I have chosen to answer question 6 for lesson 2.3, concerning Wickwire and Carlson’s opinions on why Aboriginal stories that don’t conform with the ideal of ahistorical Aboriginal narratives were “chucked in the dustbin” by scholars, among others.

Carlson discusses the importance of “authenticity” in historical narratives, for both Aboriginal and European cultures, noting one significant difference between the two: European’s used written accounts to justify the authenticity of their narratives about “history”, while Aboriginal peoples used previous oral retellings to verify their stories (Carlson, 57). In addition, the consequences for inaccuracies in European histories were generally visited on other peoples, not the Europeans themselves, while Indigenous peoples feared drastic consequences being visited on themselves by the spirits (Carlson, 58). If one goes back to the old divide of orality vs. literacy, and situates these two differing views of authenticity in the context of orality vs. literacy, orality holds Indigenous peoples accountable to relaying an “authentic” narrative, while Europeans can fudge the truth by supporting their written accounts with other “authentic” written accounts of “history”.

Just as Bertha Peter’s describes the Indigenous peoples losing knowledge of medicine because they didn’t write it down (Carlson, 48), Europeans’ such as Franz Boas are able to write an “authentic” history which suits their own image of Indigenous stories and history, by discarding those accounts which don’t suit their purposes, and publishing those that do, cementing a particular historical perspective through literacy. As Wickwire points out, Boas’ seemingly casual dismissal and suppression of “hundreds” of Aboriginal narratives which challenged Levi-Strauss’ ideal of “”cold” mythic societies”, an ideal Boas was eager to conform Indigenous peoples to, had “serious long term consequences” for Aboriginal peoples (Robinson, 22). Carlson suggests that a raised awareness is starting to exist in scholarship of the dangers of writing an “ideologically driven history”, perhaps due in part to the marked change in western anthropological scholarship in the recent decades. However, the damage has been done, both within scholarship(due partly to Boas’ prevailing influence, mentioned by Wickwire as influencing her own selection of stories, over half a century later) and without. Indigenous peoples were relegated to ahistorical relics by Boas and others, a culture that had to be improved and “enlightened” by the superior Europeans, a culture which epitomized Levi-Strauss‘ ideals of “cold” mythic societies.

This “ideological writing of history” served a specific purpose for the European colonists, justifying their colonization by legitimizing the marginalization of Indigenous peoples because they were “destined” to be “pressed back into the wilderness”(Moodie, ch.15). Mrs. Peters’ story about the prophetic paper which justified “white man’s” superiority and conquest of the land, which ironically falls into the taboo model of narratives which incorporate post-contact elements, shows the purely rational and scientific way in which such stories were suppressed. It was a black and white application of censoring and “ideologically motivated history writing”(Carlson, 54-58). As Moodie’s stories demonstrate, suppressing any evidence that Aboriginal stories could adapt, were more than just ahistorical myths, directly enabled the marginalization of Indigenous peoples, and the prevailing “myth” of European superiority, due in part to their “superior” literate culture.

One is perhaps called to question the definitions of orality and literacy here, much as Carlson does in subtly questioning the implicit assumptions that orality comes before literacy, and that any return to orality from a literate state would “signal a culture’s decline”(Carlson, 46). While these assumptions may seem largely accurate or historically verifiable, such categorizations perhaps inform European ideals of superiority, by maintaining the idea that literacy is somehow better than orality, somehow superior. Literacy and written accounts are held up as verifiable and authentic, implicitly championed by stories such as those of Mrs. Peters, or Harry Robinson’s account of the “white paper”, as holding some “special knowledge” beyond the understanding of oral societies. While this attitude has enabled the suppression of Indigenous culture and stories, what it overlooks, or dismisses as unimportant, is the “special knowledge” contained in orality, which is lost in a prioritization of literacy over orality. By drawing a distincition between the two, rather that even entertaining the possibility they might not be mutually exclusive, a dichotomy is maintained, holding the status quo of “them and us” undercurrent in “orality vs. literacy” all the firmer.

