METIS HERITAGE IS FULL OF TWISTS AND TURNS
Racial identity was matter of picking one that seemed right, says D.W. Langford.
To steal a line from Teddy Roosevelt, doing your family’s genealogy is like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall. Especially if both sides have a good chunk of French Métis ancestors, with huge families and an insane preference for pretty much only four first names: Joseph, Francois, Urbain and Norbert.
Factor in a few multiple marriages due to untimely deaths, two or three Norberts born about the same year, and historical references to “the Delorme brothers” that fail to mention exactly which set is being discussed and suddenly there’s a loud, piercing bang — caused by you slamming Sprague’s book of Métis genealogical tables back down on the desk again.
But National Aboriginal Day is upon us once more, so let’s give that old family tree a good shake to see who falls out.
First things first: Where to start? The obvious starting point would be my father’s Métis genealogy — prepared 20 years ago by La Société Historique de Saint-Boniface (SHSB), which today helps authenticate Métis ancestry for the Manitoba Métis Federation (MMF) through an archival search of Half-Breed Scrip applications, or early parish records establishing a direct ancestral link to the historic Red River Métis.
Back in the early 1980s, however, before I became an Indian, I was a member of the MMF in Winnipeg, when providing proof of one’s Métis ancestry was much less onerous, and simply consisted of doing a quick Red River jig, while wearing a sash and a toque, while singing an old voyageur song in French and waving a large wooden paddle in the air.
While I was severely censured for throwing in a few Riverdance moves and a Michael Jackson moonwalk, I did get that Métis card, which I later traded in for an Indian card — after I perfected a few new dance moves I saw at Kahk powwows in the 1970s, which my mother used to religiously attend way back in the day.
But dancing my way back to matters of genealogy, my father’s Métis lineage goes back through his grandfather, Joseph Delorme, who was born in 1875 in Moose Jaw, to Plains Métis parents who were part of the last groups of people still hunting what was left of the fast-vanishing buffalo in and around the Cypress Hills.
And his parents, Joseph
Sr. (1841-81) and Genevieve (née Emond), were both born in the Saint Francois Xavier parish, which was formerly known as Grantown, and originally known as White Horse Plain — the Métis settlement Cuthbert Grant established on the Assiniboine River in 1821, about 25 kilometres west of the Red River Colony.
And that’s basically the type of documented genealogical proof and information people today need to get a Métis card in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. Ontario and British Columbia, however, still allow dancing.
And while my father’s
Métis genealogical record did not list the brothers or sisters of our direct Métis ancestors, a little digging helped fill in some of the blanks.
For instance, my Plains Cree mother’s great-grandfather, also Francois Delorme, was related to my father’s grandfather, Joseph Delorme — and this distant family commingling probably had some type of adverse genetic role in my two webbed feet and third nipple.
Long story short, their grandfathers were brothers, and if we give that family tree an even harder shake a quick snapshot of their lives can be gleaned from historical records.
Joe Delorme (1875-1974), according to his 1902 HalfBreed Scrip affidavit, was employed on a CPR dining car as a cook, and had lived in Winnipeg for 11 years, and before that in Qu’Appelle. On the 1901 census, however, and all subsequent census documents, he claimed he was French.
And in later life, he also jokingly claimed that he and his fellow-cook brother had invented the first-ever takeout food in Canada at the Calgary Stampede, as they didn’t let Indians or HalfBreeds into the fair grounds, so they simply stood near the gate and sold their food to people entering or leaving the event.
And Frank Delorme (18681939), also born to Plains Métis parents, took Indian Treaty instead of Half-Breed Scrip, and claimed he was an Assiniboine Indian on the 1901 census, then a Cree Indian on the 1911 census, and actively took to farming on the Cowessess reserve at the turn of the century, and actually succeeded in spite of Indian Affairs policies directed at sabotaging early Indian farm efforts to protect local white farmers.
Finally, for the record, no Delormes I am directly related to took part in the 1885 North-West Resistance at Batoche, and for that I am truly sorry.
And the Joseph Delorme described by Gabriel Dumont as a lion in battle was actually a cousin and not a direct relation, who later had both his testicles shot off, so perhaps it’s good we missed that fight.