Many names for Métis exist across the Homeland that continue to be used by Métis people and communities today. Some of these names were originally ascribed to Métis by their First Nations neighbours and relatives. One such name is wissakodéwin.
There are numerous examples in the historical record of Ojibwe in the Upper Great Lakes referring to Métis or “Halfbreeds” as wissakodéwin, an anishinaabemowin word meaning “half-burnt wood.”
In 1853, Fr. Frederic Baraga, who spent time living with the Ojibwe in the Upper Great Lakes, published A Dictionary of the Otchipwe Language, in which several conjugations of wissakodéwin, rooted in the word wissakodé meaning “a burnt forest,” are provided as anishinaabemowin translations of “halfbreed”, including:
“Halfbreed, aiabitawisid. I am a halfbreed, nindi abitawis. Half-breed man wissakodéwinini. Halfbreed woman, wissakodewikwe.”
Fr. Baraga also includes a more detailed description of the word, similar to the French “Bois Brûlé,” meaning “burnt wood,” which was used to describe Métis people in both the Upper Great Lakes and Red River in the early 19th century.
“Wissakodéwinini, s. half-breed man, half whiteman and half Indian, (from a white father and an Indian mother, or vice versa;) half-burnt-wood-man; pl. wag,-They call the half-breeds so, because they are half dark, half white, like a half-burn piece of wood, burnt black on one end, and left white on the other.”
Many Métis from the Upper Great Lakes continue to proudly carry the name wissakodéwin today, often using it to situate themselves, their family, and their community within the broader Métis Nation’s kinship and political networks.
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