ONE CRAZY CREE - 12/20

12/20/1879 - Just three years removed from the Sioux victory over General George Armstrong Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, on a cold winter Saturday, citizens of Fort Saskatchewan in Alberta, Canada witness their town's first official hanging when a Cree Indian named Swift Runner (Ka-Ki-Si-Kutchin) is executed for being a Wendigo (or at least thinking he is one) that murders his entire family and eats the corpses.

Swift Runner

Part of the folklore of the First Nations Algonquin tribes that populate the northern forests of Nova Scotia, the eastern coast of Canada, and the Great Lakes region of both Canada and the United States, the Wendigo is said to be a malevolent monster with spirit and human characteristics that wanders the forests seeking victims ... in some cases it kills and eats its prey, in others, its spirit possesses the human it victimizes, transforming the person it encounters into flesh seeking monster too, capable of rape, murder, and an insatiable need (the more it consumes, the more it wants more) for human flesh.  The creature is associated with winter, cold, famine, and starvation and appears as a giant gaunt figure almost skeletal in nature covered in suppurating, death smelling, ash-grey skin, with eye eyes, and talons and fangs for disposing of its prey  Much as clinical lycanthropy designates a psychological condition in which a human believes they can transform into a wolf, the Wendigo has lent its name to a mental disorder, Wendigo psychosis, in which an individual transforms into a monster cannibal with an massive, unending appetite.  It is a psychosis that will consume Swift Runner.

Wendigo

Hunting

A member of the Cree Nation (he is born in Alberta, Canada), Swift Runner grows up to be a huge, thickly muscled outdoorsman, standing over 6'3" tall.  Prior to 1878, Swift Runner is considered a pillar of the Indian community of Alberta ... he has a mild personality, is considered a smart and trustworthy individual by fellow Crees and fur traders of the Hudson Bay Company.  He is considered to be a good husband to his wife, and a loving father to his six children.  Supplementing his hunting skills, he puts food on the table with his pay from whites, for a time being employed as a scout and trapper for Canada's Northwest Mounted Police (an organization born only six years before, in May of 1873).  There is a problem though, as Swift Runner develops a taste for whiskey (illegal to the region, it is snuck into the area disguised as patent medicines), and when drunk, he is a completely different person, a mean lush who will be described by some as "the terror of the whole region."  One too many incidents of violent drunkenness (some of his benders last up to three months, and Swift Runner's tribe finally sends he and his family (his wife, Charlotte, mother-in-law, brother, and six children) packing into the woods.  Out of sight, out of mind, Swift Runner and his family are forgotten until in the spring of 1879, the Indian stumbles out of the wilderness and into a Catholic mission and relates a horrific story of his wife's suicide and the entire rest of the family's demise from starvation (although the family is only twenty-five miles away from emergency supplies at a Hudson Bay Co. trading post).  The priests at the mission though notice that Swift Runner appears to be very healthy.  That fact, combined with knowledge that other Crees in the area have had successful winter hunts, Swift Runner having screaming nightmares every night, constant small changes in his tale, and his attempt to lead a group of children into the woods finally cause the mission to contact the mounted police.  Given the task of finding out what took place out in the woods, Inspector Severe Gagnon and a small squad of police take Swift Runner back into the woods and have the Indian take them to his camp.  Eventually finding the camp, Swift Runner points out where his eldest son is buried, and the police dig up the grave and find the corpse undisturbed, the rest of the dead they discover have been terribly disturbed ... and more!

Gagnon

Bones Of The Swift Runner Family

A graveyard in the woods, the camp gound is covered in bones, many snapped open with the marrow sucked out.  Producing a skull that belonged to his wife, Swift Runner's original story of starvation falls apart and his family, excepting the eldest son, now are identified by Swift Runner as being victims of a Wendigo.  It is a Wendigo that came to Swift Runner in his dreams, telling the Indian to eat those around him and transforms the Indian into a monster.  Wendigo rampage, the monster kills Swift Runner's wife first, then that murder accomplished, forces one brother to kill another and then butcher the remains, hangs the family's infant from a lodge pole and then for the pure barbaric pleasure of the screams it produces, tugs on the baby's dangling limbs, and eventually murders the rest of the family, including his mother-in-law (who Swift Runner will state was "a little tough") and brother, then dines on the flesh of the victims as needed through the winter.  Evidence gathered, the horrified mounties return to Fort Saskatchewan with Swift Runner in irons.  Put on trial before Stipendiary Magistrate Hugh Richardson on August 8, 1879, Swift Runner faces a jury that includes three English speaking half-Crees and four men familiar with the Cree language.  Additionally, to make sure everything is on the up-and-up and Swift Runner doesn't get railroaded by proceedings he doesn't understand, a Cree man translates the entire court proceedings and there is a Cree/English scholar on hand as an observer  to make sure Swift Runner understands what is happening.  No defense presented, Swift Runner sits calmly through witness testimony against him.  His only comments during the proceedings when asked if he has anything to say, he states quite simply, "I did it."  Indeed, and the trial does not last long with no one believing Swift Runner actually turned into a Wendigo (the jury deliberations last all of twenty short minutes).  Found guilty of murder and cannibalism, Richardson sentences Swift Runner to be hung on 12/20/1879 at 7:30 in the morning.

Richardson

The Fort These Days

The sentence however presents a problem for the authorities ... the wilds of Alberta have never before been the site of an official execution.  First timers doing the best they can, Staff Sergeant Fred Bagley, a bugler for the Northwest Mounted Police, is put in charge of arranging the hanging ,,, arrangements that include building a gallows when the walls of Fort Saskatchewan and hiring a hangman from among the locals for $50 (the "winner" is an old Army pensioner in need of money named Rogers).  The night before his execution, Swift Runner refuses to spend the evening with a priest, stating, "The white man has ruined me.  I don't think their God could amount to much."  Pitch black, bitterly cold, and snowing when Swift Runner is brought out of his cell on Saturday, the 20th, the hanging is delayed when it is discovered that folks (there are about 60 people at the hanging) waiting to witness the execution have taken the gallows' trap and burnt it to keep warm in the storm, Sheriff Edouard Richard is late to arrive due to the snow and cold, and the hangman has forgotten to bring the straps meant to bind the prisoner's arms (the necessary length of rope required for the job is soon procured) .  Two extra hours of life granted by the delays, wearing the noose around his neck that will snuff out his life, Swift Runner sits next to one of the fires burning within the fort, chatting with witnesses, and having a last meal of a pound of pemmican as repair work is done on the gallows.  Commenting on the proceedings, the killer makes the authorities an offer, "I could kill myself with a tomahawk and save the hangman further trouble."  Finally ready to go, Swift Runner is led to the scaffold and a black hood is placed over his head.  Last words time, Swift Runner admits his guilt once more, then thanks his jailers for their kindness during his incarceration, before berating his guard that morning for making him wait two hours in the cold for his ending.  Dropped five feet to his death (and the Wendigo's demise too) seconds later, Swift Runner is left hanging for an hour, then cut down and buried in the snows outside the fort.  One old time sourdough veteran of the California gold rush named Jim Reade that witnesses the execution sums up the event for readers of the Daily Evening Mercury newspaper ... "Boys, that's the purtiest hangin' I ever seen, and it's the twenty-ninth."

Wendigo And Victim

Wendigo