The following interview is with former Chief and Mi’kmaw Elder, Wilfred Prosper, conducted on July 23, 1992 at his home in Eskissoqnik (Eskasoni) First Nation, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. The interview was done with Trudy Sable as part of a larger research project on Maritime baseball history undertaken by Dr. Colin Howell, Professor of History, Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Nova Scotia. This research was later incorporated into Dr. Howell’s book, “Northern Sandlots:  A Social History of Maritime Baseball” published by Fernwood Press in 1995. The archiving of this and other interviews conducted by Dr. Sable was sponsored by the Mi’kmaw Native Friendship Centre, Halifax, Nova Scotia with funding through the Department of Canadian Heritage, Aboriginal Languages Initiatives Program (2018-2021). 

WP:      Well I dunno. Most of our sports probably were acquired from other cultures, you know? The British, the French. I know hockey, as far as hockey is concerned, in Chapel Island…I wasn’t born here, you know. I was born in Chapel Island. I suppose they’re believable, these stories you know. I was told that they never played hockey in Chapel Island until a priest by the name of Saulnier (inaudible) a French priest, settled over in Hay Cove (inaudible) somewhere, somewhere around that area. I don’t know what he was doing here but he was a French priest and he started them off. And he used to, you know, tell them not to, you know…because he was a priest, not to check him (indistinct: them) or anything you know?

TS:        No body…

WP:      Yeah. But, no, no. He told them to check him because he was going to check them back. To be easy with him because he was a priest, they shouldn’t. He said something to the effect, don’t come up after me when I’m saying mass or anything. On the ice, he said, you can do anything so long as you don’t hit me over the head, but all that other rough stuff, you know? Like body-checking and what not. A little bit of tripping every once in a while.  I guess he was the first. So that’s how hockey came to Barra Head. But as far as baseball, they’ve been playing ball ever since I can remember. When I was born, that was my first love.

TS:       When was that?

WP:      I was born in 1927, but I never, see you don’t play ball at two or three years of age. But as soon as I came of age, you know a kid develops interest, you know, that was my first interest. I used to go… I couldn’t wait for Sundays to come because there’d be baseball, you know. They used to have teams from Reserve Mines, as far as Reserve Mines, come to Chapel Island.

TS:        Reserve Mines?

WP:      Reserve Mines, that’s in Glace Bay area.

TS:        Were they like little league?

WP:      No, No, these were men. There were no little leagues for some reason… you know, the kids played ball.

TS:        But, when you actually started to play, it was regular leagues?

WP:      Yeah, well, these were men. There was no other league. Well, the kids had their league of their own, but they weren’t organized. But they didn’t have the money to begin with, or no sponsor to, you know, so they had to stay in one area. They couldn’t get no transportation to other places where they could compete with other teams. There wasn’t very much money around in them days. A penny, boy, was like a dollar then, today. I’m speaking when I was a kid. So that’d be just the men’s team and they had one heck of a job trying to keep that going in baseballs and the uniforms. They never had no uniforms in Chapel…they just wore everyday clothes, you know. Times were hard, but how did baseball come to Barra Head, now I dunno know. There is a man like I told you there might be able to tell you that, that Eugene O’Neill because I heard an awful lot about him. The Indians talk about him. He must have been a good ball player. And then there was another man. His name was Kite. I believe he’s dead now. I’m not sure. Round St. Peter’s, River Bourgeois area. Victor Kite was his name. He was a great pitcher, they said.

TS:        Was he a Mi’kmaw?

WP:      No, he’s French. Well, he’s French. And this O’Neill, he must be Irish, sounds like Irish, don’t it? I dunno, you’ll have to see him. He’s a personable gentleman. He’ll talk to you. Would you be able to find him in Mulgrave?

TS:        I can try, but would he know about Mi’kmaq in baseball?

WP:      Well, like I said, he would know more than I would because he played with them, against them. And maybe then he’d be able to direct you to some of the others too. But those old people that used to play, like Tommy Johnson, they’re all dead and gone. Mattie Lewis and all of them, Simon Cremo, Isaac Alec and a whole bunch of others, they’re all dead and gone. We had a legend, this one-armed fella, his name was Ben Johnson. He’s a legend in Barra Head. How he could play ball with one arm, pick the ball up and throw the glove up in the air, and while the ball was falling down, you know, he’d throw the glove up in the air, remove the glove and when the ball was… all in the same motion, throw to first base or to any base. Bat with one arm. He could do many, many other things. That arm must have been as powerful as anything. That was Ben Johnson. Now there were others, but how did baseball start?

TS:        Did you play in an all Mi’kmaw league?

WP:      No, no. Like I told you we had teams come from… No of course they played Whycocomagh and they played Nyanza, they had a team here in Eskasoni (Eskissoqnik). But then they also played River Bourgeois, L’Ardoise. Let me see now. Pictou had a real good team. Pictou Landing had a couple of fellas had the makings of, you know, big timers, professionals. There was a Bernard and there was a Francis, I guess. If you went to Pictou, they could tell you probably about these two fellas.

TS:        They made the pro teams?

WP:      No, they didn’t. One of them probably played in the District League or something, I don’t really know. But he went beyond the reservation. At least one, I dunno know, maybe two. I have a cousin that lives in Pictou I could… maybe he could tell you something, but his name is Dennis Francis. He might be able to tell you. And then there are older ones that he might direct you to. This Bill Bernard, apparently he was a good pitcher. His wife’s still living. It’s not a very good time to go and see her though. Their grandchild just… what happened there, Bessie? She died anyway. Took her own life anyway, somehow. Her granddaughter. So, I dunno. I don’t really know how baseball came to Chapel Island. I don’t really know.

TS:        Well, did you travel?

