Abitakijikokwe
On January 26, 1801, at L'Annonciation in Oka, Father Leclercq baptized a Saulteaux woman from Lake Superior and wrote down who she was: her Anishinaabe name, Abitakijikokwe, and her nation and homeland — de la Nation Sauteuse sur le lac Supérieur.
What the 1801 Register Preserved
de la Nation Sauteuse sur le lac Supérieur
For many Indigenous women who married French-Canadian voyageurs in the parishes along the St. Lawrence, the registers kept only a single word: Sauvagesse. No name. No nation. No origin. Marie Josephte's own burial at Rigaud in 1813 calls her just that — Sauvagesse de nation. But in January 1801 she came to the Sulpician mission of L'Annonciation at Oka, where Algonquin, Nipissing and Mohawk families had their names written in the registers as a matter of course, and Father Leclercq wrote down the full identity of the woman standing before him.
That record preserved something genealogically priceless: both Marie Josephte's Anishinaabe name and her nation. For her descendants — including me — it opens a door to understanding who she was and where she came from.
Two Identities, One Woman
The 1801 record gives us two distinct pieces of information about Marie Josephte's Indigenous identity — each carrying its own meaning and significance.
Deliris López Tiwari, who has shared cultural context about Marie Josephte, explains that Abitakijikokwe was her primary Anishinaabe name — not a surname. The priests who baptized her followed a common colonial practice, giving her the baptismal name Marie Josephte and writing her own name after it as if it were a family name. In Anishinaabemowin the name breaks down this way:
Abitakijik — "Half-sky" or "Mid-sky," the position of the sun at midday
-okwe — "woman"
Her name is Mid-Sky Woman.
The Saulteaux (also called Saulteurs) were Ojibwe people associated with Sault Ste. Marie — Baawitigowininiwag in Ojibwe, meaning "People of the Rapids."
French explorers called them Saulteurs (from saut, meaning "leap" or "waterfall") because they lived at the 21-foot drop where Lake Superior flows into the St. Marys River.
This designation tells us she came from the Lake Superior Ojibwe — expert navigators and traders on the waterways of the upper Great Lakes.
The Algonquin lexicon of Jean-André Cuoq — the nineteenth-century Sulpician who documented the language of the Oka Mission community — shows how much the root kijik carried in the Algonquin spoken at Oka. Cuoq records two entries for KIJIK on page 159 of his 1886 Lexique de la Langue Algonquine, with a footnote that adds a third, the one that matches the reading of her name:
| Root | Cuoq's Definition | Significance |
|---|---|---|
| kijik (1) | jour, journée — day, the time the sun is above the horizon | Time: the full arc of the sun from horizon to horizon |
| kijik (2) | cèdre — cedar (Thuia occidentalis) | Tree: medicinal, sacred, the wood of the forest edge |
| kijik (3) | ciel, firmament, séjour des Bienheureux — sky, heaven | Cuoq's footnote: present specifically in the Sauteux and Ottawa dialects. Locative: kijikong — used to render "qui es in caelis" in the Pater Noster. Marie Josephte was Saulteux, and this is the sense in Mid-Sky Woman. |
| kij— (root) | chaleur — heat; perfection, ouvrage bien fini — completion; ripeness | Related root (Cuoq pp. 156–157): the solar field underlying all three kijik meanings — the heat of midday producing the ripe, completed day beneath the cedar and beneath the sky. |
| kije | grand (grandeur morale) — great, moral greatness | Related root: used in chiefly titles — Kije ininiwak = les Chefs de la Tribu; Kije ikwewak = les Cheffesses |
In her own Saulteaux speech, Cuoq's footnote and Deliris López Tiwari's reading agree: kijik in her name is the sky, and Abitakijik is the sky at its midpoint, where the sun stands at noon. The day and cedar senses Cuoq records belong to the same root in the Algonquin of the Oka community, and they show how much the word carried — but her name, as she would have heard it, is Mid-Sky Woman.
For a full exploration of the kijik naming tradition at Oka Mission and the 55 documented individuals who bore this root across five nations, see: A Name Written in Cedar and Sky: The Kijik Naming Tradition at Oka Mission, 1786–1913 →
The priests wrote her name with the ecclesiastical 8, a sign for the rounded "ou" or "w" sound in Algonquian languages: her baptism of 26 January 1801 reads Abitakijikok8e. Modern indexes render the 8 as 8, ou, v, w or 3, which is one reason her name stayed hidden for so long.
