Write a blog that hyper-links your research on the characters in GGRW. 

I was assigned pages 217-229.

 This is an image of Buffalo Bill (middle-left) posing with the crew for the Wild West Show

Westerns

Westerns are a common theme within this section of the book. Either one of the characters is reading a Western (such as Eli) or watching a Western on TV (Charlie, Babo, Bursum, and Dr. Hovaugh). On page 217, King writes, “Charlie lifted the remote control and turned the sound on. The Indians were running their horses back and forth along the riverbank. On the other side, John Wayne and Richard Widmark waited behind a makeshift barricade of logs and saddles” (King 217). John Wayne, as many people might know, is one of the most famous Hollywood Western actors, usually cast as the protagonist who fights against the antagonists, the Native Americans. I had never heard of Richard Widmark, however, and decided to do some research about what film King might be referring to. Interestingly, once I did my research, I found out that the only movie that John Wayne and Richard Widmark starred in together was called, The Alamo, that was based on the Texas Revolution and the Battle of The Alamo (The Alamo n.p.). Even more interestingly, the battle was fought between the Texans and the Mexicans – in no article that I read was there mention of any Native Americans.

It is really interesting that King includes these two actors as being in the same Western movie together, fighting against the Native Americans, especially since the only movie that Widmark and Wayne did together was a movie about fighting Mexicans. After reading the section I was assigned over again, I noticed that on page 222, Dr. Hovaugh is also watching the same movie. He thinks to himself, “the horse must be an Arabian… and the chief must be an Indian” (King 222). King goes on to write that Dr. Hovaugh, “knew that Hollywood used Italians and Mexicans to play Indian roles” (King 222). King is pointing to the fact that Hollywood would often hire non-Indigenous peoples to play Indigenous roles within Westerns. Is it possible that he is also alluding to the possibility that Native Americans were hired in Hollywood films to play Mexicans?

With Eli, since he is staying at his mother’s house in a remote area, he does not have access to electricity. He passes time reading books that Clifford Sifton gave to him. On page 218, “Chapter twenty-six. Iron Eyes attacked the soldiers. The cavalry came riding over the hill” (King 218). Not coincidently, the name of main character in the book Eli is reading is the same name that Charlie’s father changed his name to, except that the long version of his name was Iron Eyes Screeching Eagle (Flick 153). Also, I believe that King is also referring to Iron Eyes Cody, a very popular Native American within mainstream media and advertising. Flick notes, that this reference is “one of many jokes about the image of the Indian in popular culture” (153). King subtly makes the assertion that – especially in pop culture – that Native Americans are all portrayed the same, hence why he gives both the character in the book and Charlie’s father the same name as the very popular Native American, Iron Eyes Cody. Eli, after reading this passage (noted above), skips over a bunch of pages and then “tosse[s] the book on the table, roll[s] … on his side against the cushions, and [goes] to sleep” (King 218). King is suggesting that it is this stereotype of Indigenous peoples – continuously used in popular culture – that is boring and predictable.

Bursum also watches the Western on The Map. He cheers for John Wayne when he exclaims “Hooray! We got ’em now, boys!” (King 219). Flick notes that Bursum’s character is based off of William F. Cody (stage name – Buffalo Bill), who was an “exploiter of Indians for entertainment in Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show” (148). This could be a commentary on Bursum’s exploitative nature and also the exploitation of Native Americans in Hollywood film in general.

Overall, I am surprised in how many connections I could find in that little section and how deep the meanings of those connections could get. I really enjoyed the novel, as stated in another blog post, I have read it before but every time I read it I learn something new or noticed something I didn’t before.

Works Cited

Find three examples of names that need to be spoken aloud in order to catch the allusion. Discuss the examples as well as the reading technique that requires you to read aloud in order to make connections. Why does King want us to read aloud?

While reading the book (and the assigned articles) I came across these three names that need to be spoken aloud in order to catch King’s allusion.

Ahdamn

Dr. Joe Hovaugh

Shagganappi

With the help of Jane Flick’s, “Reading Notes for Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water,”  Shagganappi was one word she gave me insight to what exactly King was alluding to when using this name. She notes that “Shagganappi [is] the name of this lounge comes from the Algonquian word for rawhide cord. Since Alberta contemplates finding a sperm contributor here, perhaps this is a pun, ‘shag a nappy;’ that is, shag (sexual slang) and nappy (diaper)” (149). Since this is a difficult word to pronounce, saying out loud – and slowly – emphasizes its hidden meaning. The use of the name (and its pun meaning) adds to Alberta’s deep desire to have a baby (also using humour to emphasize it).

