Kay Ge Gay Aush Eak 'Martha Smith"

Kay-Ge-Gay-Aush-Eak was a Chippewa woman of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe (Ojibwe), possibly the Leech Lake Pillager Chippewa band (uncertain)
(Curator Note: Kay-ke-gay-aush-eak is NOT the same person as Kay Gway Dah Se Gaik who was also Chippewa from the Leech Lake band at the same time and place.)

The Minnesota Chippewa Tribe is the centralized governmental authority for six Ojibwe bands in Minnesota (the seal shown is for the Minnesota tribe and not for the specific band from which Kay-Ge-Gay-Aush-Eak comes, which remains unknown at this time).

• Bois Forte Band of Chippewa
• Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa
• Grand Portage Band of Chippewa
• Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe
• Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe
• White Earth Band of Ojibwe

Biography:

"In the stifling august heat, Martha Smith (Kay-ge-gay-aush-oak), an epileptic Chippewa woman, lay on a mattress soiled by sweat, urine, and feces, restlessly kicking off her bedclothes and her nightdress. She slapped helplessly at the blowflies buzzing over her body. they were laying eggs...
In a few days, the blowfly eggs hatched on Martha's bed. Wiggling maggots crawled across the excreta smeared on her flesh, digging deep into the sheets under her body as they followed their instinct to burrow and pupate into adults. The stench of decay clung to her bed, soaked into her flesh, and sweated back out as she continued to lie, unwashed, in her feces. Dr, Hummer pointed her out to his new assistant physician (Dr. L.M. Hardin) as a "filthy" patient...
He (Dr. Hardin) was particularly enraged by Martha Smith's condition. Hummer had pointed to her as a "filthy" patient when Hardin made his first rounds on August 18; she had been lying in her feces then, When he began making rounds on the twenty-seventh, he found the Chippewa woman still lying in excrement, but now with maggots crawling through it...
Hardin called a female attendant, and together, they cleaned and bathed the young woman as he spoke to her in her own language. Though he felt the attendants shared the blame for Smith's condition, hardin put the responsibility for the situation squarely on Hummer's shoulders, particularly since the attendants had noted Smith's condition in their daily reports and the matron should have spotted it during her rounds - which Hardin knew Hummer didn't require her to make...
Hardin and 12 employees swore out nineteen charges against Hummer and his wife...within a day or two, Hardin read a brief dispatch emanating from Washington - laying most of the blame for the asylum's problems on him...someone in Washington hadn't played fair...but the publication of Hardin's charges made an investigation inevitable...supervisor of Indian schools, Charles L. Davis, arrived at the asylum...the preponderance of evidence suggests that Hardin was in the right...(Almost) all his other charges were substantiated, and discovering Smith's condition seems to have been a precipitating factor in his calling for an investigation. It quickly became apparent to Davis, that many of the charges Hardin and the employees made, were founded in solid fact...Other problems were laid squarely on Hummer's shoulders. Davis found him absolutely guilty of allowing his wife to perform unsatisfactorily, neglecting Martha Smith(*), stinting the patients of clothing, and needlessly locking up some nonviolent patients...

• Smith apparently resisted any attempts to get her out of bed and fought her attendants ferociously at times. In an affidavit, the attendant who helped Hardin said that she couldn't handle Smith by herself, and Hummer wouldn't give her the assistance she needed. Hardin himself said that he had to take Smith to the bathroom "with some force" in order to clean her up.
  

Source: Joinson, Carla. Vanished in Hiawatha: The Story of the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians. University of Nebraska Press, 2016, pg. 101-113 extracted

According to Carla Joinson in her book Vanished in Hiawatha, was admitted to the Canton Asylum on May 5, 1903 (or December 1908) (during the tenure of Oscar Gifford as superintendent) and was diagnosed with congenital imbecility (Congenital imbecility is a term that refers to arrested brain development before birth or in childhood), revised in 1910 to imbecility with epilepsy (According to Jackson in 1875, epilepsy could cause insanity, including a form of mental disorder called "persistent deterioration" or imbecility. This form of mental disorder could occur after months or years of repeated seizures.)

