kôhkominawak ocihcîwâwa

kôhkominawak ocihcîwâw: Our Grandmothers’ Hands – Repatriating Métis Material Art
by Gregory Scofield, Historical Overview by Sherry Farrell Racette
Published by Gabriel Dumont Institute Press
Review by Shelley A. Leedahl
$65.00 ISBN 9781988011226

In Gregory Scofield’s introduction to Our Grandmothers’ Hands: Repatriating Métis Material Art, the multi-genre Métis author, academic and bead-worker immediately demonstrates his poetic prowess via a description of the said, titulary hands: “I always imagine them as fine-boned birds, taking musical flight over a pattern traced onto velvet, stroud, or hide.”

This fine writing compelled me to sink into this 245-page treasure trove of photographs, descriptions, and necessary stories about the grandmothers’ beaded artifacts—what Scofield refers to as “grandmother-pieces”—and his years-long efforts to repatriate them from “antique stores and ‘Indian art’ galleries, e-Bay and Etsy, and online auctions”. It was the myriad pieces themselves, he explains, that “guide[d] and educate[d] him” to give voice and honour to these Métis women and their creations during “a time of reconciliation” and “colonial reckoning.” Scofield recalls his Aunty Georgina teaching him—a nicâniskôhpicanisak, or “little ancestor”—to bead at her kitchen table, and recounts his ongoing dedication to learning how to “properly care for historic beadwork and silk embroidery.”

Scofield’s illuminating introduction is followed by Sherry Farrell Racette’s historical overview, “Looking for Stories: Seeking History in Visual Culture.” Her passion for “revitalizing traditional art forms” and “increasing the recognition and appreciation of contemporary traditional artists and their practices” has required “teasing information from the stitches, chosen materials, and techniques.” Métis art-making predated The Red River Settlement, she writes. Items (ie: beaded cloth firebags, moccasins, mittens, jackets, hats) were produced for the women’s own homes and families, and were also commissioned by or sold to collectors and traders.

“The combination of movement and intermarriage blurred origins into a style that was distinctly ‘Métis,’” Farrell Racette explains. “The generative actions of beadwork and embroidery were deeply embedded in emotional and spiritual life,” and, she asserts, “the full spectrum of Métis art” encompasses much more than the “Métis five-petal flower.”

It was captivating to proceed through these pages and admire the photographs of the varied work, including pieces created in the Norway House Style, with floral embroidery “characterized by buttonhole stitches” and “red and pink rosettes and snake-like leaves” and the “use of tightly-twisted silk floss.” I tried to imagine the hands that stitched the items. The conversations between women as they worked. It was surprising to learn where individual items were eventually located, ie: men’s gauntlets in Middlesex, England; sleigh mittens in Philadelphia; children’s moccasins (“Smoked moose hide sole, sun-bleached caribou hide vamp embroidered with silk threads in chain stitch …”) in St. Boswell’s, Scotland, artist unknown.

A beaded garden on a wall pocket, c. 1880-1900. A beaded panel that conjures “the beauty and wonder of a springtime bouquet.” From slippers to gun cases, the images illustrate how the grandmothers possessed the “skill and ability to make even utilitarian pieces beautiful.”

“Our grandmothers are back into Métis hands and back into the hands of our scholars, historians, artists, and community members.” They are, Scofield writes, “coming home,” and he is “their momentary caregiver, ensuring they are loved and honoured and, above all, respected.”

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