WP:      Oh, we went all over the place. We went to Glace Bay, like I said. I remember Tom Marshall had a store in Chapel Island. He also had a little truck. A fairly big truck, maybe a ton, I forget. He used to take the players around. And I remember one time when I was a kid, he took them to Sydney, and they played a team from the Corollary (indistinct) League. Now this is big time baseball. And they gave them a damn good run for their money, you know. So, these fellows were good, you know, they were really good. They had to pick Mattie Lewis… I met a fella in Chapel Island one time, or in St. Peter’s, and he told me…Mattie had died then, you know, and I think he was already dead when this fella told me. As a matter of fact, this was Victor Kite, I think. And I said I didn’t know the man before, you know, but somebody introduced me to him and I told him, I said I heard an awful lot about you. You’re a baseball pitcher. “Yeah?” So, you know all of these guys. And he told me all about Mattie Lewis. He said he had the makings of a major league pitcher, but he was too stubborn. He wouldn’t listen to anybody. He had his own ways and he had his own, you know. Self-made.

So, he said if he had looked after himself, if he would take a little bit of coaching and listen, he had it all, he said. He could have pitched in the major leagues. So, he must have been good. I remember him beating other teams 1-0 and he was a darn good batter, too. One time I remember he hit a ball about a mile, I guess. You know, when you’re only a kid, it’s a mile… But anyway, they never had much of a ballfield.

TS:        Did you consider your team semi-pro?

WP:      No, no, but like I say, there were good ones. In a small community you can’t have a professional team, you know. In a big town or a big city, you got the pick of the crop, you know, you might make a really nice team. But in a small community, where people are hard pressed and working all the time, you really can’t have a pro… Well, like I say, you get the odd one there that borders on the genius, you know, like this Mattie Lewis. He was great. And he talked, slept, ate and everything baseball and hockey, till he died. That’s how all, everything up there was sports.

TS:        And he was also from Barra Head?

WP:      He was from Barra Head, too. Marie Battiste’s uncle. You know Marie Battiste? Dr. Marie Battiste?

TS:       Yes.

WP:      Well, Mattie Lewis would be her uncle. But on Marie’s mother’s side.

TS:        Annie Battiste?

WP:      Annie Battiste’s brother. Annie would be Mattie’s sister.

TS:        Do you mind talking about what you did on the team yourself?

WP:      I came later. I started playin’… I never really… We used to play school sports. I thought I was pretty good at school. Of course, we played Sponge Ball. You ever hear of that?

TS:        No

WP:      Sponge Ball. You could hit that a mile, you know, that sponge ball.

TS:        You mean a softball?

WP:      Soft, spongy.

TS:        You didn’t play hardball, you played softball?

WP:      Sponge Ball, when you were kids cause you couldn’t afford to play ball. You know you couldn’t afford a baseball, you couldn’t afford gloves, so we played Sponge Ball. And then there is another game that the Indians played. They called it Ol’ Pasn Game. Ol’ Pasn means Old Fashion. Now, this is similar to baseball except you don’t..it takes a while to explain this. If you don’t hit the ball on the first strike and the catcher catches it, you’re out, you know. And I believe…is it three outs same as baseball, or one out? I believe it’s only one out, that the team is out. One. Now if you hit the ball, the fielder doesn’t throw to first base. Doing that you can be safe. They have to hit you with the ball, somewhere.

TS:        Is this still a softball?

WP:      Sponge ball they called it. They hit it. But I remember one time we didn’t have a sponge ball and so we picked up an old, beaten up baseball with the leather off of it. And we used it for that purpose, eh? And by God, one fella hit me in an awful queer place, I tell you. He just about killed me. (laughter)

TS:        Where did this Old Fashion ball come from?

WP:      I dunno know where this came from? (TS tries to get the name right, thinking WP is saying Old Possum) No, Old Fashion but they call it Pasn because there is no ‘f’ in our alphabet, so you can’t say ‘Old Fashion’ in Indian, you have to say O’l Pasn. We got only thirteen letters in our alphabet, or fourteen. Those Johnsons are real, what you…real…what’s the word, innovative? So, we played this game, I remember playing this game, and there is no such a thing as a foul ball. We have a diamond, the same as baseball, but there is no foul ball. Well, this fella got up to bat, and I think he was a right-hand batter, and being a right-handed batter, he made out that he was going to bat left-handed. He took the other side and said, you know, like an orthodox, what you call it, like a switch hitter…So he’s a right-hand batter, he took the left-hand stance. When the ball came, instead of hitting it back toward the pitcher, he hit it the other way. Well, God Almighty, he would… (laughter)… So… One way to make a home run.

TS:        Is this still Old Fashion?

WP:      This is Old Fashion game, yeah. He hit it back toward the catcher, you know? Lucky, he didn’t hit him flush in the eye somewhere

TS:        So the ball would have had to come this way and he hit that way (TS gestures).

WP:      Yeah, the same direction the ball was going from the pitcher, because there is no foul ball.

TS:        Where did that game come from?

WP:      Oh, God only knows, God only knows where that came from. That was around when I… We never think about that, you know, we never questioned, we just played it, eh? So, the Indians never had really that many games. The spring of the year, the first thing that would come out was pennies. You remember those big pennies? You don’t remember the big ones. You have the small penny, eh? Back in the old days, there were bigger pennies, twice… about the size of a quarter, maybe even bigger. So, you got as many of those as you can because the little ones are out too. So, they’d be pitching pennies and the bigger ones would be easier to pitch, eh?

TS:        For baseball?

