The
culture of the
Métis
is as unique and defined as any other in the world. As with other
societies, the
Métis adapted and borrowed from
others over a period of time until a distinct
culture was developed.
But
Métis
culture is truly a grassroots North American phenomenon in that it
was born and grew up in this country.
Our
culture is best demonstrated in terms of everyday activities.
Time was divided between work and survival, and pleasure and
entertainment. Because we were not Native and not European, we
called ourselves in Cree, "Otipemisiwak" The Free People.
We were an adventurous and nomadic people happy to travel to new
regions and discover new customs. The
Métis borrowed, adopted and adapted
many things from both their European (mainly French and Scottish)
fathers and their First Nation mothers. This was evident
particularly in our work, our food, language, music and
dance, and even our style of clothing.
During the fur trade years, the French and Scottish Métis who
remained at forts such as Cumberland House, Fort Edmonton,
Fort Garry, Ile a la Crosse, Fort Chipewyan, and married local women, introduced different
aspects of their culture and this still is evident today in terms of
language and cultural activities.
Work, Travel
and Survival
Work
was never easy for anyone in the early days of this country,
particularly in the wilds of the northwest. Consider the long
journeys in search of food and adequate shelter, the arduous
tasks performed by entire families during the buffalo hunts,
and the painstaking labor involved with the fur trade. It
makes our present lifestyle seem rather soft in comparison.
The
Métis way
of life was nomadic, not unlike our First Nations cousins. The
significant difference however, was that we were able to utilize not
only the Native modes of transportation, but also aspects of
European travel as well. The Red River Cart is a perfect
example of this. Where the Native people used a Travois
made from two poles hitched to dogs and later horses, the Métis used
the Red River Cart.
A typical Red River Cart
Built from local southern Manitoba
oak, and without the use of any metal fasteners, they were held
together with buffalo rawhide, or Babiche. The carts
were heavy, built for carrying several hundred pounds of dried
buffalo meat and hides, and could easily be floated across rivers
and creeks. They were usually pulled by oxen. Horses were
reserved for the hunt. The Métis prized their buffalo running
horses, and they were rarely used as draft animals. Grease was
not used on the wheels of the Red River carts because the dust that
would be picked up would wear the axles in just a few miles. So the
sound of the cart wheels could be heard for miles. Imagine
standing on the prairie in the 1860's and hearing a brigade of Red
River carts approaching, squealing and groaning through the dust of
the plains.
To
the north, the fur trade was an equally difficult way to make a
living. Imagine the long days of paddling huge canoes or the even
heavier York Boats loaded with trade goods from Montreal or the
shores of Hudson's Bay to the far reaches of the northwest.
Interrupted only by back-breaking portages carrying 90-pound packs,
drownings, barely edible food, and only a few hours sleep, this task
was repeated in late summer when the canoe brigades returned to the
east with their furs. The
Métis
were an integral part of the fur trade, employed as translators,
freighters and basic pack animals.
A Canoe Brigade
Métis with York Boat at a
northern portage 1910
In the winter dog teams
were used to carry supplies. The sled was an adaptation of the
Native toboggan but with canvas-covered sides. This was called a
Cariole, designed after the French sleighs pulled by horses. The people usually walked behind,
as it was a priority for the furs and supplies to reach their
destination.
Dog team pulling cariole 1899
Food
The
Métis ate whatever they could get by hunting and fishing. Buffalo,
deer, moose, elk, prairie chickens, rabbits, ducks, geese and fish
were staples of their diet. They also gathered berries. Pemmican,
made from dried crushed buffalo meat, grease and berries, was an
important food because it was light, easy to take on hunting trips
and would not rot for years. Although this diet paralleled
that of the Natives of the northwest, the Métis also introduced and
adapted some recipes from their European ancestors. An example
of this is Bannock, or Les Galette, a soda biscuit
type of bread originally from Scotland but almost exclusively eaten
today by First Nations and Métis people throughout Canada.
Bannock is to Aboriginals what rice is to Asians.
Ask
any Métis or First Nation person for a recipe for bannock and you
will likely be answered with an indignant laugh, and be told that no
self respecting Native woman uses a recipe for bannock. It's all
about feel.
However, for those of you who are feeling somewhat adventurous in
the kitchen, here is a recipe...
