small note on Michif & Leonard Peltier

[Nadja Adolf]

My friend Mary is metis, speaks "French", claims people
from France insist she's speaking Haitian, and sees her
ancestry as being distinct from the surrounding Ojibwa
and the French whites.

Her definition of what a "Metis" is, in UP Michigan, is
that "Chippewa speak Chippewa, and are Catholic",
but "Metis speak French and are Protestant."

I don't know how accurate an anthropologist would consider
this, but Mary and her Mom and relations have been saying this
to me for years.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Robertson [mailto:drobert at tincan.tincan.org]
> Sent: Sunday, December 05, 1999 8:38 PM
> To: CHINOOK at listserv.linguistlist.org
> Subject: small note on Michif & Leonard Peltier
>
>
> LhaXayEm.
>
> "Prison Writings:  My Life is My Sun Dance", by Leonard
> Peltier, United
> States Prisoner #89637-132; published by St. Martin's Press, New York.
> Edited by Harvey Arden.  Introduction by Chief Arvol Looking Horse.
> Preface by Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark.  1999.
>
> A good book, well worth reading for several reasons, the most
> surprising
> of which is that on page 72 Peltier notes:
>
> 	"As a child, I became fluent in metis [Michif] -- a French -
> 	Indian mixture -- as well as English, and I also spoke some
> 	Sioux, Ojibway, and French words.  Since every language gives
> 	you a different view of reality, I soon saw that there were many
> 	realities you had to cope with in this life, most of them
> 	unpleasant."
>
> Leonard Peltier is 55 years old, I think.  He speaks of being
> beaten for
> "talking Indian" at BIA boarding schools in the mid-1950s.
> In light of
> Peter Bakker's definitive book on the Michif language and the
> people who
> speak it, it is worth noting that Peltier considers it an
> Indian language.
> Apparently many speakers consider themselves a group distinct
> from both
> Indian people and Whites.
>
> You will learn more if you read Leonard's book.
>
> Dave
>
>
>
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