Table Of ContentCHEE
CHEE
McGill-Queen's Native and Northern Series
Bruce G. Trigger, Editor
1 When the Whalers Were Up North 13 Cold Comfort
Inuit Memories from the Eastern My Love Affair with the Arctic
Arctic Graham W. Rowley
Dorothy Harley Eber 14 The True Spirit and Original Intent
2 The Challenge of Arctic Shipping of Treaty 7
Science, Environmental Assessment, Treaty 7 Elders and Tribal Council
and Human Values with Walter Hildebrandt,
David L. VanderZwaag and Dorothy First Rider, and Sarah
Cynthia Lamson, Editors Carter
3 Lost Harvests 15 This Distant and Unsurveyed
Prairie Indian Reserve Farmers and Country
Government Policy A Woman's Winter at Baffin Island,
Sarah Carter 1857-1858
4 Native Liberty, Crown Sovereignty W. Gillies Ross
The Existing Aboriginal Right 16 Images of Justice
of Self-Government in Canada Dorothy Harley Eber
Bruce Clark 17 Capturing Women
5 Unravelling the Franklin Mystery The Manipulation of Cultural
Inuit Testimony Imagery in Canada's Prairie West
David C. Woodman Sarah A. Carter
6 Otter Skins, Boston Ships, and 18 Social and Environmental Impacts
China Goods of the James Bay Hydroelectric
The Maritime Fur Trade of the Project
Northwest Coast, 1785-1841 Edited by James F. Hornig
James R. Gibson 19 Saqiyuq
7 From Wooden Ploughs to Welfare Stories from the Lives of Three
The Story of the Western Reserves Inuit Women
Helen Buckley Nancy Wachowich in collaboration
8 In Business for Ourselves with Apphia Agalakti Awa,
Northern Entrepreneurs Rhoda Kaukjak Katsak, and
Wanda A. Wuttunee Sandra Pikujak Katsak
9 For an Amerindian Autohistory 20 Justice in Paradise
An Essay on the Foundations of Bruce Clark
a Social Ethic 21 Aboriginal Rights and
Georges E. Sioui Self-Government
10 Strangers Among Us The Canadian and Mexican
David Woodman Experience in North American
11 When the North Was Red Perspective
Aboriginal Education in Soviet Edited by Curtis Cook and
Siberia Juan D. Lindau
Dennis A. Bartels and 22 Harvest of Souls
Alice L. Bartels The Jesuit Missions and Colonialism
12 From Talking Chiefs to a Native in North America, 1632—1650
Corporate Elite Carole Blackburn
The Birth of Class and Nationalism 23 Bounty and Benevolence
among Canadian Inuit A History of Saskatchewan Treaties
Marybelle Mitchell Arthur J. Ray, Jim Miller, and
Frank Tough
24 The People of Denendeh 37 Living Rhythms
Ethnohistory of the Indians of Lessons In Aboriginal Economic
Canada's Northwest Territories Resilience and Vision
June Helm Wanda Wuttunee
25 The Marshall Decision and Native 38 The Making of an Explorer
Rights George Hubert Wilkins and the
Ken Coates Canadian Arctic Expedition,
26 The Flying Tiger 1913-1916
Women Shamans and Storytellers Stuart E. Jenness
of the Amur 39 Chee Chee
Kira Van Deusen A Study of Aboriginal Suicide
27 Alone in Silence Alvin Evans
European Women in the Canadian
North before 1940
Barbara E. Kelcey
28 The Arctic Voyages of
Martin Frobisher
An Elizabethan Adventure
Robert McGhee
29 Northern Experience and the Myths
of Canadian Culture
Renee Hulan
30 The White Man's Gonna Getcha
The Colonial Challenge to the
Crees in Quebec
Toby Morantz
31 The Heavens Are Changing
Nineteenth-Century Protestant
Missions and Tsimshian Christianity
Susan Neylan
32 Arctic Migrants/Arctic Villagers
The Transformation of Inuit
Settlement in the Central Arctic
David Damas
33 Arctic Justice
On Trial for Murder - Pond Inlet, 1923
Shelagh D. Grant
34 Eighteenth-Century Naturalists
of Hudson Bay
Stuart Houston, Tim Ball, and
Mary Houston
35 The American Empire and the
Fourth World
Anthony J. Hall
36 Uqalurait
An Oral History of Nunavut
John Bennett and Susan Rowley
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CHEE
CHEE
A Study of Aboriginal Suicide
AL EVANS
McGill-Queen's University Press
Montreal & Kingston • London • Ithaca
© McGill-Queen's University Press 2004
ISBN 0-7735-2687-0
Legal deposit second quarter 2004
Bibliotheque nationale du Quebec
Printed in Canada on acid-free paper
This book has been published with the help of National Library of Canada Cataloguing
a grant from St Paul's United Church. in Publication
Poetry by Rita Joe and Lillian Sugabaquelol is Evans, Al, 1920—
published by permission of the authors. Chee Chee : a study of Canadian aboriginal
Photograph on title page by Ernie Bies, 1976. suicide / Al Evans.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
The author has made every effort to contact ISBN 0-7735-2687-0
individuals whose work is reprinted here.
Notice of any errors or omissions in this regard i. Chee Chee, Benjamin, 1944-1977. 2. Native
will be gratefully received and correction made peoples-Canada-Suicidal behavior-Case
in any subsequent edition. studies. I. Title.
McGiil-Queen's University Press acknowledges N 0249.0415 £92 2004
the financial support of the Canada Council 362.28'092
for the Arts for our publishing program. We C2003-905943-X
also acknowledge the financial support of the
Government of Canada through the Book Pub-
lishing Industry Development Program
(BPIDP) for our publishing activities.
For Benjamin Chee Chee's mother,
Josephine Chee Chee Roy,
and his great friend
Frederick C. Brown
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CONTENTS
Foreword Rt. Rev. Dr Stan McKay xi
Acknowledgments xv
Introduction xxi
1 The Vigil 3
2 Chee Chee: A Life 12
3 Chee Chee the Artist 27
4 Ojibway Inheritance 43
5 Canadian Native Inheritance 61
6 The Act of Suicide 95
7 The Suicide of Benjamin Chee Chee 114
8 Horizons of Hope: An Empowering Journey 125
9 The Healing 139
1 O Final Words 154
Notes 161
Bibliography 169
Index 175
