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BELT ARROWED, BELT OF RASSADE
There is that well a long time when the tradesmen French of the time of the bill of furs met with the hunters of the First Nations to make the swapping, they were all dressed with very beautiful coats, combed of beaver hats, enveloped of arrowed belts and of garters and beautiful made very colorful assets by the Métis. This meet included a ceremony of the Calumet always consistent d ' exchanges of gossips and of moves in. The tradesmen French wanted to impress the citizens of the First Nations with the quality of their products. The citizens of the First Nations wanted on their turn to endow it themselves with personal adornments and prestige as made it also their leaders. They were all fond of to acquire such badges of the power to impress their visitors, with big coats has red hood and leggings of blue sheet, of the strips and beaded bags of quick colors always made by the Métis of the East. He wanted to succeed in winning the favor of the Bourgeois French in the process of the swapping. These accouterments ended up making gone quickly of the sartorial holding of the Chiefs of the First Nations worthy of the bourgeoises that could allow these articles.
So began the on a big scale diffusion in North America of the trade of articles of the Métis handicraft and that was initially foreign to the First Nations and the other Nations that resided in the west Canadians. With time assets these articles have been taken thereafter to wrong as articles of manufacture of the First Nations or Canadian French, decreasing the contribution thus makes at the time by the Métis of the furs south bill in their stepped over in the big rowboats to use to the transportation. In homage to the remarkable Métis handicraft, it is admitted well that the belts manufactured in wool of the country by the Métis of the East, nicknamed ‘grasps it arrowed ' or as the belt of The Assumption or belt of Asthmatics of Released. The name drifted of the locality from where they have been manufactured.
These belts arrowed Métis are manufactured by Métis of Quebec or origin of tied in Low Canada. Among the belts of this exceptional group the belts Métis of The arcade are that have been identified also under the name of beaded belts. They are composed of 2 distinct strips, of about 1 .5 inch of width. She/it looked like the simple garters that closed again themselves together on the sides. With a pressing need of resources to survive, and as it adapted easily to their social environment, the Half-caste of the East of Canada learned some First Nations the technique of the plaiting to the hand to adapt it to the manufacture of belts arrowed all as they learned to use the but, tobacco, the rackets, the loafers and the practice of the manufacture of the sugar of maple and other techniques used by the First Nations. Thus, among the Métis of the East there were a lot of Métis who adopted the French customs. These are also the Métis of the East that, by respect adopted the customs of the First Nations with which they were in daily contact.
The arrowed belts were woven in big number to the departure for their personal use and, later, for the commercial needs of the Company of the Northwest, then the Company of the Bay adherence because the belts became important like an article of swapping, and this everywhere in the north part of this continent. These are this old Métis of the French and Cajun stump East who introduced the belt arrowed to the Métis of the most recent establishment of the Red River created by theMétisRunners of Woods who tempted to escape the communities established Orangists in High Canada. These are the Métis of the East who first developed the families Métis, the communities Métis, the culture Métis, the philosophy Métis, the spirituality Métis, the languages Métis, because they had adopted the culture of the French and those of the First Nations jointly. he/it smoked the pipes consecrated of the First Nations, adopted the Catholic faith, used and prepared the tobacco of the autochthonous way, traveled in enormous rowboats adapted to their commercial needs, wore the shoes and garters and belts in their own ways and that to construct the first cart of the Red River.
The belts arrowed of the Métis of the East have been woven with spiritual designs. They were considered by the Métis of the East as objects with photographic designs in three measurements counterpart to those that one recovers on the belts of campus of the First Nations. The colors of the belts arrowed were selected by the women Métis of the East from the specter of the colors of the rainbow, like these colors were chosen and used among the First Nations at the time of the execution of spiritual ceremonies. The belts arrowed of the Métis were composed mainly of the big bruise, small bruise, red, yellow, green and white, compared to the belts that had been produced in immense commercial quantity by the Company of the Bay of Hudson and adopted by Scarred them, Country English born.