With Ahdamn, this is a name that used in place of Adam (as in, Adam and Eve from Genesis). Here I think Thomas King alluding to ‘damn’ as being a Christian condemning from God. In the story Genesis (and in King’s rendition in Green Grass, Running Water) both Eve and Adam are condemned for eating the forbidden fruit. By changing the spelling of his name and saying it aloud there is definitely an emphasis on the word ‘damn’ – partly a tactic that King uses to have fun with the seriousness of the Genesis story and the implications of the two consuming the apple. Because he identifies most with Creation Story, as an Indigenous man, I believe that by using this spelling of Adam’s name he is not only making the story more fun but also lightly poking fun at the Christian tale.

Dr. Joe Hovaugh is one name I had the most trouble with pronouncing. In my mind I could not fathom how to say it. It was after a couple readings aloud that I realized that it is supposed to refer to Jehovah, like the Jehovah Witness religion. I found this name interesting as well because of the characters authoritarian position. He is a doctor of an psychiatric hospital. If we were to relate this historically, I would say that Dr. Joe Hovaugh relates to the Missionaries of the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries in Canada and the United States who believed that the ‘Indians’ – because they were not Christian – were a “race to save heathens from a damnation that would be forever sealed by death” (Isenberg and Burstein 19).

With King’s work, I believe that the majority of them were written with the intention to be read aloud. He notes, in an interview with Jordan Wilson for the Journal of Canadian Literature, that he would love it if readers read his pieces “out loud and perform them themselves and see how they turn out” (n.p.). He adds that he “has a fairly strong oral voice in terms of [his] written pieces” (n.p.).

In addition to his oral influence in his writing, I also believe that King, especially for these names, wants readers to read them out loud to truly engage with the meanings of these words. I think it is also possible that he wants to pleasantly surprise his readers with play on words, ones that can only be found through the oral interaction of his written work.

Bibliography

“Coyote.” Paw Mane Fin. Photograph. Retrieved 10 March 2015.

Flick, Jane. “Reading Notes for Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water.” Canadian Literature, 1999. 140-172. http://canlit.ca/pdfs/articles/canlit161-162-Reading(Flick).pdf

Isenberg, Nancy, and Andrew Burstein. Mortal Remains: Death in Early America. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania, 2003. Print.

King, Thomas. Green Grass, Running Water. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1993. Print.

Wilson, Jordan. “Another Interview with Thomas King.” Canadian Literature. October 2009. http://canlit.ca/interviews/21

2] In this lesson I say that it should be clear that the discourse on nationalism is also about ethnicity and ideologies of “race.” If you trace the historical overview of nationalism in Canada in the CanLit guide, you will find many examples of state legislation and policies that excluded and discriminated against certain peoples based on ideas about racial inferiority and capacities to assimilate. – and in turn, state legislation and policies that worked to try to rectify early policies of exclusion and racial discrimination. As the guide points out, the nation is an imagined community, whereas the state is a “governed group of people.” For this blog assignment, I would like you to research and summarize one of the state or governing activities, such as The Royal Proclamation 1763, the Indian Act 1876, Immigration Act 1910, or the Multiculturalism Act 1989 – you choose the legislation or policy or commission you find most interesting. Write a blog about your findings and in your conclusion comment on whether or not your findings support Coleman’s argument about the project of white civility.

(I think that this is a really powerful photo!)

The Indian Act (1876), according to UBC’s Indigenous Foundations website, is a “federal law that governs in matters pertaining to Indian status, bands, and Indian reserves” (Indigenous Foundations n.p.). Although the Indian Act was developed in 1876, there were other legislations that pertained to the governing of First Nations people prior to its conception. The Indian Act is a direct result of the combining of two previous legislations, The Gradual Civilization Act (1857) and Gradual Enfranchisement Act (1869) (Indigenous Foundations, n.p.) Both legislations were created with the intent of enfranchising First Nations people into Canadian settler society (a society, as we read in the Can Lit Guide, that was colonized and promoted as an extension of British society).