Bannock
Ingredients
4 cups of flour
1/2 cup of melted lard
4 teaspoons of baking powder (must be in a red can)
pinch of salt
11/2 cups of cool water
Directions
- Combine dry
ingredients in a large bowl.
- Add lard and
water, and mix well.
- Knead the dough
into one or more large balls.
- Bake on an oven
rack or in a cast iron frying pan at 400 degrees for about 30
minutes.
Recipe courtesy the Alberta Métis Historical
Society.
Click
here for more great Métis recipes!
Fish and Bannock cooking on
an open fire.
Music and
Dance
Music
and dance are the cultural heart of the of the Métis people.
When the Hudson's Bay Company recruited employees to work at the
various fur trading posts on this continent, many of these people
were brought over from Scotland, and along with them came their
music. The French also traded, but the vast majority of factors,
clerks, servants, and middlemen throughout Rupert’s Land, as the
Northwest was known, were of Scottish descent, primarily from the
Orkney Islands. These men brought with them a rich heritage of music
that can still be heard today in Métis and First Nations
communities.
Most of the music of the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries was
played on only a few different instruments; the piano, organ, and
the violin. The violin, or fiddle as it is known in non-classical
circles, is the lightest and most portable of the three. The French
and Scottish fiddlers brought a wealth of reels, jigs and waltzes to
the New World, and many still exist today in one form or another.
When the Orkneymen took Native women as their wives, they also
taught their sons how to play the airs, waltzes, jigs and reels on
the fiddle. Some of the Scots returned to the place of their birth,
but the many stayed in Rupert’s Land. Scottish names such as
McKenzie, Ballantyne, McDonald, McCallum, Cook, Sanderson and
McLeod, to name a few, remain in many northern communities, as does
the music played and taught by these men.
The Hudson’s Bay Company’s main competitor, the Montreal-based
Northwest Company, was comprised of French traders from Quebec and
France as were other free traders such as the Revillon Freres. Many
of these traders also stayed in the Northwest, and their influence
is heard in the Métis traditional tunes such as The Waltz Quadrille
and the Red River Jig, an adaptation of La Grand Gigue Simple.
Métis
fiddling is a style all its own, a style developed in Western
Canada, with influences borrowed from the music brought by the fur
traders, but also mixed with Native rhythms and melodies.
Métis fiddle has a bounce to it that is not heard in other styles of
music. For example, the St. Anne's Reel played by a Cape
Breton fiddler sounds very different when played by a Métis fiddler,
although the notes are virtually the same. The Métis style
floats and is not as choppy and regimented. And it's much
easier to dance to!
From the Red
River Settlement now known as Winnipeg, to Métis and First
Nation communities throughout the Northwest, names such as Desjarlais, Bouvette, Arcand, Bedard, Boyer,
Calihoo, Lepine and Lafferté are
part of the living history of Métis fiddling.
Métis fiddlers Napoloeon Nault, John Arcand, and Richard Calihoo.
A new generation of Métis fiddlers...
Cory Poitras
Cris
Tootoosis-Villebrun, and
Sierra Noble.
The Red River Jig
The
Red River Jig is the most popular of the Métis dances and in the old
days it was a very structured and disciplined competition dance
between two contestants. There was virtually no movement of the body
above the knees. It was all in the feet, and they hardly left the
floor! At the weekend house parties, (yes, there was life before TV)
in Métis communities, the furniture was put aside and the living
room cleared out for an evening of fiddling and dance. Some of the
dances were the Duck Dance, The Reel of Four, Reel of Eight, Drops
of Brandy, and of course the highlight, the Red River Jig.
In the Red River Jig there are two parts. The first part was the
standard jig step, and the second part was the “change”. The changes
were the traditional fancy steps borrowed partially from the French
stepdancers, but also with a Native influence. Today few of the
traditional steps or changes remain. Many of the older dancers have
passed on, and many of the younger dancers who love the style of
dancing have had to develop their own changes. Perhaps 4 or 5 remain
from the 50-60 original changes. Unfortunately, this original style
of dancing and the traditional changes have been nearly forgotten,
although there is a movement in place focused on the preservation of
Métis style fiddle and dance.
