Question: Write a summary of three significant points that you find most interesting in the final chapter of If This is Your Land, Where are Your Stories?

The topic of this week’s blog post is with regard to Chamberlin’s book, “If This is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories?” and how the points made in the last chapter connects to the culture, impressions and philosophies of today. As a general overview of my personal impression of the chapter, I found it quite stunning in both the literal and figurative sense. It made me think about how we process the interactions we have in everyday interactions and literally made me pause for a brief minute. Taking into account the standards society has set upon itself, as a primarily empirical system, it becomes quite difficult to stray away from this mode of thinking once we are met with something new or different from what we grew up with.

The Significance of storytelling
I think I speak for most people when I say that, as children, we are brought up with a very imaginative mind, creating, exploring, extrapolating, and examining the world around us. In our mind, reason that our tooth falls out is because tooth fairies exist to collect them and the reason that rain falls is because the sky is sad and is crying. These stories serve to help us to understand the world as we currently know it, in our own unique way. This can be said the same thing with the empirical sciences and the cultural stories of the First Nations people. As Chamberlin explains, two painters can paint the same thing, but from different angles. This becomes the same for modern society and the First Nation’s stories. The stories of the Gitksan and the Mediik grizzly bear, rampaging through the mountain valley, and the clay deposits found in the mountain valley both illustrate the same picture, but from different perspectives and for the same reasons, that is to warn future generations of mudslides and their dangers.

The Reality of Dichotomous Cultures
When we speak of cultural stories, we should understand that there isn’t a right or wrong when it comes to the empirical sciences and the historical traditions and stories of people long past. The reason stories exist is to warn and educate the newer generation so that they can learn and grow from the mistakes of the older generation. Just because the method in which this is done through is different, doesn’t mean it should be discredited.

Take, for example, a story my mother use to tell me. I would always be told that I should not swallow cherry pits as it would start to grow in my stomach and cause me stomach aches. As I grew older, I knew that this was false, but learned that swallowing cherry pits can still be dangerous, especially to young children, due to a toxin called cyanogenic glycoside (Government of Canada). In this sense, although the stories do not match, the purpose of both stories lead to the same result and function in the same manner, that is, to protect and warn children.

The Truth on Contradictory Truths
The idea of contradictory truths is something that is also explored in Chamberlin’s writing, and it appears in the story I explained above quite brilliantly. Despite the fact that my mother’s story seemed more imaginative, it isn’t necessarily wrong either. Chamberlin urges its readers to separate ourselves from thinking culture as different from each other, using the pronouns “us” and “them” as a result of this separation. For example, let’s take religion in the sense of different cultures. In ancient Rome, they believed in the great goddess Venus, of love and fertility. Meanwhile for the ancient Greeks, they believed in Aphrodite who was also the same goddess. Despite their different interpretations, they are both stories of one and the same thing. In fact, the origins of Aphrodite lie far back into the ancient Babylonian days where the present-day Aphrodite was known as Ishtar. In reality our stories and beliefs shouldn’t discredit the other, and are one in the same.

Works Cited

Government of Canada, Canadian Food Inspection Agency. 2019. Natural toxins in fresh fruit and vegetables. Retrieved from https://www.inspection.gc.ca/food-safety-for-industry/information-for-consumers/fact-sheets-and-infographics/products-and-risks/fruits-and-vegetables/natural-toxins/eng/1332276569292/1332276685336.

Overly Sarcastic Productions. “Miscellaneous Myths: Aphrodite.” Youtube, commentary by Red, 15 Feb. 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIUq0pfAskU.