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Thread re Métis identity.
To be Indigenous means that you are from the land. Moreover, Indigenous Nations (and their respective laws!) are defined by their relations with a *particular* ancestral land.
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To be Indigenous means that you are from the land. Moreover, Indigenous Nations (and their respective laws!) are defined by their relations with a *particular* ancestral land.
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The Métis Nation has a relationship with the North-West. The North-West is the birthplace of our Nation, the site of our creation story, the location of our kinships with First Nations relatives.
Being from a particular land is, in fact, what makes us Indigenous.
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Being from a particular land is, in fact, what makes us Indigenous.
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Although, this can appear complicated because of Canadian federalism and its pan-Aboriginal rights regime.
While I’m an Indigenous person in so-called Canada, I’m only Indigenous to the land I come from. I’m not Indigenous to anyone’s territory but my own.
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While I’m an Indigenous person in so-called Canada, I’m only Indigenous to the land I come from. I’m not Indigenous to anyone’s territory but my own.
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Ignoring this and turning Métis into a catch-all term for folks outside of the North-West is to effectively ignore what makes us Indigenous, because it ignores the importance of our relationship to a particular land.
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In addition, defending our relationship with the North-West shouldn’t be reducible to nationalism — defending who we are and the land we are from is what makes us Métis.
It’s what makes us Indigenous.
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It’s what makes us Indigenous.
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It’s important to add that the colonial legal categories of “status” and “non-status” have directly contributed to these and other misunderstandings of the Métis Nation.
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As we know, if you are categorized as non-status your Nation can still claim you, regardless of what Canadian law says about your Indigeneity.
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However, historically non-status and Métis were typically lumped into the same group by the colonial government because (for different but similar reasons) we were both not subject to the Indian Act.
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A result of this was that Indigenous people who were categorized as non-status were effectively unable to exercise their kinships (particularly through exclusion from land) because of how they were categorized by colonial law.
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In 1982 the Métis were recognized as Aboriginal rights-bearers under colonial law. When this happened, Indigenous people who were categorized as non-status still had no place in the Canadian regime.
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To gain a recognition of rights, people who were categorized as non-status may have started to claim Métis because of:
(1) our inter-connected history of being outside the Indian Act
2) the misunderstanding that Métis means mixed
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(1) our inter-connected history of being outside the Indian Act
2) the misunderstanding that Métis means mixed
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Small bracket to note here that “marrying-out” is how many people, especially women, became categorized as non-status. Yet children of those relationships, while mixed, are not Métis.
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It’s also important to note that the confusion between non-status and Métis is very different from settler race-shifting.
Misunderstandings of who the Métis are amongst other Indigenous peoples pre-dates Powley. Plenty of Métis authors have written about this experience.
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Misunderstandings of who the Métis are amongst other Indigenous peoples pre-dates Powley. Plenty of Métis authors have written about this experience.
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Métis identity is complex for people who do not know our history, our stories, our relationship to the rolling hills and the sprawling skies of the prairies.
The lack of understanding about the Métis Nation is a direct result of Canadian colonialism.
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The lack of understanding about the Métis Nation is a direct result of Canadian colonialism.
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Suppressing the Métis Nation is a priority for the settler Canadian state.
The truth of our history and our continued existence poses a threat to the myth of Canadian sovereignty.
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The truth of our history and our continued existence poses a threat to the myth of Canadian sovereignty.
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We are proof that you cannot “kill the Indian” in the child. It must have been pure agony for John A to know that Scottish blood mixed with Native blood, only to create... more Natives.
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The Métis Nation has always been, and always will be, the living resistance to Canadian colonialism.
And outside the noise of ongoing politics, Métis women are still here creating, dreaming, singing, cooking, laughing, dancing barefoot in the prairie grass.
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And outside the noise of ongoing politics, Métis women are still here creating, dreaming, singing, cooking, laughing, dancing barefoot in the prairie grass.
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