The Indian Act sought to legally identify those FIrst Nations under “Indian status.” This was done through an exclusionary gendered practice. As the Indigenous Foundations website notes, “the Indian Act defined ‘Indian’ as:

First. A male person of Indian blood reputed to belong to a certain band;

Secondly. Any child of such person;

Thirdly. Any woman who is or was lawfully married to such person” (Indigenous Foundations qtd Indian Act n.p.).

This is an extremely important note, not only because its sexist in its nature, but because it points to the fact that the government knew it could control the legalities around the who was a status Indian, therefore limiting their number in the Canadian population, slowly assimilating them into Canadian society.

Status was being carried down through the men’s line, which deprived and dispossessed many women of their rights as Indians and their rights to live on their reserve lands. These rights were also lost for their children as well. Moreover, if we think about how people were socialized during this time, many white women did not want to marry Indian men. As Frye mentions, there was the creation of second class citizens (Frye xxvi). This is supported by the Can Lit Guide as well, “early radicalized settlers and later immigrants were seen as less worthy, and therefore less Canadian” (Can Lit Guide, n.p.). White, in Canada, was preferred, and many First Nations people lost their legal rights because of the intermarriage between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.

Not only did the Indian Act assimilate peoples through their commitment to their partners, but it had also put in place the Indian Residential School system. This was an initiative to forcefully assimilate First Nations people into Canadian society, making the use of their languages, traditions, and practicing of cultures forbidden.

As for Coleman’s concept of the project of white civility, I do believe that the Indian Act was put in place to diminish the population of First Nations in Canada. It was an act that was in place for a legal assimilation through force and through family.

Frye mentions the idea of unity and identity (Frye xxii). He writes, “Assimilating identity to unity produces the empty gestures of cultural nationalism; assimilating unity to identity produces the kind of provincial isolation which is now called separatism” (frye xxiii). This can be related to the Indian Act. It was a piece of legislation that sought to define what an “Indian” is and assimilating those who did not fit the legal category. He continues, “Real unity tolerates dissent and rejoices in variety of outlook and tradition, recognizes that it is a man’s destiny to unite and not divide, and understands that creating proletariats and scapegoats and second-class citizens is a mean and contemptible activity” (Frye xxvi).

Bibliography

“Enfranchisement.” Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com, n.d. Web. 27 Feb. 2015.

Frye, Northrop. The Bush Garden Essays on the Canadian Imagination. Concord, Ont.: House of Anansi, 1995. Print.

“Guides | CanLit Guides.” Guides | CanLit Guides. Can Lit Guides, 2013. Web. 27 Feb. 2015.

Hanson, Erin. “The Indian Act.” The Indian Act. Indigenous Foundations, 2009. Web. 27 Feb. 2015.

“Indian Act.” Photograph. rabble.ca. Web. 27 Feb. 2015.

1] In his article, “Godzilla vs. Post-Colonial,” King discusses Robinson’s collection of stories. King explains that while the stories are written in English, “the patterns, metaphors, structures as well as the themes and characters come primarily from oral literature.” More than this, Robinson, he says “develops what we might want to call anoral syntax that defeats reader’s efforts to read the stories silently to themselves, a syntax that encourages readers to read aloud” and in so doing, “recreating at once the storyteller and the performance” (186). Read “Coyote Makes a Deal with King of England”, in Living by Stories. Read it silently, read it out loud, read it to a friend, and have a friend read it to you. See if you can discover how this oral syntax works to shape meaning for the story by shaping your reading and listening of the story. Write a blog about this reading/listening experience that provides references to the story.

I read a third of Robinson’s story, “Coyote Makes a Deal with the King of England”, in my head. For the rest of the story, I read it out loud in front of my partner. There were a couple of differences I came across while doing this reading exercise.

First, I found that when silently reading, inside my head, I could read the story faster. Because Harry uses – and Wendy Wickwire writes – a language that is not often used in published works, I found it was almost easier to read inside my head. When reading aloud, I found that I needed to slow down my reading pace a little bit and get used to the flow of the language.

Once I slowed my reading down, I was able to really embrace the flow of the language and the stories message. As I continued to read out loud, I found that I was able to interact more with the story as well, become more animated and really emphasize the points that I thought were notable.

In last weeks question, I answered what I thought King was emphasizing by telling the Creation Story and the Genesis Story by using different language forms. Similarly to last week’s answer, I think that with Wickwire deciding to use Robinson’s actual syntax, the point of the story is not to emphasize the believability but instead, its content. It is also a way to emphasize the importance of the storytelling, in general, in First Nations cultures. Stories, in many First Nations cultures, are told with an intention of guidance but always leave the listener to decide what it means to themselves. Again, an emphasis that is placed on the readers understanding of the story – rather than have a story that is “black and white” (Robinson 79).

