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METCHIF FIDDLING - A TURTLE MOUNTAIN TRADITION BY ANN SCHLUTER The Turtle Mountain Reservation is a six by twelve mile area in north central North Dakota where the plains meet the Turtle Mountain. There are about 28,500 registered tribal members with 10,000 of those living on or near the reservation in Rolette County. Most of the people are Metis (locally called Metchif), a mix of Chippewa, Cree and French Canadian (French, Scottish, Irish). Michael K. Keplin played fiddle for several years before a van accident, which left him a quadriplegic. He taped his memories of the Turtle Mountain fiddle tradition for this article: It seemed like fiddling ran in families, with children learning to play from hearing their dad or another older relative play at home. A fiddle player was well respected and always welcomed at a dance, even if he wasn't invited. The fiddlers ate first when lunch was served at a dance, and they were welcomed anywhere. There was something called "dischord" which involved re-tuning the fiddle to play a special tune. There was no fiddle playing or dancing during Lent, except on St. Patrick's Day. The legend was if one danced during Lent, their legs would dry up and they would see AenRugeroo (a person who turned into an animal, i.e. a dog or a horse). This tradition is still followed by many in the area. For the Hook Dance they played Drops of Brandy, and the Duck Dance is also known as the Louisiana Hoedown. There's also a rabbit dance and a butterfly dance. Home Sweet Home is traditionally the last dance at a house party or bush dance. Before there were guitar or piano players to chord for the fiddle, a second fiddler would play backup rhythm on his fiddle, called bucking or LeBoss. Most of the fiddlers also play guitar, so they can switch off when needed. Several fiddlers would play a strathspey at funerals. Elmer "Sonny" Davis and Ernest Keplin founded the Turtle Mountain Fiddlers Association in 1985, and Sylvester Piyeshiish Vivier, who passed away in August 2001, was the last president of the group in the 1990's. The bush dances organized by dancers Joe Turcotte and Alvin McLoud resumed in 1999 at Fiddlers Hall, which was built west of Belcourt and named after Elmer. I recently sat down with two Turtle Mountain fiddlers in Belcourt and asked about their fiddling. Eddie "King " Johnson plays Chippewa Cajun fiddling. He says, "I decided my style was so similar to the French (Cajun) style, I called it Chippewa Cajun Style." In 1999, his family band was chosen to represent North Dakota touring the Midwest in an arts showcase. He has also played in Nashville for performers such as Tanya Tucker, Charlie Pride and George Jones. When did you start playing the fiddle? "I started chording (on guitar) first when I was about 15 for Ezra Short, and he gave me my first fiddle." How did you get the name King? "When I was 20, I moved to San Jose, California, and got a job playing for a radio station. They liked my playing, but the station manager said my name wasn't country enough. Eddie was okay, but I had to come up with another name. I was driving home on the highway, wondering what I could use for a name, and I saw a billboard advertising King Edward Cigars, and I thought that would work. It stuck." What's different about Turtle Mountain fiddling? "Our reservation is unique because our main instrument is the fiddle. The French traders came down (from Canada) and married into the (Chippewa) people. They brought with them the fiddle. The French Jig became combined with our tribal dance. The house parties were cheap entertainment. We had one almost every night." "I don't think there's a Turtle Mountain style, although it is different from the Canadian style. As far back as I can remember, we used to listen to the Canadian fiddlers on the radio, Andy DeJarlis, Don Messer and others. I've got some of their records. That's kind of the style we picked up, and then I think everybody changed to his own style. You can't put them all in one; they all have their own individual styles based on the original style of the old Canadian fiddle players. We're unique in our own ways. It's probably more true than (with) the Canadian players, many of them sound alike." "What I am is an entertainer and that's why I love doing concerts. I'm not the best fiddle player, but I'll do my best to entertain you. If the Lord didn't want me to do it, he wouldn't have put a fiddle in my hand." Jimmie LaRocque is another colorful local fiddler who tells a great story about teaching himself the fiddle at age four. You started playing on a full size fiddle, right? "Yeah. I had to hold it like this" (puts his fiddle over his shoulder so the fingerboard is near his face) "so I could reach with my fingers. I put the bow like this" (behind his head) "so I could play. I played like this until I was nine." (When he demonstrated this, he nearly knocked his large black hat off his head. We agreed he wasn't wearing a hat when he was four!) "I buried my dad's tunes in my head, and every time I hear a radio that's got a fiddle playing there, I'll remember that. That's how I learned to play." What was the first tune you learned? "Home Sweet Home in G." When did your dad find out that you were playing? "I was nine years old, yeah. I built some little houses, one on the north, one on the west, one on the south, one on the east. Then when the wind would blow from the west, then I'd go play in the east (house) and it (wind) would carry the tone so my dad wouldn't hear it, so he never did catch me. I had my mom show me how to cook, so I could stay home and practice while everyone was at church. Steal my dad's fiddle. If I'da got caught, I'd have gotten a lickin' and I'd have never been able to play fiddle again." "So, the way it happened is my dad's car wouldn't start one day, and they pushed it down the hill. When they pushed it down there, I thought they were gone, so I got the fiddle out and started playing. Then, I don't know how it happened, but I looked up at the crack in the door and saw two blue eyes up here and two brown eyes down there. And I