Life as a Native is often just too interesting

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I once read in a book somewhere about one of those blessings a person can bestow upon you that can either be a good benediction or bad one, depending on how it pans out. It goes something like "May you live in interesting times." It sounds innocuous enough, but during the last few months in the Native community there seems to be nothing but interesting times to be lived. And to tell you the truth, I'm sure many skins across this country wish things weren't so darn interesting.

I am of course talking about the many controversial things that seem to be constantly enveloping our communities. And recently, Native people and their issues have been cropping up on the evening news with way too much frequency. Sometimes it seems like The National is actually APTN'S InVision News.

For instances, the less said about the whole David Ahenekew mess and its effects on Judeo-Aboriginal relations the better. This once well respected man, who many viewed as the voice of the Saskatchewan Native, now has ended his days in the public eye in disgrace. However, we should be grateful for small miracles, for few men could better demonstrate the difference between a cranky old man and an Elder. But I also agree with those that say a lifetime of hard work and selfless achievement should not be immediately dismissed because of one stupid mistake, however enormous. Maybe he just left his eagle feather at home that day.

Also of recent newsworthy discussion is the whole argument of who is and who isn't Metis. Yet another Indigenous definition to deal with. Are the true inheritors of that proud name those with strictly ancestral and blood connections to Louis Riel (who I'm told was only one-eighth Native) and Gabriel Dumont, or can it refer to anybody of mixed blood? Practically every province in Canada has some sort of Metis association, and I don't think the battle of Batoche was waged that far a field.

It is a testy subject. Identity issues always are. On one hand, you have those with an historical and geographical connection to the Metis name. On the other hand, the terms mixed blood, half-breed and non-status Indian are so unromantic. My answer... those with specific Prairie lineage be called Riel Metis, and all the rest will be called Real Metis. Phonetically they sound almost identical.

Just in the last month there's been a lot of publicity about what the newest national census says. The population of Aborigianl people has jumped by an amazing 22 per cent since 1996. We now account for 4.4 per cent of the overall population of Canada, second highest Indigenous percentage in the world next to the New Zealand Maori who make up a whopping 14 per cent of that country's population. But the most staggering of these statistics again relates back to the Metis, whose numbers have exploded by 43 per cent. They now account for a third of all of Canada's Aboriginal people.

That's 292,000 fiddle playing, jigging Metis, depending of course on how they are defined.

Analysing the census, the National Post included a great quote by anthropologist Diamond Jenness who wrote in 1931, "Doubtless all the tribes will disappear. Some will endure only a few years longer." Just like Rock and Roll was a fad.

And all this turmoil has only been in the last two months. It's been said that being born Native in this country is a political act in itself. I think its also important to add that being Native in this country is also never boring. The Assembly of First Nations elections are coming up again. I'm already making popcorn.