A conversation with Brad Mix

MIX INTERVIEW PT. 1 

M- First of all if you decide to read this book, I think it's important to understand that the content is the result of the experiences from lives lived, realms of practice and study, and insights discovered. The content has been derived from many sources... The personal diaries of Charles Sauve (one of two Metis men sent to retrieve Louis Riel’s body after his execution), The Batoche Journal of Louis Riel (which was in the possession of Charles Sauve and his daughter, Josephine for over 70 years), the experiences and stories passed on by my Mother "Joan Smith", as well as family dreams and visions and the Wahkootawin world view inspired and guided by elders as well as the ceremonies of the sweatlodge.

The dialogue that follows is not to be read as a scholarly endeavor but read and appreciated as an exploration resulting in a whirlwind of insight and discovery. My deepest held goal is that this offering to the Metis people will inspire further dialogue and participation in reconstituting our history and shared identity. We welcome any and all criticism or input, contributions or insights that would advance this dialogue.

To this purpose we have set up a website where you are invited to voice your ideas, family stories and personal insights and or any relevant facts.

M-Mix

B- Discussion partner

M: Okay, I’m just going to start talking because that’s the way this Metis does things, from the oral tradition and story telling point of view. The things I choose to speak about and the order that I speak about them may not fall into the typical linear pattern, but in a more spotty or circular fashion as part of an effort to reveal the many subtle meanings, relationships and importance of any event or subject being described. So bare with me as I attempt to share what I have learned and become sensitized to.

M: When reading Flannigan’s book - Louis Riel, the Prophet of the New World, Flannigan writes about the Millenarian movement, and it's origins dating all the way back to the Middle Centuries in the emergence of prophets as it relates to the coming of Christ. Then Flannigan references the Millenarian movement as an anti-colonial resistance movement that was founded in the prophesies of - in most cases brown skinned people that were standing in opposition to the white tide. 

M: Flannigan mentions Riel as being one of the later Millenarian leaders- prophets. But he also mentions the ghost dance as being a similar (in purpose) movement that took place in the United States. 

Riel’s leadership, his prophesy, rooted in his spiritual awakening- (which I believe happened in the 1870s when he had his first vision). And then slowly over ten to fifteen years his vision started to come together and manifest in Saskatchewan as his vision of the "New World" - a vision of what was possible for the Metis, Indians and even Settlers. A vision that only a prophet could see and then in his case provide leadership that could make it achievable in real terms. 

??One of the things that I kind of need to say has to do with the amount of time that I’ve put into doing sweat lodge ceremony as a way of?? 

I have spent many years coming to terms with Riel’s leadership to gain insight into the nature of his struggle to preserve the Metis (indigenous) way of life. I’ve thought about this over and over again - there has always been this Eurosentric idea that the indigenous people were "primitive“ that "they didn’t even have the wheel”,  therefore what life worth having could they possibly be fighting for? When I think about the Métis struggle - which is of course a personal one for me and my Metis family. My sense is that the struggle was rooted in the life templet provided for us in philosophy and concepts of Wakootowin, Life defined by relationship. I don’t have to imagine what it was for the Lakota people or the Black feet people- I know what it was and is like  from my own families experience. We were and are to this day fighting for this way of life that had value to us as Métis people, more value than the version brought by the European settlers. A Metis way of life that we were willing to literally die to protect. And in the extreme case of the Red River and Batoche resistance efforts. where we were just a handful of Métis and Indian freedom fighters totaling 400 to 500 people put their lives on the line. 

M2: And he mentions Riel as being one of the later Millenarian leaders- prophets. But he also mentions The Ghost Dance as being the large movement that took place in the states. And of course Riel’s leadership, his prophesy, and his spiritual awakening- I believe happened in the late 1870s when he had his first vision. And then slowly things started coming together for him until finally it was divided up Saskatchewan to recede and turn into a vision of what was possible that, uh, that prophets’ leadership. One of the things that I kind of need to say has to do with the amount of time that I’ve put into doing sweat lodge ceremony as a way of coming to terms with the nature of Riel’s leadership and to get some sort of insight into the struggle to preserve a way of life and I’ve thought about this over and over again- like there’s always been this talk about “well the Indians didn’t eve have wheels”, they didn’t even have the wheel, what could they have possibly been fighting for?” and when I think about the Métis struggle- which is of course a personal one for me. I don’t have to imagine what it was for the Lakota people of the Black feet people- I know what it was for the Métis people- at least from my own family position or experience. And that was fighting for a way of life that had value, and more value to the Métis people than the version that was being brought by the settlers of the Europeans of the white people. And so you’re really looking at a life worth dying for. And in the extreme case of the Batoche resistance where you had just a handful of Métis people, and with the Indians I think it totaled to about 4 or 500 people.

B: Sound about right, yeah.

M: Standing against somewhere between 1,500 and 2,500 soldiers with the potential of a much greater force, two cans, Gatling gun, news rifles. Um, you’re really looking at people who were willing to lay it all on the line and it wasn’t just because they had been snowed by- as some people would suggest- by the manipulation of a megalomaniac, or someone that was insane, but everybody was clear that their way of life was something worth fighting and dying for. So, you have to kind of then say- what they were fighting for was clear- but what was it that Louis Riel was promising them, or was leading them so that they could actually see themselves resisting? So, one of the things I’ve grown to understand is that with indigenous people they look to their leaders to have leadership that is rooted in a spiritual tradition with the clarity that goes along with relationship with the creator. So, whether it be a chief that has a medicine man that they refer to, or in the case of Riel where we really is the medicine man, he is the prophet, and then the military aspect of the resistance, which was Gabriel Dumont, was essentially anchoring his leadership and the military component in this relationship with the spiritual leader. 

M2: Standing against somewhere between 1,500 and 2,500 soldiers with the potential of a much greater force, two Canons, Gatling gun, new repeating rifles. You’re really looking at people who were willing to lay it all on the line and it wasn’t just because they had been snowed by- as some people would suggest- by the manipulation of a megalomaniac, or someone that was insane, but everybody was clear that their way of life was something worth fighting and dying for. So, what they were fighting for was clear to them- Then the question that beggs to be answered is... what was it that Louis Riel was promising them, or was he leading them so that they could actually see themselves resisting? One of the things I’ve grown to understand is that traditionally, indigenous people looked to their leaders to have leadership that is rooted in a spiritual tradition with the clarity and insight tborn of a relationship with the creator. So, whether it be a chief that has a medicine man that they refer to, or in the case of Riel where he actually is the medicine man, he is the prophet, and then the military leadership of the resistance, which was Gabriel Dumont, who was essentially anchoring his military leadership in relationship with Riel’s spiritual leadership.

B: Right, so in a sense, how I’ve heard this described in historical terms is you have a war chief and a kind of- often described as a social chief. So a kind of political, but then the war chief would lead the troops into battle, but would not necessarily make the decision to go to battle. So the leadership is kind of multiple levels of leadership from a kind of grand chief who is charged with making the overall decisions informed by chiefs who are at lower levels, like a war chief, who like I was wouldn’t- the war chief might say hey I think its time to go to war but the social chief might say no that not what we’re going to do, we’re going to try something else or whatever. But as we’re talking about this I’m struck by the phrase “something worth dying for.” And that is a- I mean lifestyle is not the right word- but it’s a way of life. 

M: Yes, it’s Wahkotowan 

B: Exactly. Now, just in historical terms, where do you see the Métis - before Louis Riel - where did that come from?

M: What?

B: Wahkotowan.

M: Oh, Cree tradition. Well, it’s, you can even say- from what I understand- almost every tribe had a sense of who they were in relationship to land, the animals, the weather, the winds, the spirits, the sun, the moon, the water, I mean, this was essentially a people who were deeply connected to the land and animals that inhabit that land as well as the ancestors- the line that each individual comes from, and the potential to feed and provide for the future, so you’re really looking at a complete spectrum of relatedness on many levels that really comprises the world view that’s provided in Wakotowan, or you might say the red road in modern spiritual terms for people that follow the spirituality of the sweat lodge and the sun dance, etc. 

