Who You Callin' "Indian", Part V

Being the Fifth And Final Entry in a series by Jennifer David, setting out a weekly, non-dogmatic, light-hearted lexicon for those of you who work in this arena and would like a primer on how to refer to those folks that you keep seeing at pow-wows and qaggiqs.

All right, we've teased you long enough. And you've been wonderfully patient. You stuck with us through our outright dismissal of the terms "Indians" or as "Natives". You learned not to call us "Aboriginal". You won't try to refer to us as "First Peoples" or "Indigenous" unless you're a guest speaker at the UN or the Vatican.

So you've earned your reward. Here are three terms that you can safely, grammatically, and politically-correctly use to navigate your way through any conversation. There's a catch, of course - several of them - but we'll get to that.

INUIT

Let's start with the easy one, relatively speaking. Inuit are the indigenous people whose traditional lands lie north of the treeline in the US, Russia, Greenland, and, within Canada, in Nunavut, Nunatsiavut (Labrador) and Nunavik (northern Quebec). The word simply means "the people".

"Inuit" has pretty much replaced the term ‘Eskimo’ which some say was an Abenaki word meaning “eaters of raw meat.” Etymologists have since questioned whether this is actually true, but nonetheless, the word Eskimo has fallen out of favour (except among older Inuit and football fans in Edmonton), although there's a kind of retro-chic tendency among younger Inuit to use the term semi-humorously. "Inuit" is both a collective noun (as in "the Inuit occupy northern Canada') and an adjective (as in "Inuit Art"). An individual of Inuit descent is an Inuk. And just to complicate things - the INNU in Labrador aren't Inuit. They're a First Nation.

MÉTIS

Nobody is quite sure where this term came from . Some say it was a French term that refers to a person of mixed blood. One suggestion is that it derives from the Latin word "miscere", meaning ‘to mix’, and that it shares a root with "Mestizo" (Spanish) and Mestico (Portuguese). "Métis" and "miscere" don’t really sound that much alike to me - but strange are the ways of language. Another school of thought contends the original use of the word Métis was a derogatory label attached to Aboriginal people who resisted assimilation and exploitation of land and rights.

In any case, it now most commonly refers to people descended primarily from the marriages of Scottish and French men to Cree, Saulteaux, and Ojibwa women in southern Rupert's Land starting in the late 17th century, and the marriages of French women to Ojibway men starting in Quebec around the same time.

And now... (drum roll)

FILL IN THE BLANK

"First Nations" is the term that describes the indigenous peoples of Canada who are neither Métis nor Inuit. There is no legal definition of "First Nation", and the phrase isn't used in the Constitution or the Indian Act. The "official" meaning of "First Nation", particularly by governments, is "a band within the meaning of the Indian Act.” Confused again?

That's partly because the term, on its own, doesn't tell you what First Nation an individual identifies with: it would be a bit like a Canadian saying "I'm a citizen of the Western World." Most of your Aboriginal friends will proudly acknowledge being of First Nations descent. But they usually won't refer to themselves as a "First Nation" (that's a bit presumptuous for one person, anyway.)

So what's the correct way to refer to the citizen of a First Nation? Just as you would any other person - you name the Nation. You will likely find that many people are very proud to tell you that they are Haudenesaunee or Cree or Anishinaabe. And that's the best term to use.

So I would say I'm Cree, Kory and Valerie would say they're Anishinaabe or Ojibway. And then, added to that, most First Nation people refer to their individual community as well as their nation. So I am a member of the Chapleau Cree First Nation; Kory is a member of Nipissing First Nation; Valerie is a member of Sagamok Anishabek First Nation. When two Aboriginal people meet, the first thing we do is identify our own First Nation, start comparing notes, figuring out whether we're related and who we know, and generally looking for a connection. For most of us, that famous six degrees of separation shrinks to about three.

So after all these weeks, there you have it. If you want to identify me with a nation - as you would an Australian, a Brazilian or an American - identify me with MY nation. Not a broad collective adjective like "Aboriginal", or a reference to the longevity of my ancestors' residence like "Indigenous". The general rule of thumb is just to ask. You'll find as much variation out there as you find different Aboriginal groups and communities (starting with more than 600 First Nations...)

So now if you think all of this has been clear as mud, welcome to our world! But we wouldn't have it any other way.