Works Cited:

Boas, Franz. “The Limitations of the Comparative Method of Anthropology.” Science. 4.103(1896): 901-908. Web. June 27, 2014.

Carlson, Keith Thor. “Orality and Literacy: The ‘Black and White’ of Salish History.” Orality & Literacy: Reflectins Across Disciplines. 43-72. Print.

Harland, Prechel. “Exchange in Levi-Strauss’ Theory of Social Organization.” Mid-American Review of Sociology. 5.1(1980): 55-66. Web. June 27, 2014.

Moodie, Susanna. Roughing it in the Bush. 2nd edition. London: Richard Bentley, 1852. Digital Library, UPenn. Web. June 27, 2014.

Robinson, Harry. Living by Stories: a Journey of Landscape and Memory. Ed. Wendy Wickwire. Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2005. Print.

I have chosen to answer question 5 for lesson 2.2, concerning my initial reactions to Robinson’s story about Coyote’s twin brother stealing a “paper” (Robinson, 9).

When I first read the story, I was immediately struck by how much it reminded me, in part, of the story of Adam and Eve and the Fall from Eden. The “whites” ancestor twin steals knowledge they shouldn’t possess, banishing all their descendents to a displaced life away from their original homeland, much like the Christian tradition. However, in this story, Coyote’s descendents become the chosen people, and the Europeans assume the role of the kin of Cain, in a manner of speaking.

Another thing that struck me was how explicitly the story draws a line between “Black and White”(Robinson, 10). It mirrors European narratives of superiority over Indigenous peoples, by asserting the Indigenous peoples’ role as descendents to the obedient and wise older brother, the one who did not “fall.” It is a narrative which illuminates the artifice of the “facts” of  the traditional contact dialogue between First Nation’s and Europeans, flipping the paradigm on its head, with the Europeans becoming the younger, inexperienced, disruptive individuals, while the First Nations become the favoured, wiser, chosen people. Robinson’s story seems to take a traditionally European or Christian narrative, and invert it to convey the opposite message, legitimizing First Nations rights to “their” land through a narrative with roots in First Nations mythology, which utilizes more “modern” tales and reasoning to legitimize the story’s message.

What the “paper” is precisely eluded me, but it seemed to me to recall the differences between oral and written cultures, between Indigenous and European cultures in the “first contact zone.”(Lutz, 4) The story establishes the “Indians'” claim to the land, establishing them as being there “before the whites.”(Robinson, 9) The story highlights the dichotomy identified by Lutz between Indigenous methods of storytelling and European methods of storytelling, because :”storytellers in the modern European tradition wrote their stories down.”(Lutz, 8) The “paper” contains some knowledge which the First Nations lack-European scientific knowledge or rationalism, say-not because they are intellectually inferior, but because they do not need it. The story could be read as completely, subtly undermining the whole basis of European traditional superiority-their scientific knowledge and reasoning. The story is a myth, sculpted to fit a certain narrative, one which promotes the legitimacy and worth of the “Indian” over the “white”, inverting the traditional narrative of the reverse being true.

For me, the most interesting aspect of the story was the way it showcased Wickwire’s whole argument for challenging a Boasian anthropological point of view, showing that Boas selected stories to study and become scholarly “canon” based on his own criteria of a “static” Indigenous literary canon, one which was purely ahistorical (Robinson, 23). Far from being ahistorical, Robinson’s account takes elements of European narrative traditions, such as the presence of a Christian style “god”, and incorporates them into a story about Coyote, with the purpose of conveying a certain message about the presence and nature of Europeans on Indigenous land (Wickwire, 455).