Still today many First Nations and Métis people play and enjoy the
fiddle. Attend any local dance from Fort Chipewyan to Ile a la
Crosse to Norway House to James Bay, and you will discover that the
sound of the fiddle is still central to the community. The music has
evolved with the times, as have Métis people. Tunes that have not
been heard in the British Isles or in France for three hundred years
are still being played in northern Canadian communities. The fiddle
and it’s associated culture are an integral part of the Canadian
Native identity mainly due to the Fur Trade and the people involved.
Language
Michif (also
Mitchif, Mechif, Michif-Cree, Métif, Métchif) is the
language of the Métis people of Canada and the
northern United States, who are the descendants of
First Nations women (mainly Cree, Nakota and Ojibwe)
and fur trade workers of European ancestry (mainly
French Canadians). Michif emerged over two hundred
years ago as a mixed language (similar to a Creole
but noticeably different). The language solidified
sometime between 1820 and 1840.
Michif combines
Cree and Canadian French, with some additional
borrowing from English and First Nation languages
such as Ojibwe (Anishnabe) and Assiniboine (Nakota).
In general, Michif noun phrase phonology, lexicon,
morphology, and syntax are derived from Canadian
French, while verb phrase phonology, lexicon,
morphology, and syntax are from a southern variety
of Plains Cree. (Plains Cree is a western dialect of
Cree.) Articles and adjectives are also Canadian
French, but demonstratives are Plains Cree.
The Michif
language is unusual among contact languages, in
that, rather than choosing to simplify its grammar,
it chose the most complex and demanding elements of
the chief languages that went into it. French noun
phrases retain lexical gender and adjective
agreement; Cree verbs retain much of their
polysynthetic structure. This suggests that, instead
of haltingly using words from another's tongue, the
people who devised Michif were fully fluent in both
French and Cree.
Once widely
spoken, the language is endangered with under 1000
native speakers reported in 1997.
Article
courtesy Wikipedia,
the free encyclopedia.
Listen to the lyrics of the
traditional Métis song "Kispin
Kisakihin" (If you Love Me Come and Kiss Me
Right Away) to
hear the French/ Cree Michif still spoken today by
the Métis in Ile a la Crosse.
Métis
Clothing
and
Design
The clothing
of the Métis was also adapted from both European and Native sources.
Beadwork was common, but unlike the First Nations designs, much of
the formal attire of the Métis was decorated with embroidered
patterns, adapted from the French. Everyday clothing was
simple and functional, designed for the hard lifestyle of traveling
and survival. For the winter, when hides were scarce, a coat was made from the heavy
Hudson's Bay Company trade blankets. This was known as a
capote.
Below
you will see some of the original clothing worn by the Métis.
Capote
Floral designs
on articles made by the Indigenous people of the northern forests
were once thought to be traditional native motifs. Yet, such
patterns are seldom seen on items made before 1800, and were never
present in prehistoric native art expressions.
The design on this deerskin coat represents European flowers in a
composition that is reminiscent of colonial folk art. This influence
is not surprising when we consider that Ursuline nuns in Québec in
the mid-1600s had started mission schools in which they instructed
native girls in the art of embroidery. Truly floral art had its
genesis in the Great Lakes region in the late eighteenth century.
There, Métis women living at missions and fur trade posts integrated
realistic floral designs into their pictorial vocabulary. By the
time the Métis had settled on the Red River, their floral artistry
was so distinctive that they came to be called the Flower Beadwork
People by the Indians of the region.
Decorated with a beaded embroidery design common among the Métis,
this deerskin coat is reported to have belonged to Louis David Riel
(1844-1885). A complex man, Louis Riel is today regarded by some a
hero who personified the aspirations of Western Canada's Métis. In
1885, however, after leading the Red River Rebellion, he was judged
a traitor and was hanged.
Typical Métis floral designs on embroidered deer and moosehide
mittens,
slippers and gauntlets.
Embroidered floral design on leggings
Embroidered
Métis deerhide moccasins circa 1880
Typical everyday moosehide wraparound moccasins.
Worn for centuries by Métis and First Nations people throughout this
region, this comfortable and practical footwear is still made and
used today, mostly in the north.
Example of northern Métis beadwork on velvet.
