Winnipeg Art Gallery wraps up virtual talks about Mtis culture and identity

The kitchen table is usually a place for conversation, especially in Mtis communities, and that's the inspiration behindaWinnipeg Art Galleryseries of talks on Mtis identity and culture.

"It's the site of knowledge transmission,"saidJulia Lafreniere, head of Indigenous initiatives at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, and creator of the Mtis Kitchen Table Teachings series.

"It's also where communities gather, play music, and even discuss politics."

Lafreniere, who identifies as Mtis with roots in Camperville, Man.,saidshe was also inspired by two exhibitions highlighting Mtis artists:Tracy Fehr's Heartbeat of A Nation: MtisWomen 250 Yearsand Rosalie Favel's Family Legacy.

The series,in partnership with the Manitoba Mtis Federation and the Infinity Women Secretariat,began in the summer, and the last will be Oct.27.

"I knew that there was a need for education around Mtis stories and culture," she said, adding a lot of people don't know Mtis history and how they came to be here.

She also sawMtis Kitchen Table Teachings asa platform to discussissues of concern to theMtiscommunity.

Last Monday, five people discussed Mtisidentity on a panel called Race Shifting, Identity Theft, and Protecting Mtis Culture.

Kyra De La Ronde, one of the panellists, is the chairperson of the Manitoba Mtis Federation Provincial Youth Advisory Committee.

"We're at a really pinnacle moment within the Mtis Nation, where there are people who are protecting us, and people wanting to further us," she said.

"We're not trying to gate keep, and we're not trying to exclude, we're really just trying to preserve and protect the culture and the identity that we have."

Last Wednesday, William Benoit, the advisor for internal Indigenous engagement at Library and Archives Canada, talked about scrip. Scrip was a coupon or an entitlement to land given toMtis families by the Canadian government.

"The process said, we may give you and your children land, but we're not going to tell you where you're going to get it," he said.

"You could be from one place, and get land from another place. The Mtis are family-oriented. We like our families, we like to stay near our families, we like to do things with our families."

Families were essentially broken up bywhat was a kind of lottery process.

But Benoitalso saidthe process of scrip was in a way,beautiful.

"You see the man or the woman standing in front of a committee making their mark," he said during the discussion.

"So it's not just somebody [else] saying that they're a half-breed, but what they're doing is saying it themselves, and they're signing it."

In the final Kitchen Table Teaching this week, Mtisauthor Chantal Fiola will discuss her newbook Returning to Ceremony, a follow-up to Rekindling the Sacred Fire.

Lafreniere saidFiola's research discovered that prior to the church having a large influencein Mtis communities, they practised Indigenous ceremonies, and what it means to reclaim those practices.