In the letter dated February 17, 1934, to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Dr. L. Culp advises that Martha arrived from Leech Lake, Minnesota, died at the asylum on March 12, 1913, and was buried in the Canton Hiawatha Cemetery in tier 5 plot 20.

Her profile is part of the The Canton Asylum One Place Study.

Research Notes:
-Dr. Culp says Martha was a Minnesota Chippewa, but does not identify the specific band, in his February 17, 1934 letter.
-Joinson identifies Martha Smith only as Chippewa with no mention of the band.
-I suspect given the way names layout among the 6 tribes, that Martha, or Kay-Ge-Gay-Aush-Eak, was of the Leech Lake Pillager Chippewa band (uncertain), as I find NO name spelled like this in the census reports for 1902, the year before her admission to the Canton Asylum. (Note: The Red Lake Chippewa also have very similar names with a heavy use of eke and oke as the last syllable.)
__________
Sources:

1910 Jul 2 - “Indian Census Rolls, 1885-1940 [Microform].” Internet Archive, Washington : National Archives and Records Service, 1965, https://archive.org/details/indiancensusroll015unit/page/n502/mode/.... Accessed 29 Feb. 2024, pg. 502/519, line 42 (age 18), female census of the Canton Asylum, Canton, S. Dak.

1910 Oct 12 - Camp Verde School: 1910-27; Canton Insane Asylum: 1910-22, Series: Superintendents' Annual Narrative and Statistical Reports, Record Group 75: Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, 7th and Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC, 20408 @ https://catalog.archives.gov/id/155854182?objectPage=674, line 14, Table 7 Form of mental disease of those admitted since opening of Asylum

1910 Oct 12 - Camp Verde School: 1910-27; Canton Insane Asylum: 1910-22, Series: Superintendents' Annual Narrative and Statistical Reports, Record Group 75: Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, 7th and Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC, 20408 @ https://catalog.archives.gov/id/155854182?objectPage=677, line 6, Table 8 Form of mental disease of those in Asylum, June 30, 1910, revised

1911 Jul 3 - “Indian Census Rolls, 1885-1940 [Microform].” Internet Archive, Washington : National Archives and Records Service, 1965, https://archive.org/details/indiancensusroll015unit/page/n503/mode/.... Accessed 29 Feb. 2024, pg. 504/519, line 24 (age 19), female census of the Canton Asylum, Canton, S. Dak.

1913 Mar 12 - "South Dakota, Grave Registration Records, 1940-1941." Database. FamilySearch. https://FamilySearch.org : 27 December 2023. United States, Work Projects Administration, Grave Registration Survey, South Dakota. Entry for Martha Smit

Name Martha Smit
Sex Female
Age 21 years
Birth Year (Estimated) 1892
Death Date 12 March 1913
Event Type Burial
Event Place Presho, Lyman, South Dakota, United States
Cemetery Indian Asylum

1913 Mar 12 - Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/14491709/kay_ge_gah-aush_eak: accessed May 24, 2024), memorial page for Kay Ge Gah Aush Eak (1892–12 Mar 1913), Find a Grave Memorial ID 14491709, citing Hiawatha Asylum Cemetery, Canton, Lincoln County, South Dakota, USA; Maintained by Graveaddiction (contributor 46528400).

1913 Mar 12 - Hilton, M. (Ed.). (2023, July 10). Hiawatha Asylum for Insane Indians Historical Marker. Historical Marker. https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=183486 Photo by Ruth VanSteenwyk, July 10, 2023, courtesy of HMdb.org

Magwon 3-23-12 · Kay-Ge-Gay-Aush-Eak 3-12-13 · Kay-Zhe-Ah-Bow 6-22-12