The War Chief’s Wife
at the Mission du Lac-des-Deux-Montagnes, 1786–1824
The War Chief’s Wife
Geneviève first appears in the Oka mission registers on May 27, 1786, standing as godmother at the baptism of a baby girl. Over the following thirty-eight years she surfaces in ten more records — as godmother, as mother, as a witness at her own daughter’s wedding in 1805, and finally in her own burial record in February 1824. Across those records, priests rendered her name in at least eleven different spellings belonging to three distinct name systems that no search algorithm or published index connects to each other.
Kitchiwabisi — recorded variously as 8abizi le grand, Kitchi Wabizi, and the Great 8abissi — was an Algonquin war chief at Oka. The prefix Kitchi means “Great.” He died in the hunting lands approximately twenty-two to twenty-six days before his burial at Oka on April 21, 1794, at roughly forty-three years of age. Geneviève outlived him by thirty years.
By 1796, two years after her husband’s death, Geneviève had a son named Joseph with a man called Simon Na8ak8eskam. The priest recorded Joseph as fils naturel — born outside a church marriage. Significantly, the woman chosen as Joseph’s godmother was Agathe Ita8abik8e — the same woman whose child Geneviève had stood for as godmother in 1786. That reciprocal sponsorship documents a sustained relationship between the two families over at least a decade. Nine years after Joseph’s birth, in August 1805, Geneviève was still at Oka, standing at Marie Angélique’s wedding and declaring she could not sign. She would remain at Oka for nineteen more years.
Jean-Guy Paquin’s genealogical fiche for Bernard Wabisi at weskarini.ca lists the mother as “Geneviève ABITAKIJIKOKWE, KIZIKWE” with no death date. That blank is now filled. Geneviève died February 23, 1824, at Oka, aged 72, and was buried February 25, 1824 — recorded by Malard as Genevieve Ninzikwe Algonquine. She outlived her husband Kitchiwabisi by thirty years. She died the same year as her son Bernard Wabisi, seven months before his September burial. Both died at Oka; both were recorded by the same priest who had documented their family for decades. The span of her documented life at the Oka mission: thirty-eight years, 1786 to 1824, across eleven records.
Three Names, One Woman
Geneviève appears under three distinct name systems across eleven records at the Oka mission. The first and most frequent is the Abitakijik- family name shared with other documented individuals. The second is a personal name first recorded in 1787 and last in 1824. Connecting these names to a single individual requires tracing spousal identifications, parental roles, and the timing of events that only one woman could have experienced.
The name under which she was most frequently recorded — as godmother, as mother, as wife of Kitchiwabisi. Nine different spellings across nine records, three different priests (Lebrun, Malard, and Leclercq), spanning 1786 to 1803.
Geneviève Abitakijig8k8e
Original register + Cadieux transcription, Vol. 2, p. 6. Priest: Lebrun. First documented appearance.
Geneviève Abitakijig8ek8e
Original register + Cadieux transcription. Priest: Lebrun.
Geneviève Ontakijikok8e / Kontakijikok8e
Original register. Pouliot-Thisdale pp. 282, 293. Father: “the Great 8abissi.”
Geneviève Ostakijikok8e
Pouliot-Thisdale p. 295. Priest: Lebrun. O- initial variant.
Geneviève Abitakijikok8e
Original register + Cadieux transcription, C-2895 Image 625, p. 160. Priest: Malard. Father: Simon Na8ak8eskam. Godfather: Joseph Kakigik8ang. Godmother: Agathe Ita8abik8e (reciprocal sponsor — see 1786).
Geneviève Abitakigikok8e
Original register: Abitakigikok8e — unique -kigi- variant. Cadieux transcription, p. 322, C-2895 Image 789: Abitakigikokse. Priest: Malard. Joseph Mathieu, 8ga8 Outaois, age ~14. Godfather: Joseph Minjotté, whose daughter Marie Susanne Kiakigikokwe had been buried three days earlier on the same register leaf. Twenty-nine days before Thérèse’s burial below.