M2: Oh, it’s a traditional Cree world view. Well, you could even say, almost every tribe or band had a sense of who they were in relationship to the land, the animals, the weather, the winds, the spirits, the sun, the moon, the water, and the ancestors, I mean, Wahkotowan was essential to a peoples identity and derived from relatedness, and the family line that each individual came from, was part of a continuity purposed to feed and provide for the future. So you’re really looking at a complete spectrum of relatedness, belonging and responsiblity on many levels in the world view provided for in Wakotowan, or in modern terms the Red Road way used here in the U.S. by people that follow the spirituality of the sweat lodge and the sun dance, etc. 

B: Now I’m just looking for something when I was just kind of opening up me, uh, things here- a description of Wakotowan. I’m just trying to find that. (3 minutes spent looking) 

M: I’ve got it here. Ready?

B: Yeah.

M: I’ll just read it out. “Wakotowan- Métis identity was fostered through social relationships according to Wakotowan, a Cree term, meaning a world view that valued relatedness to land, people, living, ancestral, and future generations, spirit world, and creatures inhabiting the land. Put simply, family is defined through broad relatedness with all beings and it is through these relationships that the Métis of Manitoba actively established connections with the Hudson’s Bay Company and the church, and secured their identity.” 

M2: I’ll just read it out. “Wakotowan- Métis identity was fostered through social relationships according to Wakotowan, a Cree term, meaning a world view that valued relatedness to land, people, living, ancestral, and future generations, spirit world, and creatures inhabiting the land. Put simply, family is defined through broad relatedness with all beings and it is through these relationships that the Métis of Manitoba actively established connections with the Hudson’s Bay Company and the church, and secured their identity.” - see “One of the Family”

MIX INTERVIEW PT. 4 

B: and this, you know, just the taught occurs to me, that this connects really nicely back to Riel and his relationship with his mother. 

M: yeah. And his grandma.

B: Which becomes-and his grandma, exactly. Which becomes important when he father dies, in his early 20’s and its like he becomes the man of the family. But, the man of the family is basically- how should we say it- is socializes by the women. And so he has to live up to their expectations rather than, no that the fathers expectations- they might not be any different, but they could be different given particularly post contact. When you see examples of successful men who were not the same as successful indigenous people, who a different definition of success and a different definition of good, even. And part of that, its social and I mean, to me, like, part of what we’re talking about here is how societies reproduce themselves generation by generation. And I don’t mean just reproduction. I mean simply that they continue that line of reasoning, if you will. So I think that’s important and the other part of it that I think comes up for me is that in terms of our society we have property relations and human relations, which are divided. But it strikes that in indigenous societies that might not be the case. There may only be relations. Rather than starting to categorize those relations, and you have a different relationship with human beings than you do to, like, eight objects in nature- in fact that says it right there- objects in nature. ‘What are you talking about? Objects?” those are not objects, those are part of us and we are part of them. 

M2: If you look specifically at the way women were thought of as property by the Europeans as contrasted with the Indigenous contributing role that women played in strengthening and keeping the people healthy - As I recall a story about the Indians showing up to negotiate with some European military types. The Indians came to negotiate with women representatives as part of their party. Upon arriving they noted that there were no with them, the first question was from them was where’s your women? And the answer was ‘we don’t allow the women to participate in official business’ The Indians were dismayed by this and said how the heck can you negotiate on behalf of the people with out the participation of women? We’re not going to sit in negotiation with you because without your women present you can not negotiate to provide for the needs of the women and the children? 

B: And that speaks to that idea- and I mean its kind of a trope out of the movies of the great white mother, right? And it just happened that at that time in English history queen Victoria sat on the throne for 60 odd years or something and so you had this behind and I think that the armed forced used that as a negotiating tactic. The great white mother sent us. We represent the great white mother. She asked us to do this. She told us to do this. She’s behind it all. There is a woman in the picture. 

M: The English law didn’t include the common woman.

B: No, and in fact, the great white mother wasn’t governing as woman, per say. It was basically, that was the appearance but that wasn’t the fact of it. And, by that point she was being power of the monarch was, uh, almost totally nullified at that point. She was literally a figurehead, but it was used- it just occurred to me that that construction of the great white mother was used to nullify that question that you proposed of where are the women? Yeah. That’s interesting. So, the sense that I’m getting of this is that basically- and what I hear you doing here is, you’re basically telling stories, right? And you’re telling these stories from a very person space. You’re not telling them the same way as I’m telling them, from like I read it in the back. These are from talking to elders, basically. 

M: Well, yes. And ceremonial experience. And of the things that I’ve read. But what’s interesting- you bring up this idea of ownership, and here’s a story- well kind of a story- so here you basically go okay: European woman is possessed by the man once they enter into that marriage, basically a man in the old days, man could beat his wife. She couldn’t not have children by him (rape). That was simply his prerogative. 

B: Right, it wasn’t rape if you were married. 

M: Exactly. And my kids will be raised a certain way and on and on and on. Where as in the Métis culture the woman was the one that determined where the focus of raising the kids was going to come from. So the man served the woman in regard to how she was going to be raising the kids. And also from the inception these women were marrying the European men and they were the conduit of wealth for the tribe and for the man and his people. So the woman was the channel by which these things were make possible. So, you’re really looking at –in the case of the Métis women, or the native women that gave birth to the Métis children- you’re looking at a very significant increase in the ranking of the status of the tribe and within the euro cultures that the husband was going business for/ with. So the status of the native woman, the status of her kids was all created out of what the women made possible through education, through interpreting, through guidance, I mean al those things happened to facilitate prosperity. And so, I think that the Métis women became so powerful and became unusual in that regard. You could even say the Métis women were the forerunners of the women’s rights movement. I have a sense that they are the original women’s rights people. And, the eventual prejudicial emphasis that the English- once they really began to take over- and this really happened for about 1835 forward- where all of a sudden you wound up with the English saying its not a good idea to be marrying native women anymore. It’s not a good idea to be married to Métis women anymore. And you wound up having the way in which the English began to look at Métis women as objects. And they went back to their history and rather than looking at that avenue of being connected to the native as an advantage they began to scorn it and they began to say ‘that was bad period of our history that was rooted in essentially copulating with the beast’ which was the native person. And-

B: the heathen.

M: The heathen, yes. So here you have these Métis women, which were attractive and exotic looking women, and the English interpreted that in the most ugly terms, which was they’re attractive, they’re desirable, but they’re not to married, they’re to be used. Again, there’s that ownership or projection of the negative. And since they couldn’t possess them… it became part of what you currently have today- and I guess I’m not sure how this fits- but what we have today is this legacy of women who, uh, carry that guilt and shame that’s associated with being attractive. 

B: And, I thought you were going to go a little further with that and basically the connection I make is this is where you get down to the murdered and missing women.

M: Yes, of course. And in my own mothers case it gets- you know, she was accosted and abused because of her Métis appearance. 

B: Exactly… yeah. Well, yeah. A racist response, you know- and it comes from that idea of dominance and subjugation. And so, what’s interesting to me in this, Brad, is ‘like, what you’re proposing here- I mean the ideas you’re proposing lead to, what you have to do is change, like, basically you’re talking about upending all of the social patterns. You’re talking about- and that comes from the simple idea of it being a matrilineal society. So you’ve got these two societies, one matrilineal, one patrilineal. So, how do you put those two together? And it happens that indigenous society in the matrilineal one, so the patrilineal society has to accept that to become part of that. Has to accept a matrilineal line. 

M: well, what’s interesting is- ill address that square- the patrilineal is basically ‘my way of the highway’ cuz that’s kind of what defines it, or at least as a part of- maybe its even- I cant speak for the European experience, but her in north America I believe that the patritineal expression is more severe and more focused of domination because of the slave trade, because of what happened with the Indians and the Métis and because of what happened with the forests and the mining and the pollution of the rivers. It’s a wholesale consumption, disregard for the natural order of things to the point of spoiling and destroying. 

B: toxic masculinity. 

M: yes, absolutely. And it’s like, and in the case of North America, its masculinity on steroids. 

B: yeah. 

M: So, with that said when you look at the concept of the patrilineal order the tendency is ‘well if you give yourself over to the matrilineal its just going to be this wholesale thing where women are in charge’ and the crazy part of it is the matrilineal is not defined by overreach by domination. It’s defined by inclusion. 

B: rather than the term ‘ in charge’ isn’t the working definition. It’s not the way it works!

