{"id":11663,"date":"2011-01-23T03:50:39","date_gmt":"2011-01-23T03:50:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=11663"},"modified":"2011-01-23T03:50:39","modified_gmt":"2011-01-23T03:50:39","slug":"we-know-who-we-are-metis-identity-in-a-montana-community-book-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=11663","title":{"rendered":"We Know Who We Are: M\u00e9tis Identity in a Montana Community [Book Review]"},"content":{"rendered":"

We Know Who We Are: M\u00e9tis Identity in a Montana Community [Book Review]<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Drumlummon Views: the Online Journal of Montana Arts & Culture<\/a>
\nVolume 1, Numbers 1-2<\/a>, (Spring\/Summer 2006)
\npages 237-240<\/p>\n

Nicholas C. P. Vrooman<\/strong><\/p>\n

Martha Harroun Foster<\/a>, We Know Who We Are: M\u00e9tis Identity in a Montana Community<\/a><\/em>, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 2006. Maps, tables, photographs, notes, bibliography, index. 306 pages.<\/p>\n

Given the dearth of existing titles on the M\u00e9tis<\/a> in the United States, it is a real pleasure to read Martha Harroun Foster\u2019s<\/a> new book. Her work has untangled and explained pieces of a little-understood yet central story to Montana<\/a> history. When Anglo society took hold of this state in the late 19th and early 20th century, it committed a huge error\u2014the aggressively unjust treatment and tragic denial of our M\u00e9tis population. This book is a story of one group of M\u00e9tis families who became sedentary in a specific place upon the demise of the buffalo; the town which grew around them is now known as Lewistown<\/a>. Foster does a superb job of recounting those families\u2019 struggle to maintain their distinct identity amidst a most often uncaring society.<\/p>\n

Yet I have serious concerns. Foster names her group the Spring Creek band, saying they belong to the state\u2019s \u201clongest continuously occupied M\u00e9tis settlement\u201d (p. 4). Determining \u201ccontinuous occupation\u201d is a highly charged notion used against Aboriginal peoples (Montana M\u00e9tis specifically, to this day) throughout the colonial and national period as a judicial determinate to divest land and ignore prior rights of habitation. Historically, native communities shifted in co-relation to ever-changing environmental conditions. Is this how we want to speak of Indigenous community status of land tenure in this era? It also projects, from an external source, the \u201cWe\u2019re #1\u201d syndrome of individual supremacy onto one native community. Even applying the insatiable American and Western craving for exceptionalism, Lewistown still is not the \u201clongest continuously occupied M\u00e9tis settlement in Montana.\u201d Suffice it to say, M\u00e9tis have been living \u201ccontinuously\u201d throughout Montana since at least the 1830s and probably before.<\/p>\n

I love Lewistown. It exists because it fits within the intrinsic unifying flow of river valleys and ancient roadways through permeable pulsating ecosystems to and fro\u2019 areas of seasonal sustenance and power on an east\/west and north\/south axis across the Northern Plains<\/a>. Throughout these environments Aboriginal communities, including the M\u00e9tis, have long lived and continue to circulate. It is all related. It still exists. It is there to be known. The Medicine Line<\/a> remains mysterious…<\/p>\n

Read the entire review here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We Know Who We Are: M\u00e9tis Identity in a Montana Community [Book Review] Drumlummon Views: the Online Journal of Montana Arts & Culture Volume 1, Numbers 1-2, (Spring\/Summer 2006) pages 237-240 Nicholas C. P. Vrooman Martha Harroun Foster, We Know Who We Are: M\u00e9tis Identity in a Montana Community, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 2006. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1649,12,5,8,3015,20],"tags":[5265,5258,1769,1768,5263,5264],"class_list":["post-11663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anthropology","category-articles","category-book-reviews","category-media-archive","category-native-americans","category-usa","tag-drumlummon-views","tag-martha-foster","tag-martha-harroun-foster","tag-montana","tag-nicholas-c-p-vrooman","tag-nicholas-vrooman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11663\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}