What period Frank?
Frank Godon has left a new comment on your post, "What does it take?"
"What does it take to become a Manitoba Metis Federation Member with regard to blood degree? For example, would 5% do it?"
First Clare you put a period at the end of a question, LOL. I would say. Lookup the difference of a Metis from the MNC web site, I believe they have it there. My Metisness' comes from what my Grandfather and Father handed down to me.
Keep your eye open on Derryl's Blog, I will be posting a paper sometime next year on why I believe most people are confusing culture with tradition. Here is a sneak preview, "I believe we 'live' in a Canadian culture, but have a (place any culture background here) tradition."
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Dear Frank Godon:
What period we don't see one - you hallucinating again Frank? Besides, it's Derryl with an apostrophe "s" plus "diff" for difference is bad form. Then there's forgetting to close the quotation marks after the word tradition. We went ahead and made the changes - remember this is Canada not Russia. Maybe you're picking up some of Derryl Sanderson's bad habits.
Remind us again, what's your point?
Sincerely,
Clare L. Pieuk
P.S. Being Blogmaster has its rewards! (LOL)
"What does it take to become a Manitoba Metis Federation Member with regard to blood degree? For example, would 5% do it?"
First Clare you put a period at the end of a question, LOL. I would say. Lookup the difference of a Metis from the MNC web site, I believe they have it there. My Metisness' comes from what my Grandfather and Father handed down to me.
Keep your eye open on Derryl's Blog, I will be posting a paper sometime next year on why I believe most people are confusing culture with tradition. Here is a sneak preview, "I believe we 'live' in a Canadian culture, but have a (place any culture background here) tradition."
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Dear Frank Godon:
What period we don't see one - you hallucinating again Frank? Besides, it's Derryl with an apostrophe "s" plus "diff" for difference is bad form. Then there's forgetting to close the quotation marks after the word tradition. We went ahead and made the changes - remember this is Canada not Russia. Maybe you're picking up some of Derryl Sanderson's bad habits.
Remind us again, what's your point?
Sincerely,
Clare L. Pieuk
P.S. Being Blogmaster has its rewards! (LOL)
posted by Clare L. Pieuk at 3:56 PM
2 Comments:
Darrelll Deslaurier is saying you were found in possession of a full size blow up type doll in your office while working at LRCC. Any comment on that before I print it ?
Confirmation was made from another two MMF members.
Clare, that was diff for definition, my mistake, I was typing fast cause I needed to give the computer to someone else. Also I want to add that I mentioned my Grandmothers blood degree not to prove any Metis, but to prove an Amerindian blood line.
Here is a little something for you to chomp on for a while.
The 1993 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples conducted two legal studies on the issue of Métis as Indian under section 91(24). Morse and Giokas and Morse concluded that the historical legislative treatment of the Métis reveal a strong case that the Métis ought to be included within the meaning of Indian is section 91(24). The authors identified various references to the mixed-bloods in the early The Indian Act definition sections, s.31 of The Manitoba Act and The Dominion Lands Act to support their arguments. Recent historical analysis of pre and post-confederation legislation dealing with the Métis it would be difficult not to conclude that the Métis are regarded as “Indians” in the constitutional sense under section 91(24).
An Act for the better protection of the lands and property of Indians of Lower Canada The term “Indian” is defined as follows: First-All persons of Indian Blood reputed to belong to the particular Body or Tribe of Indians interested in such lands, and their descendants; Secondly-All persons intermarried with such Indians and residing amongst them, and the descendants of all such persons; Thirdly-All persons residing among such Indians, whose parents on either side were or are Indians of such Body or Tribe, or entitled to be considered as such; Fourthly-All persons adopted in infancy by such Indians, and residing upon the land of such Tribe or Body of Indians and their descendants;
*This is evidence that the Federal government assumed that it had jurisdiction to legislate individuals who only had some Indian blood. The implications of a finding that the Métis are the responsibility of the federal government is significant for several reasons: Responsibility, Equality, Programs and Services and Recognition.
The implications of a finding that the Métis are the responsibility of the Federal government
1. The vulnerability of the Métis to federal and provincial off-loading of responsibility would finally end. At least from a legal point of view, they would no longer be the “forgotten people”.
2. The disparity of treatment of the Métis that currently exists between the provinces would likely give way to national policies and programs that would benefit all Métis communities throughout Canada equally.
3. Inclusion of the Métis would also give greater force to the argument that the Métis ought to participate in programs and services, which they have historically been restricted to “Indian” and Inuit peoples. The Métis would be able to benefit form the Comprehensive and Specific Claims process.
