7) Considering transformation as writing.<\/p>\n
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<\/a> roamed the world in the distant past, \u201csetting things straight\u201d 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:x\u00e1:ls <\/em>(apologies for my lack of certain diacritics and my ignorance of the relevant writing conventions) and their work of transformation as x\u00e1:ytem <\/em>(46, 61). Both words share a common proto-Salish root, x\u00e1:l<\/em>, which denotes not only transformation but also marking or inscription (61).<\/p>\n 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\u2014and 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.<\/p>\n I find especially poignant Carlson’s suggestion, quoted by Dr. Paterson, that \u201cliteracy is part of a broader genre of transformation stories\u201d 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<\/em>. The Salish Transformers, as I imagine, etched new and lasting meanings and forms on the face of reality\u2014Transformers stories thus imply a powerful literacy in the enduring relationships between Salish peoples and their homelands<\/a> (transformations being both written<\/em> and readable<\/em>). Our (and other) acts of writing, meanwhile, can represent comparable (if much more minor) transformative inscriptions.<\/p>\n It’s tempting to have some more recourse to etymology and consider the Old English wr\u012btan<\/em>, ancestor of our write<\/em>, which means \u201cto engrave, carve, inscribe\u201d\u2014a form of knowledge preservation that literally transforms its medium, penetrates it deeply (Anglo-Saxons too were initially \u201cilliterate\u201d by Roman standards, though they wrote with carved runes).<\/p>\n 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<\/em>, 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<\/a>, an awareness not geared toward decoding or explanation as toward mutual respect and acknowledgement.<\/p>\n Works Cited<\/p>\n \u201cWriting Without Words: Alternative Literacies in Mesoamerica and the Andes.\u201d Duke University Press<\/em>, May 1994, https:\/\/www.dukeupress.edu\/writing-without-words. Accessed 5 March 2021.<\/p>\n Carlson, Keith Thor. \u201cOrality about Literacy: The \u2018Black and White\u2019 of Salish History.\u201d Orality & Literacy: Reflections Across Disciplines,<\/em> edited by Keith Thor Carlson, Kristina Fagna, and Natalia Khamemko-Frieson, University of Toronto Press, 2011, pp. 43-72.<\/p>\n MacNeil, Courtney. \u201cOrality.\u201d The Chicago School of Media Theory<\/em>,\u00a0 Uchicagoedublogs, 19 Feb. 2013, https:\/\/lucian.uchicago.edu\/blogs\/mediatheory\/keywords\/orality\/. Accessed 19 January 2021.<\/p>\n Robinson, Harry. \u201cCoyote Makes a Deal with the King Of England.\u201d Living by Stories: a Journey of Landscape and Memory<\/em>, edited by Wendy Wickwire, Talonbooks, 2005, pp. 64-85.<\/p>\n \u201cSxw\u014dxwiy\u00e1m Places.\u201d SQ’\u00c9WLETS<\/em>, 2016, http:\/\/digitalsqewlets.ca\/sxwoxwiyam\/sxwoxwiyam_names-noms-eng.php. Accessed 5 March 2021.<\/p>\n