The Métis people

Early Métis

Portrait of "Thunderhands" a Métis of Aboriginal and European/Canadian ancestry (Houle Family)

Early drawing of a Métis man and his two wives.

"The Métis are a group of mixed Aboriginal and European/Canadian ancestry who developed a culture separate from Aboriginal Peoples and Euro-Canadians."

The Métis are descendants of marriages of Cree, Ojibway, Algonquin, Saulteaux, and Menominee aboriginals to Europeans, and are one of three recognized Aboriginal peoples in Canada, along with the First Nations (Indians) and Inuit (Eskimo). Commonly pronounced /ˈmeɪtiː/ "MAY-tee" or "may-TEE" in English, IPA: [meˈtsɪs] in Quebec French, [meˈtis] in Standard French, they are also historically known as Bois Brûlé, mixed-bloods, or Countryborn (Anglo-Métis). Their homeland consists of the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec, as well as the Northwest Territories. The Métis Homeland also includes parts of the northern United States (specifically Montana, North Dakota, and northwest Minnesota).

Their history dates to the mid-seventeenth century. The Métis spoke or still speak either Métis French or a mixed language called Michif. Michif is a phonetic spelling of the Métis pronunciation of Métif, a variant of Métis. The Métis today predominantly speak English, with French a strong second language, as well as numerous Aboriginal tongues. Métis French is best preserved in Canada, Michif in the U.S., notably in the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation of North Dakota, where Michif is the official language. The encouragement and use of Métis French and Michif is growing due to outreach within the provincial Métis councils after at least a generation of decline.

The word Métis (the singular, plural and adjectival forms are the same) is French, and a cognate of the Spanish word mestizo. It carries the same connotation of "mixed race"; traced back far enough it stems from the Latin word mixtus, the past participle of the verb "to mix".

Countless Métis over time are thought to have been absorbed and assimilated into the surrounding populations making Métis heritage (and thereby aboriginal ancestry) more common than sometimes realized. Recent research and DNA analysis has often shown forgotten aboriginal lineages in many people of French Canadian and Acadian descent.
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Métis culture

Métis culture is a mixture of cultures of the First Nations and French Canada. The Métis are known for fiddle playing, but traditional Métis instruments also include the concertina, the harmonica, and the hand drum. Fiddle is often accompanied by a form of dancing referred to as jigging. Traditionally, dancing included such moves as the Waltz Quadrille, the Square dance, Drops of Brandy, the Duck, La Double Gigue and the Red River Jig.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (The RCMP) Musical Ride may have been inspired by the Métis practice of exercising their horses to the music of the jig and square dance.

In the evenings after buffalo hunts, the Métis exercised their horses to music in the fashion of a square dance while the fiddler played quadrilles (a square dance still performed by Métis dancers). Their skilled horsemanship was easily adapted for bronc busting, calf roping and range riding, skills put to use in the development of ranches in the west.



Fiddler "Teddy Boy" Houle, (explaining the red sash to school children)

As Métis culture developed, a new language called Michif emerged. This language was a result of the combining of French nouns and Cree verbs. Though a distinct language, it is now spoken by only about 1,000.

CLOTHING




Of the clothing worn by Métis in the 19th century, the sash or ceinture fléchée is probably the most common today. It is traditionally roughly three metres in length and is made of finger-woven yarn. The sash is worn around the waist, tied in the middle, with the fringed ends hanging. Vests with characteristic Métis figurative beadwork are also popular. The Red River Coat is historically recognized as coming from the Métis culture.




The Métis figured prominently in the history of Canada, having been very valuable and indispensable fur traders, voyageurs (coureur des bois), frontiersmen, pioneers, and middlemen who communicated between the First Nations peoples and the European settlers and colonialists. Well known for their tracking, guiding, and interpretive skills, Métis were often employed by the North-West Mounted Police, as they are today by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Their large early contribution to Canada's evolution and formation as a nation has often been underestimated or downplayed by historians.

Métis people took traditions from both of their parents and developed a culture of their own.

In 1984 and 1985, a judge issued two reports on child protection practices that paradoxically undermined the cultural integrity of Métis peoples. These were known collectively as the Kimelman Report., The study led to changes in aboriginal child protection laws and practices in Canada to help preserve the family unit and culture of the Métis.

Métis spirituality

A common misconception is that the Métis practised only the religion of their fathers (Catholicism or Protestantism). However, the spiritual mixture of the Métis is in actuality as complex as the people who make up the nation.

Early on, Métis children absorbed the teachings of both their parents. Those teachings were made up of the father's religious background and the traditional teachings of the First Nation of the mother. Métis children thereby learned to live in both the Aboriginal and European worlds, encompassing both in their spirituality.

Today Métis practise many forms of religion, from mainline Christianity to New Age concepts and everything in between. From their Catholicism they have St. Joseph, the Patron Saint of Métis people. From their Aboriginal relatives, they incorporate the sweat lodge, medicine wheel, sacred pipe, and long house ceremonies, as well as many other Aboriginal spiritual beliefs. It is very common to encounter a prayer and a smudge at the opening and closing of meetings of Métis people.

Many Métis peoples, as with other Aboriginal communities, have lost their spiritual connections to the past because of marginalization, poverty, and decimation of their communities and their way of life. However, in modern times, renewal of spirituality occurs among many Métis.

Métis Identity

Legal definition

There is substantial controversy and disagreement over who exactly is Métis. Unlike First Nations people, there is no distinction between status and non-status Métis. The legal definition itself is not yet fully developed. S.35 of the Constitution Act, 1982 makes mention of the Métis stating:

* 35(1) The existing aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal people of Canada are hereby recognized and affirmed.
o (2) In this Act, "aboriginal peoples of Canada" includes the Indian, Inuit and Métis peoples of Canada.

However, s.35(2) does not provide a definition of who is Métis. Until R. v. Powley (2003), there was little development in such a definition. The case involved a claim by members of the Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario community asserting Métis hunting rights. The Supreme Court of Canada outlined three broad factors to identify Métis rights-holders:

* self-identification;
* ancestral connection to a historic Métis community; and
* community acceptance.

All three factors must be present for an individual to qualify under the legal definition of Métis, but there is still ambiguity. Questions about what constitutes a historic Métis community and what is sufficient proof of an ancestral connection (there is no blood quantum requirement) have not yet been answered by the courts.

Lower case 'm' métis versus upper case 'M' in Métis

The term Métis was originally used to refer to French- and Cree-speaking descendents of the French Catholic Red River Métis. Descendents of English or Scottish and natives were historically called 'half-breeds' or 'country born' and lived a more agrarian and Protestant lifestyle. However, the term eventually evolved to refer to all 'half-breeds', whether linked to the historic Red River Métis or not.

Lower case 'm' métis refers to those who are of mixed native and other ancestry, and is essentially an ethnic definition. Capital 'M' Métis refers to a particular sociocultural heritage and an ethnic self-identification that is not entirely racially based. Some argue that people who identify as métis should not be included in the definition of 'Métis'. In fact, not all such people might meet the legal test. Others have gone further and have suggested that only the descendents of the Red River Métis should be constitutionally recognised. However, the effect of this limitation would mean that people such as the Labrador Métis would be excluded from the legal definition and relegated to little 'm' métis status.