The MΘtis people are one of the enduring results of the fur trade. Originally the offspring of fur traders and Indian women, the MΘtis emerged as a distinct cultural entity by the 1820s. Circumstances in the violent struggle between the Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company encouraged the MΘtis to see themselves as a particular community, or la nation. This sense of community continued to grow in the nineteenth century. The MΘtis supported the North West Company as they perceived their economic interests as buffalo hunters seriously threatened by the establishment of an alien agricultural community on lands which they traditionally viewed as their own. Attempts by leaders of the colony to limit hunting of the buffalo to preserve food for the settlers only aggravated the situation.
Following the amalgamation of the two companies in 1821 the MΘtis settled into the roles of pemmican suppliers for the northern trade and freighters of supplies in their high-wheeled Red River carts. The buffalo hunt in both late spring and late fall, south and west of Red River, was conducted on a para-military basis with command given to ten capitaines, each with ten soldats. The pre-eminent capitaine was the "Great War Chief" or "Head". Discipline on the hunts was rigid and penalties for breaking rules, such as hunting without permission, could be severe. The MΘtis travelled on the hunts in family units: the men killed and butchered the buffalo and the women processed the kill as dried meat and pemmican. Hunting parties might number hundreds of families and were quite capable of resisting attack by Indian war parties. The illustration, a hand-coloured lithograph, shows that the MΘtis retained the buffalo skin tip for the hunt; for the remainder of the year they lived in cabins on river lot farms in the settlement.
Courtesy: Picture Division, Public Archives of Canada (C-41273)