4. Inclusion would also benefit Aboriginal rights claims by the Métis. Recognition as Indians would bolster arguments that the Métis are beneficiaries under Indian protection provisions of The Royal Proclamation, The Rupert’s Land and Northwest Territories Order and the common law. Although the Métis maybe Indians under section 91(24) of the Constitution and that such inclusion within that provision has important implications, there is more fundamental question that must be asked. Who are the Métis that would benefit from such inclusion? What criteria must a mixed-blood group satisfy in order to be legally identified as Métis? This question is of vital importance because only constitutionally recognized Métis are entitled to protection of section 35(1).
Definitions of Who is a Métis:
Métis National Council: A Métis is an Aboriginal person who self-identifies as Métis and is a descendant of Métis who received or were entitled to land grants or scrip under The Manitoba Act 1870 or The Dominion Lands Act.
Métis Nation Accord 1992: “Métis means an Aboriginal person who self-identifies as Métis, who is distinct from Indian and Inuit and is a descendant of those Métis who received or were entitled to receive land grants and/or scrip under the provisions of The Manitoba Act, 1870, or The Dominion Lands Act, as enacted form time to time. “Métis nation” means the community of Métis persons in subsection a) and persons of Aboriginal descent who are accepted by that community.
Alberta Métis Settlements: In 1990, the Métis settlements define Métis as people of Aboriginal ancestry who identify with Métis history and culture.
Métis Nation – Saskatchewan: The Métis Nation – Saskatchewan defines the term Métis as a person of Aboriginal ancestry who can provide proof of his/her ancestry. They must declare to be a Métis and meet one of the following test: a) is accepted by the Métis community b) has traditionally held himself/herself out to be a Métis c) has been recognized by the community-at-large as a Métis
1993 Royal Commission: A Métis is every person who identifies oneself as Métis and is accepted as such by the nation of Métis people with which that person wishes to be associated, on the basis of criteria and procedures determined by that nation be recognized as a member of that nation for purposes of nation to nation negotiations and as Métis for that purpose.
Section 35 of The Constitution Act, 1982 recognizes and affirms Aboriginal people’s rights. The section also identifies the Aboriginal groups in Canada.
Section 35 of The Constitution Act, 1982 S.35(1) The existing aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada are hereby recognized and affirmed. S.35 (2) In this Act, “aboriginal people of Canada” includes the Indian, Inuit and Métis peoples of Canada. These constitutional provisions do not define the terms Indian, Inuit, or Métis. There is currently no legal consensus on the definition of who is a Métis in Canadian law. The basic issue is whether the term Métis should apply to all mixed-blood communities that identify themselves as Métis in Canada, or should the term be reserved for the members to decide. The Métis National Council (MNC) defines the term Métis as only those who are descendants of the Métis Nation that grew out of the soil of the Prairies in the 1800s. This narrow definition has undergone criticisms by many Métis communities and leaders. In a submission before the Standing Senate Committee of Legal and Constitutional Affairs, the MNC explained that the definition is not simply just a matter of being mixed-blood. If that was the case, “many if not most Indians, both status and non-status and indeed many white people would be Métis. They are not because they do not share our nationality, which has been molded by a common history, culture and political will. The Métis Nation is a historic national minority conceived and developed on the soil of Western Canada”. The restricted definition of Métis was promoted by the MNC during the Charlottetown constitutional negotiations in 1992. The Métis Nation Accord was established during this time to outline details of self-government, land, resources and programs and services available to the Métis. The Accord was between the federal Government, the provinces of Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, and the MNC.
Views of Eastern Métis Organizations Métis organizations in Central and Eastern Canada oppose the MNC view that there are only one Métis people in Canada. In a book published by the New Brunswick of Métis and Non-Status Indians, the authors argued that there can and does exist several Métis “peoples” in Canada. The Western mixed-ancestry communities have a very different history from the western Métis. They are more diverse in the way they were subject to assimilation influences and in the way they have developed. It has generally been assumed that there are no self-identifying mixed-ancestry communities in the east. Although absorption into white or Indian culture occurred to a significant degree due to assimilationist policies of eastern colonial governments, this was not always the case. Eastern Métis associations are relatively recent in so far as they have adopted and identity with the term “Métis”. However, mixed-ancestry communities have existed in eastern parts of Canada since Contact. Their recent identification and political actions to form “Métis” associations is largely the result of ensuring recognition as an Aboriginal people within the meaning used in the Constitution so they are not forgotten or ignored as Aboriginal communities. Troy Chalifoux observed that the adoption of a restricted definition of Métis in section 35 of the Constitution has serious implications for eastern mixed-blood communities. Their Aboriginal rights would not be protected in section 35 of the Constitution because they would not be recognized as an “Aboriginal people”. Given the concern expressed by the eastern “Métis” and the MNC, how should the term Métis in section 35(2) of the Constitution be interpreted?