Bibliography:

“Kings and Queens of England, Scotland, Wales, and the United Kingdom.” Royal Family History. Britroyals. 12 February 2015. http://www.britroyals.com/rulers.htm

“Wendy Wickwire.” School of Environmental Studies. University of Victoria. 12 February 2015. http://web.uvic.ca/~enweb/people/faculty/wickwire.php

Wickwire, Wendy. Harry Robinson: Living By Stories. Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2009.

“Wile E. Coyote.” Wikipedia. n.p. 12 February 2015. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wile_E._Coyote_and_The_Road_Runner

1. First stories tell us how the world was created. In The Truth about Stories, King tells us two creation stories; one about how Charm falls from the sky pregnant with twins and creates the world out of a bit of mud with the help of all the water animals, and another about God creating heaven and earth with his words, and then Adam and Eve and the Garden. King provides us with a neat analysis of how each story reflects a distinct worldview. “The Earth Diver” story reflects a world created through collaboration, the “Genesis” story reflects a world created through a single will and an imposed hierarchical order of things: God, man, animals, plants. The differences all seem to come down to co-operation or competition — a nice clean-cut satisfying dichotomy. However, a choice must be made: you can only believe ONE of the stories is the true story of creation – right? That’s the thing about creation stories; only one can be sacred and the others are just stories. Strangely, this analysis reflects the kind of binary thinking that Chamberlin, and so many others, including King himself, would caution us to stop and examine. So, why does King create dichotomies for us to examine these two creation stories? Why does he emphasize the believability of one story over the other — as he says, he purposefully tells us the “Genesis” story with an authoritative voice, and “The Earth Diver” story with a storyteller’s voice. Why does King give us this analysis that depends on pairing up oppositions into a tidy row of dichotomies? What is he trying to show us?

The two creation stories, offered by King in the book, The Truth about Stories, is told in a dichotomy to lead the readers to think more about the delivery of stories rather focusing on the content.

Like King, Lutz points out the examining of Western and Indigenous stories as a dichotomy. He writes, “we are asked to evaluate written versus oral traditions and then even more challenging, to decide between explanations based on different notions of what is real and what is imaginary” (Lutz 2). Although King does set up a similar dichotomy of stories, he is not as concerned about belief. Instead, King is more interested in readers responsiveness of different storytelling strategies that are found in the Indigenous and Western cultures.

King writes that in the Native story, he tries to “recreate an oral storytelling voice and craft in the story in terms of a performance for a general audience” (22), whereas in the Christian story, he tries “to maintain a sense of rhetorical distance and decorum while organizing the story for a knowledgeable gathering” (22). Using these storytelling strategies King is able to emphasize the importance in how a story is told, rather than emphasize what the story is about.

King notes, “In the Native story, the conversational voice tends to highlight the exuberance of the story but diminishes its authority, while the sober voice in the Christian story makes for a formal recitation but creates a sense of veracity” (King 23). This is an important piece of information when thinking about how Western Missionaries asserting religion and its stories over the First Nations peoples during the early stages in colonization in Canada (and in other countries that have colonized Indigenous peoples).

He playfully extends his point by suggesting to his readers, “of course, none you would make the mistake of confusing storytelling strategies with the value or sophistication of a story. And we know enough about the complexities of cultures to avoid the error of imagining animism and polytheism to be no more than primitive versions of monotheism. Don’t we?” (King 23). His sarcasm has an underlying essence of realness. This was a main argument used by the Missionaries to undermine First Nations cultures, oppressing and dispossessing the peoples of their cultures, languages, stories and traditions.

King’s renditions of both stories is not to emphasize the importance and belief of one story over the other in its content? Instead, King is stressing the importance of the storytelling strategies and how they might influence the interpretation and absorption by the people its told to.

What other storytelling strategies might influence readers?

Can you think of any other ways storytelling strategies were used to control, dispossess, or sway peoples do so something or believe in something that they would not normally do?

Bibliography:

“Book of Genesis.” Wikipedia. n.p. 5 February 2015. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Genesis

“Creation Stories: Canadian First Nations.” Native Creation Myths. n.p. 5 February 2015. http://www.sd91.bc.ca/frenchj/Students/Creation%20Stories%20First%20Nations.html

King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories. Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2003.

