Ka oopikihtamashook’: becoming family

In 1860s in Manitoba, Charlie was born to the Sioux nation. Having no family to care for him, Urbain and Marie (Desmarais) Delorme of the Saint François-Xavier community adopted him. Welcomed into a large Métis family of nine children, he grew up not knowing he was biologically Sioux. To his sisters and brothers, he was just Charlie or “brother” (MacKinnon, 2012, p. 12) and life was good. And yet, later generations of the family would outwardly wonder why he was not included in the genealogical records and if Charlie was simply a ward (MacKinnon, 2012). This type of misunderstanding was not unusual and therefore not evidence that Charlie was not adopted. In the way of Ka oopikihtamashook’, or Métis adoption, records were not always kept but adoptees took on the rules of kinship expressed through wahkootowin. Charlie’s family loved and claimed him, and when he joined this family he also became a member of the Métis community of Saint François-Xavier.

This article explores the concept of Ka oopikihtamashook’, using examples like the case of Charlie to better understand Métis adoption practices and how adoption can tell us about Métis identity and citizenship. Ka oopikihtamashook’, a Michif-Cree term meaning to adopt, can also be referred to as ootinow aan paapyii (Fleury, 2013, p. 1). I use this term acknowledging while that adoption practices were present in many Métis communities, not all communities or families may have used this specific term. This article will demonstrate that these families and communities practised adoption and the values inherent in it to incorporate related and non-related individuals into their families and community; this practice went beyond genetics and identified value in virtue to build relationships and grow Métis communities. These adoptions followed the rules of kinship described by historian Brenda Macdougall as wahkootowin which is “a holistic philosophy, predicated upon one real stricture—being a good relative—which required adherence to the values, protocols, and behaviours expected of family members” (Macdougall, 2010, p. 83). Macdougall uses wahkootowin as a theoretical framework to contextualize how “relationships were intended to work within Metis society by defining and classifying relationships, prescribing patterns of behaviour between relatives and non-relatives, and linking people and communities in a large, complex web of relationships” (Macdougall, 2010, p. 8). Likewise, Ka oopikihtamashook’ was practised in the 19th century by Métis people, with both internal and external adoptions, all grounded within wahkootowin concepts, which set the rules about belonging, kinship, citizenship, and identity.

To date, Métis adoption practices, nor their connection with Métis identity, have been a focus of scholarship, and this article aims to correct this gap. Historical adoption practices have been explored primarily in connection with other topics. Thus, a closer exploration of these practices and their connection to identity brings a greater understanding to not only how adoption was practised in these communities and families but also how this connects to concepts of Métis identity. This work discusses examples of both internal adoptions of related individuals and external adoptions of non-related individuals into Métis families and communities emphasizing how Métis adoptions were based upon customary adoptions. Customary adoption describes a method, that while varied in practice from one nation to another, was a result of Indigenous peoples being collective societies whose worldview took into consideration the whole rather than the individual as the priority, a hallmark of wahkootowin (Atkinson, 2010; Carrière, 2010). Relatedly, this inquiry connects Ka oopikihtamashook’ and Métis identity, showing that Métis identity was not based on biology but rather a shared culture, community, and responsibilities.

Significant scholarship exists on Métis emergence and identity, and scholars differ on the criteria for determining when a community identified as Métis. While some scholars like Chris Andersen and Adam Gaudry have focused on the emergence of the Métis as a nation, or a political consciousness, the work of both Robert Innes and Brenda Macdougall provides a broader view of the emergence of the Métis. This article acknowledges, as Macdougall does, a proto-generation of Métis peoples through early “country marriages” and viewing these communities from that point onward as Métis, this allows the inclusion of multiple groups across the land, from the Great Lakes to the western prairies, and as early as the mid- to late-17th century. This exploration of adoption within Métis communities will bring a nuanced understanding to concepts of identity and citizenship as these communities formed.

