The Canadian Metis 7 2

National Museum of Man Musée national de l'Homme National Museums of Canada Musées nationaux du Canada Board of Trustees Conseil d'Administration L'honorable Gérard Pelletier Président M. Léo A. Dorais Vice-président Mr. Richard M.H. Alway Member Mrs. Géraldine Joan Goldfarb Member M. Roger B. Hamel Membre Mrs. Rosa Lesueur Tovell Member M. Rodrigue Tremblay Membre Dr. Larkin Kerwin Member (Ex officio) Mr. T. Porteous Member (Ex officio) M. Léo A. Dorais Secretary General Secrétaire général Dr. George F. MacDonald Director Directeur National Museum of Man Musée national de l'Homme A. McFadyen Clark Chief Chef Canadian Ethnology Service Service canadien d'Ethnologie Crown Copyright Reserved © Droits réservés au nom de la Couronne NATIONAL MUSEUM MUSÉE NATIONAL OF MAN DE L'HOMME MERCURY SERIES COLLECTION MERCURE ISSN 0316 - 1854 CANADIAN ETHNOLOGY SERVICE LE SERVICE CANADIEN D'ETHNOLOGIE PAPER No 99 DOSSIER No 99 ISSN 0316 - 1862 ETHNOLINGUISTIC PROFILE OF THE CANADIAN METIS Patrick C. Douaud National Museums Musées nationaux of Canada du Canada I985 Canada OBJECT OF THE MERCURY SERIES The Mercury Series is a publication of the National Museum of Man, National Museums of Canada, designed to permit the rapid dissemination of information pertaining to those disciplines for which the National Museum of Man is responsible. In the interests of making information available quickly, normal pro duction procedures have been abbreviated. As a result, editorial errors may occur. Should that be the case, your indulgence is requested, bearing in mind the object of the Series. The opinions expressed by the authors do not necessarily reflect those of the National Museum or the Federal Government of Canada. BUT DE LA COLLECTION MERCURE La collection Mercure, publiée par le Musée national de l'Homme, Musées nationaux du Canada, a pour but de diffuser rapidement le résultat de travaux qui ont rapport aux disciplines pour lesquelles le Musée national de l'Homme est responsable. Pour assurer la prompte distribution des exemplaires imprimés, on a abrégé les étapes de l'édition. En conséquence, certaines erreurs de rédaction peuvent subsister dans les exemplaires imprimés. Si cela se présentait dans les pages qui suivent, les éditeurs réclament votre indul gence étant donné les objectifs de la collection. Les opinions exprimées par les auteurs ne reflètent pas nécessairement celles du Musée national de l'Homme ou du gouvernement fédéral du Canada. ii AB STRACT This is a study of the mechanisms of cultural and linguistic variation among the Metis of western Canada. After its ethnohistorical background is surveyed, a small multilingual community in Alberta, the Mission Metis of Lac La Biche, is discussed; its use of French, Cree, and English is investigated; and a definition of its cultural boundaries is attempted. Through the interplay of this community with its environment, language and culture are seen as inextricably interwoven, and their dynamics are explicated in terms of contact, marginality, ethnicity, and self-image. Cultural attribution or deprivation is shown to be an elusive concept, which fails to be substantiated by holistic ethnographic procedures. RESUME La présente étude porte sur les mécanismes de variation culturelle et linguistique chez les Métis de l'Ouest canadien. Après avoir passé en revue son évolution ethnohistorique, on présente les habitants d'une petite communauté multilingue de l'Alberta, les Métis de la Mission du Lac La Biche; puis on analyse leur utilisation du français, du cri et de l'anglais; enfin, on tente de définir les frontières culturelles de cette localité. A travers les rapports de cette communauté avec son environnement, language et culture apparaissent inextricablement associés, et leur dynamique fait l'objet d'une explication en termes de contact, de marginalité, d'ethnicité et de conception de soi-même. On montre aussi que l'existence présumée de phé nomènes de privation culturelle ne survit pas à une ethnographie holistique. Les personnes désireuses de recevoir en français de plus ample renseignements sur cette publication sont priées d'adresser leurs demandes à: Service canadien d'Ethnologie Musée national de l'Homme Musées nationaux du Canada Ottawa, Ontario KIA 0M.8 Canada iii CONTENTS ILLUSTRATIONS v PREFACE vi INTRODUCTION 1 1. Statement of Problem 1 2. Theoretical Bases 2 3. Research Procedures 4 4. Scope of This Study 5 CHAPTER I: ETHNOHISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE MISSION METIS 7 1. The Canadian Metis 7 2. The Mission Community 17 CHAPTER II: MULTILINGUAL ISM AT LAC LA BICHE 28 1. Overview 2 5 2. Affrication of Dental Stops 33 3. Vowel Raising 38 4. The Treatment of Gender 40 5. The Expression of Possession 41 CHAPTER III: FROM LANGUAGE TO ACCULTURATION 43 1. Convergence vs Compartmentalization 43 2. Language Status and Code-Switching 46 3. Mechanics of Pluralism 51 CHAPTER IV: PATTERNS OF IDENTITY 56 1. Fluidity 56 2. Marginality 60 3. Who Are the Mission Metis? 