M: no! 

B: its not being in charge, it’s that it’s simply the role of the woman and it’s not the idea of- like you say rather than domination its cooperation. 

M: there wouldn’t a safe harbor for children without it. 

B: well and this, that’s… that’s really important because what you get almost immediately is residential schools. The most unsafe place for kids to be. And in fact that’s- you take children away from their families and that’s what you get is, like, they then have to be dominated and subjugated. They have to learn their place rather than their place being something that is- it’s a given, their place is a given rather than something they have to learn. 

M: yes. And now you’re really- there’s an issue here and I said it in the beginning, and it has to do with this tendency to evaluate the indigenous way of life, or the value systems from the European POV, or this patriarchal perspective that interprets and I believe what we’re trying to get at is what’s the view from inside that? It’s a world view that’s- you cant go ‘oh that’s the worldview’ you have to find a way- and again, this gets down to the sweat lodge experience. You don’t have to be an Indian to know the natural of things. Its just a matter of allowing yourself to sink into the truth and to sensitize yourself again to the true nature of relatedness and how that is the truth behind our existence. And the empowerment that we get isn’t from our won will, but from our recognition of where we belong. So it’s belonging that defines us. 

B: And what I hear you saying in that is that the idea that to critique Métis society from the European worldview is pretty straightforward. The problem is that- and this answers my original question of ‘what are we trying to do here’ and I think the simple answer is to present it not from the euro POV, but from the Métis POV. 

M: Absolutely. 

B: And so, then you go back to Wakotowan. And this is the problem the historical problem is post contact it’s all dominated by the European POV and you don’t very often hear the indigenous POV. It’s in fact almost wiped out. It’s subjugated, it’s subverted, and it’s punished, all of those things. 

M: Well it’s also, when you look at historical trauma as passed down from the initial contact and the initial brutal overreach that resulted in loss of huge amount of life. Literally every family had multiple members die within thirty or twenty years. I believe the numbers- somewhere I read- 2 million and in a period of 70s down to a 150 thousand. So we’re talking about a huge loss of life. And it’s difficult to imagine what the impact was on each person. The trauma, the grief-that was simply on such a great level you couldn’t metabolize it. The fear, the impending doom, the despair, the despondency that went along with it. And then the idea that you go from the idea that there was an abundance that there was a future and a way forward, to subsistence of’ ‘what can we do to keep going?” and then the idea that life is no longer possible for us. And so somehow you need to hide, you need to find some little place where you can be away and never ever think about or talk about the fact that you are native or that you are descendant of the native. So in that loss of identity, in that loss of a vision of what’s possible in the future you wind up with people that have that brutal experience, they begin to turn on themselves and they begin to turn on one another, and so what you wind up with in present day is that patriarchal colonial over reach expressed within indigenous households. Where a light skinned person is the white man, or their better than us. And there’s that in fighting that happens within Métis households, which is actually fairly common. 

MIX INTERVIEW PT. 7 

B: right, after tearing the guy down for 195 pages…. On the bottom of the 195th page.

M: He should have started with that.

B: I couldn’t agree with you more. And in a way that’s where we start. 

M: yeah, I guess that’s true. 

B: And actually that is not a bad quote to start with. Attributed much of that. And the last line of the book, contribute the quote to Flannigan (laughs) Yeah, that’s really interesting. That’s a much broader definition of sanity. Wow. That’s really interesting, lie that, you know? That’s not his- he conveniently leaves that out of just about everything. 

M: Its kind of wild. You read everything else and its flat out hostile. 

B: and that is very even tempered. It’s not what I would call Flannigan’s general mean spiritedness towards Riel.

M: and threes also this notion that everything needs to measure up in rational terms, but in indigenous culture you have a vision, you have power. Now, the interesting thing is when you have a vision, when a vision first comes you are so profoundly impacted by it that you basically are crazy for a period of time. Everything is totally thrown into chaos and Riel did not have the environment when he had his vision to be able to contain it. He was essentially on his own.

B: Well, worse. He was living with a catholic priest at the time, basically. Being passed from priest to priest after being released from mental hospital run by a catholic priest, right? And this maybe something we could talk about a bit now is from an indigenous perspective, a Métis perspective, what is the attitude towards- lets not call it mental health, lets call it prophesy and vision, something like that… lets call it spirituality even. Because Riel was always seen as a deeply spiritual guy, even by the Catholic church. 

M: Well, vision gives you a certain kind of power and in some cases it results in Medicine relationships that actually produce seemingly magical results in healing and being able to see into the future, being able to locate people that are lost or objects that are last… this kind of- what do you call it? There’s no term for it…. 

B: Like, second sight or something?

M: yeah, there a term we need to figure out… but going into that visions give you, there’s a certain kind of power that goes with it. Now on a certain level it allows you to see in a different way than you could see with the rational mind, by using the constructs of the mind and your will. It’s something that actually breaks that your vision- your sight is beyond what you can construct for yourself. Beyond what your parents taught you, and so forth. It literally opens things up and that in of itself needs to be respected. And if you look through Riel’s writings you’ll see some stuff that quite honestly, if you weren’t the one with the vision, you’d say this is topsy turvy- crazy making. But in the end you have Riel out of all that visionary experience, he’s the only one that can construct this a reasonable, rational future, and an opportune time that allows us to propose how to go forward. And if you look at what he proposed to the Gov it’s rational. It came out of that vision. 

B: right. So, let me just ask you a question about that, and in a way this balances those one against the other, the European vs. the indigenous version of the mind. So, in a way- and we can see it in the language, when you say somebody’s crazy you could use the term “they’re cracked up”, but it seems to me what I noticed when you talked about it, you talked about cracked as being cracked open, rather than broken.

M: Right, and even those individuals who have been broken and have found their way through a natural process of reclaiming themselves, you’ll notice that those people have a level insight that’s just unusual. And enriching for anyone else. So it’s literally part of the process. If you look at it in its real terms and the outcomes of many people that have gone through a cracked state into a healed state. It’s not like “they become normal” because quite often they’re so much greater than they were before.

B: right, and that’s what I mean, like its interesting if you use- f you look at just the language of it “cracked” doesn’t necessarily mean broken. It could be “cracked- open”, maybe that can enclosed again, but its always- the sum is always greater than it was before the crack open happened, because you cracked something open, you let something out, but you also let something in.

M: yes, and you could actually take a look at Riel’s influence and the impact of his life and his journey and everything that he represented and everything that he fulfilled on, including giving his life, and you could say “well he was crazy,” but the outcome of his intentions and his commitments and his follow through have resulted in a reputation that continues to grow in its influence on the Canadian identity, or the Canadian awareness. And I believe in Jene Chalae (“) in this one interview she goes “who else is growing in their influence and reputation? Riel?” He’s continuing to grow, so in a way it’s not just the constructs of those of us that still look to him as a touchstone for legitimacy. It’s greater than that. 

B: Okay, now- and this speaks to the idea of the Prophet. So, at Batoche he’s appointed the Prophet, which clearly- Gabriel Dumont did not stand up when they said hey I want you to be my prophet. Pretty clearly Riel said: yeah, okay. Ill stay, but I want to be the Prophet. I don’t want to be the president, I want to be the Prophet.” So in that sense we--- how can we look at that from his POV? 

M: Riel’s?

B: yeah, why does Riel want to be – not only designated the Prophet. 

M: well, Okay. For instance, one of the things is you don’t say, “I’m a medicine man” first. Other people do. And that was the case with him. And the reason he was the Prophet was for one simple reason. He saw a way forward. No one else could see a way forward. The buffalo were gone. You talk about earlier where you were saying all Riel wanted was to have a life- he was no different than any other Métis in that desire. The different between him and other Métis was he had the capacity through his vision and education, and his ability to see into the- you gotta remember Wakotowan is a worldview and code that oriented people to the right way of life- well the rule of law does that for the European mind. Riel had both. So he was able to go Wakotowan and we will appeal to them and we will work with them using their code, which was the rule of law. So he was able to interpret in my view, he was able to interpret the needs of his people in a language that makes sense to the European mind. 

B: Yeah, that’s the key right there. That’s it. I think you nailed it right there. Yeah. So, he can go literally back and forth and in a sense if you want to get kind of mystical about it, he can time travel.