WP:      No, no, no, no, no. This is another game, another Indian game. Pitching pennies. They’d mark off a certain number of feet and they’d put a stick in the ground, a small stick, you know, you didn’t have to drive it in, you just push it into the ground. And then you start pitching pennies. The one the closest to the stick is first so he gets the first chance to, what would you call, flip the coin. And those that landed heads up, was his. And then the other fellow would take a turn. They took turns like that, you know. All the heads he put, this was his winnings, these were his winnings. The heads. If it was tails, the other guy got the chance to flip them. And then somebody else came up with another game, this four inches square, right? Now, you don’t have to flip these, you just land them into the four inch. I don’t know how that worked, I never played them games. Then there were other games on the floor when they couldn’t get… you know, Indians never had too many games. So, these were, I don’t know what to call them…

TS:        Just fun.

WP:      Yeah. They’d pitch pennies inside the house if it happened to be raining and the one closest to the seam, you know, remember the floors? They were all wooden floors. The one closest, they’d designate a certain seam. They’d have to hit that seam, you know, the one closest to it would be first.

TS:        So, back to baseball, how long did you play, yourself? Did you play your whole adult life?

WP:      Well, I played quite a bit, you know. I wasn’t always home, you know, I left home when I was fifteen, and then the war came in 1939 and I was only about 12 so I didn’t, there weren’t too many ball games. There might have been a couple more after that. And the same thing happened to the Indian dances. You know, the Ko’jua they call it, like Sarah Denny’s doing now, trying to revive it. This was a common thing before the war. When the war came, a lot of the young people went to war. A lot of them went to work in… from Barra Head they went to either Westmount or Debert or… I went to Sydney. I was only fifteen. Then from there, when I got my registration card, I went home, then I stayed home about two days and went to Halifax. I was sixteen then, you know. This was 1943. I worked at the shipyards for a while, at different jobs. So, there wasn’t too much baseball going on from Chapel Island in those days. Everybody was gone, some to War, some to work and those that remained were too old to play, I guess, you know. So, around about that time the dances started to wane, you know those festivals. I don’t know what they call, when you dance to the chant? What do you call that kind of dances. Indian dances, I guess.

TS:       The Ko’jua?

WP:     Ko’jua, they started to wane. Finally, they disappeared altogether.

TS:       Was it just the Ko’jua?

WP:      Well, there was a couple of them, yeah. One was the, Nskawaqn they call it.

TS:       Nskawaqn? 

WP:      Nskawaqn

TS:       Neskawaqn? Oh, Neskawaqn.

WP:      Neskawaqn, yeah. They call it nskawaqn.

TS:        What was that dance, do you know?

WP:      That’s more of a ritual thing, I think.

TS:        For Chiefs?

WP:      Or, you know, for feasts. Like certain things happen. You know if you got your first successful hunt, they put a feast on for you in the evening. And there’d be all kinds to eat and everything. There’d be a dance. If the Chief was a newly elected Chief, they’d put something like that on. That’s a part of the Ko’jua. Neskawaqn, Nskawaqn.

TS:        Was that always the same steps, the Neskawaqn?

WP:      No, I don’t think, no.

TS:       Different steps for different occasions?

WP:      Not much different, I guess, but the different format, you know, or different approach. They’d do different things in different, what do you call it… With  Ko’jua they just beat the drum and chant. With this Nskawaqn, they…what they call the ‘ha’ ‘heh’ whatever the hell that means. They come out dancing out of the… Let’s say the chief was being feasted for having been elected, they come dancing out of the wigwam, the big one, the Great Wikuom, I guess you’d call it. And they’d dance around, and they’d take their place, and they’d sit right around in a circle and then they’d start this “ha” “heh”, whatever that means, you know. And then I suppose the chanter would be in the middle of the circle.

TS:        With a what?

WP:      With a stick and a (inaudible) I guess. But he’s beating a different drum beat from the Ko’jua.

TS:       Slower?

WP:      I guess so. I never really, I wasn’t really old enough to experience any of that. The older people could probably tell you that. Like Annie Marshall and maybe even Annie Battiste, yeah. And Margaret Johnson, too. (TS mentions she will be staying with Margaret). Well she’ll tell you about that.  

TS:        I love dance, but now we should get back to baseball.

WP:      The  game, that’s all I know. And how hockey came to Barra Head, that’s like I told you, Father Songnais (inaudible), that’s what I heard. But they played baseball and hockey when I was a kid, ever since I can remember.

TS:        When you were more like in your twenties, did you play baseball then?

WP:      Yeah.

TS:        For Chapel Island?

WP:      For Chapel Island for a while. Not very long. We had a fairly good team. We beat up on a couple teams there.

TS:        And you would play white teams or French teams, or you’d play different…?

WP:      Well, we’d play different teams. Well, I guess something similar happened to the white community, you know, with the war and that. The old players are gone. And we started to pick it up again after the war and I remember one time we went to play sort of a pickup game in Port Hawkesbury and my God, we beat them about 36 something, 36-1. See, now that I think of it, you know, maybe the same thing happened to them. The old players are gone, and probably a lot of them never returned. So, we played some of the teams that were still intact. At least there were still in fairly pretty competitive stages, you know, like, Petit de Grat, Haversack I suppose had a good team, Louisdale always had a good team, River Bourgeois. We moved from Chapel Island. A few years later, these guys are professionals, eh? We played hockey with some of the French teams in Chapel Island. A few years later they got a professional out of River Bourgeois with this…

TS:        They got a professional hockey player?

WP:      Yeah, well, this McPhee played for the Montreal Canadians.

TS:        At Chapel Island?

WP:      He was out of that fold I guess, yeah. No, no, he’s not from Chapel Island but from that area.

TS:        Where did he play?

WP:      Well, he didn’t play us because he’s much too young for us. But somewhere down the line there’s a connection, you know, because we played teams from over that way. I didn’t, but the older ones did. River Bourgeois. Yeah, but I was there long enough to play teams from French Cove, St. Peter’s and some of the other… I don’t think we played anybody else.

