Cultural appropriation is a seriously hot-button topic. It ranges from the aggressively entitled stance of, “I can do whatever I want!” to the perpetually angry approach of “everything is cultural appropriation!”. Of course, the former is a much larger portion of the debate, and the latter is almost always a huge straw-man argument that few…
Category: Metis beadwork
You’re Métis? So which of your parents is an Indian?
In a previous post, I described what it is like as an Alberta Métis to come to Quebec and realise that ‘Métis’ does not mean the same thing here. I’m not a shut-in…I realised that there were different definitions out there, I simply hadn’t lived where I was defined by them before. In another post,…
My current obsession: beading
The Métis are often called ‘The Flower Beadwork People’ for their stunning floral designs worked out in beads or embroidery. Intricate decorations on clothing or tools had been long practiced by native peoples using a variety of materials such as dyed porcupine quills, shells, moose hair tufts and so on. Beads were a huge hit,…