“Thomas King Quotes.” Meetville.com. n.p. 5 February 2015. http://meetville.com/quotes/author/thomas-king/page1

Read at least 3 students blog short stories about ‘home’ and make a list of the common shared assumptions, values and stories that you find. Post this list on your blog.

From reading other students blogs I have found these similarities in our perceptions of how we think of “home”:

• hardship and overcoming it
• love
• family
• support
• laughter
• confrontation / reconceptualization of the idea of ‘home’
• history / heritage
• memories
• comfortability
• friendship

It seems that many other people in the class view home as a place where they can be comfortable, where they can feel some sort of support (either from friends or from family), and where they can re-conceptualize home for themselves. Many people spoke of seeing home not only in one distinct spot, somewhere in Canada or across the world, but instead, home is adaptable. The real common denominator is yourself (and all of the things in the list). If you are somewhere, you can find home as long as you can attain friendship, support, comfort, and love. Where you can create memories for yourself, not just happy memories but also memories that include hardship and overcoming that hardship.

I was surprised, actually, after reading other student’s blogs because I didn’t think that we would have very many stories in common. However, I realize, after reading the blogs, that it is not the story that needs to be similar (not everyone has to write about death to relate to my story), it is the values and the morals within those stories that are similar to mine and help create an idea of what home is. Many people in this class are influenced by their family and wrote about them when speaking of home, just like mine.

This is a really interesting and exciting blog topic for me because I just found out that my dad is sending me home for reading week (I haven’t been back to Ottawa in over a year). And although they have completely renovated the house and will be sleeping in a completely different room, I still feel like I belong there, that it is an alternate ‘home’ for me.

What was most striking about the similarities for you when you were reading other students blogs?

Bibliography:

“Emerson – Mommy’s Nose is Scary!” Youtube. MandKyeo. 2 February 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9oxmRT2YWw

“Ottawa Skyscrapers.” 4ever.eu. n.p. 2 February 2015.

“Ottawa.” Pinterest. n.p. 2 February 2015.

When I was nine, my mom past away from cancer. She had Hodgkins Disease, a type of cancer that was treatable and was considered one of the types that was more “curable”. However, for the first three years (out of the six she was sick) she was misdiagnosed and treated for Leukemia. This, obviously, had devastating consequences because this did not aid her recovery, it actually hindered it and she ended up passing away.

I think that death is really interesting, it doesn’t scare me, really, it doesn’t. Maybe that’s because I was exposed to it so early on in my life that it’s always been something I’ve had to face in some way or another. I think that the only thing I am scared of, in terms of death, is leaving behind the people I love. I am sure that that is how my mom felt as well.

My dad is really awesome. He raised three kids on his own. At the time of her passing my sister was 13, I was 9, and my brother was 5. That’s a hell of a lot to handle. He is the most supportive, dependable, and comforting man that I know and was so patient with all of his kids through the years of our growth.

I remember that when my mom left, my grandma (my dad’s mother who I call Nana), was around a lot. Nana helped out around the house a lot. She was a teacher at the time, taught grade 6, and everyday after class she would come over after school (at least a 40 minute drive) to help cook, clean, and put us to bed. For a long time it really bugged me. You know, I was a preteen kid who just wanted some time to hang out with friends and not be bothered by Nana coming over and bossing us around. I was so naive! It was years later that I realized how supportive, kind, caring and giving she was. That was an extremely difficult time for all of us, but most of all my dad, and she was there to help pick up the pieces day after day. She is such a strong woman!

When I initially read the assignment for tonight my mind brought me to this experience. After contemplating for a while about whether or not I wanted to share this extremely personal and emotional occurrence I decided that I could not truthfully share my beliefs and values about home without including this event. This event shaped my whole life, who I am as a person today. This blog post is also about release. I never usually talk about my mom and her death is a topic I avoid all together. However, when I read the assignment for tonight I knew that I didn’t want to hide from it (because that’s what I am used to doing). I really wanted to share what influenced the values that I associate with home.

Some of the most important values I hold today came from my mother’s passing. They emerged from all the love, support, reliability, comfort, and strength that I got from my family and friends. I also believe that closeness (not physically but emotionally and mentally) is a really important value when thinking of home. Although I don’t live in the same city as my family anymore, I still feel close to them when I’m away as well as when I’m back in Ottawa. These are the most important values I need to associate a place with home. And I am lucky enough to have found it in Vancouver, 5000 km away from my family.

