Woven Stories: How Beadwork Reconnects Me to Indigenous History
Maegan Ellis (she/her) is a master's student in the University of Guelph Department of History, studying under Dr. Kim Anderson. She is researching the creation of Métis beadwork and the history of Métis women in Saskatchewan. As a part of Indigenous History Month, Maegan shares her experiences learning how to bead and how this activity connects her to Indigenous history.
I was told from a young age that I am Métis—or “May-dee,” depending on who you ask. With maternal roots in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, and paternal roots in Georgian Bay, Ontario, my family history is rich with Indigenous–settler relations I only recently started exploring. I was raised in Midland, on the shores of Georgian Bay and traditional territory of the Chippewa Tri-Council, on land within Treaties #5 and #16. Today, I live and study on the treaty lands and territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit as a master’s candidate in the Department of History at the University of Guelph. Working under the advisement of Kim Anderson, I have the opportunity to research Métis women’s history in Saskatchewan and learn about the creation of Métis beadwork and embroidery.
I believe my journey to studying Indigenous history began with a needle, some thread, and a bead. A single bead, frosted and blue like sea glass. I was making earrings for my mother—the first pair I ever made. A friend of mine told me your first pair should always be gifted to someone you love.
Although I’ve always been a lover of sewing and crafting, I didn’t learn how to bead until I was 20, doing my undergraduate degree in general history. Something about textiles and visual art always spoke to me—the feelings of leather and stiff cotton, the softness of a ribbon, the tightness of a stitch, the vibrant patterns of a quilted blanket. When I was a little girl, my mother had a beaded hair pin with a large pink flower at its centre and a soft leather backing. Sometimes, I’d covet it for myself. I’d run my fingers over every delicate bead, trying to fathom how somebody made this with their own two hands. Timidly joining a beading workshop in my third year of undergrad, I finally learned how to do it myself with some trial and error (and lots of help).
I felt an instant affinity for the work—and a feeling beneath the surface that it wasn’t just my hands tacking down the beads. Beading is not a skill passed down through my family’s generations, just as many Indigenous folks have lost connection to their kinship systems, cultures, and languages in the ongoing wake of colonialism. Yet the Métis have been known as the “Flower Beadwork People” for their floral designs since the days of the fur trade, and I knew that I was in the process of revitalizing something from my own family history.
After sharing my new beading skills with my aunt, she reminded me of our great-grandmother Elizabeth, a “Halfbreed” woman who produced beaded medicine bags and gauntlet gloves in 1920s Saskatchewan. Some of her work is still alive in our family and in a museum’s possession. Stitched within it is a story waiting to be told. Maybe it was her hands guiding mine, and she was leading me down a path of curiosity. Since then, I’ve decided to recreate her work and submit it alongside my M.A. thesis as an experiential history practice.
This connection between personal memory, creative practice, and academic inquiry lies at the heart of my research. As I study the historical and cultural significance of Métis women’s beadwork in twentieth-century Saskatchewan, I’m reminded that these art forms are not only beautiful but also political—acts of cultural expression, survivance, and kinship. Indigenous History Month offers us a moment to reflect on the stories that have been overlooked or erased and to recognize the work being done to reclaim and revitalize them. For me, each bead is a gesture of remembrance, each stitch a step toward reconnection—not just with my ancestors, but with a broader community committed to telling Indigenous histories on our own terms.
-written by Maegan Ellis