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?
I’d like to start by sharing that I found J. Edward Chamberlin’s If this is your land, Where are your stories? an extremely interesting read. I enjoyed how he encouraged the reader to open their mind in terms of seeing things from a different perspective and realizing that there is more than one truth. I believe that he sums this up well in his final chapter through the connection of legends and science, the use of visuals to get his points on contradiction across, and the explanation of what stories really do in terms of bringing people together or tearing them apart.
Chamberlin tells the Gitksan legend of the sacred mountain Stekyooden that was brought down by the spirit of the valley, a grizzly bear named Mediik. Mediik had warned the Gitksan people that they had become unmindful of their good fortune and had forgotten what nature had taught them. When they did not listen Mediik came roaring down the mountain bringing much of it with him covering the valley floor and destroying the village of Temlaxam, once a place of peace and prosperity to the people who lived there (Chamberlin 219).
It is this story of the grizzly and the slide that confirms the Gitksan peoples claim to the territory as it confirms the presence of their people in that place for millennia. Many years later when the Gitksan people asserted their claim to this land they turned to a scientific story that was told by geologists who were able to drill deep beneath the river that ran through the valley and confirm that the clay found sixty feet below matched that found high on the mountain slope (Chamberlin 220).
What I found most interesting about this story is the fact that even though the scientific story clearly confirms the legend, the Gitksan people still had to persuade the judge that both stories compliment each other and they do not discredit each other.
One of the other concepts I found very interesting as well as helpful in understanding Chamberlin’s ideas on the notion of contradicting truths was his example of the artist concept of “seeing with an innocent eye” (Chamberlin 221). The explanation that two artists may see the same object differently because of perspective or time of day makes it clear that both renditions are the truth even though they may appear different. When I read this part things really began to piece together for me and through the visual of the ship at anchor I was able to really understand how two different or contradictory stories can both be true.
The last concept I’d like to touch on is the idea of how and why stories bring people together and tear them apart. As Chamberlin mentions there are two stories, there are the chronicle events of how we came to be here and the ceremonies of belief of why we belong here (Chamberlin 227). The trouble and conflict begins when we try to compare the two stories because inevitably to believe one, most people think you must dismiss the other story as untrue. As mentioned above it is clear that both stories have their own truth. Once we realize that the others stories are not meant to hurt each other we can begin to have a respect for them and maybe stories can stop keeping people apart and start uniting all of us.
Works Cited
“Art Styles: Same Object, Different Approach.” ARTNAZ, 12 February 2013. Web. 22 January 2015.
Boxley, David R. Sm\’ooygidm Mediik – Chief of the Grizzly Bears Drum. Stonington Gallary, Seattle, Washington. Web. 22 January 2015.
Chamberlin, J. Edward. If This Is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories?: Finding Common Ground. Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2004. Print.
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>
Thank you, Danielle, for your thoughtful response to Lesson 1:2. The examples that your highlighted work well to encapsulate Chamberlin’s thoughts and ideas in the final chapter of his book, “If This Is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories? Finding Common Ground”.
In this chapter it was the idea of borders that struck me, as well as Chamberlin’s underlining of how contracts – as ceremony – are important to the “imagining of individual and collective identity” (226). I was also struck with Chamberlin’s exhortation for the need for a particular ceremony needed for all: “a ceremony that will sanctify the land for everyone who lives on it” (227). This need for an address to the sanctity of the land is a hot button topic in Canada these days, with the Trans Mountain debate, and the multitude of pipeline project proposals in the works.
“it is not the conflict between the two sets of stories that is the problem. The problem is our forgetting between the contradiction between fact and fiction” (228). Understanding and accepting this quality of there and not there, of “Not ants, but ants” (133) has been the most challenging aspect of reading this book.
I was reminded of how some people use the classification of right brain/left brain thinker while rereading the last chapter and you blog in preparation for this comment. Logical and creative thinking where posited to be localized in the left and right hemispheres, respectively. I think it is interesting that, while this idea of dominant hemispheres has been debunked, the tendency to describe oneself as one or the other persists. In fact, we use the both hemispheres equally, but public perception seems to want to present a conflict between the creative/logical wherever possible. That it would extend to the brain speaks to how rooted this belief in such a conflict it, and may go a long way in explaining how we have come to be so divided by our stories, and our acceptance of others’ stories.
– Merriam
Hi Merriam,
I appreciate your comments and really enjoyed the use of the right brain/left brain example. I also found Chamberlin’s idea of this quality of there and not there to be very difficult to grasp at first. This is why I really respond to the visual examples like the different views of artist of the same object. The right brain/left brain example allows me to see things from a different perspective so thank you for that. I think it is a great analogy in terms of the conflict that divides our stories.