Thanks for reading! I swear I didn’t want to make you sad, I just wanted to be more honest about my life and experiences and how I have come to value certain characteristics. I wanted you to understand where it came from because I really think it’s important to know about another person’s past.

The picture is of my mom, my dad took it in the early 90’s (date unknown). I like this one because she looks really happy in this moment. 

Bibliography:

“Hodgkins Lymphoma.” Wikipedia. n.p. 3 February 2015.

“Leukemia.” Wikipedia. n.p. 3 February 2015.

I told this story on two different occasions with two different groups of people. The responses I got were completely different (however, in terms of the types of people I told the story to, the reactions and responses are fitting to their personalities and their belief systems). I will tell the story first and then I will talk about the responses I got from my audiences.

How evil came into the world:

A very long long time ago, when the earth was a couple years old, the most mystical of creatures roamed the earth. There were fairies, dragons, unicorns, mermaids, witches and many other creatures. People did not exist yet.

It was not often that the creatures would interact with each other, they lived in such different places, far away from each other, that during the year they would hardly cross each others paths. The fairies lived in the forests in beautiful flower patches, the mermaids lived in the ocean, the unicorns loved living in meadows with long grass to feed on. The witches, they lived in caves. They liked the darkness. However, once a year, the witches would host a celebration. They would invite all of the mystical creatures of the earth to one of their large caves beside the ocean (so that all of the water creatures could attend) and celebrate a new year. This celebratory evening would be filled with dancing, gift-giving, singing and storytelling.

One year, the witches thought it would be fun to have a competition of stories about darkness. They invited all of the creatures to tell the scariest of stories they could conjure. The fairies and the unicorns did not like scary stories, they were easily scared and only believed telling stories about happiness. They decided to leave the party early. The mermaids also did not like telling stories but thought that the dark stories would be entertaining, they decided to stay to listen. The elves, dragons, werewolves and vampires all joined in the competition with the witches.

Because there were so many creatures taking part in the storytelling competition, the witches suggested that everyone leave for the night and come back the next night to share what they had come up with. The next night, they all gathered around the fire. All of the creatures had a chance to tell their versions, some spoke of the darkness of the night, some of the unknown, and some even brought props to express the fearfulness of their tales. However, nothing seemed scary enough until the last witch told her story. She spoke of disease, abuse, loneliness, and helplessness. All of the creatures were terrified. They had pleaded with the witch, “Please take it back! That story was too scary! Too real!” Despite their pleas, the witch knew, and told them, “I cannot take it back, for whenever you tell a story, you release it into the world and it is impossible to take it back.”

When I told this story to my partner, Patrick, he sat and listened intently. He never interrupted and never asked any questions. He allowed me to tell the story and take as long as I wanted. Once it was finished, he seemed lost. He stared at me with confusion on his face. We sat and talked about the story and he asked me why I needed to tell that story and why it was about how evil came into the world. Patrick, to me, is a realist. He is not interested in fictional stories but instead, is more concerned with real life events that are told as stories.

Then I called my sister, Katelyn, and my brother, Joseph. Both of whom live in Ottawa. We grew up in a household where my grandmother loved to read us stories about mythical creatures and watch movies with animals who could speak. I knew that my sister would enjoy the story. She loves mythical creatures but more specifically, she loves witches. She expressed that it was a really interesting concept that the witches brought evil into the world and wanted to know more about how the creatures had all gotten there (and if they were there before, where are they now?) My brother had little to say, although he did mention that he was entertained by the story and chuckled at my assignment.

It was a really fun assignment. I enjoy telling stories so this fit well with my personality. I found that it was almost more fun to tell the story to my sister and brother because I knew that they would like it. I imitated voices for them and went into great detail describing the celebration. I did not do this with Patrick, I think that is because I knew that he is not interested in fictional stories as much as I am. This story really reflected what I like most about storytelling (I am a fiction junkie) and I was wondering for my fellow students, did you find that your stories reflected your interests? Also, if you told the story more than once, did you find that your mood or your experiences during the day influenced your story in any way?

Bibliography:

“Evil.” Dictionary.com. n.p. 3 February 2015. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/evil

King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. Peterbough:Anansi Press. 2003. Print.

