Although the Métis Homeland covers an expansive geography throughout west central North America, it is often said that the Métis world is a very small one. News of any kind is known to travel fast throughout the Métis Nation’s deeply connected family and community networks.
While these expansive generations-old Métis kinship networks have been used to organize across distances, maintain a unified voice, and collectively advocate throughout history—giving rise to coordinated Métis Nation actions from the Upper Great Lakes westward—they have also had more personal implications.
As Christy Ann Simons noted of the Sault Ste. Marie Métis Community, for example, in her 1951 memoirs about growing up as a settler on St. Joseph Island in the late 1800s:
“We found out that if one was nice to one half breed family all the half-breed families – like the Indians were nice to you, and vice versa, be unkind to one family and all had no use for you.”
Grudges, like reputations, are not easily shaken in such tightly woven communities. As Christy Ann Simons also later recounted, a slight against one Métis family could ripple outward, taking on a life of its own:
“Two white men entered the [Métis] Solomon home. It happened to be Christmas Day. The women of the household greeted the visitors with a kiss. One man accepted, the other refused. The women were hurt by the refusal… Other white people who were told of the occurrence told this white man he should not have refused and perhaps made enemies.”
In a world where kinship ties are everything, to offend one household might mean estranging an entire network of relatives, friends, and allies. At the same time, a kind word or a helping hand could be just as enduring, solidifying bonds that can stretch across time and geography.
Throughout the deeply connected Métis Nation, where relationships form the backbone of survival and solidarity, one’s actions—good or bad—are rarely forgotten.
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