Fiddling was so central to
Métis
culture and so identified with it at one time that Turtle Mountain players say, “There’s no Metchif without no fiddle. The dancin’ and the fiddle and the Metchif, they’re all the same
” (Leary 1992:27). “The Sioux would say ... when he played one of these [a fiddle], they knew he was a Metchif
” (Leary 1992:22). Largely a male practice until recently, the fiddle tradition involves a style of...