This work draws on and responds to a few major trends within Métis historiography. Chris Andersen’s Métis: Race, Recognition, and the Struggle for Indigenous Peoplehood makes an important argument that the term Métis does not simply denote hybridity or mixedness. Andersen insists that this rhetoric ignores that “all indigeneity is—or perhaps more precisely, ‘analytically can be’ hybrid” (Andersen, 2014, p. 38). This hybridity exists because Indigenous people were fluid—people moved, married, took part in wars, and were adopted. Identity and citizenship were closely connected to this process, linked to the acceptance of responsibilities to family and migration patterns. Andersen explains the importance of differentiating between new communities that emerged from a marriage of European fur traders and Indigenous communities (what he categorizes as “small m metis”) and a unique political expression and self-consciousness (“big M Metis”) (Andersen, 2014). Thus, he argues that communities were not Métis until political self-consciousness existed. Adam Gaudry (2014) also places Métis nationhood or political worldview as an important piece of Métis identity, as the Métis consciously undertook specific actions to ensure survival of the Métis nation. Gaudry (2014) argues that this political worldview of independence can be seen within two key documents, Riel’s writings that clarified Métis political authority and Indigenous status, as well as the Manitoba treaty that in part became the Manitoba Act. Thus, the Métis like any other Indigenous peoples possessed a common or shared way of life—including language, political, social institutions, but also became a people or nation with a political consciousness.

Robert Innes agrees with Andersen that race is not the correct way to approach discussion of the Métis and adds that the Métis should be described not for their differences in comparison to First Nations, but instead understood through their similarities (Innes, 2013). Innes proposes that understandings of the Métis should not be limited to Red River culture, but scholars should be open to the diversity of Métis cultures viewing a wider lens of where and how Métis peoples emerged (Innes, 2013).

Like Innes, historian Brenda Macdougall (2010) envisions the emergence of Métis earlier than Andersen and Gaudry, with the first marriages of Fur Traders to Indigenous women. Beginning with the integration of non-Indigenous fur traders into the English River District, she classifies the marriage of these men to Indigenous women as a proto-generation of Métis. These were not people of mixed ancestry; the marriages birthed children who created a first generation forming their own unique socio-cultural identity. The first generation moved creating their own communities, marrying and forming families by the late 1820s and 1830s producing the second generation of Métis by the 1850s. Macdougall notes, “the origin of a people is a process, not an event. In the northwest Metis identity emerged slowly after the initial marital and sexual unions in the proto-generation of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century” (Macdougall, 2010, p. 60). Macdougall’s concentration on fur trade centres (including these first “country marriages”) as the proto-generation allows for inclusion of more than one centre of Métis emergence, as these marriages took place across the northwest, in centres such as Île à la Crosse, and allowed the development of Métis communities and culture outside of the Red River area. Macdougall’s conceptualization of Métis emergence contrasts with Gaudry and Andersen who tie the emergence of Métis identity to the Red River area. I suggest it is important to consider an alternative perspective where, like Macdougall’s approach, the period or geographical location for the Métis is not limited to that of Red River. Instead, focus should be placed on a common culture that has diversity like any Indigenous group.

When we move forward to more contemporary scholarship regarding Métis adoption and child welfare, the lack of Métis-specific policies regarding Métis children and how this acts as an assimilatory settler-state policy is revealed. Jeannine Carrière and Catherine Richardson’s (2017a) Calling Our Families Home: Métis Peoples’ Experience with Child Welfare highlights the scant research and understanding of Métis children in the child welfare system. Focusing on the legislation affecting Métis children in Canada, the authors reveal complications caused by lack of funding for Indigenous children in Canada, and the legislative void as Métis children are not specifically acknowledged in Canadian child welfare legislation. This is complicated by the misidentification of Métis children as either “Aboriginal” or “white”, which results in a movement of Métis children out of their communities when placed into care (Carrière & Richardson, 2017b). Similar trends of misidentification of Métis children in British Columbia were also noted by Deborah Canada (2012). Furthermore, Barkwell, Longclaws, and Chartrand’s (1989) “The status of Métis children within the child welfare system” explores Manitoba’s welfare system, similarly noting systemic problems for Métis children. Taken together, these works highlight the connection between colonial structures, the misidentification of Métis children, and the need for a complete revision of legislation in regard to Métis children and child welfare policies in Canada (Barkwell et al., 1989; Canada, 2012; Carrière, 2017; Carrière & Richardson, 2017a). This misidentification often happens due to a lack of a definition of who is Métis, or the lack of a category other than Aboriginal or White within the child welfare systems. A broad definition is recommended by these scholars, allowing self-identification as well as membership in Métis groups to identify as Métis (Barkwell et al., 1989; Canada, 2012; Carrière, 2017; Carrière & Richardson, 2017a). Although many of these studies point to the history of customary adoptions within Métis communities, there still is a lack of focus on the historical practice of adoption in Métis communities and its implications. To fill this gap in the literature, this article focuses on case studies from the 19th century to develop a better understanding of the practices of adoption and how Métis communities demonstrated their concept of self, managing who was accepted as one of them. As Robert Hancock (2017) states, “[a]ll of this serves to demonstrate the fact that Métis have always had a sense of who we are and how people can join us” (p. 23). To better understand who the Métis are today, it is important to understand how they determined community membership and identity.

