Sibyl

            On Monday morning I posted my translations of both “Le complainte du progress” by Boris Vian and “My chérie Jane" by Serge Gainsbourg on Facebook. The next Vian song I'll translate is "On n'est pas là pour se faire engueuler", which is a very jazzy swing tune.

            I started looking for the lyrics for “Les beaux lolos de Lola” (Lola's pretty titties). I found some but they seem to have been taken from an incomplete video, which is the only video for the song that I could find. I doubt if there is much more to the lyrics than the ones I found.

            At 9:30 I took an early siesta for almost ninety minutes so I’d be fresh for class and wouldn’t have to sleep in the late afternoon.

            At 12:15 I left for Indigenous Studies class.

            I was the second student in the room. The other one was the extremely well spoken middle-aged motorcycle mama who’s somewhat fanatical about the course material. She acknowledged me with a stern look when I said “Hi”.

            I usually clean the blackboard before class but I decided that Professor didn’t deserve the courtesy.

            Safia, my TA came up to the front and made an announcement about her tutorials, which, although she was speaking to everyone, seemed to be directed at me.  She said there had been “difficult elements” disrupting the class and claimed that some of the Indigenous students fled the class because of it. I wonder if that’s really true and if they did was it really because of me? I debated dispassionately with other students, including the Indigenous ones, the way I’ve been trained to do as an academic. I never got the impression they were upset about it. The only person that seemed to have a problem with me was Safia because I committed the sin of disagreeing with her on a major part of the course doctrine about colonial injustices, not nice things and ugly histories. This was the idea she’d presented that residential attendance was mandatory when it wasn’t. It certainly seemed to be preferred but it wasn’t compulsory since there were government sanctioned day schools.

            Safia declared that she is only teaching the course the way it should be taught and if students don’t like it that way there is no time to engage. No one student can monopolize the time and take up space. This is funny because so much time is wasted by both Safia and Professor White in rambling and not following a strict lesson plan. Tutorials are supposed to have discussion and so she just means that there’s no time for discussion that disagrees with the dogma of the course. Actually the students that take up most of the time are two Indigenous women that tend start rambling on about their personal lives. That’s okay with Safia because they are sort of pets of the class. There has been a lot of difficulty getting Indigenous people to take this course since it started years ago and so the Indigenous students that do enrol seem to be coddled.

            She said if we have issues we should bring them up with the professor. I’ve learned first hand how that works out.

            Associate Professor White began by apologizing for it not having been a smooth fall session. He said he’s learning beside us. That reminds me of the Simpson’s episode where Marge decides to give piano lessons. The family says, “But you can’t play piano” but she says she only needs to be one lesson ahead.

            He confesses that he is a work in progress.

            He claims that his lectures include some degree of discourse. Yes, as long as one doesn’t contradict the canon.

            He said he’ll be streamlining the course and trimming off some of the workload.

            He said if this was his previous school in the States he would scrap the syllabus and start over with a course that we all agree upon. He says, “But Canadians love bureaucracy.”

            One student spoke up to complain that the course is too US-centric. The professor hadn’t even known what the Toronto purchase was.

            The professor gets defensive.

            Robin, one of the Native students says she wants to understand Ontario treaties and is also worried that the exam will be US-centric.

            The associate professor keeps saying it’s a North American thing.

            The student that mentioned the Toronto purchase asks if White has taken any time to read up on it. He answers that he is learning some of this stuff. He tells Robin that Canadian treaties are a big learning curve for him. He reminds us all that we’ll have a chance to evaluate him at the end of the year. I’m looking forward to it.

            He excuses himself by saying we have to learn together but defensively asserts that he doesn’t have time to learn it all.

            Robin confessed that she was uncomfortable to approach him and backed down.

            He says it’s a big adjustment to teach a full year course after previously only teaching half courses.

            He says our exam will have some essay questions and some short answer questions. He’ll give us twenty-five study questions and ten of them will be on the exam. Answering Robin he says there will be some US content on the exam.

            Another student tells him that we don’t feel a connection with the US material. White argues that Thomas King’s The Inconvenient Indian is also US-centric. I don’t get the point. King is not our professor and his book is not really a history book. He says King has a laundry list shotgun style and so does Belanger, except that Belanger assumes an air of authority. White is not satisfied with either of them.

            He asks how many of us know what Truth and Reconciliation is. I think most of us do. What is RCAP? It’s the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples.

