Hello everyone! For this blog post I will be answering the last question from Lesson 2:2: “If Europeans were not from the land of the dead, or the sky, alternative explanations which were consistent with indigenous cosmologies quickly developed” (“First Contact” 43). Robinson gives us one of those alternative explanations in his stories about how Coyote’s twin brother stole the “written document” and when he denied stealing the paper, he was “banished to a distant land across a large body of water” (9). We are going to return to this story, but for now – what is your first response to this story? In context with our course theme of investigating intersections where story and literature meet, what do you make of this stolen piece of paper? This is an open-ended question and you should feel free to explore your first thoughts.

In the story that tells about how once upon a time there were a set of twins, one white and one black, who became the forefathers of Europeans and Native Americans, the reason for the white twin’s banishment (stealing of paper), I think, is symbolic for the the effect that colonization by Europeans had on Indigenous peoples. My interpretation is that the piece of paper that was stolen represents stories. Literature is inherently connected to story, in that the latter is the precursor for the former. In fact, written works come from the desire to preserve accounts of events in time, of moments in history. To write something down in ink is to preserve that story or the evidence for something’s occurrence in time, so long as that piece of paper is intact.

As I was reading the story, what came to mind was how the white twin who stole that written document comes back to his native land to effectively do the same. He is banished for stealing a piece of literature, a part of his land’s history, laws, or whatever it may be. For him to come back and colonize his what used to be his own people’s land and destroy their nations and culture can be viewed as stealing their stories. I think that this representation of European colonizers coming to North America and settling in Natives’ land really allows the connection to be drawn between the aforementioned colonization and theft of land and the loss of the Natives’ stories, the destruction of their nations, severance of bloodlines, and the death of their languages.

Another interesting bit for me was how the white twin denied stealing the piece of paper. I interpreted this as a metaphor for the settlers’ disregard for the Natives’ pre-settlement histories. I saw the denial as representing the lack of consideration the settlers had for the Indigenous peoples’ claims to their land and resources, and of course, as I described in the paragraph above, the theft itself representing the stealing of Indigenous land. The denial by the white twin just added a layer of depth, in my opinion, representing the lack of remorse by settlers for the cruelties committed such as separation of kids from their families and the residential school system.

Classical accounts of settlers’ (such as Columbus) experiences were taken to be fact by Europeans at the time. This is a form of preserving an account of events in time by word of mouth, and is thus a form of oral history. It is ironic that the these accounts of Columbus were simply accepted as fact by the Europeans, especially because of how each tribe of Indigenous peoples have first stories (adaawk) — oral histories that are unique claims to each of their territories and that are equivalent in weight with written legal documents. These stories have been passed on orally through generations, about how their ancestors and the very names they use to identify themselves are tied to the land that they reside on and care for (Paterson, “Lesson 1:2”). The irony is in how the Europeans simply accepted Columbus’ oral accounts as fact, when their fellow Europeans (settlers) completely disregarded the Indigenous peoples’ oral claims to their ancestral residential land and displaced the Natives from this land. Perhaps it was because the stories Columbus brought back to Europe — of cannibalism, savagery, and a general “lack of sophistication” — already coincided with European preconceptions about “others,” such as those propagated in works by Pliny, Homer, and Herodotus (Lutz, 2). I think it could also have been a combination of the disrespect for stories of “the other,” especially oral histories, and “God-given” entitlement the Europeans had “to possess both the natives and the land” (Paterson, “Lesson 2:2”).

Works Cited

Lutz, John. “Contact Over and Over Again.” Myth and Memory: Rethinking Stories of Indigenous- European Contact. Ed. Lutz. Vancouver: U of British Columbia P, 2007. 1-15. Print. Accessed online at http://www.law.uvic.ca/demcon/documents/Lutzpaper.pdf February 04 2020.

Paterson, Erika. “Lesson 1:2.” English 372 99C, January 2020, https://blogs.ubc.ca/engl372-99c-2019wc/unit-1/lesson-1-2/. Accessed February 04 2020.

Paterson, Erika. “Lesson 2:2.” English 372 99C, January 2020, https://blogs.ubc.ca/engl372-99c-2019wc/unit-2/lesson-2-2/. Accessed February 04 2020.

Prodanovic, Konstantin. “The Silent Genocide: Aboriginal Language Loss FAQ.” terry.ubc.ca, 16 October 2013, https://www.terry.ubc.ca/2013/10/16/the-silent-genocide-aboriginal-language-loss-faq/. Accessed February 07 2020.

Roach, Hadley. “Entitlement and Ethnocentricity: Religion’s Effect on European Expansionism.” Fubini (Swarthmore College), 07 March 2008, http://fubini.swarthmore.edu/~ENVS2/S2008/hroach1/hadleyreligion.html. Accessed February 07 2020.