Ka oopikihtamashook’ was one way in which families and communities determined who was part of them, who belonged, and who would be a good community member. This was because adoption took place through the rules of relation, or wahkootowin. Ka oopikihtamashook’ has not been ignored by scholars but has only received a cursory exploration. Métis scholar Brenda Macdougall (2010) writes that adoption in the Métis communities created new family members and established roles that were modelled on and mimicked biological relations. Adoption was most often seen after the death of biological parents as children were important inheritors of the Métis cultural identity within their region and it was important for them to remain in the community (Macdougall, 2010). Macdougall (2010) adds that adoptions were not unusual, the high death rate of men meant that many women outlived their husbands. For example, in the Métis settlement of Batoche, the average age of death in the mid- to late-19th century for men was 56, which meant women often had more than one spouse in their lifetime, and their second husbands would help raise the children from a previous marriage (Macdougall, 2010). A widower or widow could remarry one to two times in a lifetime and often families amalgamated children from multiple marriages into one household (Macdougall, 2010). In addition, Gaudry (2016) writes that historical Métis communities saw some non-kin as part of the Métis family. Adoption expanded the community, provided for family members in need, and required the adopted member live up to the responsibilities expected of a good relative through the concept of wahkootowin.

Grounded in wahkootowin, Métis adoption practices were customary adoptions. Records do not show adoption in Métis society taking place through formal ceremonies; rather, it seems that a family accepted an individual and the community received this person into the community. Likely the new family member was introduced to the community as part of the family, but records do not show how this was accomplished. These customary adoption practices—including external adoptions—were influenced by First Nations’ worldviews as the marriages forming the proto-generation were immersed in First Nations beliefs and customs which were passed onto the children (Macdougall, 2010). Macdougall (2010) demonstrates that the Métis united through relationships, created and nurtured through the First Nations’ concept of wahkootowin and adoption practices within Métis families were no different. As Innes (2013) argues, the cultural connections between the First Nations groups influenced the first generations of Métis and this included their adoption practices. As such, people in need would be adopted by a family and the community meeting the needs of both the adoptee and the adoptive family. The reasons for adoptions varied, from parental deaths, or families who had lost children would adopt new members to maintain larger family numbers, lessening the work for each member. These adoptions ensured that parentless children would be taken care of and adults who did not previously have children would have someone to care for them as they aged (Atkinson, 2010). These adoptions took place within the worldview described by the term wahkootowin, a concept not reduced to one culture or ethnicity, but practised and followed as a law in Indigenous communities including the Métis who embraced and demonstrated it through their concepts of family (Macdougall, 2010). Sometimes, baptisms took place in establishing, at least in the eyes of the Catholic Church, the acceptance of the child into the family, but also, their acceptance of Catholicism, an important part of Métis cultural identity. The Catholic Church had a complicated relationship with the Métis and their way of life. There was a belief that because of their “white” ancestors, the Métis would be easier to “civilize”, a requirement for becoming a true Christian. The Métis were seen as occupying an intermediary position between the Church and other Indigenous groups and this position allowed acceptance, though not always agreement, with Indigenous customs practised by the Métis, such as country marriages (Duval, 2008). Thus, while the Church influenced Métis practices, it did not completely counter Indigenous practices, but rather was integrated into the Métis wahkootowin (Macdougall, 2010). Being Métis was more than biological but included a shared sense of community, and an important part of this was taking part in its culture, practices, and responsibilities.

