A story of how evil came about in the world…

A long time ago, there was a small tribe living in a forest. These people were special because they were the very first, and only people of the earth. They were joyous humans that showed kindness towards one another, and showed much respect to the earth they lived on. The tribe possessed magical abilities and were able to speak with nature, and were very tuned into their surroundings. They possessed all their needs; an abundance of food, warmth from the sun, the purest and freshest water, and showed much love for one another. These people lived with happiness, and were grateful for everything in their lives. Every month, a week before the full moons took set in the sky, the tribe would tell stories, up until the evening of the full moon. Once the full moon was up, lighting the sky, they would dance, sing, laugh, rejoice, and praise the good in their lives.

One evening, the eldest woman of the tribe decided to tell a tale to her peers. This tale was only told once, when she was a little girl, by her eldest grandmother.

“One evening, a long time ago, while preparing for a full moon dance, a young man wandered into the woods to gather berries to make face paint. While gathering berries, he heard a whisper in the wind. He listened carefully, as he stood still. The whisper warned him of a dark energy, a matter in which was unknown to this people and the earth on which he lived. This dark energy came from a different world, an underworld, from a far away distance of the universe, and was headed to his people’s earth – it would not bring good, it would bring grief and horror. The young man felt an emotion he terror, a feeling he had never felt before.

“It will first come to the earth disguised in poisonous plants, be cautious”, the whisper said. “Stay away from these plants. They will look delicious to eat and smell sweet. Do not eat these plants, and do not be fooled.” The whisper in the wind started to fade away. “You have been warned…”, the whisper in the wind faded away.

The young man had so many questions, he did not know of any dark energy, he was not familiar with anything that caused harm to his people, and had never heard of poisonous plant. His people could eat any of the plants in their forests. Stunned, the young man quickly gathered his berries and ran back to his people. Once he arrived to the grounds of his tribe, he could see his peers laughing, and signing. They were all wearing their full moon regalia, and were full of joy and happiness. The young man was unsure of what to do. He did not want to spoil the ceremony, nor did he want to scare his people and share what he had just learned. He decided to tell only one person; his auntie. His auntie was a wise women, and a shaman. He searched for her through the grounds, and found her placing a head dress over her long, dark hair.

“Auntie, I have news for you”, he said to his auntie, with her back facing him as she groomed herself for the ceremony. “I heard a whisper in the wind, it warned me of a dark energy, that will bring havoc to our people, an energy from a far away place, the whisper said it will hide in the sweet forest plants. If we eat these plants, grief will happen – ”

“Hush”, said the wise woman, as she turned to face her nephew. The young man was silent, scared, and restless. “I know of dark energy. It is called evil. The whisper in the wind warned me, too. Our people will be prepared for this, child, do not worry.” The wise woman spoke with a serious tone, but her words brought comfort to the young man. “We do not speak of this, child. If we speak of this, we invite the dark energy into our world.”

“I am worried our people will be fooled with the poisonous plants for food, and grief will happen”, said the young man.

“We have intuition. Our people feel what is right, and what is not right. We will know, we will not be fooled”, affirmed the wise woman. “We do not speak of this, ever. This is scared knowledge, keep it in your possession.”

The young man was re-assured, his auntie knew much about the world, and her wisdom and knowledge had always guided their people. The young man continued making face paint for the ceremony, and kept the words of the wind to himself.

Time went on, and days turned to months, while months turned to years. The young man was no longer a young man, he was a wise man, a shaman. He was now an elder of his tribe. One day, in preparation for a full moon ceremony, his people were laughing, singing and sharing each others’ joy. The wise man slowly walked and observed his people with love, and gratitude. He watched as the children played, as the daughters and mothers sang, and as the men beat their drums. All of his people were dressed in their ceremonious regalia, with painted faces and smiling expressions. As the wise man walked slowly, he halted in his steps. He saw one of his young men, sitting and watching the others. The wise man carefully looked into the young man’s spirit. He felt something was not right. The young man’s eyes were not joyous, they seemed like a cougars’ eyes before slaying a prey. The wise man felt an emotion he had not felt in a long time; terror. The wise man made his way to the young man, and grabbed his arm, pulling him out of sight from the others. The wise man faced the young man, starring into his eyes; he could smell sweetness from the young man’s breath. A sweetness that only came from plants. The wise man knew what had happened – dark energy, or evil, had entered their world, and was dwelling in the young man’s spirit.