Geneviève Abitakijikoke (original) / Abitakigikokse (Cadieux p. 322)
Original register + Cadieux transcription, p. 322, C-2895 Image 789. Priest: Leclercq (LECLERO in Cadieux) — different priest from the Joseph Mathieu baptism (Malard) on the same register leaf. Terminal -8e dropped in original; Cadieux renders same -kigi-/-se form as the September entry above. No PRDH for this burial.
A different name entirely — shorter root, no Abita- prefix. Pouliot-Thisdale notes this name at p. 148 as a variant system for the same woman. Documented in three records — 1787, 1805, and 1824 — all identifying her as mother or as herself, the last being her burial.
Kijig8k8e: Kijikokwe (Pouliot-Thisdale, 2015 — superseded: original register confirms abita kijig8k8e; PT read only the second component)
abitakijig8k8e (Cadieux, 1938 — same manuscript)
Father: Kitchi Wabizi. Priest: Guichard. Two transcribers read the mother’s name differently from the same original register. Original manuscript confirmed: abita kijig8k8e (space between components). Cadieux reading confirmed.
Geneviève Nizik8e
Original register + Cadieux transcription, p. 345. Priest: Malard. Bride: Marie Angélique Abitakijikokke. N-/K- consonant shift (cf. Catherine Messinabikwe M-/N-).
Geneviève Ninzikwe
Original register + Cadieux transcription, p. 561, C-2896 Image 48 — both agree. Priest: Malard. Died February 23, 1824, aged 72 (birth c. 1752). Witnesses: Augustin Kiwanaki and Jacques Michel Kiwechkam. Identified as Algonquine. Ninzikwe = Nizik8e with minor -n- insertion; same System 2 root, same priest, nineteen years later. Q-5 resolved.
No linguistic analysis links these names on paper. What links them is the woman behind them: the same Christian name (Geneviève), the same husband (Kitchiwabisi / 8abizi le grand / the Great 8abissi), the same children (Marie Jeanne, Thérèse, Marie Angélique), and a continuous presence at the same small mission from 1786 to 1824. The identification is built on life events, not spelling. Pouliot-Thisdale, who worked directly from the original registers, explicitly characterizes many of these variant spellings as “misspellings” — confirming that the orthographic divergence reflects scribal inconsistency, not separate identities.
The Abitakijik Connection
Marie Josette Abitakijikokwe — identified in her 1801 marriage record as Saulteux (Ojibwe) — married the French-Canadian fur trader Gabriel Guilbault at Oka. Her story is documented in Abitakijikokwe — The Woman Behind the Name.
Both women carried the Abitakijik- name. Both were at Oka during the same period. And the family network runs deeper still: in 1786, Geneviève served as godmother at the baptism of a baby girl whose father was Joseph KakijikBaham (Kakijikouaham). The Kakijik- root of the father’s name is the same root embedded in Abitakijikokwe — suggesting that Geneviève and the baby’s father were part of the same extended kin group, and that this child was being welcomed into the community by her own kinswoman. The baby’s mother was Agathé Ita8abik8e. Ten years later, in 1796, Agathé Ita8abik8e served as the godmother of Geneviève’s own son Joseph — a reciprocal godparent relationship documented across a decade, and a further thread in a web of kinship that extended through the Oka mission community.
The exact relationship between Geneviève and Marie Josette — sisters? mother and daughter? aunt and niece? — has not been determined. Resolving this kinship question is the next phase of research, and it is central to understanding how the researcher's direct ancestral line connects to the family of an Algonquin war chief.
The document-by-document analysis behind this case study — including original manuscript images, Cadieux transcriptions, Pouliot-Thisdale index references, and linguistic notes on all eleven spelling variants across three name systems — is available in the full methodology.
Full Methodology Companion Narrative Essay