Whether it’s Shaolin monks flying through the air, Japanese karate masters spinning out roundhouse kicks, or action ace Jackie Chan doing his own impressive stunts onscreen, in the minds of most people, the martial arts conjure images of Asia. With the notable exception of the ’70s TV western Kung Fu, starring David Carradine as Kwai Chang Caine dispensing spiritual wisdom and fighting for justice in the Old West, the confluence of cowboys and martial arts is seemingly rare and remote. How much less anything Native or First Nations?
Most people’s exposure to Indigenous warfare and fighting techniques comes in all probability from movies such as Last of the Mohicans or Dances With Wolves. One man, however, is changing all that.
For more than 40 years, Okimakahn Chief George J. Lepine has been researching, redeveloping, and teaching the only achievement-based Indigenous martial art in Canada. Welcome to okichitaw.
Growing up around Winnipeg in southern Manitoba, immersed in the tales and traditions of his Plains Cree, Assiniboine, and Métis heritage, Lepine developed a keen interest in the combat arts of his people at the impressionable age of 12. He likes to tell a story about an experience from his boyhood that gave birth to this passion and set him on the life path of a martial artist.
“I still recall an experience doesn’t it, Georgie?’ He obviously saw the puzzled look on my face. So, he crouched down, placed the driftwood on the sand, and used a twig to trace lines around the wood. He started to tell me about this Native weapon and how it visually resembled a rifle stock. He said that it was common to see our ancestors with it, sometimes in ceremony or dancing, but it was primarily used in war. He explained that the weapon was usually dressed or personalized in some way, pointing out where this would be done on the weapon. I still recall him tracing where the spike would have been installed on the outside elbow and showing me where we would place brass tacks along the handle. He said the full name of the weapon in Plains Cree was — the gunstock war club. He continued to explain the angles and parts of the , how the weapon was made, what kind of wood we used, how we added the metal spike, and the different ways it could be used to strike.”
