Relatives quarrel over Ojibwa artist's remains

TORONTO - Norval Morrisseau was controversial as an artist, husband, father and friend during his 76-year lifespan, and he's proving to be just as controversial in death as a family feud has broken out over what to do with his remains.

The Ojibwa painter, who died Tuesday after a battle with Parkinson's disease, was expected to be cremated this weekend by a Toronto funeral home and his ashes subsequently "gifted" among various relatives.

But yesterday, four of Mr. Morrisseau's seven children paid a visit to the open casket and afterward, through a lawyer, announced that "plans, discussions about cremation ... have been put on hold."

In a brief interview, one of Mr. Morrisseau's sons, Christian, also an artist, said the "main purpose in our coming here today is to try to take [the artist's] remains back home for a proper, traditional, ceremonial burial."

Home, in this instance, is Keewayin in Northern Ontario where Mr. Morrisseau's estranged wife, Harriet Kakagemic, dead since 1995, is buried.

The intention not to cremate contravenes the wishes of Gabor Vadas, who for the past 20 years has functioned as Mr. Morrisseau's guardian, business manager and "adopted" (although not legally so) son, and of one of Mr. Morrisseau's younger brothers, 64-year-old Bernard of Thunder Bay, Ont.

It was Mr. Vadas who announced Mr. Morrisseau's death to the media this week and who, upon receipt of the coroner's report, arranged for the transfer of his body to the Toronto funeral home. In 1999, he and his wife, Michele, moved Mr. Morrisseau, a B.C. resident since late 1987, from White Rock to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island, the artist's primary residence in his declining years.

In a telephone interview last evening, Mr. Vadas declared that Mr. Morrisseau's "wish is to be cremated; that's what it was. ... His spirituality believes he needs to be cremated and that his body should be reduced to ashes so no spirits or nothing weird goes in there. In shaman practice, they put him on the pyre, they put all his stuff on and they burn it. So what's the dispute? I'm willing to share ashes with people but have people, for one, come by themselves to me instead of lawyering up."

"I am his son and I'm entitled to certain things," Mr. Vadas declared, complaining about "the bunch of really weird people traipsing in and out all day, taking photographs, in his casket. Please ... I wouldn't even dare to defile him that way."

Bernard Morrisseau, who flew into Toronto yesterday, said his brother told him years ago he wanted to be cremated and his ashes, except for a small portion placed in a memorial, "spread all over Lake Nipigon." That's near where the artist was born, the oldest of five brothers, to a family of trappers and hunters.

Mr. Morrisseau, known to his friends as Barney, also showed a witnessed legal document, signed by his older brother in Toronto in June, 1984, seemingly giving him power of attorney with rights extending beyond the artist's death. "I just want to put a stop to everything, to freeze everything," Mr. Morrisseau said, until he's spoken with a lawyer. He said he last saw his brother two years ago.

It's unclear whether the painter drafted a will before his death. Mr. Vadas would neither confirm nor deny its existence ("I don't know how far we can go with that"), only saying he had "documentation and my legal people."

Kimberly Murray, executive director for Aboriginal Legal Services of Toronto and the lawyer for the three brothers and one sister (David, Christian, Eugene and Victoria), said she couldn't "comment on that right now. ... We have no legal documentation. Whether there's a will, whether it's a valid will, we don't know."

It's known that the painter had very limited contact with his children for at least two decades - the four on hand yesterday only heard of his demise from media reports, according to one source - but there's disagreement as to how much of this was Mr. Morrisseau's volition.

Jim White, an "avid collector" of Morrisseau from Caledon, Ont., and an acquaintance of the artist's children, acknowledged outside the funeral home yesterday that the brothers and one sister "received nothing from their father" during his lifetime, "nothing for the artwork, nothing, nothing, nothing." At the same time, he said at least four of the children "have told me the same story," namely that the painter wished "to be buried next to his wife. ... I wasn't there. But they seem like pretty honest people to me."

How long the fate of Mr. Morrisseau's corpse will be contested remains unclear. "We've been advised that the body will be held until we can come to an agreement or a legal resolution," said Ms. Murray, who added neither she nor her clients had met with Mr. Vadas. "We haven't worked out any kind of agreement at this point. Right now the family just wants to get through today ... and then we'll see what steps we can do to have an agreement in place."

Said Mr. Vadas: "I am open to talks with anybody ... I always have been. But unfortunately, they weren't talking to me. Nobody asked me to come to a private room [After viewing their father's open casket, the Morrisseau siblings retired to a room in the funeral home for talks] and sit down and be civil with me."

Family and friends were expected to gather again at the funeral home last night for a traditional "smudging" (smoke) ceremony performed by a native elder.

JAMES ADAMS

From Saturday's Globe and Mail

December 8, 2007 at 12:32 AM EDT