Métis Domestic Thresholds and the Politics of Imposed Privacy

The blurring of the private and public realms within the Métis home is a concept intrinsic to understanding the historical underpinnings of the culture. It is well documented that one of the defining characteristics of Métis folk homes in 19th century Saskatchewan was an open interior floor plan.[1][2]  Not only did this type of design provide flexibility due to its ample interior but it also allowed for expedient construction, ‘warmth, low building cost, possibilities for expansion’, and a crucial means to accommodate various community interactions, with the home often doubling as a dance hall, a funeral parlour, a social or political gathering space, and a forum for interaction between immediate family members.[3] For the Métis, partition walls would have impeded the opportunity for such large gatherings, acting as both a physical and metaphorical barrier to the sense of connection and community.  As asserted by Diane Payment, [the Métis family] “valued the primacy of collectivity over the individual” and were “guided by principles of unity”.[4] Furthermore, David Burley documents the public/private dichotomy within Métis culture, stating that formality and privacy are not encountered within the home but rather there exists a ‘lack of boundedness’ expressed within the range of activities occurring in the space.[5] It is for these reasons that crossing the threshold into the Métis domestic interior has been described as closer to the Plains teepee than that of the standard prairie farmhouse.

Yet by the time the government(s) acknowledged their responsibility for providing housing to certain Métis communities across the prairies, a standard and compartmentalized interior quickly became the norm, dissolving the capacity for the Métis home to preserve its role as an inherently social space for communal forms of habitation and interaction. Similar to housing programs imposed on other Canadian indigenous communities with communal domestic social arrangements (the igloo, the teepee, etc.), a critical shift in Métis social relations ensued. This essay will postulate the role of imposed privacy in the breakdown of Métis social systems in the Canadian prairies and how this arguably contributed to an accelerated pace of cultural assimilation during the 20th century.

[1] David, Burley., "Creolization and late nineteenth century Métis vernacular log architecture on the South Saskatchewan River." Historical Archaeology 34, no. 3 (2000): p.29.
[2] David V.Burley., and Gayel A. Horsfall. "Vernacular houses and farmsteads of the Canadian Metis." Journal of Cultural Geography 10, no. 1 (1989): p. 25.
[3] 3514 Pembina Highway McDougall House, City of Winnipeg Historical Buildings Committee,(1988): p. 4
[4] Diane, Payment., “The Free People - Otipemisiwak”: Batoche, Saskatchewarn, 1870-1930 (Ottawa: Canadian Parks Service, (1990), p. 38.
[5] David, Burley., "Creolization and late nineteenth century Métis vernacular log architecture on the South Saskatchewan River." Historical Archaeology 34, no. 3 (2000): p.35.