Talk:NunatuKavummiut

"claiming"?

"The Inuit-Metis, Labrador Metis or NunatuKavut people are people claiming to be an Aboriginal people of Canada."

Firstly, it has been established that the NunatuKavummiut are indeed the continuation of the Inuit that inhabited Labrador's southern coast many times over in the past 15 years or so. Here's a well-used article in La revue Études Inuit of the University of Laval. http://www.erudit.org/revue/etudinuit/2002/v26/n2/007646ar.html

Secondly, NunatuKavut hasn't used the term "metis" for many years with a better understanding of their ancestry thanks to modern research. NunatuKavut is an Inuit nation, with marked European influences - hundreds of years of Basque trade, contact with the French, the influence of the Moravian Church from further north, and now the influence of modern Anglo-Saxon Canadians. Metis referred to people that were specifically excluded from both First Nations and French Canadian society due to their mixed race. The NunatuKavummiut developed as a people as a whole, instead of being singled out from another Inuit group.

I intend to seriously restructure this article and source it well. Oosting (talk) 20:09, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

The "claiming" bit isn't meant to mean that it's not true. It only means that it is a self-declaration and as not been recognized by the Government of Canada or other external parties (see also Papaschase which I wrote). The "Metis" bit is because its in the sources. I am no judgement as to whether or not NunatuKavut people still refer to themself as Metis, but sources do (e.g. www.labrodormetis.ca). If you have better (more scholarly, or more recent sources) please add those. But even after that we would not purge any former names. Just as WP article for the Danezaa must mention that they are also known as the Beaver (people), just as the article on the Dutch mentions that they also called Netherlanders or Hollanders, so should this article mention all synonyms even if they are dated. As for the the content of the article: when I found it, it was written like an article about a town council, now it is more like a standard WP ethnic group article. I think that puts things in a much broader context. Please continue to make additions, but I believe we need an article about the people as a whole before we have an article about a proposed territory that they would like to negotiate with the government. --Kevlar (talk • contribs) 20:45, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Here's what the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples said (1996):

“Intermarriage between First Nations and Inuit women and European fur traders and fishermen produced children, but the birth of new Aboriginal cultures took longer. At first, the children of mixed unions were brought up in the traditions of their mothers or (less often) their fathers. Gradually, however, distinct Métis cultures emerged, combining European and First Nations or Inuit heritages in unique ways. Economics played a major role in this process. The special qualities and skills of the Métis population made them indispensable members of Aboriginal/non-Aboriginal economic partnerships, and that association contributed to the shaping of their cultures... . As interpreters, diplomats, guides, couriers, freighters, traders and suppliers, the early Métis people contributed massively to European penetration of North America. The French referred to the fur trade Métis as coureurs de bois (forest runners) and bois brulés (burnt-wood people) in recognition of their wilderness occupations and their dark complexions. The Labrador Métis (whose culture had early roots) were originally called ‘livyers’ or ‘settlers’, those who remained in the fishing settlements year-round rather than returning periodically to Europe or Newfoundland. The Cree people expressed the Métis character in the term Otepayemsuak, meaning the ‘independent ones’.” (RCAP, vol.4, pp.199-200)

They clearly think of the Red River Metis and Labrador Metis as being formed by a similar process. --Kevlar (talk • contribs) 20:53, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

A review of the land claim document that I did use as a source reveals that there is academic consensus the NunatuKavummiut are Inuit, not Metis. Also, as a secondary source, see this peer-reviewed article: http://www.erudit.org/revue/etudinuit/2002/v26/n2/007646ar.html, which I included as a source in my revision of the article. The previously supported theory that the people of NunatuKavut were merely traders from the Inuit people north of the Hamilton Inlet who mingled with Europeans was disproven about 10 years ago by archeological and historical research. The reason they use the labradormetis.ca domain name is because when that website was created, it was still called the Labrador Metis association. Going to that URL now, you will find it automatically redirects to nunatukavut.ca.

The article I used as a source is 10 years old, true. As such I will use a much newer source here ("Unveiling NunatuKavut: Describing The People and Lands of South/Central Labrador", published by the NunatuKavut Community Council in 2010) to verify it as canonical that these people were an established Inuit people in South/Central Labrador prior to European contact. Here is a verbatim passage from that publication;

"There is academic consensus that Inuit were in regular, constant and widespread occupation of south and central labrador long before the mid-1700s. All recent, and emerging, evidence proves a general occupation of south and central Labrador by Inuit prior to the mid-1500s... The Inuit occupations of southern Labrador were of a permanent nature" (Page 5)

The people of NunatuKavut aren't the descendents of traders from the north they are a continuation of an Inuit people who lived in southern Labrador prior to European contact. They have certainly been introduced to European peoples, who have mingled among them and married into the culture. But as noted in that same document, "The culture of NunatuKavut is distinctly Inuit".

I'm going to re-implement the changes I made. - Oosting (talk) 04:42, 9 December 2012 (UTC)