            He asked us what is going on in the news. He said there are two main issues. I thought of both of them but I didn’t say anything. One is the pipeline protest that incorporates treaties and is also about unceded land and sovereignty. What nobody guessed was the situation in which the indigenous grandfather and twelve-year-old granddaughter were arrested and both handcuffed while the man tried to open a bank account for his granddaughter. He commented that Canada has more public awareness of Native issues and yet such an arrest could still happen. He said this is the type of Native issue that exists on both sides of the border.

            White says the main issue in unpacking all of this stuff is time.

            The middle aged woman of South Asian descent who sits behind me suggested that he bring in a guest speaker on Canadian Indigenous Studies. He says that bringing in guest speakers wasn’t as easy in the States. His excuse for not doing it is once again time and he says he is stifled by the bureaucracy at U of T. She argues that he could pick a week when his lecture slides are particularly US-centric and have a Canadian speaker come in instead.

            He says the marking system can’t be changed without an agreement by a majority of students.

            We have an assignment that’s due in two weeks, which is an abstract and outline proposal for a reflection paper on a topic of our own interest that’s due on February 10.

            Near the end of the term we have to do a media presentation in our tutorial.

            The middle-aged biker said she wants more anti-colonial criticality. White responded that he’d thought that had been what he’d been doing all along.

            He says he’s been an instructor for twenty years. He confessed that sometimes he’s aloof.

            He reminds us that in going to U of T we are part of the colonial system.

            Indigenous Studies are more than history because it’s happening now.

            He warns us that he would continue to use a Haudenosaunee lens.

            He says he doesn’t like how Belanger handles the Métis.

            All of this took up the first hour of the class. Now he began the lecture.

            The Métis have not been studied in depth and they are oversimplified. It’s a complex history about territories, language and communities. It is a mistake to conflate mixed genes with being Métis.

            He asked if Canada has an equivalent to the Library of Congress. That would be the Library and Archives in Ottawa. It’s the fourth largest library in the world.

            White says that Louis Riel had no children and so how can people claim to be descended from Louis Riel? He did have children. It’s just that his two known children didn’t have children. But he might have had sex with women outside of his two marriages and so there could theoretically be descendants.

            White says he once laughed at a student who said she was she was descended from a Cherokee princess.

            Johnny Depp was adopted by the Chickasaw. It was the Comanche.

            The Cherokee challenged blood quantum by saying that if you can show you have a Cherokee family line then you will be accepted as Cherokee.

            The Red River is a place of nationalistic identity for the Métis.

            White didn’t know what HBC is. He said Canadians love acronyms.

            What is pemmican? It’s more than dried berries and meat. It’s mostly dried crushed meat, dried berries and lard. It’s not like jerky because it literally lasts forever. That doesn’t seem to be true. It is generally said to last twenty years in the freezer but at the most five years at room temperature. Some people claim that they’ve had fifty-year-old pemmican. He says it’s something like the dried meals he had in the army. The Haudenosaunee had their own version made with corn meal and dried meat.

            For the Métis the sale of pemmican was an economic powerhouse that helped them maintain independence. The government took it away. It seems to be mostly about competition because certain settlers and companies wanted control of pemmican and didn’t want the competition.

            Does currency have value? It’s really just a note. White declares that Canada’s debit system is to die for. He complained about the $5 service charge. One can transfer money from savings to chequing to avoid the charge. He says US banks don’t do that. I just carry cash.

            Most indigenous people had some type of pemmican but with different names.

            The trade system worked.

            He says the Haudenosaunee were notorious gamblers before contact. One might bet one’s wooden snow snake in a game of snow snake. If you lost there was no debt because you handed over your snow snake.

            The middle-aged student with the hand tattoo said that the Métis came from a female line. The pemmican was made by women.

            The French colonists purposely created offspring with Indigenous women. But then the British took over and they were less interested in mixing.

            He says individual warriors might stay home from a battle if they had a bad feeling and they weren’t judged for it.

            Large portions of what became Canada were bought by the crown from a private company.

            Some of the most racist communities are nearby reserves.

            Residential schools used small handcuffs. Or those that took Native children to the schools used them.

            He says that the United States has had worse leaders than Trump.

            White hadn’t known what Rupert’s Land was.

            Niagara Falls was an important meeting place for Indigenous nations. He says it’s Seneca and Cayuga territory.

            He mentions that some people are hoping Harry and Megan will become the king and queen of Canada.

            White hadn’t known that “MP” meant “member of parliament”.

            He’s been craving fish because it’s now the traditional fishing season.

            There is a false notion that school is free for Native Canadians.

            Indigenous nations had mechanisms for absorbing outsiders, such as the two-row wampum.

