The War Chief’s Wife
at the Mission du Lac-des-Deux-Montagnes, 1786–1805
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 nineteen years she surfaces in eight more records — as godmother, as mother, and finally as a witness at her own daughter’s wedding in 1805. Across those records, priests rendered her name in at least ten 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.
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.
Jean-Guy Paquin’s genealogical fiche for Bernard Wabisi at weskarini.ca lists the mother as “Geneviève ABITAKIJIKOKWE, KIZIKWE.” Her death date is blank. The last confirmed record of her alive is August 28, 1805 — present in person at her daughter Marie Angélique’s wedding. Where and when Geneviève died remains an open question.
Three Names, One Woman
Geneviève appears under three distinct name systems across nine 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 1805. 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. Seven different spellings across seven records, two different priests (Lebrun and Malard), 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 Abitakijikoke
Original register, Oka, October 20, 1803. Priest: Malard. Terminal -8e dropped. No PRDH for this record.
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 two records separated by eighteen years, both identifying her as a mother.
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. Direct manuscript examination required to resolve.
Geneviève Nizik8e
Original register + Cadieux transcription, p. 345. Priest: Malard. Bride: Marie Angélique Abitakijikokke. N-/K- consonant shift (cf. Catherine Messinabikwe M-/N-).
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 1805. 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 ten spelling variants across three name systems — is available in the full methodology.
Full Methodology The Guilbault Line