Robinson’s story is eye opening to say the least, particularly where it reveals the problems with many traditional forms of anthropology, and a problem with scholarship in general, as scholars and others tend to assume that those who came before them in the scholarly or narrative tradition were unbiased, collecting data without a personal agenda. Wickwire’s revelation about Boas perfectly illuminates the problems with this methodology, and perhaps taps into one of the problems this course is seeking to evaluate-when you write something down, modern methodologies assume it to be genuine fact, and oral lessons to be more open to corruption and manipulation. However, as Robinson’s story indicates, perhaps the reverse is true, as once an obfuscation is written down, or evidence which does not fit the desired theory is discarded, the written product becomes sacrosanct, and it can be very hard to unpick the truth from the lies once again.

Works Cited:

Jacknis, Ira. “The First Boasian: Alfred Kroeber and Franz Boas, 1896-1905.” American Anthropologist. 104.2(2002): 520-532. Web. June 20, 2014.

Lutz, John. “Contact Over and Over Again.” Myth and Memory: Rethinking Stories of Indignenous- European Contact. Ed. Lutz. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2007. 1-15. Print.

Robinson, Harry. Living by Stories: a Journey of Landscape and Memory. Compiled and edited by Wendy Wickwire. Vancouver: Talon Books, 2005. (1-30)

Wickwire, Wendy. “Stories from the Margins: Toward a more inclusive British Colombia Historiography.” The Journal of American Folklore. 118.470(2005): 453-474. Web. June 20, 2014.

In my investigation of other student’s blogs, I discovered several common threads, mostly revolving around where “home” is, what physical location home consists of.

Some blogs mentioned childhood stories or locations, drawing on memories of older relatives and stories handed down in their family to draw a connection to a particular place, while others considered home more transient, a memory or a state of mind.

I investigated four student blogs in detail, and skimmed several others. All the stories seem to hold the common value of being connected to childhood memories and events-our sense of home is rooted in our childhood recollections, it seems.

Physical locations were paramount, generally on a micro-cosmic level, focusing on a place in Canada, rather than the whole country. Some people focused on a house, others on a neighborhood, others on a city, but all generally in a place they grew up.

Most spoke of searching for home still, while a few spoke of having already found it.

Memories were paramount, as were the stories passed down in the family. Feelings connected each person to the place the word home was tied to, rooting people in a location through feelings of happiness, security, safety.

People discussed their experiences moving from other countries, traveling, moving from place to place within a city, how one particular place seemed to capture that sense of home, even if it was a place they didn’t particularly like.

Above all, the common theme seemed to be location, around which a narrative of emotion was built, to create an internal sense of “home”.

Works Cited:

Coughlin, Krystle. “Finding my home, with jet-lag or a video game.” ENGL 470 Blog! Erika Patterson,ENGL 470, blogs.ubc.ca. June 2014. Web. June 15, 2014.

Khan, Rabia. “My Home is My Time Capsule.” Rabia’s English 470a Blog. Erika Patterson, ENGL 470, blogs.ubc.ca. June 2014. Web. June 15, 2014.

What? I am five, spinning around in circles, blue sky blurring into green, green grass before my wide-eyed gaze. I’m happy, caught in the moment like only a child can be. My mum calls, “Time to go home.” The words themselves fill me with disappointment, because they mean an end to momentary happiness. I don’t stop to think about what the noun means-I don’t yet know nouns exist, or that words are arbitrary terms which are simply assigned a particular meaning(or perhaps I do?)-we are going to a house, where I have lived as long as I can remember, where my family lives. This is “home”. It means a place to lay my head, a place to return to, a place where I don’t have to wear shoes-or even more dreadful, socks!-a place I will always be able to find on a map. It is a physical location, surrounded by a fence, set borders dividing us from the neighbors(although those borders are quite bendable in one direction, but not the other). It’s a house, a piece of grass and some trees. For me, then, it was referred to as home. But what did that mean?

I still have no idea.