            White says that he is Indian on his father’s Mohawk side but his mother’s Seneca side doesn’t recognize him as Indian. Communities decide but they are boxed in by state and federal policies.

            Robin always sits in the back row. She called out that she is 75% Ojibwa but her daughter can’t get status unless Robin changes her identification to her father’s information and her father was reluctant to provide it. In the meantime her daughter can still self-identify.

            Some communities are reluctant to bring in new members because there is limited land. Some want people to move away if they marry someone from outside. Family is important and status does not define you.

            White identifies as Mohawk but only acknowledges his Seneca side.

            In tutorial Safia once again had no new lesson plan and merely fell back on nostalgia to read her lecture notes on the Métis from when she taught the course.

            The Métis were also called Mixed Bloods, Half Caste, Home Guard Indians, Country Born Indians, Rupert’s Islanders and Half Breed. It implies that there are pure or real races. Race is linked to identity but there are no races. Belief in race is an effective tool. She said the word “race” comes from a French word meaning “mixed”. That’s not true. It actually means, “fixed”. It comes from “ratio” as in “generation” and means generated from the same family.

            White had used the term “domestic dependant nations” and Safia said that term was new to her. It’s a United States term relating to nations being wards of the federal government.

            She wanted to show us a clip about Louis Riel but there is no tech in our tutorial room.

            The Métis language is Michif.

            Who is legally Métis? One has to be associated with Métis culture.

            Metis are also called Bois Brûlé. It means burnt wood, charred wood or burnt sticks. Safia says the Ojibwa called them “where a fire has gone through”. The Ojibwe dictionary said the word for Métis is Wiisaakodewinini. The Canadian Encyclopaedia says Bois Brûlé referred to their skin colour.

            Ward Churchill said, “Don’t let anyone name you.” Names are cultural choices.

            For the French fur traders alliances and kinship were critical. Indigenous women knew how to trap, make snowshoes, gather food, prepare meals and medicines.

             “À la façon du pay” was the term for common-law marriage between French fur traders and Indigenous women.

            The Red River was the hub of the fur trade.

            The word Métis in the 19^th Century meant many things.

            Thomas Selkirk sponsored immigrant settlements at the Red River colony.

            The aboriginal side of the Métis was mostly Cree or Ojibwa.

            The Battle of Seven Oaks after the Pemmican Proclamation crystallized the Métis.

            Where the Assiniboine and Red Rivers meet was the hub of the Métis community.

            Cuthbert Grant was Métis leader.

            Red River carts were made from buffalo hide and wood.

            The merger of HBC with Northwest Company. They were fierce competitors but after NW got charged with murder they began to lose business and so in 1821 they were forced to merge with HBC.

            Indigenous women were marrying Europeans and country marriages were turned off. It was known by both parties that these unions were not necessarily permanent and could be dissolved by either half anytime. The men often already had wives back in Europe. Later it became more desirable to marry children of Indigenous women and European men and thus Métis culture was born.

            Sir George Simpson was the governor of HBC and through his country wife Margaret Taylor he had two children. Then by his Métis washerwoman Betsy Sinclair he had several children.

            Country marriages were annulled after bringing back wives from Europe.

            Then Safia talked about half black and East Indian people of the Caribbean and how they became a separate class called Douglas. The racist tradition in the Caribbean is “marry your mix”.

            The Métis asked that the HBC charter be revoked.

            The buffalo declined. Riel prevented surveyors and set up Métis government and bill of rights. HBC lost authority. Orangeman Thomas Scott was one of the surveyors was part of the resistance to Riel and was hung while a prisoner.

            The railroad was completed bring more settlers and the NWMP.

            Riel cut the telegraph.

            The Cree and Sioux joined the Métis against the government in the Battle of Batoche. While Riel was a fugitive he was elected three times to the House of Commons. He came to think of himself as a divine leader and prophet. At this point Catholics that had supported him began to reject him. He is seen as both insane and a hero.

            Riel was hung on November 16, 1885. Eight more were hung the next day. Many fled north or south and changed their names. Riel is a francophone folk hero. He is given more scholarly attention than anyone in Canada.

            Gabriel Dumont was the second most famous Métis leader.

            In 1996 a statue of Riel was unveiled in front of the Manitoba Legislature. Another more controversial statue of Riel showing him naked with his genitalia exposed had been unveiled in front of the Saskatchewan Legislature in 1968 but removed in 1991.

            John Ralston Saul says that Canada is unique in that it is comprised of three nations that are willing to compromise with one another. He says Canada has been influenced and shaped by Aboriginal ideas. He says that not Indigenous Canadians need to understand that influence in order to understand themselves.