M: oooo, yah. Well if you consider the likes of Gabriel Dumont hearing what Riel had to say about how we’re going to make our case. He must have been completely blown away, because- how can somebody construct that argument; construct that scenario that would allow the English to accept their proposal for the existence that would work with them?

B: yes, and that’s what his…. I like this. This is really good. That in fact is his prophecy. He prophesized a way to co-exist. 

M: and it’s legitimate. It’s practical. 

B: well, not only is it legitimate and practical it is based on both principals, the rule of law and Wakotowan. It’s balanced. It has that lovely bit of balance, and what we were talking about before, that crack is between the rule of law and wakotowan, and somehow it allow the two things to pass back and forth.

M: yes, good point.

B: So he can be sitting down there in Montana negotiating with General Nelson Miles, but what’s he negotiating? He’s negotiating for a metis homeland. He doesn’t call it that, but that’s what it his. And at the same time he’s basically the chief of this tribe of buffalo hunters out on the prairie living in skin tents and in a way he’s the last Métis on the land, right? He’s the last Métis buffalo hunter, and nobody thinks of Riel as buffalo hunter. And this is what’s so important about that time in Montana where he is the chief of this hundred strong lodge of buffalo hunters negotiating with the United Stated Federal Gov. nation to nation. I can show you the letters that he sent. But here’s the beauty of it, but you know he sent letters to these guy- a white way of communicating. Native people weren’t sending letters to each other. He not only is able to do that, but he’s also able to get his followers to sing a petition- he gets 100 names of the petition to give to the US gov. Think about the incongruity of that. This is like, if you could imagine someone like Geronimo going to WA and presenting a petition to Jackson or somebody, one of the Indian fighters. So, its like this- the word that I’m looking for is transcendent. He’s able to transcend that divide between the European mind and indigenous mind. 

M: I think you’re onto something, but what I’ve come to recognize as Métis person is that we are the manifestation of that very principle, or that very reality. 

B: of course.

M: so that’s not just of the mind. It’s actually DNA. It’s who were are as beings.

B: And what transcends that divide between the indigenous mind and the co called civilized mind. Between wakotoawn and the rule of law? 

M: And also, if you look at “I define myself by what I am not”, okay? That’s no what we are. 

B: it’s not a negative option.

M: that’s right. WE don’t say, “this is what I’m not”, we say, “This is what I am”. 

B: and its always almost this is what WE are. 

M: yes, so its WE. And I think that’s an important concept, like, I believe it was the Lakota, their word for enemy meant “someone tat doesn’t speak their language”, but if you go one step further and you go “language, thought, ideas, values.” he enemy is someone who doesn’t hold the same values and same worldview. So, in indigenous terms you really are looking at those individuals who don’t hold those same things a valuable. Now, with the Lakota people- because of their war stance on a lot of things its kind of not quite a fair comparison because I’m not Lakota. I can’t talk to those intimate issues. But I think there’s something important to know when it comes to when you’re saying, “its not just language, it’s a world view, it’s values that are really separating us.

B: But see, this is- I really think... I think were onto something here because language is what express- I’m going to turn the light on… language is what expresses your values. Your values are embedded in your language. You cant express a value that you don’t have the language for. You know? It’s not logically possible. Its not, whets the word for that… it’s just not something that the human mind can accomplish. You can’t say something that you can’t say.

M: mhmmmmm…… 

__________________________________________________________

B: Yeah, this is really exciting, I find. 

M: I’m almost getting to the point where I’m tired. 

B: You’ve had a long day already. Its only six forty two. I’m fine, I can go either way. Whatever you want to do is fine. 

M: Well what else do you have in mind? Lets keep going until…

B: Well I think that we have, in a sense, if I could put it this way, uhm; I think we’ve come to a kind of conclusion of the first chapter, if you will. And we’ve covered a lot of ground there and looked at it in many different ways. We’ve looked at it from a lot of different ways and that’s not to say that aren’t more ways that it could be looked at. But I think for now it feels to me, like we’ve kind of exhausted that. We’ve gotten to the point with that where it’s almost time to change direction a little bit. 

M: Well, I do want to say one thing before we move out of this. I kind of want to turn this off in a minute and save it, but what I want to make really clear is that my interpretation of all of this material is grounded in not only my family history, but also the fact that my mother was driven into exile and took me with her, and so my experience of this has been primarily born of this exile and the hardship that went along with it, and the isolation, and the intense racism, and sexual exploitation that was put onto my family and my mother and my sisters. And so forth. And that my way of coming back to this material and the perspective I have has come from therapy and many many years of sweat lodge ceremony. 

B: yes. And I think, just to respond to one part of that- there’s a whole lot of literature, both professional literature from the psychological POV, and literary literature about exile. I mean exile is a human condition, one of the human conditions that really tests people’s humanity. From two sides of it; there’s the imposition of exile upon people- that tests the humanity of the person who is putting someone into exile, but it also humanity of the person who is in exile. So, you have this kind of- and it’s really interesting… Not to put to fine of a point on it Brad, but whose our most famous exile? Louis Riel.

M: Hmmm, interesting. Yeah.

B: I don’t want to make the case to your kind of reliving Louis Riel’s life, but I do want to make the case that there are similarities there, you know? I guess maybe I could ask you a personal question, and its not crazy personal. But when you went away to university, where did you go to university from? Where were you living when you..?

M: I was living in California. I was brought up in southern Oregon.

B: right.

M: which, by the way was a white mans haven. No colored people there. Except for a few people around there associated with the uni and my mother and my sisters. Those were the only colored people. And then I went to California and met a lot of Mexicans and black people, which was totally new for me. Then I moved back to Ohio and went to Kent State. 

B: when did you leave Winnipeg?

MIX INTERVIEW PT. 10 

B: okay.

M: They said he was incorrect in a lot of ways in which he was describing Riel and they published this in the newspaper, but the thing was that the article that was written about Charles Sauvé was an interview with my grandmother. So, she might have had things wrong. She was girl. She idolized her father and she might have inflated it because she didn’t know any different. She was kind of a little that way, kind of naive. Not stupid, but naive. She would know how far that was and what that meant on foot. So, who knows? She could have gotten that wrong, or exaggerated it without knowing what she was saying. So, here’s this public denouncing of Sauvé… Like, when I read that a chill went through me that I can hardly describe. It was really intense. So what my grandmother must have experienced during her time of grief must have been really hard. 

B: no kidding… Okay, I think this is actually a good place to start because as you’re talking about this stuff, what you’re alluding to is divisions within the Métis society, right? So, I think it would be good to outline those divisions and what the sides, the different sides of that represented. And there’s probably, just off the top of my head, there’s obviously some people who would say “lets not talk about Riel, that’s just trouble- they hung him, he was traitor, and look what happened to the rest of us? We were abandoned”

M: right. He was a yolk around the neck. It was a burden.

B: right. So, some part of the Métis society would have said ‘forget it, we’re not going to talk about that guy. Its over. That ship has sailed’. And yet, what Sauvé presents- he was a guy who decides he’s going to carry the torch, so to speak. He’s going to, not only remain a true believer, he also ahs the documentation, right? What I was reading on your way back is Flannigan’s introduction where he talks about the Batoche diary and how that comes to be public and how it actually- what he ended up using was bought by a consortium of private people, one of whom was a Métis MP, I don’t remember his name… And they kept it in a safety deposit box, but that the Manitoba Archives, when they were trying to sell it made a copy of it, so that’s what he used as the copy of it. So, in a way it remained secret. These guys bought it just to hold it. What they were trying to do what prevent it from falling into the wrong hands. And the wrong hands would have been Americans and they probably wanted the Manitoba archives to buy it so it would become public property. They put themselves between this member of the Sauvé family who sells it- was that your uncle? 

M: it would have been my grandmothers brother… so my great uncle. 

B: okay. I think it would useful if we could get into those divisions in the Métis society because in effect- and you’ve alluded to this a bit, I kind of stored this in my memory bank- that there are Métis and particularly red river Métis who see a very narrow lineage for, and this is the exclusionary tactic of if you’re not related to the eleven families that settled in the Red River in the 1820’s, you’re not Métis. You have to trace yourself to those families. And I’ve had dealings when I was doing the Dumont book wit that portion of the Métis society. Their main interest was whether there was any money in it, basically. They wanted the money to fight that battle of who was going to be considered Métis. But your definition is a much more open definition. 