What characteristics are common to mixed blood groups in Canada? The 1996 Royal Commission on Aboriginal peoples found that many Métis share: 1. Mixed parentage of Indian and Non-Indian sources.
2. Indigenous lifestyle based on local resources.
3. Kinship networks related to both Indian and non-Indian as primary basis for political and economic life.
4. Distinguished by outsiders (both Indian and non-Indian) as distinct from both Indian and non-Indian society.
5. Self-identified (although the specific terminology varied) as distinct from both Indian and non-Indian society.
In a Royal Commission publication, Professor Catherine Bell proposes a definition of Métis should be broad in scope because of importance given to the principle of self-determination. Today, many Métis organizations have established their own membership criteria according to their own understanding of the term Métis. Taking into consideration the minimal criteria set out in s35 and the difficulty of identifying a single Métis people, the most logical solution to the definition debate is to define “Métis” in s.35 (2) as belonging to one of two possible groups.
1. The descendants of the historic Métis Nation
2. People associated with ongoing Métis collectives. This interpretation allows for self-determination of membership. The result is the constitutional term “Métis does not refer to a homogeneous cultural or political group but a large and varied population characterized by mixed aboriginal ancestry and self-identification as “Métis”.
I) What does Métis mean? The word Métis means mixed. The word "métis" or “mestis” in late Renaissance French meant a mixture of various races. The word has exactly the same meaning as the Spanish word “mestizo”, and both come from the Latin word “mixtus.” In Canada, nobody knows for sure how or when the Métis began calling themselves Métis, but Louis Riel is credited to have been the first person to call the francophone and Michif-speaking mixed-bloods of Rupert's Land Métis in a formal writing. The proper pronunciation of Métis is actually "May-tis", but the Anglicized "May-tee" is the dominant pronunciation. Many Métis Elders still refer to themselves as "May-tis" or "Michif’ – the old French pronunciation of the word Métis. Today, most Western-Canadian and many other mixed-bloods throughout the country call themselves Métis. It was not until the nineteenth century that most francophone and Michif-speaking Métis referred to themselves as Métis. An important exception were some Acadien-Mi'kmaq mixed-bloods who settled in separate communities from both French colonials and First Nations peoples and called themselves "May-tis". However, over time a whole slough of names were used by various chroniclers, most of which were negative. However, the Métis and the Anglo-Celtic mixed bloods had almost a perverse pride in these names, and they called themselves these names. In all fact, they hurled back the insulting names given to them by their European and First Nations detractors. The early Métis and Anglo-Celtic mixed-bloods had a varity of names, which they called themselves and which others called them. These names included: Canadians, Country Born, Half-breed, Half-caste, Mixed-blood, Natives, Savages, British Indians, Home Guard Indians, French Indians, Indian French, Winterers, Pork eaters, Freemen, Savages (savages), Coureurs de bois (runners of the woods), Voyageurs, Hivernants (winterers), Mangeurs du lard (pork eaters), Canadiens, Canayens (vernacular form of Canadiens), Gens du libre (Free People), Apeetogosan (Free People), Bois des brûles, (Burnt wood men) Chicot (burnt people) and Wissakodewinimi half-burnt stick men). ( Therefore, the early Métis were given names based on their mixed ancestry, their occupation in the fur trade, their European or Aboriginal ancestry, their desire to be an independent people, and their skin colour, which was different from their First Nations and European and Euro-Canadian relatives.
