and Mrs Baldwin and members of the royal entourage stayed as invited guests of the Prince of Wales at EP Ranch at Pekisko. They would later continue on to Vancouver, British Columbia.
On Friday 12th August, the investiture of the British prime minister, Mr Baldwin, as honorary Stoney chief took place at Banff Springs Hotel, with no less a sense of traditional ceremonial occasion and color.
The township of Banff was being developed as a resort by the Canadian Pacific Railway, attracting vacationers eager to benefit from its hot springs and sports amenities.
The Stoney Reserve at Morley was located just a few miles away, mid-way between Banff and Calgary. A large escort of Stoneys from the Stoney Reserve assembled for the event, decked out in all the splendor their beaded finery could command--the men dressed in fringed buckskin regalia; the women wearing brightly colored shawls and head scarves, some carrying swaddled infants on their backs; Indian cowboys in store-bought shirts; and young toddlers in a mix of white and Indian garb.
Chief Sitting Eagle, or John Hunter, respected leader of the Chiniki band of Stoneys officiated, his hair neatly braided, dressed in quilled hide shirt and fringed leggings with floral beaded panels. A crowd of dignitaries and other spectators, including bemused hotel guests, observed the proceedings from atop the steps at the hotel entrance.
Prime Minister Baldwin was then presented by Sitting Eagle with an elaborate double trailer warbonnet of eagle feathers, a beaded buckskin chiefs outfit comprising shirt and leggings, a pair of beaded moccasins, and a ceremonial pipe, amongst other items. Baldwin obligingly donned the warbonnet and stood solemnly as the Stoney chief spoke a few words of welcome and conferred upon the premier the title of honorary chief of the Stoneys, along with his own name of Sitting Eagle. "I give you my own name," said the chief, placing his right hand on the chief of the whites.
William J. Oliver, staff photographer of the Calgary Daily Herald newspaper, was on hand to record the day's events. The several photographs taken by him immediately following the investiture ceremony are probably the only surviving visual record. Handshakes were duly exchanged between the two leaders, to an enthusiastic response from the Indians and loud applause from the assembled crowd of spectators.
What Mr Baldwin made of the gesture on the part of Chief Sitting Eagle and his people is not known, but the bestowal of such an office and title by certain Northern Plains tribes is of a rare honor. In his book, Tribal Honors, Dr Hugh Dempsey makes mention of the fact that the induction of Edward, Prince of Wales as a Stoney chief was not entirely treated with the respect it deserved.
In some cases, the conferrals were treated by the recipients as a joke, or at best a public relations gimmick to make someone a 'heap big chief'. For example, after the Stoney Indians made Edward, the Prince of Wales, an honorary chief in 1919, he went to the Ranchman's Club in Calgary for a night of revelry. During the festivities, the drunken ranchers celebrated the prince's induction by building a bonfire in the middle of the club's hardwood floor and dancing around it while uttering war whoops. [Dempsey: 24]
Local press coverage of the day, as well as posters and a plethora of other promotional material published by the Canadian Pacific Railway, routinely depicted Alberta's First Nations in an overtly exotic way in order to attract the increasing numbers of middle class tourists to the Canadian Rockies.
The Prince of Wales's infatuation with the Canadian wilderness continued for many years after his Canadian tour of 1919 and investiture as honorary chief of two of Alberta's First Nations. While he maintained his EP Ranch at Pekisko for over forty years, however, he visited it on only half a dozen occasions over the decades. By the 1930s, events in both his royal and personal life forced his attention elsewhere. Following the death of his father, King George V in 1936, Edward ascended and abdicated the throne within the span of less than a year, precipitating a constitutional crisis which culminated in his marriage to American divorcee Wallis Simpson. Following his abdication, he became known by the title of Duke of Windsor.
Edward reluctantly sold his EP Ranch in 1962, partly due to his failing health. The two beaded chief's outfits presented to him remain in the royal collections. At least one of them was on display for many years at the Boy Scout Headquarters in Buckingham Palace Road, London.