M: yeah… but its kind of like, uhm, My definition of it is, its like this: you don’t even have to be of native blood to be indigenous and what mean by that is in the old days if you lived the life that’s what you were. So, that was the original concept, so this whole struggle for recognized identity versus somebody whose coming in and usurping the authority of the word, so to speak, is really undermining the representative voice of the people, so to speak. That’s understandable how it evolved into that because there had been so much that had been taken away already, but in the old days before the collapse you could be- like in that story with Kootenai, who wound up living among the Métis- well he was a white guy but he became Métis because he was living the life and the code, or at least what the social order demanded of him. So, that’s the way that things were and so from that stand point, if you’re a mixed blood and you say, “yeah I’m part of that Métis identity” and if there’s an understanding of what that is, then there’s no reason why that person shouldn’t included. However you also have Métis that are saying ‘we’re Métis, and we’re the same as red river Métis’ and that’s not true either. Because, red river Métis- I mean, because of Riels status as prophet he put the Métis on a different footing than the average half bread because he became a spiritual touchtone that was connected to the Métis identity and the vision of the Métis world, which was first nations, Métis and settlers. Its critical to make that distinction, and you have to look to the Red River clans to understand that what he did was made possible because of that clan system that supported him. Intimate family connections. And my family was part of that network- the Naults, the Carriers, the Lagemodiere people, the Sauvé’s.

B: Yeah, its pretty easy to find lists of who the families where considered the original Métis, and I like the way you phrase it- there’s Red River Métis, which is sort of like saying in the States, there’s maybe the Northern Shayne, as apposed to saying that we are all Shayne. Its same with the Sioux- there’s the Lakota, Natoka.

M: and even just within the Lakota there are the Ogallala- and you take a look at the Custer battle and that’s directly connected to Sitting Bull (Ogallala). So that whole event is really intimately connected to the Ogallala specifically because of his leadership. But, when you mention the Lakota people, a lot of people in the states, for instance- you really look at those pivotal Indian wars that were strong resistance and the Lakota and the Apache embodied it. They are the big names in the Indian resistance. It’s what sitting bull did with the Lakota and what the Apache did with Geronimo. It was the culmination of the resistance and after that there really wasn’t much. But in Canada you look the same kind of notoriety goes to the Red River Métis specifically. 

B: right. It seems to me that if you look at the Red River as a distinct kind of formulation what you have there is basically a fairly sophisticated society that basically says ‘hey you can’t do this. You can’t transfer us. We’re not part of your department story. We don’t go along with it. If you sell this land to Canada you have to talk to us about you. You have to take us and negotiate. This is where the Manitoba Act comes into it, like I said I see it more as a treaty. It was a way basically to get the Métis to sign on to the creation of Manitoba. And instead of the Red River being the homemade, Manitoba becomes the homeland. But when Manitoba starts its like this postage event, right? And I remember reading between 1870 and 1880 the population change- well first of all in 1870 one of the results of the Red River Resistance, at least that’s what I call it rather than the “red River rebellion”.

M: yes. That’s the politically sensitive way to say it. 

B: right, but the result of that was that there was a Métis diasporas- that’s the kind of anthropological technical term. Diaspora just means that they spread out. They left there because there was no place for them. There was supposed to be, but it never worked out. They didn’t get their land. Well, they went all kinds of places, but a lot of them when to South Sask- to the Sask River and to Batoche. Now there’s that 15 years and it’s a lot of the same Families that are active there as you mentioned. Plus there are new families, which in 1870 were still basically nomadic, like the Dumont family in 1870 hadn’t settled down. They didn’t settle down till about 1872. They were basically a Nomadic tribe, very closely aligned to the Sioux. So there’s like an intermarriage where you have the Trage’ family in a role to Sioux natives, but they are also Métis. Their names are Métis, but they also have Sioux names. And this is part of the oversimplification of those narratives. So you don’t take that into account. I have a really good article- idk if you’ve seen it, but it’s in one those anthropology magazines. But they take the list of all the participants in the battle of Batoche and they classify them as rebels or non-involved. I think there may even be three. And they trace those families and they look at the basic conclusion, as I recollect, is that the participants in the Rebellion- the most radical participants and the most committed participants were the ones who were closest to the indigenous people. So, then the people who were closest to the white society were less inclined to fight, but…

M: is white defined as French versus English? 

B: Well, they use a number of markers, and some of them are: are they registered? Or they on the roles as indigenous people? So, one of the lines- and it goes something like: ‘you could have a person who was considered white who lived in a teepee, you could have a person whose considered Indian who lives in a log cabin and has a farm and all that stuff. So the definitions are kind of in a lot of ways, very fluid. And I think this is what you’re talking about, that the definition is really fluid. You could out on the land and go hunting for say a few years, your out on the land hunting, and then you move back to Winnipeg and you take up farming or something. And because of that you start to notice that there’s not as many buffalo as there used to be and there’s a lot more competition. You’ve got all the white hunters now killing them for hides or even tongues.

M: or even bones.

B: Right. So, there’s a kind of economic underpinning and then when the buffalo collapse what happens? You get a further Diaspora. The Diaspora basically followed the buffalo- the original from 1870 went west trying to get closer to the buffalo herds. So you could have hunts that went out of Winnipeg- roughly- I don’t think this is totally accurate, but roughly before 1870 the hunts went from Winnipeg, after 1870 they went from Batoche. Batoche would have been the centre. There were other smaller centers, centers in North Dakota, for instance. I’m trying to remember some of the names of the places, like Lewiston North Dakota.

M: Pembina.

B: yes. Places that were closer as the herds were being pushed up into the mountains. And in effect that’s why Riel ends up in Montana up in the mountains there. It’s because that’s where the last of the buffalo hunts are. And then that totally collapses about 1882, that’s about the last hunt. 1883, nobody its going hunting anymore. There may be a few here and there. And this adds another layer to the breakdown of the social order. You’ve got starvation and poverty becoming issues. Before that it was like- okay, yeah we’ve got to make some changes, he have to go further a field, we have to start closer to where they are- but it’s a looming economic breakdown, and how do people deal with this? So, even the move to the Sask river valley, there’s an element that’s agricultural, so one of the things about the Red River was that it was fairly amenable to simple agriculture. Like you didn’t have to have a highly organized society. One person could plow a field. You didn’t need a team of 20 horses to plow those fields, and it’s the same in North Sask. One of the problems was that they hadn’t developed the wheat that would grow there reliably year-by-year. So you’d have a few good years and then you’d have a really late winter and a cool summer and a wet summer and you wouldn’t get a crop. So, I think it was in the 1890’s when the Marquis weed was developed. It was developed specifically for that area. Competing with, and by the 1890s, or even the 1880s, you start have the competition of white settlers. And the difference in the red river between 1870 and 1880- well n 1870 the Métis and indigenous people were in the majority. By 1880 they were no longer even near the majority. So hey stand up and fight for themselves. They take up arms, right? But there’s only one kind of incident- and it’s the execution of a prisoner that gets them into such trouble. And this guy, I mean you read different takes on it, and Scott was basically a white supremacist in today’s terms. In those days he was an Orangeman. Two things that Orangemen hate- Catholics and non-white people. So you’ve got this double barrel thing, and my understanding is basically Riel didn’t really want to execute him, but he was pushed by the guards. If you don’t something about it, we will. So he basically had a trial for the guy and it seems to me went out of his way to get this guy to agree to terms to leave and they would have let him to if he had agreed to go. But he wouldn’t He kept pushing the guards and insulting them and trying to get into fights with them. So finally Riel has to do something, so they have this trial. And I’m sure that Riel was… And like at the execution, Riel didn’t even show up. He called in sick, right? So, Lapine ends up having to pull the trigger the coup de gras. I think there’s a division in Métis society that we need to put our finger on. It’s interesting to me that the Sauvé family is in the middle of that. They take Riel’s side as far as I can make out. My way of looking at it would be: okay there’s Riels side and then there’s a compromised side that says ‘okay lets just go along with what happening. Lets try to do the more assimilationist way. Lets be more like our neighbors. Lets take up farming. Lets forget this Métis thing. Let’s just be part of the society here. 