II) What the Métis have preferred to call themselves.
a) How the Historic Métis identified themselves. Before their ethnic identity was firmly in place, the early Métis most often called themselves "Michif" or " gens du libre". The Michif and French-speaking Métis were the first group of mixed-bloods in Canada to differentiate themselves from their parent cultures. Essentially, they recognized that they were a free people like their Canadien voyageur fathers, and they lived their lives accordingly, in the Great Lakes basin and on the prairie as independent fur-traders, voyageurs, buffalo-hunters and free traders. This nomadic and free-spirited ethos made the historic Métis a "free people", who as we shall later made them resist coercive outside authority. Overtime, the historic Métis moved onto what is now the Canadian Prairies, where they married into such existing First Nation populations as the Cree, Saulteaux, Dene, Dakota, Assiniboine, Sarcee and other members of the Black foot Confederacy. There the Métis took on such names as “Apeetogosan” or “half-brothers” in Cree. A variation of this theme had the Métis of Batoche call themselves "Otipemisiwak" or “those who own themselves”. These are words with positive connotations, and not surprisingly, the Métis preferred to call themselves by these terms.
b) How contemporary Métis people identify themselves. Today, many people in Canada of mixed Aboriginal and European descent identify themselves as Métis. The term "Métis" has become a generic term for any person of mixed First Nations, Inuit and European ancestry. Not surprisingly, groups of mixed-bloods across Canada call themselves Métis, even though they may in fact be Non-Status First Peoples. For instance, there are groups of people in every province who maintain that they are Métis. These include the Bonachere Métis Association in Ontario, which is also a Non-Status Indian organization determined to ensure that its members’ rights as Algonquins are recognized. The Métis Nation of Labrador represents people of mixed Inuit, Innu, Mi'kmaq, and Settler (Anglo-Celtic) backgrounds. There are also the Dene Métis of the Mackenzie River Valley, who identify themselves as a distinct Métis culture. The Métis National Council (MNC) recognizes none of these self-identified Métis groups as Métis. The MNC argues that only the descendants of the historic Métis and the First Nations Peoples they absorbed are Métis. Therefore, only the mixed-blood population of the former Rupert's Land can claim to be Métis. Within the MNC there are provincial branches including the Métis Nation of Ontario, the Manitoba Métis Federation, the Métis Nation of Saskatchewan, the Métis Nation of Alberta, and the British Columbia Métis Association. Some elders may still refer to themselves as "half breeds" or "breeds", however, most Métis take offence of this term, and refrain from using it.
III) The Half-breed Dilemma. Many First Nations and Euro-Canadians persisted on calling the Métis names based on their mixed heritage. The most common term "Half-breed" is a most inappropriate term considering that there are no pure-blooded First Nations people in Canada, and that an estimated 40% of all French-Canadians have at least one Aboriginal ancestor, and countless other old stock families throughout English Canada have Natives in their family trees. However, the term “Half-breed” is not so much a racial name as it seems to apply but is, in fact, a cultural name given to the Métis by non-Métis because of their unique culture, which perplexes both First Nations and Euro-Canadian populations. In many instances, the Métis and mixed-blood person has no problem in adapting to and fitting into either First Nations or Euro-Canadian culture. In northern Saskatchewan, particularly in places such as Cumberland House, the Métis and First Nations populations have traditionally formed the same community, which is both on and off reserve. And yet, discrimination has existed, and at times, both "Status" First Nations and Euro-Canadians have looked down upon "Half-breeds". In pulp literature and bad Hollywood movies, “Half-breeds” were represented as wild and a menace to settled society, because they had the worst vices of both their parent groups. The evil "Injun Joe" in Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn was a mixed-blood. American and Canadian scholars have documented a whole tradition of racist literary works, which characterized the Métis as an amoral hybrid population. Interestingly, such works were in vogue around the time of the North-West Resistance, a time when Social Darwinism and racial hierarchies were being established. Some First Nations people resented when the Métis claimed their Aboriginal identity, and practiced some aspects of First Nations culture, and when they said that they were entitled to the use of the land and its resources. In the past, and perhaps until after the Second World War, Métis people were considered to be only half civilized, and Euro-Canadians criticized the Métis for their nomadism and other supposed "inferior" traits. After the 1885 Resistance, many Métis people did not identify themselves as Métis, but rather said that they were "French" or "French Canadian". They did this to escape wide-scale racism and the defeat of their fallen heroes at the Battle of Batoche Together, all of this, plus the Métis' condition as a mixed people, who did not really fit into any group but their own, made the Métis and other mixed-bloods question their identity. Often this condition engenders self-hate among Métis people and this is known as the "Half-breed Dilemma" and it has been chronicled in literature, particularly Maria Campbell's Halfbreed and Beatrice Culleton's In Search of April Raintree.
