Métis people (Canada)

Métis
Metis Blue.svg
Total population

307,845
1.04% of the Canadian population [1]
Regions with significant populations
Canada, United States
Languages
English, Métis French, Michif, Bungee
Religion
Predominantly Roman Catholic, Protestant [2]
Related ethnic groups
French, Cree, Ojibwa, Acadians, Cajuns, Scots, English

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 [3], IPA: [meˈtsɪs] in Quebec French, [meˈtis] in Standard French,[4] [mɪˈtʃɪf] in Michif, 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).[5]

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.

Contents

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.

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.

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 recent times, some believe that the European elements have taken prominence, as racial discrimination against the Métis population lead many to hide their ethnicity and assimilate into Canadian society.

In 1984 and 1985, a Judge issued two reports on child protection practices underminining the cultural integrity of Métis Peoples,[6] that led to changes in aboriginal child protection laws and practices in Canada.

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 the Patron Saint of Métis People, St. Joseph. 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 and 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 hearby recognized and affirmed.
    • (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, and until R. v. Powley in 2003, there was little development in such a definition. The case involved a claim by members of the Sault Ste. Marie community of northern Ontario, essentially dealing with asserted Métis hunting rights. The Supreme Court of Canada outlined three broad factors to identify Métis rights-holders:[7]

  • self-identification
  • ancestral connection to a historic Métis community
  • community acceptance

All three factors must be present to fit 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.[8] 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 a racial definition. Capital 'M' Métis refers to a particular sociocultural heritage and an ethnic self-identification that is not entirely racially based.[9] Some argue that people who identify as métis should not be included in the definition of 'Métis', and in fact, these people might not meet the legal test. Others have gone further and have suggested that only the descendents of the Red River Métis should be constitutionally recognised.[10] However, the effect of this limitation would see people such as the Labrador Métis excluded from the legal definition, and relegated to little 'm' métis status.

Prominent Métis

Historical individuals

Artists and writers

Politicians, activists, lawyers, and judges

Sportspeople

Others

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ [1] Statistics Canada, Census 2001 - Selected Ethnic Origins1, for Canada, Provinces and Territories - 20% Sample Data
  2. ↑ [2] (Statistics Canada, Census 2001 - Selected Demographic and Cultural Characteristics (105), Selected Ethnic Groups (100), Age Groups (6), Sex (3) and Single and Multiple Ethnic Origin Responses (3) for Population, for Canada, Provinces, Territories and Census Metropolitan Areas 1 , 2001 Census - 20% Sample Data)
  3. ↑ http://www.othermetis.net/Wlcm.html The Other Métis
  4. ↑ Petit Robert
  5. ↑ Howard, James H. 1965. The Plains-Ojibwa or Bungi: hunters and warriors of the Northern Prairies with special reference to the Turtle Mountain band. University of South Dakota Museum Anthropology Papers 1 (Lincoln, Nebraska: J. and L. Reprint Co., Reprints in Anthropology 7, 1977).
  6. ↑ They are known collectively as the Kimelman Report, see File Review Report, Report of the Review Committee on Indian and Métis Adoptions and Placements. Winnipeg (1984): Manitoba Community Services, and see Lawrence J. Barkwell, Lyle N. Longclaws & David N. Chartrand, Status of Métis Children within the Child Welfare System, http://www.brandonu.ca/Library/CJNS/9.1/metis.pdf, accessed 21 August 2008
  7. ↑ (2003), 230 D.L.R. (4th) 1, 308 N.R. 201, 2003 SCC 43 [Powley]
  8. ↑ . E. Foster, "The Metis: The People and the Term" (1978) 3 Prairie Forum 79 at 86-87.107
  9. ↑ J. Brown, "Metis" in the Canadian Encyclopedia, vol. 2 (Edmonton: Hurtig, 1985) at 1124.
  10. ↑ Paul L.A.H. Chartrand & John Giokas, "Defining 'the Métis People': The Hard Case of Canadian Aboriginal Law" in Paul L.A.H. Chartrand, ed., Who Are Canada's Aboriginal Peoples?: Recognition, Definition, and Jurisdiction (Saskatoon: Purich, 2002) 268 at 294
  11. ↑ Reasonable doubts may be raised about whether either of these events was a rebellion. For example, the actions considered rebellious in 1869 were undertaken by Riel as the leader of a government recognized by Canada as in legitimate control of territory that did not belong to Canada; Canada negotiated the Manitoba Act with this government. After these "rebellions", land speculators and other non-Métis effectively deprived the Métis of land by exploiting a government program for its purchase, with the government perhaps turning a blind eye. The province of Alberta distributed land to Métis in 1938 to correct what it believed to be an inequity, but Saskatchewan and Manitoba have not followed Alberta's lead.

see also Metis of Maine (http://metisofmaine.org)

Further reading

  • Barkwell, Lawrence J., Leah Dorion, and Audreen Hourie. Metis legacy Michif culture, heritage, and folkways. Metis legacy series, v. 2. Saskatoon: Gabriel Dumont Institute, 2006. ISBN 0920915809
  • Barkwell, Lawrence J., Leah Dorion and Darren Prefontaine. Metis Legacy: A Historiography and Annotated Bibliography. Winnipeg: Pemmican Publications Inc. and Saskatoon: Gabriel Dumont Institute, 2001. ISBN 1-894717-03-1
  • Chartrand, Larry N., Tricia E. Logan, and Judy D. Daniels. Métis History and Experience and Residential Schools in Canada. Aboriginal Healing Foundation research series. Ottawa: Aboriginal Healing Foundation, 2006. ISBN 1897285299
  • Delaronde, Deborah L. Metis Spirits. Winnipeg: Pemmican Publications, 2006. ISBN 1894717368
  • Douaud, Patrick C. The Western Métis Profile of a People. Canadian plains studies, 54. Regina: University of Regina, Canadian Plains Research Center, 2007. ISBN 9780889771994
  • Goulet, George R. D., and Terry Goulet. The Metis Memorable Events and Memorable Personalities. Calgary: FabJob, 2006. ISBN 1894638980
  • Jackson, John C. Children of the Fur Trade Forgotten Metis of the Pacific Northwest. Corvallis: Oregon State Univ Press, 2007. ISBN 0870711946
  • McNab, David, and Ute Lischke. The Long Journey of a Forgotten People Métis Identities and Family Histories. Waterloo, Ont: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2007. ISBN 9780889205239
  • National Aboriginal Health Organization. Métis Cookbook and Guide to Healthy Living. Ottawa, Ont: Métis Centre, National Aboriginal Health Organization, 2006. ISBN 0978078500
  • National Council of Welfare (Canada), and Michelle M. Mann. First Nations, Métis and Inuit Children and Youth Time to Act. National Council of Welfare reports, v. #127. Ottawa: National Council of Welfare, 2007. ISBN 9780662466406
  • Weinstein, John. Quiet Revolution West The Rebirth of Métis Nationalism. Calgary: Fifth House Publishers, 2007. ISBN 9781897252215

External links

Western Métis

Eastern Métis

Government of Canada

Other