M: well you know that book by Bernard Boucoul? It’s all about those loyal to Riel. It’s the Métis union story. It’s the Saint Joseph of Manitoba Métis Union. And then it became a national organization. So, it wasn’t just Manitoba, it was a nationally oriented organization. I don’t know what year it went from Manitoba to National. But Charles Sauvé was the first secretary of the Union in its focus as a Manitoba Organization. What’s interesting is if you go to the website right now there is no record of Charles Sauvé in terms of the historic record of his being part of that, which I think is interesting.

B: yes, being the founding secretary…

M: yes. For 8 years, he was. You also have Joseph Riel, who was a significant presence. You have Martin Jerome, and you also had… well, I can’t remember the others right now. But when that organization was no longer connected to the Riel’s or at least as directly connected to the Riel’s- like I believe there was point where Joseph wasn’t as intimately involved in the leadership.

B: well he dies.

M: he dies in 30…

B: not that late.

M: he died a few years before Sauvé. 

B: Oh, I thought it was earlier than that. See, he never had any kids.

M: Joseph Riel? Yes he did.

B: is that Riels brother? Are you sure? 

M: yes.

B: oh, you’re right. Its Riel’s son who doesn’t have any kids and dies earlier. Sorry I confused those two. He’s married but no kids and then he gets hit by a car and that’s the end of the bloodline.

M: yeah…

B: okay, I just confused those two.

M: so, yeah- of course Joseph Riel was a friend of Charles Sauvé, at least it seems to be a friendship base relationship. It was more than just them being Neighbors. And then for him to step up as Josephine Sauvé’s godfather… I think that’s significant point because in those days the godfather had a very powerful spiritual obligation to the child. 

B: yeah, it meant something different than it means now. 

M: yes, and in Wakotowan terms it is a relationship that is closest to the spirit world. So, now you are looking at an influence as someone becomes older and closer to that crossing over time his or her influence is more connected to the spirit world than a younger person would be. So, in terms of spirit guides—it’s kind of related to that. So, you’re looking at that kind of influence, that kind of connection to Joseph Riel to the nature of that relationship is spiritual in guidance terms and then you’re looking at Charles Sauve committing his daughter to the Riel line and to the Riel spiritual purpose and because the Riels are a touch stone, that I believe that Joseph Riel inherited. And, to whatever degree he was able to carry that legacy of being a spiritual leader… But I believe that even though the rest of the community may have begun to start moving away from the memory of Riel, from the association with Riel because it limited their ability to work with other people who were adamantly against what have occurred- because it did result in bloodshed- and it resulted in a trail where somebody was hanged and was found guilty of treason, so you know you can see how that would play itself out- but if you look at Charles Sauvé’s writings and some of the things- like the way in which he connected my grandmother to Joseph Riel you really get the sense that Charles Sauvé was all in as a Métis activist and zealot, even who was connected to the spiritual mission of Louis Riel. 

B: Right. Now, I’m just looking at the first thing that comes up here- and they just talk about Joseph Riel being an executive of the Union St. Joseph, as it was called between 1887 and 1909- they list the executive Saint Germaine, President Jerome, Joseph Riel, Pierre Dumont, Roger Marianne, Joseph Handlen, and then it becomes the Union National Métis du Saint Joseph du Manitoba in 1909. And here it is “other members of the union who produced written accounts were Charles Sauvé and Rodger Gaulet who became president of the union in 1910. And then they commission Detraumoden to write the history of the Métis nation, published in 1935.

M: you know, I’m wondering where or not that document- I’m wondering if he dint draw of Charles Sauvé’s manuscript. Because of the publishing date, I mean Sauvé died in 1931.

B: yeah, and this was published in 1935, but he starts on it around 1913. So he works on it for like, 17 years. Uhm, I do know that he used a lot of the source material he used were the interviewed that were done in Batoche in 1903, Dumont was the big one and then there’s all the other guys that they talk to. And that is actually how I found out about those manuscripts was reading the footnotes of his book because he refers to those manuscripts and they’re not the same as the other historians. These are the inside stories, right? That had never been published in historical magazines or anything. But anyway, yeah I mean, it’s interesting that- so you have both internal pressures and external pressures, like I’m guessing the white- as the balance tips from a Métis majority to a white Majority, its like healthy to be Métis than it used to be, right? And you get this economic deterioration, like they’re no longer at the centre of business transactions. You don’t have that status. They lose status as well and in part because of losing land and property and a lot of it was, I mean you have these two kind of simultaneous things. You have the politics, which a lot of it has to do with immigration on the Red River, and on the other side you have the lose of the Chief economic engine. So where it switches in the late 1870s- we can use 1880 as the cutoff point- the buffalo hunt collapses, but the agricultural side of things hasn’t really taken over yet. So you have this ten-year period, up into the 1890s where you have no economic basis, right? So a lot of the Métis move on looking for ways- first they follow the buffalo in 1870, then later they can’t, they’re already sold their land in Manitoba, or had it stolen or given away o they were never properly given their title and so, they go to Saskatchewan thinking we can do the same thing here. And who are you going to call? You’re going to call Louis Riel; he got it for them at least on paper- what they needed in Manitoba. Can he do the same thing in Sask? A lot of the political discussion is that ‘yeah, we are just going to treat them the same in Sask’. We will give them the river lots like we did in Manitoba, but there’s a third agenda going on, which is the Canadian agenda- and this is like Sir John Macdonald- he has to build this railway, and for the railway to be successful there need to be a reason for it. They need to make money transporting something from one end to another, right? So, this is where things like the Crow Raid come in from transporting… Have you ever heard of the Crow Raid?

M: No.

B: Oh, it’s a CPR thing, where the government basically subsidized shipments of wheat to the West Coast. 

M: hmm.

B: And when the Crow Raid went down what it did was it boosted the price of wheat, but fortunately the world price was able to absorb that. I remember in my family, on my mother’s side, they were all wheat farmers. And they were literally dependent on the Crow Raid. If the Crow Raid wasn’t there they wouldn’t have been able to sell their wheat because you couldn’t get it to market form Sask. Manitoba had the good fortune that they could take the wheat to thunder bay and put it on ships and make it- that’s why the Saint Laurence Sea Bay was built but that is like 57’. So the main- until 57’, there’s a third way even- that why they built the railway to Churchill Manitoba to kings bays. That was supposed to be a wheat transfer spots from Rail to Ships, and that was supposed to go to Europe from there. The wheat that went to Vancouver was going to go to India, china, and the Oriental part of Russia- the eastern side of Russia. All of these things are bound of together, but the Métis are kind of in a way, they start out as major players, but they’re rapidly get side lined and become bit players, who occasionally stick their heads up and its like whack a mole. And they show up in all these different places, they start in the Red River, and you’re not going to get much argument- all though there is a real subsection of Métis identity that says that anybody who is a product of white and Indian blood can be Métis, so you have Métis who are tracing lineage in Quebec and the Maritimes and stuff. So this is where the Red River idea comes in. So, when you get down to it- and this is my question- like, what does Métis mean as a kind of political- how are they constituted as a people?

MIX INTERVIEW PT. 13 

M: yes. SO, that whole effort- but this is where you keep hearing people say that Riel really betrayed the Métis cause in not allowing Dumont to run the campaign and Dumont is kind of going ‘well, you know best, because you’re the medicine man, the spiritual leader’. And the interesting part of it is what Riel says- essentially what he says is we’re not going to do this as if we were savages. So we won’t be doing the guerilla warfare that you want me to do, which he would have been able to do successfully because that’s what he was all about. That kind of warfare, which was indigenous… So, Riel says we are going to do this and we are going to defend the spiritual core, which is that church. But what’s interesting is that even though it was kind of doomed for failure because of that choice the outcome, which I believe is connected to Riel vision, whether or not it completely formed in his mind as something he could speak about- but if you look at the outcome and the dream that Riel had when they were out in the woods after the fall Batoche and he has a dream and he comes forward and he says ‘look I saw myself hanging and I saw the people screaming for justice and for what has happened and therefore we have won’, now that’s a dream that Charles Sauvé records in his letters to the Métis people. That’s how he starts it. So, what interesting in that dream, which talks about how before Riel surrounded that dream and the way Charles Sauvé records it is basically an expression of Riels vision of the final outcome of the Métis stance in relationship to the English government. So, here we are in 2018 and Riel’s necklace with the image of Riel is put around Trudeau’s neck and Trudeau accepts it and wears it as part of that day where he is representing the federal government and through the courts and now the Metis are recognized and there’s a certain amount of benefit that is going the direction of the Metis finally.