Cienture l'Assomption - The Métis Sash
Click here
for the Story of the Métis Sash
Métis
Spirituality
and Beliefs
Religion and spirituality were
very important for the Métis. The church was central to nearly all
Métis communities throughout the northwest. A common
misconception however, is that the Métis practiced only the religion
of their French and Scottish fathers (Catholic or Protestant). The
truth is that like the Métis Nation itself, the spiritual mixture is
as complex as the people who make up our nation.
In the beginning, the Métis child absorbed the teachings of both
father and mother. Those teachings consisted of the father's
mainstream European religious background and the traditional
teachings of the Aboriginal Nation of the mother. The child learned
to live in both the Aboriginal and White worlds encompassing both in
his spirituality. We see this ability to learn from all nations with
whom they came in contact, begin to build and develop the
future spirituality of the Métis. Today Métis practice all forms of
religion, from mainline Christianity to New Age concepts and
everything in between. From our Catholicism we have the Patron Saint
of the Métis, St. Joseph of Narareth. From our Aboriginal
relatives we have incorporated the sweat lodge, medicine wheel,
sacred pipe and long house ceremonies, and many other Aboriginal
spiritual beliefs.
Some Métis people practice
First Nations spiritualism, others combine First Nations and
European spiritual traditions, and still others follow European religion
exclusively. As well, there are social practices that
set them apart. To assume that Métis or Native
people follow one particular path is stereotyping and
counterproductive in terms of understanding Métis spirituality. For
example, one cannot assume that because a person is Native, that
they would automatically appreciate the intent behind the offering
of tobacco or smudging with sweetgrass, or the concept of spirit
protectors such as the eagle and bear. This person may be a devout
Catholic or Anglican, and to assume that they might, by virtue of
their race adhere to a
particular set of principles, would be an insult.
The same applies to the
traditional Native and Métis people. Many Métis people, as in
other Aboriginal communities, have lost their spiritual connection
to the past due to marginalization or poverty as well as decimation of
their communities and their way of life. After years of having
European religion and values imposed on our culture, many Métis and
First Nations people have shunned the church. Many Aboriginal people
have held on to their traditional spirituality secretly throughout
the years, and many have returned to these ancient roots only in the
last few generations. The residential school experience was
primarily responsible for many aboriginal people’s disillusionment
and distrust of the churches and European-based religion in general,
and also for the enormous return to traditional Native spirituality
in some regions.
The healing has begun and the
renewal of our spirituality is an exciting journey that many Métis
people are taking. It is very common to encounter both a prayer and
a smudge at the opening and closing of Métis activities and events.
To attain an understanding and mutual respect for both approaches to
spirituality, and establishing harmony between cultures, was the
wish and desire for a young Métis poet once destined to become a
priest himself, Louis David Riel.
A braid of Sweetgrass
St. Antoine de
Padoue Métis church
at
Batoche National Historic Site
Click
here to
read the lyrics of the song, "When this Valley"
written by
Métis singer songwriter Don Freed
Métis
Customs
Medicine and plant lore is a
common practice in many Métis communities, with individuals
consulting with the Elders for their knowledge of plants and their
use. The Aboriginal people of this continent relied on nearly
every plant for its medicinal properties. Although much knowledge
has been lost through time, there is a return to the traditional
gathering of Native medicine. Many, but far too few Métis
still speak the Michif language. Elders are highly honored and
respected and are an integral part of the social and political life.
A handshake, a smile and a "tansi kiya?" is common when meeting an
Elder in public places such as in a hospital or at an
event. These encounters are often brief and anonymous, between
two people who have never met. It is simply a show of respect.
Through community culture
camps, young Métis people are again being taught to hunt, fish and trap in the
same manner as their ancestors. In many communities,
particularly in the north, young girls are still taught to
make birchbark baskets and to
tan moosehide. Hand-crafted
decorations, flower bead work and clothing are a treasured source of
pleasure and self expression even today. The practice of celebrating
and honoring our Elders in the community still occurs on New Year's
Day. Almost all gatherings of Métis people today, whether political
or social, will include a feast, fiddle music and dancing. The
practice of all these traditional customs and knowledge of our rich
history serves to keep Métis culture alive. This is best expressed
in the words of the Elders....
"If we don't know where we
came from, we won't know where we're going."
Ekosi