Who? If someone asked me to describe my family as a kid, this would have been my response(nobody ever did, as I never had the kind of formal, regimented education where they ask kids to do things like that): Mum, Dad, Grandpa(a cherished memory preserved in a picture frame),2.5 kids, a dog or two, myriad other pets, stuffed or otherwise. We were the epitome of “average”, the essence of “normal”. I only had three other “real” people in the world who I cared for deeply enough to consider the phrase, home is where the heart is . Yet, crack open a book and start reading, and I have the biggest family in the universe. Mr. Darcy and Sherlock Holmes and Aragorn and Elrond and Michelangelo and Enid Blyton’s creations are a part of my family. All I need is the words, or even just my own imagined memories, and I’m there. I’m home, safe and secure and loved.  I never thought about it at the time, but in hindsight, that sense of safety and love I felt in the presence of my family, real or furry or otherwise, was probably the closest I’ll ever come to defining the feeling of “home”.

When? I spent most of my childhood in the 18th century(or 17th or 14th or early 20th), gliding through worlds long dead or never existent in my overly fertile imagination. I spent it in the aether, on the air, in my head. It felt like home, suspended from time. I’ve always hated change, and home could never be lost if it wasn’t real.

There was an old picture hanging on my parents’ wall when I was a kid, which I would stare at for hours. It was black  and white, with a bit of recoloured green at the bottom of the giant oak tree, upon which two persons leaned, a tall figure and a little girl. A bearded man, right out of a turn of the century(20th, but of course when this memory was recorded by my brain, there was no such ambiguity) reenactment, had his arm around a morose boy leaning on a crutch, one of his legs uneven to the other. Two smaller boys stared shyly at the camera from the other side of the tree. One of those boys was my great-great-grandfather. One day, my mum opened a mysterious old black briefcase, and showed me our family’s past. Someone has to carry on the flame. I know an awful lot about that picture now, and the people in it. I even know where it was taken. They were the displaced, coming to rest in a place where they left a mark, but couldn’t hold on to. The fact they lived, in the place they did, however briefly, so long ago, makes me feel at home there, in the now. I don’t know why, but it does.

Where? When I was seven, I wanted to live at Baker Street. I imagined I could stay in Rivendell forever. I thought Bag End was so much cooler than my own living room. When I was scared I could run up the mentally shining steps of Lothlorien’s interconnected flets. I read about the past, watched it, imagined it, wished it, breathed it, listened to it. It was my home away from home, my escape from a time and place that could never live up to my childish imaginings.

I grew up feeling out of place, caught in a soulless place with no connection to the ground or the sky. I loved the tree in my front yard, purple in summer and copper in autumn like a jewel of nature rustling before my eyes. I felt at home in the stacks of my local library(even now, something about the smell of that moldy old carpet settles deep in my chest and spreads a sense of calm). I visited relatives I felt no connection to, stood on ground I knew from my mother’s stories and files and old documents used to “belong” to my ancestors. One of the streets still bears our name. Most of the land is still there, thanks to the Agricultural Land Reserve. The gate my great-great uncle crippled his leg swinging on is long gone, but I can imagine where it might have been. I stand on a crop of land, where my mother spent much of her childhood, where my parents fell in love, where I used to play. I’ve never lived here, never had a “home” here, not one with boundaries or borders or places to lay one’s head, and yet, and yet…it feels like home.

Why? What is home? A feeling, a place, a person, a definition, a border, a reality, a fantasy? My ramblings above seem to suggest that for me, it is all those things. I have assigned the label of home onto all those qualities, held there by the stories I listened to, the stories I was told. I have never felt safer, or more loved, than when I was telling, or being told, a story. And in this story, safe=home.

(For the record, I was never an HP fan, I never read the books, and only watched the movies because my brother insisted-yet somehow(well, mostly due to Fanfiction), this defines home for me better than almost anything: Story as Home (the first 15 seconds are the important point, but it’s a cool video).

Works Cited:

“Home is where the heart is.” Idioms. The Free Dictionary. Farlex, inc., 2014. Web. June 9, 2014.

Cut It Out. “Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home.” Online Video Clip. Youtube. Youtube, July 9, 2011. Web. June 10, 2014.