In the French-Canadian parishes where voyageur families settled, an Indigenous wife was often written only as "Sauvagesse" or "une femme sauvage." At the Oka mission, where the registers served Algonquin, Nipissing and Mohawk families, priests wrote Indigenous names as a matter of course. Marie Josephte's records follow that divide: the mission register at Oka gives her name, her nation, her age and her homeland, and the parish register at Rigaud buries her in 1813 as Sauvagesse de nation.
The 1801 Record at L'Annonciation
L'Annonciation d'Oka: Then & Now
The Saulteaux: People of the Rapids
Marie Josephte's tribal designation — de la Nation Sauteuse sur le lac Supérieur — connects her to one of the most strategically important Indigenous nations in the fur trade. The Saulteaux controlled the crucial waterways around Sault Ste. Marie, where Lake Superior's waters drop into the St. Marys River through turbulent rapids.
A 1755 map by Jacques Nicolas Bellin showing the Great Lakes region. Lake Superior (upper left) was the homeland of Marie Josephte's people, the Saulteaux — the "People of the Rapids" who controlled the strategic waterways of the fur trade.
The French called these Ojibwe people Saulteurs ("Leapers" or "Jumpers") because of their remarkable ability to navigate the dangerous rapids at Sault Ste. Marie. Standing in birchbark canoes, they would "jump" through the boiling water using long poles and dip nets to catch massive amounts of whitefish. They also served as "Rapids Pilots," guiding fur traders safely through the fast-moving water. This geographic and navigational expertise made them invaluable partners — and formidable negotiators — in the fur trade.
Why Her Name Matters
For descendants searching for Métis heritage or First Nations ancestry in the Pays d'en Haut, Marie Josephte Abitakijikokwe represents something profound: a named ancestor. In an era when Indigenous women were routinely reduced to a single word in the parish registers, her own Anishinaabe name was written down and survived.
Floral designs created by Ojibwe artists represent the flowers and plants found close to their woodland homes. This artistic tradition — carried through generations of Indigenous women like Marie Josephte — continues today as a living connection to Ojibwe culture.
Her name connects her descendants to their Indigenous heritage. It provides a direct linguistic link to Ojibwe culture and language. And it reminds us that behind every genealogical record is a real woman with a real name — one that carried meaning for her people long before colonial scribes tried to transcribe it.
A Tangible Connection
As part of my research into Marie Josephte, I searched for tangible connections to Ojibwe material culture. On eBay, I found two treasures: an antique Chippewa Ojibwe beaded velvet purse and a petite birch bark basket — objects created using techniques her ancestors perfected over generations. When I hold them, I'm connecting to the same artistic traditions she would have known.
My antique Chippewa Ojibwe beaded velvet purse and birch bark basket — tangible connections to my Ojibwe heritage through Marie Josephte Abitakijikokwe.
For Marie Josephte Abitakijikokwe
(c. 1760–1813)
Ojibwe woman of the Saulteaux Nation · Wife of Gabriel Guilbault · Mother of six children · My 4th-great-grandmother
Abitakijikokwe. Mid-Sky Woman. That's who she was. And now, after two centuries, her story is finally being told.
This Series · The Guilbault Line: At the Lake of Two Mountains
Part 1: Marriage à la façon du pays — The Unions That Built a Nation
Understanding the marriages between French fur traders and Indigenous women that created the Métis people — and where to find these families in the records.
Linguistic Source: Cuoq, Jean-André. Lexique de la Langue Algonquine. Montréal: J. Chapleau & Fils, 1886. Primary entries: KIJIK (p. 159): (1) jour, journée, le temps que le soleil est sur l'horizon; (2) cèdre (Thuia occidentalis); footnote 1: "Dans quelques dialectes, comme le Sauteux, l'Ottawa, KIJIK se prend aussi dans le sens de ciel, firmament, séjour des Bienheureux; et son locatif est kijikong." Related root: KIJ— (pp. 156–157): heat/warmth; perfection, completion; ripeness. KIJE (p. 158): grand, s'entend surtout de la grandeur morale.
Cultural Context: Deliris López Tiwari, messages via 23andMe and email to the author, 2026, on the meaning of Abitakijikokwe (Mid-Sky Woman) and its recording as a surname. Credited with permission.
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