Over the weeks, the young man became violently ill. He was coughing his insides out, and had the life sucked out of him. He became weak, and his skin displayed red spots and dots. The wise man did his best to keep the evil away from the young man’s spirit, but the dark energy was stronger than their magic, and had penetrated into their world. The dark energy had taken the young man away. Over the weeks, the wise man’s people started becoming ill, showing the same signs as the young man. Many of the wise man’s people were helpless. The dark energy was a forced much stronger than their own, and had come into their world of peace and happiness.

Works Cited

1) First Nation’s Health Authority. Our History, Our Health. Web. 28 May 2015. <http://www.fnha.ca/wellness/our-history-our-health>

2) Locke, Sherrie. The First Full Moon of 2015. World Press. January 2015. Web. 29 May 2015. <https://psychicreadingstarot.wordpress.com/2015/01/03/the-first-full-moon-of-2015/>

3) NNL-News. Anishnawbe Mushkiki Full Moon Shares Tradition. NNL: Net News Ledger. 29 December 2012. Web. 29 May 2015. <http://www.netnewsledger.com/2012/12/29/anishnawbe-mushkiki-full-moon-ceremony-shares-traditions/>

-Photo by Jags Brown, Skang Gwaii, Haida Gwaii, 2015, copyright.

“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?”, by J. Edward Chamberlain.”

The first significant point in the final chapter of If this is your land, Where are your Stories?, is the Gitksan’s legendary story of the grizzly and Stekyooden (the sacred mountain situated in the village of Temlaxam). This legend struck me because it demonstrates that different cultures which comprise of entirely opposing belief systems can possess similar underlying stories that compliment one another.

For example, the Gitksan Nation (along with almost any other Native American Nation around the world) have a history encompassing traditional stories through oral history, while Canadian culture base their history through methods of recording and documenting past historical events. Not only does Canadian culture and society record their history through documented evidence, they also strongly rely on scientific methods to back-up historical evidence. In addition, Canadian culture uses science in many other faucets of modern Canadian society, thus science is a major pillar of Canadian society.

Several years ago, while the Gitskan people were in court claiming their ancestral presence on the land, they used their traditional methods of story telling to prove they lived on the land for thousands of year. They told the legend of the grizzly and Stekyooden. The Gitskan also backed-up their story, by using geological scientific evidence which coincided with the legend of the grizzly bear. This created an intersection between two different cultural approaches of proving an actual historical event occurred.

An intersection of beliefs systems that draw upon the same event, but are seen through different perspectives aided the Gitskan in the courts to gain more proof about an actual event that happened in history. Even though two methods of claiming history were used, both methods proved the same result: that the Gitskan had been situated on the land for thousands of years. To the Gitskan, story telling is a completely accurate means of depicting true historical events. To Canadian culture and society, scientific evidence is an accurate way of proving a historical story to be accurate [Chamberlain, p.220-221]. Both methods of drawing upon history are accurate, but are seen as arbitrary to one another. Interestingly enough, both methods coincide with each other, and intersect in their realities to point to the same reasoning.

The second significant point in the book lies upon the same notions of contradictory truths. A great example J. Edward Chamberlain uses, is the scenario of two impressionist painters, painting a still life of a ship while the sun is setting. One of the painters possesses more knowledge about the infrastructure of the ship, thus depicts the ship in her painting with the accuracy of the ship’s structure. The second painter is just as precise as the first painter, depicting the ship on a canvas as he sees it, but adding different tones of colour due to the sun setting, and the time of day in which the still life had been captured with a paintbrush. Though both paintings are different, they are also both accurate in terms of different perspectives. Both paintings are of the same subject, but tackle a different approach drawing upon different styles. Several factors could be the reason as to why both paintings are different; both the painters draw upon varying types of knowledge, experience, methods and perspectives [p. 221]. All the while, both paintings could be seen as false depictions when taken out of context [p.222]. The fact of the matter points towards contradictory truths; whether these truths are false or not, both perspectives approach the same scenario with a unique standpoint.