“Unicorn Wallpapers.” AlphaCoders. n.p. 3 February 2015. http://wall.alphacoders.com/big.php?i=136423

“Winifred Sanderson.” Disney Wikia.  n.p. 3 February 2015. http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Winifred_Sanderson

Much of Chamberlin’s book spoke of colonization in Canada. As I have written on two different blog comments, storytelling has been a large part of First Nations traditions and cultures and now, in the face of settler colonialism, it is a form of resistance and resurgence. Here is a great article that discusses this process of decolonization with storytelling:

file:///Users/test/Downloads/19626-46035-1-PB.pdf

Also, a friend of mine’s blog. She’s Metis. This blog post she wrote is about redefining home:

https://halfbreedsreasoning.wordpress.com/2014/11/05/redefining-home-connection-place-and-belonging/

4. For Chamberlin, figuring out this place called home is a problem because, as he notes, he “doesn’t come from anywhere, except the Americas. And somebody else calls this home, somebody who isn’t happy having [him] around” (87). This is a difficult realization for anyone to grapple with when defining what ‘home’ is to them. This is especially true when Chamberlin speaks of the creation and telling of stories, whether to believe or not to believe them. For settlers in Canada, the conception of ‘home’ was built out of a false pretense about settling land. People used this pretense to believe that they were entitled to live on this land. In relation to settling Canada, Chamberlin notes, “We make homes for ourselves and drive others out, saying that we have been here forever or sent because of a vision of goodness or gold, or instructions from our gods” (2). This story of settling land for these reasons have been passed down from generation to generation, enticing their settler descendants to believe these stories as well, confirming their relationship and idea to what they identify as ‘home’.

However, stories that are told are not always automatically believed by the listener. It is said that “stories… have to do with belief; and belief involves a conflict between the true and the untrue” (Chamberlin 91). There are always contradictions in stories, such as the ones told by the settlers in Canada to justify their claiming of land. The listener is the one who must choose whether or not to believe the stories, ultimately making that story true to oneself. In terms of finding a place we call home, one must find a place that encourages stories and feelings of belonging, comfort, and reciprocity. As Chamberlin notes, “home is caught up in contradictions between reality and the imagination, here and elsewhere, history and hope. Many of us, from time to time, have probably felt lost and unhappy at home” (74).

It is also problematic to find home based on Chamberlin’s concepts of imagination and reality because, as he notes, both are “remarkably similar” (Chamberlin 125). He explains, “We learn how to live comfortably with both of them. We learn that neither is the true one, and that sometimes it isn’t easy to tell them apart. We learn that we often don’t want to, or need to, because the business of living in the real world depends on our living in our imaginations” (Chamberlin 125). In other words, finding home based on our imaginations and realities can not be accurate because our realities and imaginations may be convoluted, misleading us to believe false ideas of what “home” is. That is the place in which one does not find home.

Chamberlin points out, “The sad fact is that the history of settlement around the world is a history of displacing other people from their lands, of discounting their livelihoods and destroying their languages,” he also addresses another way of viewing this. He notes, “The history of many of the world’s conflicts is a history of dismissing a different belief or different behaviour as unbelief or misbehaviour, and of discrediting those who believe or behave differently as infidels or savages” (Chamberlin 78). These two visions of colonization are similar in that they have the same outcome, however, the storytelling of colonization is different. The first viewpoint is concerned with telling a story of domination, dispossession and erasure without really explaining how or why. The second, is a closer look into the justification of claiming lands for settlement. In regards to the settlement of Canada, I believe that the first story has the most consequence attached, with telling this version of history it focuses on the colonization process of acquiring lands and destroying languages and livelihoods without engaging with the most important reasons for how the colonizers justified those actions. It reduces the First Nations peoples to objects rather than the subjects.

Bibliography:

Chamberlin, J. Edward. If This Is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories?: Reimagining Home and Sacred Space. Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim, 2004. Print.

Nock, Samantha. A Halfbreed’s Reasoning. WordPress, 5 November 2014. Web. 16 January 2015.

Sium, Aman and Eric Ritskes. “Speaking Truth to Power: Indigenous Storytelling as an Act of Living Resistance,” Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society 2.1 (2013): 1-10. Web. 16 January 2015.

Willard, Wendy. “Home Is.” Image. WendyWillardBlog. Web. 16 January 2015.