            In 1870 Canada devised a system of scrip that issued documents redeemable for land or money. It was given to Métis in exchange for land rights. They could redeem them for land elsewhere but most of the land was hundreds of kilometres away from their native territory. If one took the treaty they became Indian but if they took the scrip they became white. The Métis chose cash over the land that was offered.

            What is an elder? Elders are the gatekeepers of wisdom, knowledge and history. They are informal but respected educators.

            What is a band? Bands were groups of families that lived and worked together. The word now describes a local administrative unit. Nowadays the words tribe, nation and band are often interchangeable but Indigenous communities prefer the term “First Nations”.

            In 1929 the Métis wanted treaty status. It’s still before the courts.
            The Métis National Council represents the Métis.

            Métis father and son charged in 1993 for killing a moose. In 1998 a court ruled the Métis have a right to hunt.

            The Métis population of Ontario is 120, 585.

            After tutorial I went to Freshco where I bought raspberries, strawberries, two bags of grapes and two bags of cherries. They had whole chickens for just over $5. A woman was commenting to me about how big and cheap they were. I agreed that it was a good price and said that whole chickens cut up at home taste so much better than those cut up in the store. She said she wanted to get one for her sister because she knows her sister wouldn’t come down to get one. I said, “It’s a perfect gift!” I also grabbed a bag of barbecue flavour sunflower seeds and two containers of Greek yogourt.

            I took the checkout aisle with the male cashier because the line-ups were long and he tends to be faster. He always says “Not too shabby” when asked how he is, so this time I responded, “So, just a little shabby?” He answered, “A little bit.” “Just shabby enough?” “That’s it!”

            When I was opening my door my neighbour Benji came out to inform me that Coffeetime has a sign downstairs announcing they will be closing on January 26. That’s a Sunday so I assume they’ll be open then and close for good when they lock up that night.

            I had a late lunch of tuna with green salsa and a bowl of salt and vinegar chips.

            I worked on tying my lecture notes.

            In the early evening I got a message from my nephew Aaron telling me that my sister Sibyl died at 16:25 that day. She was only four years older than me and the cancer arrived two years ago.

            I had three small potatoes, a sautéed yellow pepper, two chicken drumsticks and gravy while watching an episode of Sugarfoot from the 1950s.

It had downloaded a while ago after several months but I’d been waiting until it uploaded an equal amount to the download so I could delete it and feel that I’d done a fair job as a torrent user.

I might have watched Sugarfoot as a kid but I only vaguely remember that the show existed. It’s unique in that Tom Brewster is not a tough cowboy like most western TV show heroes. He has a heart of gold and he is extremely honourable. He is also studying to be a lawyer through correspondence school. His noble efforts usually fail up until a triumphant moment when he rises to the occasion in the end. He is called Sugarfoot because does not seem at first glance to be very capable.

In this story Tom goes to the ranch of Cash Billings who was a good friend of Tom’s father when Tom’s father was sheriff of the town. Tom had heard so much about the Billings ranch from his dad that he would like to work there. Tom finds Cash Billings to be a bitter recluse now since his daughter Anne accidentally killed his beloved son Mark in a hunting accident. He has allowed his ranch to be run by a no account named Fulton and his gang of thugs, who are secretly selling off the cattle and keeping the money. They have also put up fences that keep local people from watering their livestock, while Cash had left the land open. Meanwhile Anne lives a lonely life in which she is hated by her father and harassed by Fulton. Tom goes to see Cash in his bedroom where he lies in bed brooding. At first Cash tells Tom to go away but on hearing that Tom’s father was his old friend he lets him have a job as long as he never comes to talk to him again. Tom is teased a lot by the hired hands and when Fulton discovers that Tom has a gun in his saddlebag he tells him to put it on so they can have a quick-draw contest. Fulton easily outdraws Tom and Tom just says his gun wasn’t loaded anyway. When later Tom realizes that Fulton and his men are up to no good he talks to Anne about it. She pleads for him to save himself and go away. He tries to talk to Cash about it but is told to go away. Finally Tom organizes a meeting in the town. But Fulton and his men crash and break up the meeting. Then they beat Tom up very badly. Anne makes one last attempt to appeal to her father but when he pushes her away she attempts to leave. Fulton stops her and looks like he may be about to rape her when Cash comes out and confronts him with a rifle. Tom arrives and challenges Fulton and easily outdraws him, explaining that this time his gun was loaded. Tom stays on at the ranch.