TS:        Did you feel like when you played, was everything on equal terms, or was there a prejudice against Native people from the white teams, or did it just feel like any old ball player playing any old time?

WP:      If there was, I didn’t sense it. The only thing important to me, was trying to win. I guess they were trying to do the same. We beat up on some pretty good teams. And so, we got beaten up too.

TS:       Beaten up, you mean hit?

WP:      No, no, no, no, no. On the game itself, you know, on baseball. We didn’t lose too many games. I don’t know if there was prejudice.

TS:        You didn’t feel it.

WP:      I didn’t. If it was, it was pretty well hidden. Like today, all that sex abuse and everything…everything is out of the bag today. And back in them days you weren’t conscious of it. But I guess it was there. It was always there, eh?.

TS:        I was asking because I was reading about a Penobscot named Soc Alexis and apparently he played pro baseball.  And, when he would go out on the field everybody would start doing war cries, so I was just wondering if that had happened. So, he got very discouraged playing. It was just unpleasant for him. So, I didn’t know how much of that took place up here. (phone rings). So, it was everyone just playing baseball?  What position did you play?

WP:      I played…a lot of catching, as a catcher. I played infield for a while. I wasn’t much of an infielder but.. Catching, I did a little better at catching. I was a pretty good batter. I was every bit as good as anyone. Better, probably better. But not fielding, you know, the infield.

TS:        So after your twenties, did you stop playing, after the war, or just bits and pieces, picking up…

WP:      No, no I played… we came. The war ended in 1945. I was still in Halifax. Come home about, around the end of the year, December, 1945. I stayed home all 1946. We played that year, I think. Played a couple of games, anyway. And then of course we played ourselves, every night ourselves, we’re practicing. Then in 1947 we moved here (to Eskasoni). And then they had a baseball team here and I got on that one. My first, I was lucky I made that team because there was an awful lot of others trying to, you know, get on the team.

TS:       Was that softball?

WP:      No, no, this was hardball, this was baseball. So, my first at bat I hit the ball out of sight there, and I hit a home run, so I made the team. That was a good way to start.

TS:        Was that just the Eskasoni team? Is that what they called themselves?

WP:      They never really had a name. Just the Eskasoni team, I think. By God, we came close to winning the Cape Breton championship one time. We were leading 9-7 in the last inning with the bases loaded, and I asked this guy…that’s a mistake I made. I was catching, you know? And I was sensing that the shadows were hitting the diamond, and I beckoned him to come over, you know? I told him, I said, “Look, don’t give him anything but fastballs, because they can’t see the ball.” Well, this old gentleman was standing alongside, says, “Give them the odd curve,” he said, “to throw them off.” Well, he give him the odd curve and this guy hit it up over the fence. Well, not right over but he cleared the bases and we lost. Other than that we would’ve probably won the Maritime championship, or at least the Cape Breton one. Then we would have been in the Maritimes. We had a damn good team there. This guy was a great pitcher you know. If he’d only listened…

TS:        Did you play, how long did you play for the Eskasoni team?

WP:      I played quite a while. ’47 and I left off and on, you know. At times I would go away. Played up to 19…, and this baseball’s going pretty good and this guy, one day he come out to the field and this fella’s still living here, and I guess he didn’t like baseball. Maybe some of them were afraid of it, you know? My God, one day he comes out to the ballfield with a softball and just like that, he had a following of… that ended baseball.

TS:        When was that?

WP:      Oh God, back in the fifties. So we had to, you know, change, make a transition from baseball to softball. And I never really could make that transition. I didn’t like it. I played it but…

TS:        It was that easy? Somebody just coming in…

WP:      Yeah.

TS:        You think people were scared of the hard hitting and…?

WP:      I don’t know. I have my theories.

TS:        Did you wear gear? Uniforms?

WP:      Oh Yeah. But when you’re batting and some of the pitchers are throwing real hard, you know, I don’t know, I don’t really know. But anyway, that ended baseball here. Now this guy here, Sanipass, is trying to reactivate the game and he’s having one hell of a time.

TS:        Who is that?

WP:      Sanipass. Stephen Sanipass. He’s from New Brunswick and apparently over there they play nothing but baseball. But he’s having one terrible time trying to get them organized. He’s trying to organize the kids. He’s come to see me different times, you know. But I don’t think I have the character to manage a baseball team. I haven’t got the patience, no.

TS:        Can I ask you another question about the Eskasoni team? You played all around Cape Breton, is that correct?

WP:      Pretty well. We played in Inverness. We played in Reserve Mines. We played around…Bras d’or had some great teams, yeah…Sydney Mines, Bras d’Or, that area.

TS:        Did you ever go to the U.S. at all? Or over to PEI?

WP:      No, no. Like I say, we barely had enough money to pay for the baseball, the odd baseball

TS:       Did scouts from other teams ever come here to look around, to recruit people?

WP:      Not here. But we played, that’s the guy I hit a home run off of, his name was Shep Doucette. He was on the Detroit Chain.

TS:        What does that mean? Detroit Chain?

WP:      Well, I don’t know whether I’m saying it right, now. He was… the Detroit scouts had apparently signed him up.

TS:        And, he was from where, here?

WP:      He was from Glace Bay somewhere? His name was Shep Doucette, anyway. I kind of think that day’s (indistinct) funny because it was my first at bat and I was a stranger here trying, one heck of a job trying to make a team, an impression, you know, and he must have sensed that I was as nervous as hell. And I used to read a book. Stan Musiel (sp?) had a book, you know, where he stated, “to coil up, coil up and then uncoil, and then make your swing parallel to the ground”, you know. So I waited, I coiled up and I said, “Now boy, they’re not gonna fool ya if they’re going to throw a hardball, a fast ball”. Well, didn’t he throw me a suckerball and I held back long enough, you know, to hit it and hit it good. I hit it into the swamp there, somewhere. So, I used to read up on books. In fact, I was a member of the Sports College.