B: let me just stop you there, just one thing. This is where the rule of law meets Wakotowan. 

M: Well, at the very least it meets Reel’s vision of victory. 

B: right. Right.

M: this is the victory. This is- we have won because we aren’t gone and the spiritual potency that is behind the Métis identity, you’re not just talking about a rabble of half-breeds, you’re talking about a spiritually oriented people that is grounded in the sacrifice of a vision, of a profit? It’s grounded in the sacrifice of the warriors, it’s grounded in the sacrifice of we were defending our land versus going out and murdering people you from the bushes like Dumont wanted to do- I mean, he basically put the Métis’ Batoche stance on the side of righteousness. I mean, I have that book The North West Rebellion published in 1885, which means they had to be working on it the whole time this was shaking out, but there are some accounts by the soldiers in that book that are actually saying that they were appalled that Canada was doing this to our Indians. 

B: well, that’s the same thing the journalism of captain peters, the photographer- he says essentially this is the same thing- this is bullshit. We should have been giving them bacon, basically. 

M: all they wanted to do was live and they wanted to live according to their customs, that was it. By the way, this whole idea of the position of righteousness and the people that recognized it- that needs to be a significant part of what we do. We’ve got to cite those examples of people that saw the injustice at the time who were part of the campaign on the side of the whites. 

B: right. Okay, I’m just trying to think through how that six months of Batoche- see you go through to like, May- middle of May and you’ve got a couple months- between the time where Riel goes from being the hired gun and negotiator to when they decide to set up this nation state, right, with his head quarters and capital city of Batoche and they organize, they organize politically where they elect officials and it’s a quasi-military group. Like, there are the leaders after the council; the leaders are all like battalion leaders, right?

M: yeah captains.

B: right, so you cross over. The political organization- and what’s interesting about it is it crosses over both ways. It crosses over from religion into military. There’s a crossover between those two things.

M: well, like in the other military organization, at least in European terms once you go onto military position you don’t walk away without being a deserter. That’s what he did. And a lot of people find fault in Riel for supporting that way of militarizing. Whereas in the Indian philosophy of war, you just say I’m done fighting ad you just walk away, but in the European concept of taking arms once you identify, as being part of that military group desertion isn’t an option. And I think that’s how things were done. But like I said, some people were saying ‘well I was forced into it”… well, so were the English.

B: But like on some level that narrative comes up after the war, when you’re trying to save your skin. What are you going to say? And you see that in the 1903 documents that are dictated there. You see both sides of that. People saying, naw we forced and other people saying, no we weren’t.

M: but even if that’s the truth it’s still part of that way in which Riel’s leadership and reputation are maligned. They use that as an example of what he was doing, when in the other armed forces situations you join up and you’re locked in.

B: yes. And nobody says lets celebrate the deserters. There’s no national day of celebration of desertion. (laughs) IN fact those guys are all shoot or imprisoned. That was the best outcome.

M: that was. They would take you out on the spot. So, when I look at it that way that’s no an argument for Riel’s- its not an example that can be used to say Riel was committing a crime against his own people. That’s not what was going on. 

B: Now, the participants in the battle of Batoche- and its pretty clear to me that people came from all over to join in the fight, right? But we’re not talking huge numbers in any way, shape, r form. There are not a lot of people in Batoche to begin with. It’s not a city. It’s barely a town. It’s more like a village, basically. And then you have people who live on the farms around there. You have people who come from further away. You have the indigenous people, like the Trage family comes up from Moose jaw, but that’s a familial relationship. They come up because Dumont says ‘hey guys, we need your help’ and they can’t say no. They literally can’t say no. And they send out runners to bring in more troops, but things kind of start to escalate and time starts to speed up and they don’t have time to get there. And a lot of it is what you mentioned before. You’re trying to get like, indigenous people to fight where they have the option to say no, I’m busy. I’ve got other things on my mind, you know? And yet, you do have a fairly large indigenous encampment across the river from Batoche. They’re ready to go. And you have examples of them, like, doing war dances at the front. And like all of these people are basically- and I think this is the important part- they’re not just there… Sometimes in a war people are fighting for their own reasons. Well, their own reason is Riel supplies them with their own reason. We are fighting for our lives, our way of life, our blood, basically, and as far as I can make out there were two white people, actually, who were involved to a certain extent and they both- and the way that is calculated- there were two white guys who went to trial and another of them were convicted. There was Jackson, who basically Riel arrested as a deserter, but he didn’t kill him. He recognized that he had had a nervous breakdown and kept him in the basement of the cabin. There was another guy named Monk men, who they thought deserted. They didn’t kill him either. 

M: He wasn’t a white guy though.

B: No, he wasn’t a white guy. That’s quite true. But apparently he was highly educated lawyer.

M: Monk men? Really. You know Monk men was a close family friend of my grandpa’s and my mother him. 

B: yeah. It’s a bit garbles, the record around that. But I’ve seen it stated that he was lawyer, which seems odd. And there was another guy- after Jackson- who was Riel secretary- there’s another guy, the think his first name is Philip, but he becomes the secretary and he’s a Frenchman. And he’s educated. Well of course the secretary has to be educated because they write the stuff down. Anyway.

M: hm.

B: But I think that this is a key development we’ve latched onto- this idea of the Riel being appointed as the Prophet. The kind of allegiance to Riel, like he appointed to be the Prophet. And I mean, I think we have to find a way to explain that- how that works. How does that work?

M: Well, the definition that we need to look at is the Prophet sees the way forward when no one else can. 

B: ah. Okay. 

M: And that is, of course, you can look at it in religious terms, right? Like, some people say this is the prophet of the new doctrine, or something like that. But Riel was the Prophet of the new world. He wasn’t the prophet of a religion; he was the Prophet- although he did actually talk about that- but-

B: there was a religion attached to it, -

M: but he was also- look, the new world that he was standing for- you know the flag, right? Take a look at the battle flag of Batoche and what it says on there. It basically says that we are standing up, we’re asking for spirit to support us in our ability to protect the alters of our homes. So, he wasn’t talking about protect our new religion. He was saying protect each in our chosen faith, which gets back into this idea that it was Christian and indigenous. There was catholic, protestant, and the indigenous way- the traditional way with the medicine wheel and eagle feathers, the sacred pipe. But the new world was at the heart of his prophesy that was recognized they all these people with different religious backgrounds. The prophesy was that its possible for us to have a place in this new world because we can negotiate with the English to have voting rights, property rights, and also to account for and make sure that the Indians get fed and there’s a place for whit settlers, first nations, and Métis. That’s the vision that he alone had. And it was connected to what he had done in Red River and his background and his legal understanding. So he was unique in that he had a legal concept of what was possible and the economics that go along with that legal position. And then the other part had to do with this notion of culturally, this is the way in which we farm and so like in terms of land allotments, which from what I understand that was one of the big issues for the English- they did not want to go along with that. They wanted toe typical land parcels that could be sold and resold. 

B: Yeah. They wanted to use the grid system, rather than the lots. Yeah. So, part of what I’m hearing-

M: and by the way that gets into- remember how yesterday we were talking about the practical nature of Riel’s leadership and solutions? His prophecy was grounded in a practical outcome. It wasn’t pie in the sky bizarre prophesies of second coming and stuff like this. It was a different sort of thing. 

B: exactly. Now, would it be fruitful to try and look at prophesy- and I think maybe this is behind what you’re saying- to look at prophesy as indigenous prophesy rather than Christian prophesy or European prophesy.

M: Well yeah. But, lets see. I have an entire book called Coming Down From Above. And it’s all about the tradition of prophesy as it emerged, first in Europe and the tradition of prophesy as it related to revitalizing the Christian faith through many years and then when it came here that aspect of prophesy coincide with the indigenous understanding of someone who has that unique notion of a spiritual direction that they see and so they lead with the refreshed perspective of a spirituality that is redefined for the people and their needs in their current time. So, that’s really what you see, like for instance with the Ghost Dance- here you had the total loss of a way of life and all of the old medicines, the bundles and so forth, there wasn’t even a way of life that supported those medicines anymore. There was not tangible application of some of those bundles. They no longer related to a way of life. 

