7) Considering transformation as writing.
According to Keith Thor Carlson, the acts of transformation performed by central figures of Salish cosmogonies function as acts of writing, and thus of literacy. As I understand, these Transformer figures roamed the world in the distant past, “setting things straight” by changing features of the primordial earth into their permanent, proper forms. Carlson carries out a fascinating etymological discussion, drawing on the collective understandings embodied in language and its relationships; as he describes, the Transformer characters are referred to as Xe:xá:ls (apologies for my lack of certain diacritics and my ignorance of the relevant writing conventions) and their work of transformation as xá:ytem (46, 61). Both words share a common proto-Salish root, xá:l, which denotes not only transformation but also marking or inscription (61).
Such observations have the potential to change our common understandings not only about histories of literacy in contact zones but also about writing itself. Carlson finds it thought-provoking that Salish peoples use such a spiritually resonant native (not borrowed) word for a practice or knowledge usually associated with the arrival of European settlers. Like Harry Robinson’s story about the stolen paper and the accounts of literate indigenous prophets, this suggests a prior history of literacy (a first fourteen chapters, if you will) among Salish peoples. It’s not that literacy (and thus history) was absent before colonization but that native traditions of literacy were different from those of the newcomers—and so unrecognizable to them. This conclusion is well borne out by Courtney MacNeil’s comments, which we read earlier this term, on how oral and literate practices are inevitably intermixed in a culture.
I find especially poignant Carlson’s suggestion, quoted by Dr. Paterson, that “literacy is part of a broader genre of transformation stories” for the Salish peoples (61). This is not merely to say that transformation might fit into the category of literacy (significant though that is) but to propose that writing participates in a more expansive activity of transforming the world. The Salish Transformers, as I imagine, etched new and lasting meanings and forms on the face of reality—Transformers stories thus imply a powerful literacy in the enduring relationships between Salish peoples and their homelands (transformations being both written and readable). Our (and other) acts of writing, meanwhile, can represent comparable (if much more minor) transformative inscriptions.
It’s tempting to have some more recourse to etymology and consider the Old English wrītan, ancestor of our write, which means “to engrave, carve, inscribe”—a form of knowledge preservation that literally transforms its medium, penetrates it deeply (Anglo-Saxons too were initially “illiterate” by Roman standards, though they wrote with carved runes).
Perhaps it would be an appropriate revision to suggest that settler populations have historically displayed a certain illiteracy, one encapsulated in the mythology of the terra nullius, the empty land or blank page. The failure to recognize the presence of anything readable may be the most extreme act of illiteracy. Part of our task may become an awareness of alternative literacies, an awareness not geared toward decoding or explanation as toward mutual respect and acknowledgement.
Works Cited
“Writing Without Words: Alternative Literacies in Mesoamerica and the Andes.” Duke University Press, May 1994, https://www.dukeupress.edu/writing-without-words. Accessed 5 March 2021.
Carlson, Keith Thor. “Orality about Literacy: The ‘Black and White’ of Salish History.” Orality & Literacy: Reflections Across Disciplines, edited by Keith Thor Carlson, Kristina Fagna, and Natalia Khamemko-Frieson, University of Toronto Press, 2011, pp. 43-72.
MacNeil, Courtney. “Orality.” The Chicago School of Media Theory, Uchicagoedublogs, 19 Feb. 2013, https://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/mediatheory/keywords/orality/. Accessed 19 January 2021.
Robinson, Harry. “Coyote Makes a Deal with the King Of England.” Living by Stories: a Journey of Landscape and Memory, edited by Wendy Wickwire, Talonbooks, 2005, pp. 64-85.
“Sxwōxwiyám Places.” SQ’ÉWLETS, 2016, http://digitalsqewlets.ca/sxwoxwiyam/sxwoxwiyam_names-noms-eng.php. Accessed 5 March 2021.
Thom, Bryan. “Coast Salish Transformer Stories: Kinship, Place, and Aboriginal Rights and Title in Canada.” web.uvic.ca, 1998, http://www.web.uvic.ca/~bthom1/Media/pdfs/ethnography/transform.htm. Accessed 5 March 2021.
Hi Connor,
I really loved your post this week. I think you are so smart to point out that “the failure to recognize the presence of anything readable may be the most extreme act of illiteracy.” I hadn’t thought about this yet in the course, but it seems like even if we were to somehow dismantle the straightforward binary of oral/literate, there is still the matter that certain kinds of ‘alternative literacies’, as you’ve called them here, are not recognized/undervalued. It makes me think of a historical example – when Christian settlers went to South America and encountered the Mayan writing system, they interpreted their writing system as being ‘demonic’ and burned almost all for their codices. Today, only three confirmed codices remain. Who knows how much information was about the ancient Mayan civilization was destroyed because one group of literate people refused to acknowledge the literacy of another group?
This is a historical example, but I wonder if there any more modern cases of this happening. In either case, I think this sheds a lot more light on just how intricate this mediatic hierarchal system really is; there are hierarchies inside of hierarchies wrapped up in binaries. Even if we were to dismantle one hierarchy, we would have another one to contend with. I think this might be bound up with the idea that colonizers see themselves as spreading ‘civilization’ to the ‘uncivilized,’ and part of this ‘civility’ is literacy. If colonizers acknowledged that the people they were meant to be ‘civilizing’ were literate, then they would have to acknowledge their sophistication as well. I wonder, do you ever think that we will be able to expand our definition of the word literacy to include these types of alternative literacies? Is there a boundary for what can be called ‘literate’, and if so how do we locate it?
Thank you so much for your comment, Victoria. I think you put this issue of tangled hierarchies and alternative literacies excellently, and your example of the destruction of Mayan written records is a poignant one–thank you. On one hand, it seems like “literacy” is deployed in so many ways nowadays (“visual literacy,” “digital literacy”) that you would think we might be open to the concept of other valid ways of reading and relating to the world. Then again, these examples might be governed by a Eurocentric academic notion of literacy anyway . . .
Your questions are good ones, and they go to show how much ideological baggage “literacy” carries. If we stretch its meaning to accommodate everything, then I guess it wouldn’t really have any meaning left. But how do we account for the nuances within the category? Is there a standard we could really apply or a limit we could legitimately impose? Would the variety of “systems of signification” (to talk like a semiologist) defeat that endeavour?
I’m just answering your questions with more questions! Well, I guess that if we’ve learned anything (in this case) from a schooling in cultural relativism, it may be that widely varying technologies of writing, representations, and communication may have different affordances but adhere to no absolute scale of value. It would surely take patience to mediate between them . . .
Thanks again!