IV) How the French, British and Canadian states have defined the Métis.
a) How New France defined the Métis and First Peoples. The First European state to actively organize government in Canada was the Kingdom of France. The French had a number of plans for Aboriginal people in the Americas, and while some of these plans were altruistic, most were of their policies would have robbed the Métis and the First Nations people of their identity. New France was a frontier society, which had little immigration from the Métrpôle, and because of this, there was a real shortage of marriageable women in the colony. Early in the French regime, Samuel de Champlain, the so-called "Father of Canada" wanted to merge his Creoles, the Canadiens, with the First Peoples in order to create a new Catholic and French people in Canada (un peuple). In the process, many First Nations women were baptized into the Roman Catholic faith and were given French and Catholic names. Therefore, it is impossible to determine who was actually a Creole and an Indigenous person when looking at the documents left to us by the early Canadian Church. New France did not, therefore, recognize baptized mixed-bloods or Métis people as a separate group, but instead saw them as Canadiens. The same policy occurred with all the Métis born in "country marriages", they were recognized as subjects of the King, who had to fight for the sovereign whenever the necessities of war beckoned. One of the great myths, which has emerged in the New World since the Contact Period, has been the idea that the French embraced Native Americans, the English colonizers pushed them aside, and the Spanish (and Portuguese) murdered them. In the end, the policy of New France was similar to these other powers because it wanted to make the Aboriginal peoples French and Christian within its boundaries, but were it differed from these other colonial states was that it recognized Aboriginal sovereignty on lands inhabited by the First Peoples. This was why most First Peoples outside the Six Nations Confederacy, the Fox and the Dakota aligned themselves with the French and Canadiens. Also, the fact that Canadien coureurs de bois and voyageurs were establishing kinship ties with many Cree, Odawa, Ojibwa, Algonquin, Innu, Mi'kmaq and Huron women made French officials realize that war between these groups would be foolhardy. The First Nations could, therefore, look past French attempts to assimilate them, by putting "Black Robes" or missionaries in their midst or the characterization of them by French officials as the "other" or "savage" (sauvage). New France and these First Nations groups needed each other in their war against the Iroquois and the British.
b) How the British Colonial State defined Métis people (1763--1867) After the British Conquest of Canada in 1759-60, the Métis and most First Nations continued to have an uncertain future and they remained unsure as to how their conquerors would treat them. In 1763, many First Nations in the Great Lakes area rose up against British rule under the leadership of Pontiac. The British and British- Americans crushed the resistance, but it forced the British to realize that they had to placate Aboriginal sentiment. In 1774, The Quebec Act attempted to create a huge Aboriginal reserve in the Great Lakes basin. This was done for the simple fact that the British needed Métis and First Nations allies in its upcoming war with the Americans. War came and most Aboriginal people sided with the British, but Britain lost the Revolutionary War, and eventually, the First Nations and Métis lost control of the Ohio Country, the southern part of the old "pays d'en haut " (upper country). War with the Americans followed again in 1812, and many Métis fought with the Crown against American invaders. However, the British state did not recognize the Métis as a distinct people separate from First peoples or French Canadians. They were treated as either or. However, the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) and its rival, the North West Company (NWC) recognized that the Métis were a separate people in the early 1800s. The NWC encouraged the development of a growing Métis consciousness in order to use Métis manpower in its struggle with the HBC. And when such HBC laws such as The Pemmican Proclamation(s) of 1814 tried to stop the Métis' buffalo hunters from selling pemmican to the HBC and the Selkirk settlers, this amounted to a tacit acceptance of the Métis as a distinct group. Métis nationalism was born of these events, especially the June 19, 1816 Battle of Seven Oaks, and it was a resistance against outside authority trying to coerce the Métis' traditional Aboriginal way of life. While two British and British-Canadian companies recognized the Métis as a distinct people, the British colonial state did not. In the Robinson and Superior Treaties signed in 1850, in what is now north-central Ontario, some Métis signed on as "Half breeds"; however, there was no legal recognition of Métis people in these statutes.