Breaking through cultural dichotomies is the third significant point in the final chapter of “If This is Your Land, Where are Your Stories?”. Chamberlain refers to moving beyond cultural borders, and finding no difference between the “Us and Them”. He states that art, such as paintings, poems, and performances, in other cultures than our own, may leave the viewers confused or stuck on the edge of understanding the messages that these art forms intend to portray. Perhaps viewing art from a perspective unfamiliar than our own leaves room to misconstrue the true intentions of these forms of art. Chamberlain claims that this can be a problem because viewers cannot see past their own subjective realities of how they perceive different cultured art, thus metaphorically are left at the border of the art form, and not being able to fully penetrate and understand it [p.222]. He claims that “it is deadly dangerous to misinterpret the message”, because misunderstanding the true message of an art form creates a false new meaning for the viewer. The viewer can get caught in a new meaning, being blindsided or disillusioned, and attacking the strangeness or uniqueness of the art. Essentially, by breaking through this so called “border’, the viewer sees no difference or strangeness between themselves and the art forms. By being aware of these borders and dichotomies, they can be broken down in an easier manner, and can be applied to all sorts of other borders humans create between themselves. For instance, as Chamberlain puts it, the  “Us and Them” gets deconstructed once borders are broken through. He claims that “the line between “yours” and “mine” “, disappears, and that there are no differences between juxtaposing perspectives or contradictory cultural realities.

Works Cited

1) AustralianArtillery. Two sides of the same story. 2009. Web. 21 May 2015. <http://australianartillery.org/an-essay-example-on-two-sides-of-the-same-story.php>

2) Chamberlain, J Edward. If this is your land, where are your stories? Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2004. Print.

3) Brown, Jags. Facebook. “Ninstints”. 2015. Image.
<https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1000494926635953&set=a.994481213903991.1073746934.100000263657339&type=1&theater>

4) Peace and Environment News. The Peace and Environment Resource Centre. Athena. October 2001. Web. 21 May 2015. <http://207.112.105.217/PEN/1991-06/york.html>

Hi there fellow classmate and reader!

Welcome to my blog for English 470A Canadian Literary Genres Studies! I am a English Major distance education UBC student from Vancouver, BC, currently residing in Montréal, finishing my degree while living as a musician, and training as a yoga instructor! I am taking this course to broaden my knowledge on Canadian history, especially the role of First Nations peoples, and the involvement of European settlers and colonizers in Canada.

I have a background in First Nations Studies; I have taken several classes in First Nation’s studies with a couple of universities; I have studied with the Haida Gwaii Higher Education Society, all the while living on Haida Gwaii for almost a year, while being immersed in, and leaning about the beautiful Haida culture, their past, history and current involvement with Canadian governments. Although I have become proficient with extensive events of Canada’s history with colonization, assimilation and canonization, Canada’s history is so complex and entails so much detail that I have yet to discover.

English 470A will provide a more profound understanding of the historical relationships, and tensions between literature and storytelling with the context and involvement of First Nations people. The readings for this course, such as “If this is your land, where are your stories”, by J. Edward Chamberlain, and “Green Grass, Running Water”, by Thomas King will presumably aid in the development of perspective while gaining the skills to critically process the state of literature in today’s Western world. Blogging is a very interesting and unique way to interact with other students in this class; sharing ideas and personal insight via comments and blogging, will push and challenge us to grow and develop an deeper comprehension on our class’s subject matter.

I predict this class will provide ways in which students will broaden their critical approaches of storytelling in literature, while applying it to modern uses of technology such as blogs, Facebook, and personal online comments on the World Wide Web. If you think about it…Facebook, blogging and comments are the modern vessels our world today uses for storytelling. We are now combining older ways of storytelling with modern day storytelling, all the while, leaning how to critically analyse and make sense of it all. Pretty fascinating!

On a personal note, I struggle with blogs, and constant updates on social media. This class will be challenging for me because I tend to disconnect with computer and social media (I would rather be in a Forest on the West Coast, without a phone or access to the internet). I tend to be slow at processing technology and understanding how it works. I will need a lot of patience, and may hand things in past their due date! One my initial intentions on taking this class was to strengthen my relationship with online social medias and modern day technology. My blogs will not look as aesthetically pleasing as other advanced bloggers in our class, but I guess we’ll see how it goes.

Thus, on a concluding note, I am extremely excited to commence this course and am keen on the online interaction with fellow students! Enjoy the class everyone, I hope we all take something really amazing from it!

-Arianne LaBoissonnière

Works Cited

1) Haida Gwaii Higher Education Society. Web. 19 May. 2015 <http://www.haidagwaiisemester.com/>

2) Council of the Haida Nation. 2013. Web. 19 May. 2015. <http://www.haidanation.ca/>

3) Government of Canada. Justice Laws Website: Indian Act. Government of Canada. 17 May. 2015. Web. 19 May. 2015. <http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/i-5/>

4) Haida Gwaii Higher Education Society. Web. 19 May. 2015 <http://www.haidagwaiisemester.com/>

5) Karen Wonders. Cathedral Grove. Web. 19 May. <http://www.cathedralgrove.eu/text/01-Cathedral-Grove-1.htm>

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