B: they’d lost their power.

M: They lost their application. 

B: right.

M: So, there was no long a reason to use them. There wasn’t anything available. The way of life was gone. So what you wound up with was a vision of the messiah or the second coming that was Indian in character. And of course that turned into the ghost dance movement and the prayers around that had to do with rolling back the effects of the whites and return the people to the old way of life.

B: yeah the buffalo would come up out of the ground where they had been consigned by the over hunting.

M: Yes. So the prophet or the spiritual leadership of Wavoka was essentially- it had a Christian tone to it, but it had a Native expression that addressed the native needs, and so you could look at Riel’s leadership and you could say the tradition of prophesy that he represented even though it was Christian was still the kind of thing that was easily understood and recognized they the Indians or the more traditionally grounded Métis people. It’s not a problem. And as a matter of fact, people like to make the definition between traditionalist and Christians and in that day it didn’t matter because it was- you went with the spiritual strength that you’re presented with. Like, for instance there’s an example that you can use- the Indians, when they were fighting against the united states government and the US army, they saw that flag and they went oh that’s their flag and there’s strength in that. So they would wear those colors themselves. Or they would paint their buffalo skulls. So it would become part of their medicine. So, they would go oh I see, you’ve got that medicine. I’m going to take that medicine and use it against you. So, they didn’t have the same attachment to- that’s your religion, this is my religion. They would just as easily use your religion against you.

B: Turn it back on you.

M: yes. So the fact that Riel steps up as a Christian prophet- that doesn’t cancel out the Indian way of seeing things. 

B: it doesn’t even matter.

M: it’s not white.

B: yeah, and this is what I’m trying to get at- ( Goes to Get Socks) 

See, this is the key to this whole things- it’s like figuring out how to look at this through indigenous eyes. Well, I’ve got a book called They Came Down from Above, and we can there are some key points made in the introduction of that that will pretty much- we can draw a conclusion from that. 

B: what was the title again?

M: Coming Down From Above.

B: Yeah, I’m having a bit of trouble with- I mean can conceptualize it. But I’m not feeling it.

M: and there’s also another book- god what is the authors name? He’s the guy who went and interviews Wavoka…

It’s all about the ghost dance. Anyway his book talks about the prophet traditions leading up to the ghost dance. 

B: right.

M: and even goes all the way back and refers to Takumsa as a prophet- it was his brother, I believe who was the prophet- and there’s a few other prophets that he talks about dream prophet, there’s the snake prophet, there’s another book that I have on- oh, how about the Shaker religion? You’ve got Slockum. You’ve got his leadership as the- what was to become the Shakers tradition. And again, the Shakers were eventually accepted by, and they are under the Presbyterians. But, the Shakers don’t read the bible. They refer to John Slokum’s vision and then what they do is they work with candles and cedar and the bells, shaking of the bells. 

B: Right. I’m just looking up Wavoka, let’s see if I can find the name of that book…

M: And then you also have- what was his name? Smahalah, the prophet of the dream religion, which was part of what the Nezpeirce followed. So, you’re really looking at a shift, right? And I believe that Riel might have been motivated by, and supported in his notion that it was possible to establish a new world by looking at the Mormon’s. I mean, Mormons’ were successful. 

B: Uh, yeah. Well… relatively speaking.

M: Well, Utah. And that was before the Riel rebellion.

B: Weird that you should mention it, but I just read something about that the other night that they had to compromise to do that. They had to give up two things: polygamy and I can’t remember what the other thing was. And that created a division within the Mormons. 

M: Ah. 

B: Because you still have Mormons who practice polygamy, a lot of them here in Canada, actually. What do they call themselves? Anyway.

M: Yeah, see here: “A striking feature of these Nativistic movements is religious synchronotism. Although their founders have generally borrowed liberally from Christianity, they have also drawn on Indigenous beliefs” (now he’s talking about Millenarianism), “And have often rejected Christianity as the religion of the white man. The result has been a rich diversity of Creeds, ranging from almost purely Christian to almost purely pagan. The Synchratism was absent from the teaching Louis Riel except insofar as he may have altered his ideas when presenting them to the illiterate Métis. Then he might conceivably have drawn on local superstition or Indian lore. But there is not record of this, except for his brief allusion in his trial speech to Métis traditions of prophesy.” Okay? “Riel’s ideas were developed from Christian themes. His new religion was an exaggerated vision of the ultra monetarism that he had learned from the French Canadian clergy. He was probably also expired by Catholic prophetic literature on the margin of Orthodoxy as suggested by Nolan’s reference to Saint Bridgette.” That’s an important name there. “And he may have derived some secondary inspiration fro contemporary Protestant Millenarian’s in the United States. His numerology is reminiscent of the Mule rites, the Saturday Sabbath recalls the 7thday Adventists and polygamy brings to mind the Mormons. In any case all his important ideas have Christian, rather than pagan sources. But Riel’s situation resembled those of typical native resistant movements. He created a religion, which promised deliverance to a small people whose identity was threatened by the expansion of western civilization. He could speak the traditional idiom of catholic millenarianism, rather than a more exotic blend of paganism and Christianity because the Métis were already firmly Catholic.” And it says right here, “how well does Riel fit Talman’s definition? Did he promise eminent, total, ultimate, this worldly collective salvation? In one sense, no. Riel never abandoned the conventional Christian notions of individual judgment and salvation.” Although Riel did say that he didn’t believe in Hell. He actually came to the conclusion that the worst it ever got was purgatory. 

B: right. I mean, along what you’re reading from Flannigan, and he’s basically- it seems to me in listening to what you’re reading there, that he’s basically, his response from what you’re saying about Riel’s indigenatity, the indigenaity of Riel’s prophesy- he would say no-

M: Flannigan?

B: yeah.

M: Well, he doesn’t have any business talking for me or any other Métis. He’s a white guy. 

B: Right. 

M: Who’s named Flanagan? Who’s got a Catholic background of some kind. And so you’re basically looking at a white man who doesn’t have any insight into indigenous people view Christianity. He has no idea how Riel truly viewed his Christianity. I mean, there is, like- and see Maggie Siggins talks about this in the beginning of her book on Riel. She basically points out, from the get go, that their way of practicing Christianity was uniquely indigenous, where the seeing of signs and omens and things like this are literally looking to the environment for the movement of spirit, the expression of god as indications of messages and leadership, you know? Directives or signs. And, you even have- there’s actually- you can listen to Riel where he’s literally listening to his body. He talks about his body speaking to him from his stomach, his hands. So, you’re really looking at him drawing off of those things that are- you can’t say are typical Christian concepts. They’re mystical.

B: And my sense of Flannigan is that he basically, anything that contradicts his thesis, he just ignores it. 

M: well, he doesn’t have the insight into the indigenous perspective. So, he’s totally looking at it from two directions. One is: Christian, white, and psychological, right? 

B: Exactly.

M: I mean that’s how he’s judging Riel, which is preposterous.

B: Yeah, and that’s what we have to- as you put it, we have to make that clear from the get go. That’s not what’s going on here. We’re turning that over. We’re looking at it from an indigenous POV, which you have spent- since you were 18 or early probably because of your mother and your grandmother, which you’ve been looking at your whole life, basically- is what I see your life project at is trying to get a handle on that indigenous POV. 

M: yeah, and being able to understand it as that. 

B: Right. 

M: Its like, oh that’s what it is. One of the things with Mike Lee, for instance he talks about the Red brain versus the Red Brain. He goes, we all need to be responsible for that white brain, because the environment we live in, it almost takes and usurps the red brain. So he says you have really get into your own thinking and you have to begin to disassemble that default, that judgment that goes along with it. You have to get rid of it in order to have a fair understanding of a man like Riel, especially. I mean the tendency is its difficult to even approach thinking about him because of how thoroughly the white people have been able to undermine his spiritual influence, labeling it as crazy, as Christian, labeling in so many ways that- it might have been Christian, but not a white version, sure as heck not an Irish version, or a roman Catholic or Italian version.