Examples of adoption in the 19th century are found in the history of the Dumont family, known for Métis leader and buffalo hunt chief Gabriel Dumont. His grandfather, Jean-Baptiste Dumont, a francophone man, moved from Montreal in 1790 where he worked for the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) and met a Sarcee woman Josephte (Raven, 2017). This proto-generation Métis family lived with her maternal relatives and this Sarcee influence would have contributed Indigenous belief systems and practices such as adoption. According to Oblate records, Jean-Baptiste Dumont adopted a boy named Ska-kas-ta-ow. Ska-kas-ta-ow was born to his mother Josephte, who had been in a previous relationship, and Jean-Baptiste embraced Ska-kas-ta-ow as his son (Raven, 2017). The adoption of Ska-kas-ta-ow was not unusual; the new marriage and the spouse would adopt the child ensuring that the family remained cohesive (Macdougall, 2010). Although the church recognized this adoption, the practice did not differ from adoption in other Indigenous communities as it followed the concepts of wahkootowin, which placed the good of the community over that of the individual. Adoption helped more than just the adoptee.

Adoptions also occurred in the next generation of the Dumont family, Gabriel Dumont and his wife Madeleine had no biological children but were known for their willingness to adopt other Métis children, including Veronique and Alexandre. Veronique Dumont was born in 1863 and was baptized on 12 May 1864, in St. Albert (Raven, 2017). She was the daughter of Gabriel’s cousin Jacques and Marieanne “Annie” Bruneau. Gabriel referred to Veronique as “Annie” due to the fact she looked so like her mother (Raven, 2017). Veronique’s mother passed away on 24 November 1865, and her father remarried to Marianne Breland who adopted and raised Veronique as her child. Jacques and Marieanne, along with Veronique’s two stepbrothers Benjamine and Baptiste, died in 1870 from smallpox (Barkwell, n.d.-b, p. 1). Veronique was 7 at the time of their deaths; her older brother Thimothé was 11. She also had an older sister, Adelaide, who was 18 and married by the time of their parent’s deaths (Raven, 2017). Details on Veronique’s life are not abundant, but it is accepted that she was cared for by the Grey Nuns until she moved in with Gabriel and Madeleine (Raven, 2017). Investigation of the information on Veronique confirms that she likely lived with Madeleine and Gabriel Dumont from 1877 and even returned to Batoche to help during the 1885 North-West Resistance (Raven, 2017). There are fewer details about the second child adopted by the Dumonts, Alexandre Fagnant. Dumont’s Memoirs refers to Alexandre as “son fils adoptif” or “his adopted son” (Dumont, 2006, p. 97). Likely, Dumont refers to Alexandre as an adopted son not to signify a difference in belonging, but because his memoires were recorded during a speech and referring to Alexandre as an adopted son allowed for no confusion on why there were different last names. Beyond this testimony, we have little information regarding Alexandre’s adoption into the Dumont family other than he was related to Dumont through a cousin (Barkwell, 2013). The lack of details on his adoption could be due to the lack of a formal ceremony. Alexandre however became a full member of the family, supporting both Gabriel and Madeleine in the move to Montana after the 1885 battles (Barkwell, 2013).

Both Alexandre and Veronique demonstrated their loyalty to not only the Dumont family but also the Métis community by fulfilling their responsibilities as full-fledged members of the community. Veronique, who, before her marriage, worked for the HBC near Edmonton, came back to Batoche for the 1885 North-West Resistance acting as a nurse (Raven, 2017). The North-West Resistance saw Métis of St. Laurent and Batoche, along with First Nations allies, fighting against the Canadian Government over a period of several months (Beal & Macloed, 2015). Likewise, her adopted brother Alexandre joined Dumont on the battlefield and fought with him throughout the Resistance (Raven, 2017). Alexandre then followed his parents to Montana for refuge after the battle, as part of the diaspora caused by the conflict (Raven, 2017). Oral stories reveal that Alexandre remained with Dumont because of Dumont’s injuries obtained during the fighting and stayed with his adopted parents to care for the couple (Barkwell, 2013). The Dumonts, unable to have their own children, were the most likely members of the family to adopt these children to help maintain their own family’s strength, and the children followed the rules and expectations of any child in the family. The children supported the parents in the family work while also learning the skills needed for when they would leave to raise their only families. These internal adoptions demonstrate that Métis people had a clear idea of who they were, there was a community identity that differed from other communities and keeping family members within these communities was a priority. The Métis were culturally distinct through their “interaction with their families, the economics of the district’s fur trade, and the religious demands of the Roman Catholic Church” (Macdougall, 2010, p. 22).

