Robert Goodvoice 5

From the Provided Abstract: "He tells stories of treachery by Americans against the [Dakota] who had fled to Prince Albert, Saskatchewan after the 1862 Minnesota Massacre, including distribution of disease-infested clothing and food." -------- The intentional distribution of disease-infested clothing and blankets would cause many deaths. One story Goodvoice shares is "I mentioned this man's name today. He had an extra power and he looked for Epunna when he got lost. He is the one that kind of head him off from going north and to drive him southward, Opaytawaseechu. He worked in town and on his way back, there is a man waving him to his home. So he went to his home, to the Wasitiu's home, he was a bachelor living all alone. He give him something to eat and then he give him a sack, a sack full of underwear. There was about fifteen or twenty suits of underwear in this sack. And he told him, "You take this home. You take this home and give it to this and give it to that, give it away. Tomorrow you come back for some more. Look." He had about ten sacks full of this underwear. So Opaytawaseechu took the underwear home but he didn't give it out that evening. The next day he came back, took another sackfull home. That afternoon, he made two trips that day. There is three sacks that he had and that is quite a few suits of underwear then. So he called this man and that man and he called all of the people that he know, his best friends, he give them each a suit of underwear. They were brand new, brand new underwear. Never was worn, never was washed, they were brand new. So there was about sixty of them, sixty men of all sizes. They got these suits and they put it on and these men were cutting cordwood for the Hudson's Bay Company then. So they put their new suit of underwear on and they got an extra one when the other one was dirty and one is getting washed, they put on another one, a clean one. This was their idea and most of them got two suits. They went to work cutting cord wood and they sweat. When they sweat, the underwear seemed to give them itch. Give them an itch. So they scratch and scratch and scratch... Most of them died and they named that year, that winter, where Opaytawaseechu, he was the first one to lay down with it, with the disease but it didn't kill him. I don't know why it didn't kill him because there was lots of them that laid down with it and never got up, it killed them. But Opaytawaseechu did lay down with it but he got better, he cured himself some way. Of course he is, as I have said today in the other records, in other tapes, that he had extra power. And that day when he first fell, he told, he sent the word out to the others not to wear the underwear, to burn them. They did but then it was too late." Pg 6-7.