The arrowed belts have been produced with the understanding of the spirituality of the First Nations to receive the protection of the Creator and minds for the Métis, and to protect the husband and the children or the members of the families that traveled on the streams, soups for months to transport westward goods Canadian. Most belts arrowed d"origine, in the memory of the former Métis of the East, have been made first to Saint-Jacques of the Achigan, in the county of the Assumption, province of Quebec,: St. Jacques is to about 8 km to the north of The Assumption and the village of The Assumption is to 25 miles in the north of Montreal, on the north strand of the majestic Stream St.-Laurent. They have never been produced by the new Métis of the Red River in the new province of the Manitoba Métis as some Métis seem to believe it. It is possible that the family Métis of the East adopted the simple process of plaiting as pictorial in the belts of Wampum. With time, the Métis refined the process to the point to make theirs of it. Then, thanks to the use of flexible and abundant materials, these women Métis transformed this art in their way and they gave him a new utility and a lot larger significance among the Métis and the First Nations, the French and the English were happy to accept his renewed style.
BELTS OF THE ASSOMPTION
The majority of the families Métis of Saint-Jacques and numerous other parishes had to pass two to four months during the winter to weave the arrowed belts. The whole family, of which the women, the children who had reached the age of seven years and even the men began to work on the belts arrowed the morning very early to stop only late in the night. Because of the fact that the arrowed belts have not only been produced for their own use, but also to win their food, it forced the families of the Métis to manufacture the arrowed belts, to gather all their resources to make as much that possible of the belts arrowed to sell them to them trading French. The production of belts arrowed always respected the models of the Half-caste domestic clans. These families were also Métis domestic clans of Acadia as the forests, Légaré, Bourgeois, Léveillé, Lajoie, Larivière, Richard, Blanchard, Salomé, Venne, Lord, Melançon, Johnson, Lord, Gaudet, Desrosiers, Lajoie, Légaré, Dion and Mirault. A lot of children of these families of manufacturers of belts arrowed, in particular the small girls, began to contribute to the manufacture of the belts arrowed since their very young age. They started with helping their mothers who made the texture, while untangling the sons behind her and that requires the involvement of two children. Without their help, the weaver had to leave his texture to undo the entanglement of son's sprigs behind him.
It is difficult for an only person, to twist son's sprigs correctly and to make the knots at the end. The technique is easy to learn, but it requires a lot of memory to maintain the continuity of the model. With time, it nearly became a second nature and the texture of the belts arrowed could be made with practically the closed eyes, especially in the families where this art of manufacture had been practiced intensely. With the involvement of all members of the family Métis, an arrowed belt could be woven in some days. Arrowed most belts were d"une length of 6 feet and 6 inches by 6 inches of large. As many colonists of The Achigan came from Acadia, he has been presumed to wrong, that the art of the manufacture of the belt arrowed came that of the Métis of Acadia.
MANUFACTURES OF THE BELTS
What beautiful opportunity for the women and the children to meet, to chat and to fill this long day of the winter. One chose a house to meet. The chosen house was taken in charge to aim the sprigs of wool of the ceiling in the floor. When the sprigs of wool were ready and the selected domestic colors, the sprigs were placed together in a sort of quilt, ready for the texture. a flat tempié composed of two cedar sticks of about 12 inches of long, was placed of every side of the set of the sprigs, in the middle of the center, and attaché to the extremities to maintain them in place. An extremity of the sprigs was bound either to a beam of the ceiling or very high on the wall, and the other extremity was attached to a long nail on the floor. Then the weaver himself assoyait nearby in diagonal of the sprigs and began to weave from the sticks temples in himself while going downwards. The texture started to the middle or the center of the whole length of the quilt of sprigs, what is the usual method for the belts arrowed very long. From time to time, the temple was loosened and out of place downwards, to hold it nearer to carried it of the hand and to really keep it tense, in the goal to shorten the length of the soil section in the ceiling, the sprigs of the superior part were generally attached in several big knots and occasional also the some of the other. When one of the extremities is woven and the finished fringe one reversed the process. The finished part was bound to the ceiling