TS:       Sports College? Where was that?

WP:      That was gone now, you know. But this Lloyd Percival had a program on, through Toronto or somewhere. Lloyd Percival. He had a Sports College way back then, you know, in the forties, fifties and I was a member of that. I used to get books and stuff out.

TS:        Was it just like a club or did you actually get a degree?

WP:      No, I was just a member, corresponded, through correspondence.

TS:        And they would send you books…

WP:      Books, yeah. How to play baseball, hockey, boxing, you know, everything. And they even had something to say about field days, how to put on a field day and all that. How to train yourself. I had all those books. And the other guys when they seen them they borrowed them and I never got them back. That’s the way it is.

TS:        Did most of the teams you played on…did you have substitutes on your teams? How many people were on the teams?

WP:      Not very many. We’d probably have a couple of substitutes, if we had any substitutes. Sometimes we just barely made the team, you know. And if a pitcher was knocked out, he had to go to second base or third base, or some other position. And then the other guy would come from his position to pitch. We weren’t, I don’t know what you’d call it, we weren’t patient with one another, you know. You couldn’t have a guy sitting on the bench for four days, waiting his turn. Because a pitcher can’t have, if you pitch a nine-inning game, you can’t pitch for another 3 or 4 days, isn’t it? I got this from these books that I read, I think it was there. Unlike a relief pitcher that can pitch a couple of innings.

TS:        Nobody wanted to do that, you mean?

WP:      No, if a pitcher was assigned to pitch the day, he was supposed to go the whole nine innings. If he got knocked out, the first baseman would pitch, or third baseman, or somebody else. But, we just, I don’t know what it is, we just didn’t seem to like the idea of sitting on the bench. If you want to be on the team, you want to play. And we’re a little bit more, what’s the word…

TS:        Macho?

WP:      No, no… I don’t know, spiteful or what? Somebody plays and you’re not playing, you know, that’s the Indian way, I guess. Maybe other people are like that. Except for professionals, but they’re paid, eh? They can’t afford to fool around, eh?

TS:        You were never paid, right?

WP:      No, you had to pay to play.

TS:        You had to pay? For your uniform?

WP:      Well, your transportation, uniform, chip in on the baseball, other things, you know. If there was a pie social, you had to buy a pie or at least donate one.

TS:        Who was your coach? Were they from the reserve or was it an outside coach?

WP:      Ah, heck. We’d have a manager. In Barra Head, it would probably be Mattie Lewis. I was the manager here for awhile. But then somebody else was the manager too. I forget who they were. It was a long time ago. Forty or fifty years ago.

TS:        Did you keep records of your games?

WP:      No, we only played for fun. I don’t know what Pictou did, because they claimed they had some pretty good players. And probably they did. We had a fella here… my God Almighty, I don’t know how good he was, but to pitch that ball, God, he was fast. Maybe he was white, I dunno. If you were sitting in the sidelines, you couldn’t see the ball, that’s how fast it was going. Just a streak, just a little streak. But maybe he wasn’t a good pitcher because you need control, don’t you? I don’t know if he had it or not. We had some pretty good hitters. We always had good hitters in Barra Head. Everyone of them were good hitters. So we’d run up the score to fifteen, twenty. I was telling Mattie one time, I said, “You’re not a pitcher at all. We have to score eighteen runs before we can win.” I was just kidding him, you know. But Mattie was an old man then. When I used to watch him, boy oh boy, he was some good, when I was a kid, about 7 or 8 years old. Single-handedly he’d beat some of those other teams, just about.

TS:        Did he ever travel to other teams?

WP:      No, no, he just played there. He just played in Barra Head. And this other guy was good too, this one-armed Ben Johnson. This old fella will tell you about him. You going to see him?

TS:        Eugene O’Neill?

WP:      Eugene O’Neill, he could probably tell you about baseball teams. Oh, he’s a nice guy, what a gentleman he is. You never met a nicer man, and so is she.

TS:        You knew him?

WP:      I didn’t know him. We went to see him because we wanted to find out…the Indians used to live in Mulgrave one time. And this fella lived there at one time when he was a kid, so we went there one day to find out…and my aunt used to live there… to find out where the location was, you know some of the other things, too. So we went to see him, and my God, he’s nice. You never met a nicer person. Cause he played with the old timers, you know. Even Mattie Lewis’ father, I guess.

TS:        You mean even older, older

WP:      Oh, yeah. Even Tommy Johnson and all them. And they’re all dead and gone. Now he could tell you a bit about how baseball came to the area, how it happened. Maybe he could tell you. Will you give me that information when you get it?

TS:        Sure.

WP:      I just want to find out how baseball came about.

TS:        I’ll try calling him tonight…

WP:      We had the team from Pictou play Barra Head one time. Pictou’s what, about 200 miles away from Barra Head? Well, in them days it’d be a thousand miles wouldn’t it, with them dirt roads. That’s even before the roads were paved. That’s close to sixty years ago, I’d say,56, 57 years ago. The roads were paved through Chapel Island in 19… (background conversation about tea & cookies)

WP:      I guess the construction part of it was done in 1939, and I’m pretty sure it was paved in 1940. The gang went through in 1940 to pave the roads. Prior to that it was all dirt roads and imagine the trip! And the Indian team went from Chapel Island to Big Cove, maybe Big Cove, New Brunswick, back in 1938, 1939? She was among them (pointing to his wife, Bessie Prosper). Were you?

BP:       Yeah. I was born in 1933, I would be 5 years old.

WP:      I believe it was 1939.

BP:       I remember it, just barely.