64 APPENDIX A: EIGHT CASE HISTORIES 68 APPENDIX B: NARRATIVES AND SONGS 77 REFERENCES CITED 83 MERCURY SERIES PUBLICATIONS/PUBLICATIONS DE LA COLLECTION MERCURE 102 iv LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. British North America 9 2. Alberta 18 3. Lac La Biche Area 20 4. Principal New World Migrations of the French Language 32 LIST OF PHOTOGRAPHS 1. The Mission Complex 22 2. Mass at the Chapel 22 3. Louis and his Truck 26 4. Metis Couple ........ 26 v PREFACE This monograph is a revised version of my 1982 PhD dissertation (University of Alberta, Department of Anthropology). Among the persons at the University of Alberta who made this work possible, I wish to thank first Regna Darnell, my dissertation supervisor, for her sure guidance and unflinching support; and Ruth Gruhn, who read an earlier draft, for the many insightful revisions she provided. Thanks are also due to Harold Barclay, C. Roderick Wilson, Carl Urion, John Foster, Bernard Rochet, Roger Motut, and Gordon Verburg. I am grateful to Robert Papen (Université du Québec à Montréal ) , who gave me the idea to study the Canadian Metis; Fr. Emeric Drouin, OMI, who drew my attention to the Mission Metis of Lac La Biche; Fr. Giuseppe Peroni, OMI, Fr. Victor Le Calvez, OMI, and Br. Léo L'Heureux, OMI, who introduced me to the community and generously offered their hospitality; and Joe Fromhold (Lac La Biche Vocational Centre), who was helpful in many practical ways. The Department of Anthropology at the University of Alberta provided me with financial support for two years;and the fieldwork on which this research is based was made possible by two grants-in-aid (1979 and 1981) from the Boreal Institute for Northern Studies. My greatest debt, of course, goes to the Mission Metis families who received me so kindly and consented to share their history, opinions, and concerns with me. A final word of thanks is due to Frank Ladouceur, of Fort Chipewyan, for a crash course in "bush consciousness" and Metis fiddle-playing; Adrian "Pete" Hope, of Kikino, for several informative afternoons spent in his company; Joel Sherzer, from the University of Texas at Austin, who as my external examiner provided useful last-minute comments and revisions; and Michael Foster, of the Canadian Ethnology Service, whose sharp criticisms purged the original work of many ponderous elements. It must be mentioned that the identity of the community is disclosed here for reasons of credibility and replicability, and because its members gave me permission to quote their names and most of their statements ; the name of the community and the surnames of its members are therefore given in full. However, I deemed it preferable to associate quotations with first names only, and to use pseudonyms when whole life stories are in volved (as in Appendix A). vi INTRODUCTION Almost any general anthropological questions can be asked of language, some can be best asked of language, and some cannot be answered without the aid of language (Hymes 1964a: 703). 1. STATEMENT OF PROBLEM The primary goal of this study is to provide an understanding of the Canadian Metis through the analysis of phenomena related to the linguistic and cultural profile of one rural community, known as the Mission Metis. The Mission Metis live on the southern shore of Lac La Biche, in Alberta, 220 kilometers northeast of Edmonton;they derive their name from the Oblate mission around which they have been gathered since the middle of the 19th century. The "traditional" members of this community — i.e., those who have not been socialized into post-World War II modernity — are trilingual (French, Cree, English) and appear to have synthesized the divergent worldviews of the Indian and the Whiteman. Because of this synthesis, few elements of their cultural repertoire are representative when taken in isolation;the Mission Metis' distinctiveness lies rather in the structural relationships obtaining between these elements. Since the 1960's, however, the community has gradually lost some of this distinctiveness as its internal cohesion disintegrated. While most of the elders are still trilingual, the middle-aged generation is often only passively multilingual; and the younger generation, reared in a centralized school system and faced with the need to move to job-sites operating in English, is almost entirely monolingual. These changes are intimately related to the degree of involvement in the modern world, and are therefore good indicators of acculturation. The present study attempts to trace the ethnolinguistic development of the Canadian Metis in general, and the Mission Metis in particular. It will proceed as follows: a) Chapter 1 is a discussion of the concept of Metis as elicited through the ethnohistory of the Canadian halfbreeds; it also places the Mission Metis within a larger context of population movements and adaptation to modernity. b) Chapter 2 is an analysis of Metis multilingualism, with particular attention given to the elders' use of three languages ; Cree is seen as the source of several phenomena of interference affecting French and English.

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