CALGARY – A fireball once streaked through the sky near the small town of Hardisty, Alta., leaving a marvel of pitted iron embedded in the earth.

It was known by several names: Pahpamiyhaw asiniy, the Manitou Stone, the Stone God. Scientists used its more sterile classification, the Iron Creek meteorite, a 320-pound rock believed to hold great power by the indigenous tribes of northern Alberta.

Records describe offerings of ancient beads and prayers for power, good hunting and victory in war. Seeing the stone venerated, missionaries in the 19th century spirited it away to a local mission, eventually moving the sacred object to Ontario. Although it was returned to the stewardship of the Royal Alberta Museum in the early ’70s, at least one First Nations college is calling for the Manitou Stone to be repatriated to native soil.

Turned to the correct angle, the stone reveals the profile of a man’s face, believed by some native groups to resemble that of the creator. A missionary who wrote about the stone in his mid-19th century diary described it as being made of the purest iron and “sonorous as an anvil.” No travelling tribes in the vicinity would pass the Manitou Stone without paying homage.

When it was stolen in 1866, medicine men warned of pestilence, war, and the death of the buffalo, which had sustained nomadic tribes on the plain since time immemorial.

Within months, two of the prophecies came to pass. The Cree and the Blackfoot warred with a ferocity that had rarely been seen, smallpox blighted native people. The buffalo were eventually wiped out.

Vincent Steinhauer, the president of Blue Quill First Nations College in St. Paul, Alta., said the stone should be cared for by aboriginals once again.


“The prophecy goes that if that rock was ever to disappear then we would experience famine, pestilence, diseases and basically death,” told told the CBC. “Ever since that rock was taken in the late 1800s that’s basically what has happened to our people.”

Mr. Steinhauer would like to see the stone returned to a ceremonial lodge under construction at his school.

Chris Robinson, the executive director of the Royal Alberta Museum in Edmonton, said the province has a long history of returning to First Nations groups those items that hold a sacred or ceremonial significance.

The 4.5-billion-year-old meteor has been held in trust by the museum, he said: Anyone wishing to visit the stone for spiritual reasons can enter the museum free of charge. Mr. Robinson said the RAM has plans to expand its facilities and hopes to house the Manitou Stone in its own area, where First Nations groups can better visit and conduct ceremonies.

That is, unless the tribes decide they would rather house the meteor elsewhere.

The stone doesn’t belong to any one group, he said.

In 2002 and 2004, the museum consulted with dozens of First Nations groups about the meteor’s future.

“There was a thought that maybe a facility could be built to house it, but there was no resolution as to who would build the facility, staff it with security and all that stuff. And in the absence of a clear direction of what would happen, there was an understanding that the museum would display it and we would be responsible for its stewardship.”


At the time, all the elders asked of the museum was that no one profits by the stone.

“One thing the elders in consultations were very clear about was that the stone belongs to all First Nations, not to one. That’s why there’s been no resolution about who we would return it to,” he said.

The elders also asked that the stone should not be moved unnecessarily.

“They were cautious that it should not be moved from site to site,” he said.

The museum also consulted officials at the Canadian Space Agency, who agreed the meteor should be on display. They requested, however, that no invasive testing be carried out on the rock.

Mr. Robinson said, the stone holds a special place at the museum.

“It crosses geological and scientific interest into cultural and historic interest as well,” he said.
SOURCE  National Post