While the Dumont family demonstrates internal adoptions from within the family, external adoptions also took place. External adoption practices differed slightly from internal adoptions as the adoptee was not a family member and often not Métis. These adoptions also required the adoptee to follow community rules and embrace a Métis identity. The taking on of the Métis culture and identity demonstrates that being Métis was more than just a biological relation; instead, it involved a common culture and shared way of life as well as acceptance into a community. Peter Erasmus, most known for his role as an interpreter for Treaty 6, wrote of his adoption of Peter Shirt, a Peigan boy in his autobiography Buffalo Days and Nights. Erasmus found Peter at the grave of his last relation; a boy with no relatives left to raise him. Erasmus approached the Peigan chief and asked whether he could take the boy with him. The chief replied that if Peter Shirt wanted to go with Erasmus that he could take the child. The act of transitioning the responsibility of Peter from the Peigan community to Erasmus was simple. The boy and Erasmus met the chief who stated, “I am glad you can give the boy a home, as my own teepee is full and he has no relatives in this camp” (Erasmus, 1999, pp. 232–233). This was an informal ceremony where care was transferred to Erasmus. In turn, the boy’s adoption into the Métis community had no formal ceremony. Peter would call Erasmus father and only mentioned his previous life once (Erasmus, 1999). He instead adapted himself to Erasmus’ Métis community. Erasmus decided to send Peter for formal education, arranged by Reverened Steinhauer, which was not uncommon for some Métis children (Erasmus, 1999). Later on, Peter returned to Erasmus’ household and became an important part of Erasmus’ family (Erasmus, 1999). For example, when Erasmus was away from the family, Peter Shirt was placed with the responsibility of the family. Erasmus notes,

I bid the family goodbye and gave some last-minute instructions to Peter in regard to the care of the family and equipment. These latter orders were hardly necessary as I had long since been dependent on the young man for the care of everything while I was away. (Erasmus, 1999, p. 236)

Even after marriage, Peter Shirt remained close to the Erasmus family, helping care for the stock and bringing food after hunting trips (Erasmus, 1999). Peter Shirt also took a place of leadership within his community. During the early days of the 1885 North-West Resistance when word reached the settlement about the fighting at Fish Creek, Shirt helped formulate a plan. He also aided in thwarting the theft of a horse from the community. He then rode with his father to spread the word and make plans to protect the area, as they were sure the Batoche area Métis would encourage looting in the area to gain further allies with the local First Nations groups (Erasmus, 1999). During these discussions and actions, Shirt was accepted as any other member of the community, his advice sought and respected. This example of the adoption of a child from outside of the Métis community provides insight into not only how non-biological relatives became Métis through adoption but also how being Métis involved responsibilities to family demonstrated through actions.

What is most interesting in this next example of adoption is that it reveals how adoption practices were not only practised only between Métis, First Nations, Native Americans, and White people but also that any person who followed the kinship protocols of wahkootowin—no matter their ethnicity or background—could be adopted into the community. In return, they adopted the community and the culture and accepted into the community as Métis through ka oopikihtamashook’. John Francis Grant married several women throughout his life. He also adopted numerous children in addition to his biological children. While in Montana, Grant adopted an orphaned boy who was from the Bannock people in modern day Montana. In addition, Grant adopted three children (a boy and two girls) of mixed African American, Shoshone, and European descent, who were the orphans of Phil Barnes and his Shoshone wife. It is not clear whether these three identified as Métis before their adoption by Grant, but they were considered Métis after their adoption into his family, confirmed by the government who issued them scrip (Barkwell, 2008). Métis scrip, a tender that could be exchanged for land, was provided to the Métis by the federal government removing any claim to Aboriginal title and rights allowing settlement in the west (Augustus, n.d.). The adopted children held the same responsibilities and citizenship as any other community member.