knew who they belonged to. I shook like a leaf. My mother came in and started crying, and she said in French, "Don't hit him too hard." And my dad came in and oh, I was scared, I was shaking. He talked mostly in French, and he said to me "I'm going to ask you some questions, and if you tell me any lies, you're going to get a licking." You couldn't lie to my dad, and to this day, I don't lie yet! So, he said, "How long have you been playing that fiddle?" "Well," I said, "I've been playing it for five years now." He said, " Well it's a good thing you said five years, because if you'd have said three years, I'd have given you a lickin' because nobody plays that good after three years." After that, he took me in the other room and said (to the rest of the family), "We've got another fiddler in the house." " Your dad played? "Yeah, he played some. His name was Patice LaRocque. He was a transplant from Canada. I don't know about his dad, if he played, but I know he played some pretty good tunes, my dad." Did he do his feet too? (Keeping time to his own fiddle playing by making a percussion sound with both feet, like rat-ta-tat.) "Yeah, I tried that once." (Laughs) "Not many people around here do that any more." And your mom, was she from here or from Canada? "No, she was from here (Turtle Mountain Chippewa). Her name was Mary Priscilla Enno. Her mother was from Canada." Did your mom play, too? Did she chord? "My mother learned to play by herself on the piano. She learned and then we'd have to sing Jimmy Rogers songs and all that. Songs that were coming on the radio, she'd play them." Did your mom chord for your dad? "Sometimes my mother played for my dad. Most of the times my dad played in the evening, and he played by himself." Tell me about the house parties. When did you start playing them? "I started playing in them when I was 9 years old, the year my dad discovered that I was playing the fiddle. My mother was a seamstress, good thing for us, because she made everything for us. She made me a white shirt and black pants, short ones (knee pants) a couple of days after my dad found me with his fiddle. She had me try these clothes on, and I wondered what was going on. Dad had told me that I had to get my chores done on time, or I couldn't play the fiddle. But that's when I started playing the bush dances." "They used to have a nice way here. If you needed some help, the surrounding neighbors would come and help. They called that making a bee; I don't know why, but that's what they called that. And then, after they'd bring the hay in, the next night there'd be a party. My folks didn't drink, so they told people they had to bring their own. We'd take some apples and put them in some water, and if they could bite it, they could have it. It was kind of fun, you know. And our hay was in the barn, otherwise we'd have been short of hay for the winter. It was a 'way better bunch of people than today. We never did get paid or pay anyone for helping; we just helped each other." "The bouquet dance was nearly the last dance. They threw it over their heads, like a bridal bouquet. (The person who caught it hosted the next dance.)" When did the house parties end? Why? "They ended around 1952, probably because more people had cars and could travel farther than walking to their neighbors." Where else have you played? "After World War II, I was in the West Coast Grand Old Opry playing backup for Kitty Wells, Ray Price, and with Vassar Clements. I played in San Francisco in 1997 for President Clinton. I don't fly, so they paid my mileage out there. I asked them to bring Calvin Vollrath in to play, too." Were there any women fiddlers here? "There was a Davis, Mabel. She was more than a good fiddler. She quit playing when she got married." Several Turtle Mountain fiddlers and dancers were included in "Medicine Fiddle," a film by Michael Loukinen. (Up North Films, Northern Michigan University) Folkways Records (FES-4140) recorded "Turtle Mountain Music," including fiddling and storytelling in 1984. Fred Allery recorded two cassettes of traditional fiddling called "Metchif Tunes from the Turtle Mountains, Bois Brules (Burnt Woods). Other recordings of Turtle Mountain fiddlers are available at the Heritage Center in Belcourt, ND. Personal note: At the time I began teaching on the reservation in 1997, there were no young fiddlers (under 20) in the area. The old way of learning from family had disappeared and with that, the entire fiddle and dance culture of the Turtle Mountain people was endangered. There are now dozens of young children fiddling and jigging, entering contests, performing for elders, touring and preserving their unique culture for generations to come. Special thanks to ChiMike for filling in the blanks! Ann Schluter lives on the North Dakota/Minnesota border and teaches Suzuki violin and piano to 25-30 children in Fargo. She drives 260 miles to the Turtle Mountain Reservation to teach fiddling to 45-50 children and adults daily for a week or two each visit, living in a Benedictine Monastery Bed & Breakfast, her home away from home. She recorded "Annie's Waltzing Fiddle" with Truman Sorenson, is working on a second recording of slow airs and a beginning fiddle method with a recording. She performs on the fiddle and Hardanger fiddle and is in demand as a workshop teacher. She is dedicated to helping to preserve the Metchif and Scandinavian fiddle traditions through her playing and teaching. 2009 Update: Ann's fiddle program in Belcourt ended in May 2008 after 11 1/2 years due to changes at Ojibwa Indian School. She played her "last" bush dance at Fiddlers Hall west of Belcourt April 25, 2009, and received a star quilt from several families of students she taught in that area. Ann continues to teach Suzuki violin & piano students at her home and teaches fiddling to many Suzuki violin students and to adult students. She began the Fargo Fiddle Contest in 2004 to give her students and other area fiddlers a local contest experience. This "one-time" contest has continued; the 6th Annual Fargo Fiddle Contest is September 19, 2009.
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