Poundmaker

Pîhtokahanapiwiyin
Cree headman
Chief Poundmaker (1885)
Born	Pîhtokahanapiwiyin 1842 (1842) near Battleford, Rupert's Land
Died	4 July 1886 (aged 43–44) Blackfoot Crossing, Alberta, North-West Territories, Canada
Father	Sikakwayan

Pîhtokahanapiwiyin (c. 1842 – 4 July 1886), better known as chief Poundmaker, was a Plains Cree chief known as a peacemaker and defender of his people.

According to Cree tradition, or oral history, Pîhtokahanapiwiyin, known to English speakers as Chief Poundmaker, inherited his name from his grandfather who had a special ability to attract buffalo into pounds; however, another source states that the name was awarded to him because of his own skill with the use of these pounds (and does not relate to his ancestry). A buffalo pound resembled a huge corral with walls covered by the leaves of thick bushes. Usually herds of buffalo were stampeded into this trap, or on other occasions, the buffalo were drawn in by a person like Pîhtokahanapiwiyin, who was according to tradition, gifted by spirit helpers to use a special song to lure in the buffalo. As he sang, he used a drum. The song enticed the lead buffalo cow to bring her herd into the enclosure.

Poundmaker was born in Rupert's Land, near present-day Battleford; the child of Sikakwayan, an Assiniboine medicine man, and a mixed-blood Cree woman, the sister of Chief Mistawasis. Following the death of his parents, Poundmaker, his brother Yellow Mud Blanket, and his younger sister, were all raised by their mother's Cree community, led by Chief Wuttunee, but later known as the Red Pheasant Band. In his adult life, Poundmaker gained prominence during the 1876 negotiations of Treaty 6 and split off to form his own band. In 1881, the band settled on a reserve about 40 km northwest of Fort Battleford. Poundmaker was not opposed of the idea of a treaty, but became critical of the Canadian government's failures to live up to its promises.

In 1873, Crowfoot, chief of the Blackfoot First Nation, had adopted Poundmaker thereby increasing the latter’s influence. This move also cemented the ties between the Blackfoot and the Cree, which successfully stopped the struggling over the now very scarce buffalo.