TS:        Going from Chapel Island to Big Cove?

WP:      To New Brunswick. And dirt road all the way, dirt road.

TS:        They didn’t have big graders to smooth it down. (Laughter)

WP:      They had to shake like a dog until they got it off, the dust off. (Laughter)

TS:        Did the priests get involved?

WP:      We never had a priest in Barra Head.

TS:        Even though Chapel Island is there, you never had one?

WP:      Well, our priest was in St. Peter’s mostly, at least he was stationed, his place of residence was St. Peter’s parish. So Chapel Island… we never had, although we had a church in Chapel Island, it was never used. If you wanted to go to mass, you had to walk to Salmon River. They called it Salmon River, which isn’t Salmon River at all. It’s Barra Head.

TS:        Salmon River is Barra Head?

WP:      At least that’s the Post Office. The Post Office is there in Barra Head. So, the two communities are named Barra Head, I guess. Why did they call it Salmon River? I don’t really know that. You know where the church is now going towards St. Peter’s past Chapel Island, that little church to the left? They called that Salmon River. Why, I don’t know

TS:        So this was all organized by the people on the reserve, right? The baseball?

WP:      Yeah, pretty well. I suppose the priests… Dr. Digout (Note: Joseph Henry Digout according to Kenny Prosper) was a great fan of baseball. I guess maybe he had something to do with that. He was the doctor in St. Peter’s. Maybe he had something to do with it.

TS:        I read something in the Wallis book on the Mi’kmaq. I think it was in Restigouche and Big Cove.  They were talking about priests organizing the teams. That’s why I asked you that question.  

WP:      Maybe so. But certainly not Father Keats.

(Interruption when people come in, grandchildren)

TS:        …I’ll  talk to Eugene O’Neill

WP:      That would be your best bet, to see him. And then maybe he can direct you to other people too, around River Bourgeois. Ask him if he knows some of the old players from River Bourgeois and L’Ardoise and places like that, because they used to play L’Ardoise a lot. (TS Where is that?) That’s just outside of Barra Head, over the hill there. You know where the church is in Salmon River? (looking at map) So, Barra Head is a combination of two places, I think so. So now they don’t even use Barra Head, they use Chapel Island….(TS and WP continue to discuss the name.)

TS:        Did your children play baseball after you?

WP:      Oh, they’re playing softball, a couple of them. A couple of my sons, the oldest sons, they’re like their Uncle Tom, they don’t play at all. And when they do, they’re not really absorbed by it, you know, like I was. To me, it was a passion. I used to have tingles going around you know, I was in such a rush to get to the ball field.

TS:        Did you ever think of trying to go into professional baseball? Did that ever occur to you? Did you ever want to?

WP:      No. Now that I’m old, I sometimes think that maybe I could have made it. In hockey especially.

TS:        But you weren’t trying? That wasn’t something you were trying to do. You just wanted to play baseball?

WP:      No. You know, a professional to me was someone who had a degree from university or, so…

TS:        Even in baseball, you mean?

WP:      Even in baseball, hockey, whatever.

TS:        So you didn’t think you could be professional because of education?

WP:      I suppose I had that in my subconscious too, and then maybe even a little bit of racism in my subconscious.

TS:        You mean against you, or you against …?

WP:      Against me. Maybe it was that fear you know, leaving home, and I guess maybe I was a coward in that sense.

(Break in conversation)

WP:      When I was a kid, they’d probably all gone overseas or off to work. I just got a pair of shoes…this fella gave me a pair of shoes. He was from L’Ardoise; he died. This friend, he left behind and gave me those. This Elmer Briand (sp?) the fiddler. He was formerly for L’Ardoise and he died in Halifax a couple of weeks ago. So, we went up there as pallbearers, me and this other fella (Paul Wolkich??) they call him.…He wanted us, we were good friends of his

TS:       That is very sad. So they played softball up here, and he played hardball down there

WP:      No, no. They played hardball here. Membertou played softball. And they played teams from around the city, I guess. And probably, I remember them going to, …was it Shubenacadie or Truro or some other team on the mainland that didn’t play baseball. So, they played them and the teams around the Sydney area. And they had more to choose from as we didn’t. In Chapel Island, we had a team in Chapel Island or in Barra Head. They had a team in River Bourgeois, they had a team in Arichat—a couple of them; one in Petit de Grat and in Arichat, they had a team. They had a team in L’Ardoise. So, we had to have, the odd time we had to have a game with a team from—I shouldn’t say I because I was only…—from Reserve Mines. I remember them coming. Oh, what a time they had. Oh God, I should tell you this. (laughter)

They would come from Reserve Mines. And they had a guy, his name was Joe Boutilier. He’d be standing in the back of the truck. You know them old racks in the back of the truck, what do you call them? (Another male voice responds.) So anyway, this Joe Boutilier was standing on the back of the truck with his guitar, singing Wilf Carter songs. Do you remember all those songs that were popular back in the thirties? Wilf Carter had just came to the fore then, you know, real popular. And Jimmy Rogers? Not the young Jimmy Rogers, but Jimmy Rogers back in the thirties. And he’d be there singing those songs, you know. And then they’d have a game. They had this guy Smokey Joe Kelly. God Almighty, he was awful fast. Fast! I was scared to death he was going to kill somebody with one of those pitches. And this Mattie Lewis used to pitch so… My God, they did beat that team 1-0, the game I remember, 1-0. He was some pitcher, I tell you. I don’t know how they got him to run. But then after the game, they’d all go to… Simon Cremo played the fiddle, eh? Lee Cremo’s father. And then they’d put an old barn door on the ground and they’d be all crowding around this barn door. And this Joe… I don’t know this guy’s name…Denny, anyway, great step dancer. And there was a Frenchman somewhere from the French area, maybe River Bourgeois or Grand Manan or somewhere. Mattie knows his name. And they’d step around, boy, and try to outdo one another and Simon would be at his best. What a time, what a time. It was like heaven on earth.

