An emotional event took place at Kawacatoose First Nation on Friday as a stolen teepee cover, missing for a century, has now been returned to its rightful owners. Kawacatoose community members, about 135 kilometers northeast of Regina, were moved to tears as the teepee cover was unpacked and raised for ceremony on the powwow grounds, accompanied by drumming and singing in traditional attire.
Chief Cory (Okimow) Dustyhorn expressed the significance of the returned teepee cover, crafted by his great-great-grandfather Sîpiskwêsîkan, also known as Dustyhorn, over two years. The family had not seen the ornate cover since 1926 until recently discovering it was part of the Smithsonian collection in Washington, D.C.
Chief Cory, along with family members and Indigenous studies professor Andrew Miller from the First Nations University of Canada, made a 29-hour journey to retrieve the teepee cover from the National Museum of the American Indian. The emotional return of the artifact to its place of creation was deeply felt by Yolanda Dustyhorn, another descendant of Sîpiskwêsîkan.
After obtaining the teepee cover from the Smithsonian, the group embarked on the journey back home, with the community eagerly anticipating its return. The teepee cover, referred to as “moshum” meaning grandfather in Cree, symbolizes the return of a stolen heritage to the Kawacatoose First Nation.
The teepee cover will remain in Kawacatoose for four days before being transferred to the Royal Saskatchewan Museum in Regina. Professor Miller emphasized the cover’s importance in reclaiming lost cultural elements like pride, language, ceremony, and identity for the Kawacatoose community.
