The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief | Page 8

but that of a Metis in any
of the cosy dwellings in the settlement. These people had not yet learnt
that amongst the whites, whose blood knew no alloy, they were
regarded as a debased sort, and unfit socially to mix with those who
had kept their race free from taint. The female fruitage of the mixture
lost nothing by acquiring some of the Caucasian stock, but the men, in
numerous cases, seemed to be inferior for the blending. In appearance
they were inane, in speech laconic; they were shy in manners, and
reserved, to boorishness, while in intellectual alertness they were
inferior to the boisterous savage, or the shrewd, dignified white. But the
woman perpetuated the shy, winning coyness of her red mother, and the
arts, and somewhat of the refinements of her white father. The eye was
not so dusk; it gleamed more: as if the ray from a star had been shot
through it. There was the same olive cheek; but it was not so tawny, for
the dawn of the white blood had appeared in it. She gained in symmetry
too, being taller than her red mother, while she preserved the soft,
willowy motion of the prairie-elk.
But the women were not good housekeepers; and many a traveller has
gone into the house of a Metis and seen there a bride witchingly

beautiful, with her hair unkempt and disordered about her shoulders,
her boots unlaced, and her stocking down revealing her bare,
exquisitely-turned ankle.
"A Cinderella!" he would exclaim, "but, by heaven, I swear, a thousand
times more lovely!" If she had a child it would likely be found
sprawling among the coals, and helping itself to handfuls of ashes. The
little creature would be sure to escape the suspicion of ever having been
washed. Ask the luminous-eyed mother for anything, for a knife to cut
your tobacco, for a cup to get a drink of water, and the sweet sloven
would be obliged to ransack two-thirds of the articles of the house to
find what you sought.
The dresses worn by herself, as well as by her husband or her brother,
would not be less astonishing to the unaccustomed eye. The men wear
a common blue capote a red belt and corduroy trousers. This, however,
soon became the costume of every male in Red River, whether Metis or
new-come Canadian. There, is however, a distinction in the manner of
wearing. Lest the Canadian should be taken for a Metis he wears the
red belt over the capote, while the half-breed wears it beneath. The
women are fond of show, and like to attire themselves in dark skirts,
and crimson bodices. Frequently, if the entire dress be dark, they tie a
crimson or a magenta sash around their handsomely shapen waists; and
they put a cap of some denomination of red upon their heads. Such
colours, it need not be said, add to their beauty, and it is by no means
uncertain that this is the reason why they adopt these colours. Some
writers say that their love of glaring colours is derived from the savage
side of their natures; but the Metis women have an artistic instinct of
their own, and being for the greater part coquettes, it may very safely
be said that according to the fitness of things is it that they attire
themselves. But they are not able to shake off the superstitions of their
race. If the young woman soon to be a mother, sees a hawk while
crossing the fields in the morning, she comes home and tells among her
female friends that her offspring is to be a son; and they all know that
he is to be fleet and enduring in the chase, and that he will have the
eyes of a hunter chief. But if a shy pigeon circle up from the croft, and
cross her path, she sighs and returns not back to relate the omen; and it

is only in undertones that her nearest friend learns a week afterwards
that the promised addition to the household is to be a girl. The
appearance of other birds and beasts, under similar circumstances, are
likewise tokens; and though boys would be born, and girls too, if all the
hawks and pigeons, and foxes and wild geese, and every other
presaging bird and beast of the plains had fallen to the gun of huntsman
and "sport," they cling to the belief; and the superstition will only die
with the civilization that begat it. Many of the customs of their red
mothers they still reverently perpetuate; but they are for all this deeply
overlaid with Canadianism. Of all the women on the face of the earth,
they are the greatest gossips.
Not in their whole nature is there any impulse so