I don't know if anyone else that doesn't consider themselves "psychic" or a "channeller"
experiences their Ancestors like I do. It's likely that there are more of you out there that miss the contact "they" insist on having with us. For me, it's pretty much a norm to get nudges, subtle hints, beautiful signs, and synchronicities that remind me, I am not alone. They gather around me, with love and compassion and do what they can to help me help them help the next seven generations as a cohesive effort.
What this writing comes on the heel of, is me saying that I wanted to write the Book of
Métis and make it into an epic film, or epic TV series. Well apparently they, My Ancestors, have a preference as to what title the story should be and that is "The Métis Saga". I mean, I like it. It's not like it doesn't resonate. I also was given an internal drive to be researching my Indigenous connections on my maternal side because I knew that there were ancestors that came from Eastern Canada. My paternal side is grounded in Cree and Metis roots of the latter I am a citizen of the Metis Nation of Alberta. My Cree ancestry relates to Chief Papaschase (Papastayo) and the Papaschase Nation.
As contentious as this sounds, I always believed that pretty much anyone whose family had roots starting here on the east side of Turtle Island, from the late 1500s forward, the beginning of settlement and colonization by the French and English, in all likelihood had ties to Indigenous ancestry. Due to assimilation within the general population, of Canada and the US, that there may many families with Indigenous ancestry, if only a drop of blood connection. This is important because it has the effect of connecting us, even if only generations out, with each other as kin. We need to stop judging. I see so much of that I am pretty sure that it's probably the biggest problem we have to solve as human beings. But more on that another post.
After some searching I have indeed come across some ties to Indigenous ancestry on this, the east side of Turtle Island. I am excited too, because I have some of the start to
"The Metis Saga" and a rough outline of the story lines. Now, on this website as my portfolio, there is the story treatment of "Journey to Elk River". This story takes place in Ruperts' Land. As a geographical zone, through Imperial charter by King Charles the II, this multi thousands' of hectares of land was given jurisdiction to the Hudsons' Bay Company (HBC). For two hundred years, roughly 1680 to 1880, the HBC and it's high ranked administrators managed to determine themselves the proprietors of all the lands and resources, and with total disregard for the Indigenous Peoples and their sovereign rights, sold and profited from the sale of Ruperts' Land to the Dominion of Canada.
A brief explanation, but pretty much the truth for my Indigenous Ancestors. Losing rights to land, resources, and sovereignty was largely the experience of Indigenous Peoples. For the Métis, who were considered a definite barrier to land acquisition for the newly formed Canadian government in the 1860s, their experience was slightly different than the experience of First Nations communities. But realize the history and stories of what happened to the Métis was no less unjust, severe, and marginalizing as it was to First Nations Peoples.
So "The Metis Saga", as a brief summary shall start with the first story of one of my earliest ancestors, of course rendered a romantic and fictionalized adaptation because I can do what I want telling historical stuff, well, because Canada and the government has done that for centuries. I will mix and construct the stories, as only one can do, to honour and respect them, as Ancestors. It's true that there are more of us, that are unable to claim the purest and highest moral bloodlines. Mistakes of judgement, circumstances, mental illness, and the drive to survive, has led past actions. That's why I guess it may be good for each of us, to be quiet, to sit with some neutrality, and simply observe. At least for now, we have no reason to believe we are the most rational, knowledgeable, and compassionate beings anywhere in the Universe. We start with now, and with what we have.
So in this first story, the soldat de Villiers, my ancestor whose apparent occupation was as a soldier for Louis Coulon de Villiers, fights in an attack on the British that saw George Washington, while at the garrison of Fort Necessity, surrender, the first time in his military career to do so. This Battle kicks off the Seven Years' War between the British and the New French with the aid of Indigenous Nations fighting with and against both sides, that eventually leads to British conquest and to the Royal Proclamation of 1763. It is this document that leads the entire next centuries, into this 21st century, the foundational relationship between Indigenous Peoples, the Crown, and the subsequent Canadian government. What continues to be argued is that this document states, in so much of it's wording, a legal recognition of Indigenous/Aboriginal/Native/Indian rights to land claims, and to exercise sovereignty and self-determination.
Did I say that everything "Indigenous/Aboriginal/Native/Indian IS POLITICAL." It has never stopped since the first time that a European stepped off their boat, and onto Turtle Island, and decided no one owned anything in this vast space. So they, this first set of Conquest Seekers, determined Terra Nullius was in operation and made their "Doctrine of Discovery" the legal precedent by which to exert power, colonialism, Imperialism, and sovereignty over everything they could lay claim to for the last 500 years.
"The Metis Saga", as my story, starts a bit later. What is important to carry forward though, is that the essence of Colonial political and economic power has driven the story of Indigenous history here on Turtle Island, and other nations across the globe, to be a kind of "us versus them" narrative, where the "us" is a savage, ignorant, heathen lot taking up space for "them" who are "civilized, bring progress, God, and the legal and moral justification to kill "us" off." Painfully over simplified, the facts that have to be unraveled, and will be through storytelling, is a daunting project. Especially since what exists is an overwhelming indifference, that sometimes shifts to hate, that is a thick, very high wall against the actions necessary to bring apology, reconciliation, and healing in the words of Winona La Duke, a scholar, activist of the Anishinaabe Nations, and writer to this land that is sacred space.
The next four stories cover the Red River Settlement - The Pemmican Wars 1812-1821, Rupert's Land in the 1830s - 1870s, the Saskatchewan Years from 1900-1920s and World War 1, The Road Allowance Peoples, and a contemporary look at the fight for recognition in 2016 that I haven't researched yet.
kinana'skomitinan
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