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CELPIP Practice Reading: Reading for Information ID: #63142 Medium Métis sash culture and identity symbols

Read the following passage.

A. The Métis sash is a brightly coloured woven belt with fringed ends. Many Métis consider it a visual symbol of their identity, pride and heritage. It is typically wrapped around the waist by men and worn over the shoulder by women. Today the sash is often part of ceremonial dress, worn to honour people for their achievements and to recognize membership in a Métis community. In Manitoba and Saskatchewan, an Order of the Sash is given to Métis community members for cultural, political or social contributions to their people.

B. The weaving behind the sash is older than the sash itself. Finger weaving was well established in Eastern Woodland traditions, where it produced tumplines, garters and other household items. Plant fibres were used until Europeans introduced wool, and nations such as the Six Nations Confederacy and the Potawatomi then blended the two traditions to make the finger-woven sash. French settlers in Québec created their own version as a cottage industry in the village of L'Assomption. It was called the ceinture fléchée, or arrow belt, because of its patterns. First Nations and Métis artisans made sashes too, often with a softer, looser weave and beads in the design.

C. In the days of the voyageurs, the sash was a working tool as well as festive clothing. It held a coat closed and supported the back when a person lifted heavy objects. It could serve as a rope for carrying canoes overland, as a sling or bandage, or as an emergency bridle and saddle blanket. On the land, threads removed from its fringed ends could serve as a sewing kit. Threads were used to mark the days on a trapline, and in a buffalo hunt a sash could identify the hunter's kill.

D. Demand grew so strong that the Hudson's Bay Company had loom-woven sashes mass-produced in Coventry, England. These Coventry sashes, an interpretation of the arrow sash, became more and more linked with Métis identity and pride. They remained in wide use until the early 1900s, when the fur trade declined and the Canadian government's colonization efforts made them less popular. In the 20th century the sash took on new significance as a sign of pride for Métis people. Most sashes made today are loom woven and inspired by the Coventry sashes of the Hudson's Bay Company.

E. Not given in any of the above paragraphs.

Decide which paragraph, A to D, has the information given in each statement below. Select E if the information is not given in any of the paragraphs.

- 1.
A company began having sashes made in large numbers in England.

- 2.
Sashes made by Métis and First Nations weavers were often less tightly made than other kinds.

- 3.
The sashes were made in Coventry because workers there earned lower wages.

- 4.
Out on the land, the loose ends of a sash could supply what was needed to mend clothes.

- 5.
Men and women tend to wear the sash in different ways.

- 6.
Sashes lost popularity partly because trading in animal skins shrank.

- 7.
One early kind of sash got its name from the shapes that decorated it.

- 8.
Saskatchewan began giving out its sash honour before Manitoba did.

- 9.
Before wool arrived with Europeans, weavers worked with materials from plants.

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