Not only did John Francis Grant adopt children but also other family members adopted children connected to him. One such child was Mary Dempsey born in 1854 (Barkwell, 2008). Originally, records place Mary as the daughter of John Francis Grant and an unknown woman. Quarra, his wife, refused to have the child raised in her house and Mary ended up with Quarra’s sister Margaret and her husband Robert Dempsey. However, recent DNA results from descendants of Mary’s suggest she was Robert Dempsey’s child, and her descendants question who her mother was. Gerry Lee Kline, Mary’s descendant, suggests that possibly Quarra was the birth mother (Barkwell, 2008). Regardless, Mary was a child in need of a family and relatives stepped in to raise her following wahkootowin practices. While Grant adopted more than one child, a child who was possibly his wife’s was adopted out into another family, showing adoption was a common practice in Métis families. When there was no place for a child, for any reason including infidelity, Métis family members stepped up to provide a home.

External adoptions of children highlight questions of identity that do not exist with internal adoptions. It illustrates the interconnectedness of the Indigenous people of Turtle Island including the fact that identity and citizenship involved more than biological or blood relation. Children, like Peter Shirt, were born into other Indigenous groups but raised by and adopted into the Métis community; they took on Métis identity and cultural practices and were granted citizenship within the community. External adoption practices also incorporated adults into existing Métis communities and served in building and expanding the Métis nation. While Macdougall (2010) described proto-generation marriages not as Métis, with their children forming their own socio-cultural communities, at times proto-generation couples were adopted into Métis communities that were already formed. An example of this can be seen with the Wilkie family and the buffalo hunt leader Jean-Baptiste Wilkie. The marriage of a Scottish man and Chippewa woman could be referred to as the proto-generation of this Métis family. However, unlike the marriages that Macdougall described, the marriage saw the couple join the Pembina Métis community during their marriage, adopting the buffalo hunt lifestyle (Barkwell, n.d.-c). The marriage alone was not enough for the family to identify as Métis. While for some proto-generations, it is the children who form their own cultural identity and become Métis; in this case, the new couple became Métis through adoption into the community. Further evidence of the Wilkie’s adoption of a Métis identity can be seen in the use of a French name for their son, Jean-Baptiste Wilkie. He was raised as a Métis boy and later became a buffalo hunt chief (Barkwell, n.d.-c). Métis adult adoption did not rely on biological connections for it to be legitimized. Acceptance by the community served as the marker of adoption. Wilkie is an exceptional example in that he was so respected by the community that he eventually took on a leadership role.

The Métis community based citizenship on rules of belonging and community engagement. The adoption of adults occurred because there was someone in need of a community. When this happened, the adoptee would take on the responsibilities of community membership as required through wahkootowin. One case of external adoption to fill the need of a Métis community is demonstrated in the case of Cuthbert Grant. Grant was born in 1793 at Fort Tremblant and had Scottish and Cree ancestry, and perhaps French descent as well (Barkwell, n.d.-a; MacLeod & Morton, 1963). His father, who died when Grant was only 6 years old, was a trader for the North West Company (NWC) and held substantial influence in the fur trade as master of the largest department (Barkwell, n.d.-a; MacLeod & Morton, 1963). Like many sons of fur trade bourgeois, Grant went to Montreal and possibly Scotland as well for education, returning to the fur trade at age 19 and becoming a clerk in the upper Red River District (Barkwell, n.d.-a; MacLeod & Morton, 1963). Here, Grant made a name for himself as a company man (Barkwell, n.d.-a; MacLeod & Morton, 1963). MacLeod asserts that Grant was a “young gentleman, the product of this Scottish environment, who returned to Montreal to begin work at the North West Company … among his father’s old associates and his heart must have been warmed by their interest and patronage” (MacLeod & Morton, 1963, p. 6). Despite his maternal Cree, and possibly even Métis heritage on his mother’s side, Grant was a young gentleman, a product of his Scottish upbringing returning to Montreal to work for the NWC; it would not be for several years that he would become involved with and eventually adopted by the Métis (Barkwell, n.d.-a; MacLeod & Morton, 1963). Eventually, Grant was appointed by the company to be one of the four captains of the Métis, likely due to being both a clerk of the company and his ties to the community through his mother’s Cree family (MacLeod & Morton, 1963, p. 7). This position was not for the betterment of the Métis or to protect their rights, but rather for the company’s interests as it battled against the HBC for control of the resources (MacLeod & Morton, 1963).

