being Metis

Klahowya Family, I am about to give you an example of what it means
to be Métis. I was going along when we saw an old man who was very
much "Indian". He was trying to get from here to there and no-one
was helping. He was old, he was tattered, and he was an Elder. Yes,
he was an Elder, one who should have had everyone trying to help him
get from here to there. No one was either interested in their Elder
or willing to find out where about him. To Bad! I picked him up and
we had a great time talking about the old days and those days in the
history of his people. I had learned how his people had lost their
children, lost them to the white mans ways. He continued to talk as
one who had lost his most precious possession. I had asked him what
that was and he said there was a time when his tribe had many Mixed
Blood childern and the white man came with their money and talked to
the council and said that the council was scared of white man said.
He told me of the way the People mourned for months and months
because the council agreed to push away their children, the mix-
bloods. The People took away the land, the songs, the medicine, and
the WAY. He told me how these new People took another name and
joined together before the white man could do or say anything and
became the Métis, The Métis were Métis before the Red River People,
before the Engagé, before the Hudsons Bay Company. They were here
for a thousand years before all that is written about them. They are
the ones who settled where no one wanted to settle along the Eastern
Seaboard. Yes, as far north as the Artic Circle they settled and
then they spread south into the United States of America. Some of
them went west to settle where no- one wanted to settle. They
brought their Way and new Medicine and New Spirit Walk. This Elder
told me more about his People and how they still disgrace the Other
People and he wanted me to know he was ashamed for them. I then told
him about his New People and how we were a people of peace not war
or revenge. I told him of the Walk we have chosen and asked him if
he wanted to join us. He smiled and then said to me that the past
has locked his hands and he blessed me to continue to teach and be a
voice of peace among my People. I told him I would for as long as I
lived. Then I asked him his name and he told me his name was my name
and he was proud of me. I thanked Twobears for all his blessings.
May you all see the Heritage he has given us to live up to and the
history he has told us about.