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| Music, Dance and Art |  |
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| Métis Music | ||||
| Traditional musical instruments of the Métis include the fiddle, the concertina, the harmonica, the hand drum, the mouth harp, and finger instruments such as bones or spoons. | ||||
The
main instrument is the fiddle and in the early days fiddles were
hard to obtain and expensive. |
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Métis
style fiddle music is an oral tradition handed down for many centuries.
The fiddle plays the melody, tells the story, and many Métis
legends are recorded in fiddle tunes. |
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Another
Métis tradition is called Turtulage. This is essentially
the beating out of the rhythm with spoons or heels, accompanied
by syllables hummed to simple melodies. |
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| The survival of traditional Métis-style fiddle music depends solely on the dedication and commitment of the older generations of Métis fiddlers to continue to play the oral traditional tunes and style and to teach the younger generations, and other fiddlers who are eager to learn Métis-style fiddling. | ||||
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| Métis Dance | ||||
| The Métis combined the reels and waltzes from their European ancestry (Irish, Scotch, and French) with the dances of the Plains Indians creating dances unique to themselves. | ||||
| The traditional dance of the Métis is the Red River Jig. The Red River Jig is a special piece that is danced in two sections. When the fiddle plays the high section the dancer does a basic jig step, when the fiddler changes to the low section, the dancer does fancy step work. Upwards to fifty steps are known to exist. | ||||
| Some of the names of Métis dances are Quadrille, Red River Jig, Duck Dance, La Double Gigue, Chicken Reel, and Drops of Brandy. | ||||
| The free spirit and love of life can surely be seen in Métis dances. | ||||
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| Métis Art | ||||
| The study of Métis art is complicated because their art style influenced Indian artisans all over North America. The Métis put their stamp on the art of practically every tribal group of the Northern Plains and the Northwest Territories. Many museums today have huge collections of Aboriginal art, but most of those created by the Métis are not marked as distinctly Métis. It is a tragedy that most of these items are catalogued as belonging to their owners; who usually were the last individual to trade the goods. So many artifacts are marked as Woodland Cree or Plains Cree or Assiniboine and the Métis name can hardly ever be found. As well, a huge number have simply been marked as "from the fur trade". As a result, it is easier to define what is not a Métis artifact than isolating one that is. Items of Métis origin have been neglected in Canadian galleries, museums, art centres, and other cultural institutions. Métis handmade furniture has usually been attributed to pioneers. | ||||
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