I am a body of complexities.
I am a body that explores these complexities through the garments I make.
I am a body stitched together by the hands of the women of Michilimackinac.[1]
I am a body displaced by the cartographic cuts of boundaries and borders.
I am a body held by Anishinaabe land in refuge.
I am a body who is grateful to call this land my diasporic home.
I am a body whose homeland is a place of fashion innovation.[2]
I am a body who carries this knowledge in her hands and in her heart.
I am a body of my ancestors’ dreams.
I am a body who is continuing their legacy of stitchwork.
I am a body whose family fought for their ways of life at the Red and Assiniboine rivers.[3]
I am a body whose family petitioned for their rights from across the Bay.[4]
I am a body whose family chose to stay.
I am a body whose family chose to leave.
I am a body that never left and always returned.
I am a body that is folded into multiple places.
I am a body that the land will never forget because land never forgets family.
I am a body whose kinship with water is owed to my grandfather.
I am a body who remembers because of my grandmother.
I am a body whose courage comes from the quiet strength of my mother.
I am a body who recognizes myself because of my father.
I am a body that is enough.
I am a body that sits at intersections of tension.
I am a body that embraces these tensions with gentleness and care.
I am a body who makes expansive and loving trouble.
I am a body who will never stop standing up for my family and ancestors.
I am a body pulled apart at the seams
but the seams do not break
they glisten like embers of a fire that never goes out.
Halfbreed
Bois Brûlé[5]
Aabitaawikwe[6]
Wisaakodewikwe[7]
I am a body of complexities.
[1] Women such as Elizabeth Thérèse Baird, Agatha Biddle, Madeline Marcot Laframboise, Elizabeth Bertrand Mitchell and matriarchs of my family: Louise Vasseur Caron/Carow, a founding member of the Agatha Biddle Band, and her sister, Katrine Geneviève Vasseur. See Theresa L. Weller (2021) for more on the Agatha Biddle Band of 1870 and the mothers of Mackinac Island.
[2] During the 19th century, Michilimackinac (present day Mackinac Island) was a site of cultural confluence, where sewing, stitchwork and garment production flourished at the hands of the daughters of the fur trade. See the chapter, “Sewing for a Living: the Commodification of Métis Women's Artistic Production” by Sherry Farrell Racette (2005) in Contact Zones: Aboriginal and Settler Women in Canada's Colonial Past, pp. 18-20.
[3] The Battle of Seven Oaks, also known as the Victory at Frog Plain (la Victoire de la Grenouillère), took place at the forks of the Red and Assiniboine rivers on June 19, 1816. Read about my family’s contributions in “The Battle of Seven Oaks: A Métis Perspective” (Second Ed.) by Lawrence Barwell (2015), published by the Louis Riel Institute.
[4] The Penetanguishene Petition of 1840 was signed by 22 Halfbreeds petitioning they receive the same presents (annuities) as their First Nations kin. The 1840 petition, including my family’s names, currently rests in the Library and Archives Canada under Department of Indian Affairs: Office of the Chief Superintendent in Upper Canada, 1831-1850 (C-11025).
[5] Bois Brûlé(s) is a term used to name Métis individuals, particularly from the Red River in what is now Manitoba, Canada. The term translates to “burnt wood.”
[6] Oral Knowledge held and shared by Isaac Murdoch (2018) in a Facebook post. The term Aabitaawizininiwag (pl.) translates to “half people” and was used by the Anishinaabek to call the French Breeds in Ontario. Aabitaawikwe translates to “half woman” in Anishinaabemowin.
[7] The term Wiisaakodewininiwag (pl.) translates to “half-burnt peoples,” referring to peoples of mixed ancestry. The term Wiisaakodewikwe identifies an Indigenous woman of mixed ancestry in Anishinaabemowin.
To read more about Justine’s familial relations, please click here.
To learn more about the complexities of Justine’s work, please click here.