or the wall, and the other half was woven then. Once again, one restarted from the tempié, that has was readjusted the starting point rightly above. It would have been practically impossible to weave a big belts arrowed all of a tip. The quilt of sprigs was too long and that the belt has it only measured about 6 1 / 2 feet of long finished and the non woven sprigs were naturally a lot longer. There were several different ways to weave, but the belts arrowed of the Assumption are the same norm, following the description recorded by a weaver. The arrows or the points were made in general of the length of the index that is of about 3 1 / 2 inches and sometimes a few longer. Most weavers made 7 tips of arrows to the linear foot. But a belt arrowed thicker was stronger and woven more closely, it was composed of 14 tips of arrows to the linear foot what means more work and as result a product of better quality. The basis or the red heart as the weavers called it, constituted 80 doubles sprigs. Of the heart there were 16 tips of arrows of points, composed of 12 sprigs each, on one hand: and as much on the other hand: what means, 32 tips of arrows in all: what makes a total of 464 sprigs in total. Small bruise, big bruise, yellow, red, white and green are the usual colors, among the weavers Métis of the East. Wool to use to manufacture the arrowed belts was in advance of a special and very rough, rigid type and hue. Every arrowed belt requires 2 books of wool. Wool has been bought in skeins, arranged in bullets of 10 books of every color. The colors are brilliant and cool. After having received wool, she was twisted home on the lathe and two sprigs were spun in one only to make he stronger. When the arrowed belt was finished, it was humidified, stretched, covered of cloth and hurried with an old hot iron. Later, several enterprises and some weavers began to weave belts arrowed with machines or handlooms to replace the famous belt arrowed of the Assumption used to make the bill mechanically.
USE OF THE BELTS ARROWED TODAY
The belt arrowed of the Métis has been borrowed by the Métis of the Red River and the Halfbreeds Country born of the west Canadian without big knowledge and the understanding of the history of the belt arrowed of the Métis of the East and even of the recognition of his origins. Unfortunately, the arrowed belt used by the National Rallying of the Métis was the one produced for the carnival of winter of Quebec of the years 1960 and also used by the Festival of the Traveler of Saint-Boniface in the Manitoba. This belt is produced massively by an enterprise of the City of Quebec. The predominance of the red color of this belt arrowed used by the Council National of the Métis reflects the colors of the belt arrowed mass produced by the Company of the Bay of Hudson, that served the interests of the English and that were not favorable to the Canayen French and to the Métis of the Low Canada. The predominance of the colors of the big and the small bruise of the belts arrowed of the Métis of the East, reflect the colors of the French and Cajun flags and was sustained strongly at the time by the Company of the West North of the trade of furs. It is important to note that the belts arrowed of the Métis have their own history to tell. All histories have a beginning to remind us that are the Métis and from where they are original. Different of the other arrowed belts, the belts arrowed Métis reveal the process of the evolution of the culture Métis, the beginning of his growth and some features of the movement of the population westward Métis of Canada. The belt arrowed to red predominance named the Belt of Conventry has been manufactured in mass has Conventry in England and introduced by the company of the Bay of Hudson to flood the market of these belts. This belt doesn't reflect the culture of the Métis of the East of Canada. It is why no person or autochthonous organization even the governments have the power to limit the recognition of the identity Métis to a particular territory. We must come back at the origin of the arrowed belt as told by our former Métis of l ' is Canada. The arrowed belt represents the backbone of the Nation Métis and the domestic clans that composes it and this of an ocean to the other on the island of the Turtle.
The arrowed belt is the spiritual connection of all Métis. We must renew the sprigs of the belt arrowed to what we add and to what we became. We owe retisser our belts arrowed in the respect of the Nation Métis and our domestic clans. Our arrowed belts must reflect our real Métis cultural identity. We must construct the future of the Nation Métis. The clan domestic must that to unite around their fires domestic to decide what will be the colors used to weave their new belt arrowed domestic. The Métis must also assemble around the fire of the Nation Métis and to decide that will be the belt arrowed official of the Nation Métis with the traditional colors of the big bruise and the small bruise that reflect that the Métis are, from where they come and what they became.