c) How the Canadian State defined Métis people from 1867 until 1982. Up until recently, the Canadian state continued the British colonial state's lead when it came to interpreting Métis identity. Canadian officials knew that the Métis were a distinct people, however they failed to recognize that distinctiveness in the original constitution, The British North America Act of 1867 or through such statutes as The Indian Act of 1876. The Indian Act's only reference to “half’ breeds” indicated that they were not allowed to take Treaty after they had taken Scrip. The choice left to the Métis by the Canadian state was clear: they had to become either a Status, Treaty Indian or a Citizen, but not a Métis. And yet, the Canadian state recognized the Métis' distinctiveness as a separate Aboriginal people when it initiated the Scrip process. However, legally sanctifying the Métis as a distinct people, and disinheriting them through clandestine means were two very different processes. Even during the two great Métis resistances of the nineteenth century, at Red River in 1869-70 and in the Saskatchewan Valley in 1885, the Canadian state did not recognize the Métis as a sovereign people. All Government of Canada statutes including the 1869 The Transfer of Rupert's Land to Canada, The Gradual Enfranchisement of Indians Act (1869), The Manitoba Act (1870), The Land Claims in Manitoba Act (1873), The Administration of Justice, North West Territories Act (1873), and The North West Territories Act (1876) and its amendments after the 1885 Resistance failed to mention the Métis and or to recognize their distinctiveness even though each of these acts had a great bearing upon the lives of Métis. Canada would not recognize the distinctiveness of the Métis and their contributions to the development of the country until 1982 and the Patriation of the Constitution. In that year, Canada formally and legally recognized that the Métis were an "Aboriginal" people along with the First Nations and the Inuit.
d) Some thoughts on the legal recognition of the Métis as a distinct people. What remains clear is that the state in Canada, right from the founding of New France up until 1982, has failed to legally recognize that the Métis are and will always be a distinct people. What factors would have made the state reluctant to recognize Métis identity in the past? Perhaps the most important factor may have been psychological: Euro-Canadians may not have wanted to recognize Métis distinctiveness, because by doing so they would not have been able to assimilate them. Euro-Canadians have always recognized that the Métis were part European, and they attempted to cultivate the European heritage of the Métis. European fathers of Métis and Country-Born children tried to do the very same thing, when they were in the country or when they cared to do so. Also, Canadian government officials knew that recognizing the Métis as a distinct people on the Prairies would mean endangering the dream of extending Ontario across the West. The Canadian West was to be Anglo-Celtic and Protestant, and the French, Catholic and Aboriginal Métis did not fit into this pattern. English-Canada had no desire to cultivate a distinct identity, which might challenge its dominance – French Canada would be Canada's only distinct nation. First Peoples were put onto reserves and they were to be assimilated through the "Policy of the Bible and the Plough", that is they were to become Christian Yeoman. French Canada has traditionally been more sympathetic to the Métis than English Canada. Indeed, French Canadians recognized that the Métis were part of their family. However, the French Canadians, especially after racism and right-wing thinking began to infiltrate their culture, have always had an ambivalent attitude towards their Métis cousins. They supported the Métis in their petitions for rights, and they honoured their family ties with the Métis, however, they tried to assimilate the Métis, and they used the crushing of the 1885 Resistance for their own nationalist ends. The United States has not recognized the Métis as a distinct people per se. However, the American government recognized that the Métis in the Dakotas, Montana and in Minnesota were Aboriginal people, and were therefore deserved treaty privileges. Perhaps Canada should have followed this example because it would have given the Métis a consistent land base, a necessary prerequisite towards creating an identity.
V) The Existence of other mixed-blood populations throughout the world and time. The Métis of Canada and America are not the only mixed blood populations, which have existed in North America and the world. In Latin America, the conquering Conquistadors of Spain and Portugal created vast populations of Mestizos. Mexico can rightly said to be a Métis nation since most people there are a mix of Spanish and Indigenous peoples. In the United States, whole populations of African-Americans married into American-Indian bands, particularly in the southern states, an area where racial repression made Aboriginal and African peoples comrades, and family. South Africa has its Coloureds, a mix between African tribesman and Dutch and British Settlers, the Islamic world saw much intermixture between Arab, Hebrew, Turk, Persian and European, and south Asia had much intermarriage between Malays and Chinese. So as a mixed population, the Métis of Canada are not unique, they are but one of many mixed-blood populations, which have existed since time began. Since we evolved out of Africa a million years ago, humans have always intermarried outside of their particular racial and tribal group, and Anthropologists say that this is way to avoid committing incest. Perhaps the desire to pursue the exotic and those different from ourselves is at the root of humans desire to marry outside their ethnic group; perhaps it is an economic act, a marriage of necessity or perhaps still it is a strong indication that we humans all belong to the same race, the human race. However, the Canadian Métis and their American cousins, all descendants of the historic Métis of Rupert's Land, are unique from these other mixed-blood populations because they have developed a
group consciousness, and are aware that they are a proud and distinct mix of two different peoples. Few other mixed blood populations in the world have been able to achieve this, and of all the Indigenous peoples in the New World, only the Métis survive as a group which identifies itself as a mixed-blood nation with a distinct political will separate from their First Nations and Euro-Canadian relatives.
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