TS:       They’d be step dancing?

WP:      They’d be step dancing and Simon would be playing the fiddle. And then after some of the other games, after the school was closed and the new one built — they moved the school over to just below where Bessie lived there — they’d crowd into that and they’d put on a bean supper for these guys who played, you know, cause it’d be late in the evening. They’d stay out until quite late in the evening. They’d have a dance or something like that after the bean supper and then they’d be off home. And this Joe Boutilier would be singing songs…What a great time. Step dancing and everything. Well, this guy, they called him Joe Down, he was some good now, for an Indian, you know.

TS:        Joe Down?

WP:      I don’t really know what his right name was, but they called him Joe Down. This is Sandy and Lee Cremo’s uncle. Lee could tell you about him, and probably his right name, too. Boy oh boy, he was good.

TS:        Did you do that often? Have those dances afterwards?

WP:      I’ve seen that once, couple of times I did see that. He just happened to be over. He was from Eskasoni, this Joe Down. He just happened to be over that day when the game was on, you know. And they’d all crowd over to Mattie Lewis’ there. I guess that was after the old fella was dead, but my godmother was still alive, I guess. Mattie’s mother, Harriet. What a time that was. The good old days, eh?

TS:        Did people bet on games, wager money?

WP:      They didn’t have any money to wager in those days.

TS;        They didn’t bet anything?

WP:      We’d pitch pennies like I told you, that’s probably all we had. Some of them probably did, yeah. Those with the money, but not very many of them.

TS:        How big were crowds? Would people come and watch these games? Big crowds or little crowds? Who would watch?

WP:      Oh God, yes. They wouldn’t be just watching games. It was a place to come. They wouldn’t be just watching the baseball game.

TS:       You mean it was a social thing?

WP:      Some of them would sit around playing cards in the hot sun, the good, beautiful summer day. Some of them would be playing checkers on the sidelines. And a lot of them would be watching the games.

TS:        So you had a pretty good crowd when you played?

WP:      Yeah. Oh God, yes, all kinds. Everybody was there. Everybody. Old people. How times have changed. And if there happened to be a dance, you know it was mostly square dances in them days, who would you see on the floor first?

TS:        The older people?

WP:      The older people. Eighty, ninety years old.

TS:        Square dancing.

WP:      Square dancing. Sure, bye

TS:        Where did you learn square dancing? On Chapel Island?

WP:      Me? I guess so, yeah. I’m not much of a square dancer. Not much of a dancer for that matter, but I tried. I would dance, but some people won’t get up at all, so I suppose you threaten to kill them if they wouldn’t get up.

TS:        But, did you dance Ko’jua too? Were you taught Ko’jua when you were young?

WP:      No, no. I’ll tell you what happened. If you went to Ko’jua, and I’m not sure, but I think this is the case. If you didn’t dance, you didn’t get nothing to eat. I think now, I’m not too sure about that, but seems to me that was the way it was. You had to earn it, you had to darn well get up and dance. And if you’re a kid, you know, if you see them doing it, like they are today, what’s a kid gonna do if he sees them dance? What’s the first thing he’s going to do? He’s going to get in there. Well, it was just the same thing.

TS:        So you did learn?

WP:      Well, I guess I did. I can’t dance good. The best one here is Checker, of the older ones. I’m somewhere there with them, but I’m not as good as them fellas. The best one I seen dancing that Ko’jua was that Peter Pa’tlik they call him, Peter Googoo, Nyanza. Oh God, he’s good. Just like he was in the air, up in the air, like he wasn’t touching the floor at all. My God, I never seen anybody like him in my life.

TS:       I went up there to see him, and he was sick. I was supposed to film him dancing …I think he got shy, so I said I’d just wait. I’ll see what happens if I can go with somebody he knows, or if…

WP:      Maybe if you got a few together.

TS:        Like who?

WP:      Like Checker. A few professionals. My God, that Vivian is good. My daughter’s good.

TS:        Vivian?

WP:      And then there is this other woman, the one we’re going to Quebec with. She’s good at that. But nobody here beats Peter Googoo, I don’t think. And then there was another fellow here, Stephen Francis. He was exactly the same. Those were two of the best I ever seen. There is something about that dance, you know?

TS:      The Ko’jua?  I know there is, I feel it.…

WP:      My God, those people are good.

TS:        Hopefully I’ll see him someday. I was very sad because I felt like he was very unusual

WP:      Somebody should film that fella before he dies. If you want a demonstration of Ko’jua, boy I’m telling you, he’ll give it to you. Cause he will

TS:        I don’t know how to approach him, now. I think he’s shy, you know…  Who to go with…

WP:      Take a bottle of wine with you…

TS:       Will that do it? (WP laughing) I felt like he’s getting old and it would be good to get him on film

WP:      I’m 65, so he’s 75. I only seen him dance once, but I said to myself when I seen him, boy this is the best I’ve ever seen. This was in Halifax, why the hell didn’t someone come and film him? Ask Peter Christmas if nobody filmed those get-togethers back in the seventies. One was held in Halifax at, was it Saint Mary’s University? Maybe Sarah Denny could tell you. That’s when I seen him dance, this Peter Googoo.

TS:        I’ll have to find somebody to go with me, another dancer, maybe someone who speaks Mi’kmaw. I was heartbroken not to…and I was all ready with my video camera, and he said he’d do it…

WP:      I could dance pretty good in my day. I’ve lost it all now, what little I had, but I’m no match for these guys, I’m going to tell you right now. I don’t think anybody is, not especially him.

TS:        I wondered where he learned.

WP:      God only knows. He’s like a butterfly, fast!