Grant likely did not understand that in leading the Métis, he was to serve the interests of the NWC alone. Grant had no reason to be anything other than loyal to the company in this period, but between 1814 and 1816 as the leader assigned to the Métis during resistances and battles on behalf of the NWC, his loyalty would shift. He would lead the Métis in the Battle of Seven Oaks and these events ended with Grant standing trial, but ultimately being acquitted (Barkwell, n.d.-a; MacLeod & Morton, 1963). The arrest had many effects on him. He had returned to find his wife and child gone; consequently, he began living again with the Métis in a country marriage to Madeline Desmarais who came from a well-known Métis family (MacLeod & Morton, 1963). With the absorption of the NWC into the HBC in 1821, Grant lost his job, severing his loyalty to the Company (MacLeod & Morton, 1963). Ka oopikihtamashook’ only took place when Grant left his loyalties to the Company behind. Following wahkootowin rules, Grant’s loyalty needed to be with the Métis and not the company; although he had led the Métis, it had been on behalf of the NWC and did not ally him completely with the Métis before this time. The Métis asked Grant to lead them again into battle against the HBC as they were unhappy with the laws placed on their ways of life (MacLeod & Morton, 1963). The Métis clearly saw Grant as a person who could contribute to their community in a way that benefitted it as a whole. In the spring of 1824, Grant would use a parcel of land to found a Métis community with about a hundred Métis families, Grantown (St. François Xavier), which would feature a Catholic mission and centred on the Métis and their annual buffalo hunt (MacLeod & Morton, 1963). Through the establishment of this colony, Grant demonstrated his adoption of Métis identity. At that time, Grant began to make a living as both a trader and a buffalo hunter. By the 1830s, Grant had established himself a reputation as both a Métis warrior and hunter (MacLeod & Morton, 1963). Grant’s life takes a different beginning than what Macdougall would label a first-generation Métis. He did not leave his family to join a community of other first-generation Métis. He instead was raised as many Scottish gentlemen in the North West. He received education, and had ties to the NWC, not a specific Métis community. Where the first generations Macdougall discusses were creating their own communities and intermarrying, Grant was establishing himself with the NWC. Like many adoptions of adults into the Métis community, there was no recorded ceremony; there was no official date of adoption. Instead, Grant established himself into the community over time, through his responsibilities, leadership, and involvement with the Métis thereby making himself a loyal member of the community. As an adult, the process of adoption for Grant was longer and more complex than for children, and unlike the first-generation Métis described by Macdougall, adoption did take place. Although he was born with both Scottish and Cree blood, this alone was not enough to create a man who would be known as a great leader of the Métis. He had to become loyal to the Métis adopting their customs and ways of life and in return was adopted by them.

Exploration of Ka oopikihtamashook’ shows that Métis practised both internal and external adoptions. Adoption into the community was not based on blood relation but on a willingness to accept the rules of belonging and the responsibilities that come with kinship. Wahkootowin established the rules that demonstrated how a person was to behave regarding all parts of life. Family relations was a key component of this behaviour, and this was demonstrated through the practice of Ka oopikihtamashook’ which placed the family and community as a priority through the adoption of others (Macdougall, 2010). The topic of Métis identity has been at the forefront of discussions in both academia and the public, particularly with the 2016 Daniels decision that referred to jurisdictional responsibility regarding the Métis but also in its return to a Métis-as-mixed logic regarding identity (Andersen, 2016). The decision has sparked the creation of several “Métis” nations—particularly in eastern Canada, that claim Métis identity, citizenship and thus Métis rights. One counter-argument to these newly founded groups is that their attempts to claim Indigenous heritage based on racial mixedness is no more than a settler-colonial self-adoption fantasy, which ignores the historical basis to the Métis Nation (Gaudry & Leroux, 2017). These claims focus on the biological aspects of identity, genealogy and blood quantum, in essence determining that being Métis is attached solely to a biological claim of mixedness due to a long ago Indigenous ancestor rather than a connection to historical communities, culture, and identity. This allows individuals to claim Indigenous identity with no reciprocal adoption by a community, or responsibilities to the community as demonstrated through these examples of Ka oopikihtamashook’ in the 19th century. This relationship of responsibility and mutual acceptance of adoption must exist to claim citizenship. As well, this investigation into adoption practices in the 19th century demonstrates that it was not the federal government, or an individual alone, who determined who was Métis. It was instead the Métis people who had agency; communities chose who could identify and claim citizenship as Métis. Although governments can legislate, provide recognition such as with scrip and attempt to determine a persons’ Indigenous identity, it is, in fact, the communities who define it.