British prime minister Stanley Baldwin retained his Stoney outfit at Astley Hall, his home near Stourport-on-Severn, Worcestershire until his death on 14th December 1947.
The Stanley Baldwin Stoney Outfit
Following Baldwin's death, the Stoney outfit presented to him by Chief Sitting Eagle in August 1927 was passed down the family line to the present Earl, the 4th Earl Baldwin of Bewdley. The complete collection of Stoney material consisted of the following items:
Beaded hide shirt (Fig.1)
Trailer warbonnet (Fig. 2)
Beaded hide leggings (Fig.3)
Fully-beaded moccasins (Fig.4)
Beaded belt
Pipe with steatite bowl and beaded wooden stem (Fig. 5)
Also included in the collection, for the record, were several other Native items presented to Baldwin in Winnipeg, including a fancy fringed hide jacket with woven quillwork panels and fur trim, possibly Slavey; a woman's caribou hide dress with quill-wrapped fringing; and a pair of caribou hide gloves and moccasins, each decorated with floral silk embroidery. The woman's outfit was no doubt a gift to Baldwin's wife Lucy. However, as these do not form part of the Stoney outfit under discussion, they will receive no further mention in the present article.
In 1972, the group of Stoney items was placed on long-term loan at Bewdley Museum in Worcestershire, where they were displayed for many years with a collection of other Baldwin memorabilia.
The collection was eventually removed from display and for a few years sat in storage at nearby Kidderminster Museum. In 1993, it was returned to Lord and Lady Baldwin at their home in north Oxford, Oxfordshire and, with the exception of the warbonnet, which could not be sold in the United States due to feather laws, was dispatched with the entire collection of Indian material for auction at Sotheby's in New York, where it went under the hammer on 4th December.
The beaded shirt and leggings were purchased by a gallery owner in Banff, Alberta, where they were exhibited in a small natural history museum in Banff's Main Street. So, by a strange twist of fate, they were repatriated to the Canadian Rockies where they were first made. They were eventually acquired by the author in 1997 and, repeating the events of exactly seventy years earlier, made the journey back to the heart of England, a few short miles from Stanley Baldwin's home town of Bewdley in Worcestershire.
Sadly, the beaded moccasins, pipe, belt and pouch were sold as a single lot to a separate buyer, and their present whereabouts are unknown. The author would be interested to hear from anyone who might be able to offer information regarding their current ownership.
The trailer warbonnet was gifted by Lord and Lady Baldwin in 1996 to the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, where it remains in their Conservation department's teaching collections.
Acknowledgments
The author would like to express his gratitude to the 4th Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, grandson of Stanley Baldwin, and the late Lady Baldwin for generously providing photographs and other information relating to the Stoney regalia that was once in their family's possession. Also, sincere thanks to Dr Hugh Dempsey, Chief Curator Emeritus of the Glenbow Museum in Calgary; and Lindsay Moir, Senior Librarian at Glenbow Museum Library, for kindly supplying information and photographs from the local Calgary press.
References
Dempsey, Dr Hugh A. (1997). Tribal Honors: A History of the Kainai Chieftainship, Kainai Chieftainship.
Bibliography
Evans, Simon M. (1993). Prince Charming Goes West: The Story of the EP Ranch. Calgary: University of Calgary Press.
Newton, W. Douglas. (1920). Westward with the Prince of Wales. New York & London: D. Appleton & Co.
Sotheby's. Fine American Indian Art. New York, 4th December 1993 (lots 164 & 406; also 165 & 166).
 Printer friendly
 Cite/link
 Email
 Feedback
| |
| Author: | Green, Richard |
|---|---|
| Publication: | Whispering Wind |
| Geographic Code: | 1CANA |
| Date: | Aug 1, 2012 |
| Words: | 2215 |
| Previous Article: | From the editor. |
| Next Article: | A brief look at necklaces of the Columbia River Plateau. |
| Topics: | |