TS:        Somebody else described him… floating on the ground. When you read the history,          you read descriptions (of dancers) as though they floated on the ground. Old descriptions.

WP:      Yeah, the older people.

TS:        The old, old, like back in the 1700s

WP:      Well, he’s one of the prototypes, what do you call it, the old timers? He’s one of them, if there’s any.

TS:        If you think of a way…

WP:      Maybe if you could put on a …, ask Sarah.

TS:        Ask Sarah Denny to invite him

WP:     Ask Sarah to put something on, where a couple of the newer generation are to dance with a couple of the older generation. So you get Vivian, my daughter here…

TS:       Vivian Prosper?

WP:      Vivian Jeddore. She’s married to a Jeddore, Allen Jeddore. … Howard is Sandra’s husband…And, what’s PJ’s wife’s name Germaine Doucette. She’s another good one. And maybe some of Sarah’s gang there.

TS:        Do Vivian and Germaine dance with Sarah’s group, or just on their own?

WP:      Vivian used to. But you ask Sarah to get the best one of her group, and Vivian and Peter, and maybe this Checker here, Bill Bernard’s his name, everybody calls him Checker. Now who else is good? Stephen Francis, oh God he was good, that Stephen, but he’s gone

TS:       Do you think Peter Googoo would come here?

WP:      I don’t know. And maybe get somebody not so good, among them.

TS:        Like you? (Laughs)

WP:      Me? Yeah, sure. Why not?

TS:        I bet you’re a lot better than you’re telling me.

WP:      No, no, no, not any more. My knees buckle at the wrong time and everything, you know. I’m loaded with arthritis, oh God yes, I can barely get up sometimes

TS:       Is this to dance Ko’jua, or dance anything?

WP:      No, this is Ko’jua. That’s what Peter (inaudible) in, if that’s what you mean. I don’t know if he can dance the other thing, Neskawaqn. Neskawaqn tells a tale, there’s no distinctive words to it. But just the way it’s performed tells a tale.

TS:        Do you know of what?

WP:      I don’t really know, cause there’s no words to it. I’ko (he sings), what’s that mean? It means nothing. But just the way it’s performed, I guess that means something.

TS:        The body itself.

WP:      Some body language or the language of the air and the music or what. Why do they say that they put on a dance for the Chief when he was, after he was selected in 1918. And after it was all over, they went into the wigwam and they put on this feast dance. So, what they did meant something to fit the occasion. Certainly not the words. The gestures maybe, whatever, I don’t really know. Nobody seems to know that anymore, but it’s just the way they did it, I guess. If it was done for a marriage ceremony, it was done differently. Not much different, it’s probably the same song, but they probably did something a little different, or you know…

TS:        There’s one description where the Chief comes out and does a single step and a single chant and it says in this one description, it’s supposed to make him so he can’t be harmed by gunfire. They call that the War Medicine Dance, but they also call it Neskawet.

WP:      Neskawet means, ‘he’s singing’.

TS:       So, maybe the person writing it down got it wrong. (WP: Could be.) Then I always wondered if that’s what it was, protecting yourself from harm?

WP:      I don’t really know

TS:        I think the body movements are more interesting than the words.

WP:      Yeah, I think so. Cause there’s no words to these chants or songs or whatever they are, they’re singing. Not as far as I know, the way I heard them. There are a few songs with words in it, but you know, they’re more or less disparaging songs, they have something against somebody. If you want to put on a certain wish on somebody, you know. It sounds like that. But they’re not very long. There are not too many words, you know. Or if, let’s say, people eloped. There are eloping songs and then there are marriage songs.

TS:        That’s interesting. I’m trying to reconstruct from descriptions of early Mi’kmaw dance so that is why I am interested in looking at how the body changed…(WP: the body changed?) No, just the movement changed through time instead of…

WP:      Instead of words. (TS: Yeah)  It’s something like animals, I guess. Their rituals, eh? Their rituals are different, eh? I don’t really know. I’m not that familiar with it, but that’s what it seems like to me.

TS:        Well, you’ve given me a lot. You’ve given me even more than I’ve asked for.

WP:      I hope so

TS:        Well the dance is what I really love

(Break in tape)

WP:      …It’s full of bats?

TS:        Is that off Blomidon?

WP:      Maybe.  Charlie Francis is his name. He lives in Truro, not on a reserve. He told me about that place. Is it Blomidon?

TS:        Cape Split?

WP:      No, I don’t think that’s the one he meant.

TS:        Full of bats? Is it on the island or is it along the shore?

WP:      Full of bats. I don’t know where, I forgot now what he told. Somewhere handy to Shubie someplace.

TS:        I have one story about one off Blomidon…and it’s filled with bats. You have to go by boat along the coast. I wonder if that’s it.

WP:      Maybe that’s the one, I don’t know. He told me something about the place, a cave full of bats.  Maybe that’s the one, or maybe it’s a different one.

TS:        How old is Charlie Francis?

WP:      I’ll give you his phone number

TS:        Is it a Fairy cave full of bats?

WP:      T.W. Francis. That’s in Truro now. (WP reads out his number, which TS writes down.) He’s quite a man too, that Charlie Francis. You ought to see him. He sang in church for God knows how many years, that fella. Plays the organ, plays the piano, too. I think he plays the fiddle a little bit. And his sister, both of them sang in the church choir for years and years, both in Pictou and Shubenacadie. And she’s a very, very, very bright woman, his sister. Mary Brooks is her name.

TS:        Maybe he’ll be at Chapel Island.

WP:      I don’t know, I doubt it. They’re not very well now, you know, they’re getting up in years. Charlie, I think he’s starting to think about…

TS:        Going elsewhere.

WP:      I’m kind of getting there myself.

 (End of tape)