Hi Danielle,
I thought this post was a really thoughtful and insightful reflection of the “lessons” disclosed in Chamberlin’s final chapter to If This Is Your Land, Where are Your Stories? A lot of the things you highlighted in this post are the same things that stuck out to me as I was piecing together a summary of this chapter for my own blog which proved a real challenge as the nature of Chamberlin’s writing is so rich.
The emphasis you placed on understanding the stories of others echoes what I thought was Chamberlin’s objective in this final chapter. Without preaching or shaming of any kind, Chamberlin does go to great lengths to convince/reassure his readers of the universal nature and a power a story — be it a oral tradition, a biblical belief, a painting or a scientific truth — can possess. After reading his text and reflecting on the question he so pointedly raises in his title, you cannot help but realize that at the core of Canada/Western civilizations failure of establishing a working relationship with the indigenous people of so many different regions, nations, and groups is acknowledging a “common ground.”
In the closing comments to the book, Chamberlin makes this answer explicit. The final words read: “[Common ground] is the ground shared by Them and Us, and it is the answer to the question ‘If this is your land, where are your stories?’ On common ground.”
The images you linked on the “History of Art” affirm that, in the same way all the faces exist on the same page, all our stories exist on this common ground. They do not have to be alike in any way, or exist even harmoniously with one another but their value as a variation of what we know cannot be dismissed.
The point to which Chamberlin moves in this final chapter really drove me to ask a question: is our denial of common ground a generational thing? I am probably generalizing but it seems to me that as societies grow increasingly tolerant of the “stories” of others, it becomes increasingly frowned upon to disregard the value of anybody’s beliefs, even though they might seem highly disparate to our own. I think we are continually improving in this regard and am wondering what you think? Idealistic though it may be, how far away do you think we are from arriving at that “common ground?”
– Simon
Hi Simon,
Thank you for your comments. I believe your question about the denial of common ground being a generational thing is well thought of. I would have to say it is generational and would like to be optimistic about the fact that we as a diverse culture have become more accepting to peoples differences.
This reminds me of a moment I shared with my kids, I have two young children, a ten year old and an eight year old. The other day my son was telling me a story about a friend at school. I didn’t recognize the name so I asked him to describe his friend. He began by talking about his personality, you know the funny kid, he has a really deep voice for a kid, he’s always playing with Joe and so on. My daughter even chimed in with, you know the super fast runner, he’s always playing after school. I still couldn’t figure out who they were talking about so they pointed him out the next morning when I dropped them off at school. Now heres the kicker, the young boy was African American and my kids didn’t even think about his skin colour to describe him. I think that would have been the first thing I mentioned, mind you I grew up a long time ago. I remember thinking about this and being very happy that the younger generation doesn’t define people by their skin colour and I thinks this attests to the fact that generationally we are moving forward.
All this being said, in terms of making things right with the aboriginal people of Canada, I believe the stories need to be taught to the younger generations about how things really happened. Once this occurs in our school systems I think we will certainly be heading in the direction of common ground.
Hi Danielle,
Your post was very clear and detailed, and helped further explain the last chapter of “If this is your land, where are your stories”. I liked how you were very descriptive and explained each point thoroughly.
The hyperlinked you posted about the Art Styles, really helped explain the notion of contradicting truths better. It is fascinating to see how the same artwork can be depicted in so many different ways because of an artist’s style. It doesn’t mean that their artwork is wrong because it is different than the original, but that they had a different impression and style of art. It reaffirms what Chamberlin said about how two contradictory stories can both be true.
Chamberlin states in this section that although there are a lot of stories in the world, there is not necessarily a true story and a false story. There is some truth in each story. So that bring me to the question of what do people always have to pinpoint which story is false? For example in the story of creation, there are a million of different versions of how the earth was created. However there is a lot of debate on which story is the right one. Can’t we apply Chamberlin’s notion of truth here? Then we can see where the stories meet, and find the truth in each version.
Althea
Hi Althea,
Thank you for your comments. I believe that your question is the point that Chamberlin is trying to make, why does one story have to be false? If you take a look at Neia’s blog this week, she hyperlinked a Ted Talk by Wade Davis (I’ve yet to figure out how to hyperlink in the comment sections, if I knew I would do it here) and he made some really good points that helped me clarify the idea of there being contradictory truths. The example that stands out most to me was that if a young kid from the Andies looks at a mountain as a spiritual guide they are going to have a completely different relationship and respect with that mountain than a North American kid that looks at a mountain as a pile of rocks waiting to be mined. Both of these perceptions of the mountain are true, this really made sense to me.