Good Day 470;
I have completed all of you midterm evaluations – and what a read it has been. You have taken me on some interesting hyperlink journeys and provided some wonderful new insights to ponder, thank you. I am particularly pleased with the amount and quality of dialogue this class is producing – wonderful.
In the next ten days or so, you will get yourselves organized into Conference Teams and set up your team websites. Once your website is ready, please post the link on our FaceBook page and I will add the url to our course page. Be sure to include a name for your team.
I have, as usual, posted some interesting excerpts from my readings – enjoy.
This is such an interesting documentary about Boas and his research, well worth the watch. It contains fantastic video from the past. Pay particular attention to the Copper – which was a form of currency. The important point is that currency was valued by how much you could give away to the tribe. The more Coppers you gave, the more you contributed, the richer you were considered. Wealth was not measured by what a person accumulated, but rather by the power to give. The richest family, was the family who gave away the most at the Potlatch.
We are beginning to show respect for Indigenous story-telling, and I look forward to the day when Bible stories will be taught in school—not as literal and factual, but like myths, fairy tales, and Indigenous stories—full of truth—yet full of mystery. Bible stories and Indigenous stories of North America (and many other cultural stories) are full of wonder and truth, and should be celebrated and passed on. Searching For Meaning
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Thomas King’s “Godzilla VS. Post-Colonial” opened my eyes to how I was initially reading Robinson’s stories: incorrectly. As King states, “Assumptions are a dangerous thing” (183) and I was playing into that by assuming that if something was written in a language that I understood, I should be able to read it in my own way and understand it as it was meant to be understood. I was not able to really see my naiveté until I read the story out loud as Robinson intended. King points out that Robinson is able to defeat readers’ efforts to read the stories silently (186); Robinson is intentionally owning his tradition of oral literature and using it to protest against colonialism. As Keith Thor Carlson expresses in “Orality about Literacy: The ‘Black and White’ of Salish History” there is the assumption that literacy had been considered as either a gift of enlightenment bestowed upon North American Aboriginal people or as a colonial tool of assimilation imposed upon those same people” (45). I think that Robinson is responding to that in a very clever way: forcing non-Indigenous readers to open their minds and adopt a new way of thinking and understanding story. While historically we often understand written literature to be a more superior form of storytelling, Robinson shows his readers that not only is that assumption wrong, but orality is offering something completely different- something that can’t be tainted by colonialism. Reading Differently: Assignment 2:6
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So, why does King insist that his readers participate in dichotomous thinking?
In fact, King’s is utilizing a clever rhetorical tactic: first, he illustrates the pitfalls inherent in dichotomous thinking. When King asks his readers to choose Charm or Genesis, he seems to undermine his own position, but in actuality he has simply primed his audience to fully recognize the absurdity inherent in this dichotomy, this decision. In this sense, king has “shown” rather than “told”; he has not relied simply upon informing his readers that dichotomies are irrational, and problematic as a result. Rather, King positions his readers in such a way that they are required to actively engage with the subject at hand, to experience and interact with dichotomous thinking and experience this irrationality for themselves. This method of engaging the audience is, in the end result, a much more impactful and efficacious method of communication and education. 2.6 King’s Dichotomous Dilemma
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When Chief Justice Allan McEachern reacted to a map dictating Wet’suwet’en and Gitxsan territory with the words, “we’ll call it the map that roared,” (Sparke 468) it illustrated a beautifully tragic metaphor. The roar could interchangeably be one of turmoil or triumph, depending on the two interpretations that Sparke offers. One reflecting the tumultuous anachronism of the situation, and one of a fiery resistance. Seeing as how Chief Justice rejected Wet’suwet’en and Gitxsan claims, perhaps he perceived the roar as one of futility – that of a dying wild animal, tired from its fight, yet persistent in its frustration.
The resistance – a fight worth fighting! The roar is a pledge of non-compliance, of sovereignty and self-governance, of independence as a society. The roar is a shaming of Chief Justice and his decisive blows to an entire population of people attempting merely to reclaim what was rightfully theirs. 2:6 “We’ll call this the map that roared”
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What an amazing experience to be able to read all of my peers’ stories of home! I feel a great sense of gratitude that so many of you were so incredibly honest and open in your story sharing. Thank you for allowing your readers and your classmates to envision your personal sense of ‘home’ and how you define it.
Having said that, the multi-cultural Canada does make me feel at home in the way in which this country opens up for cultural diversities. Take languages for example. I still remember the degree to which I was shocked by the trilingual characteristics of YVR airport when I arrived at Vancouver on day one. Although I personally do not feel right about the Chinese language being paralleled with the two official languages of Canada in public properties, I cannot deny the fact that the appearance of my home language does make me feel closer to home and in part leads to my decision of settling down in Vancouver permanently. That may also be the reason why a growing number of Chinese middle-class families, who have been to many places around the world, are making the same decision building up their new homes in here. The other moment which made me feel more identified with my Canada home is when I heard the broadcasters saying “ngo gwok”, meaning “my/our country” in Cantonese which is my mother tongue, when they mentioned Canada in a news programme at a local Cantonese TV station. For example, “’Ngo gwok’ athletes won another two gold medals today at Rio Olympics.” Then I found myself celebrating not only the Chinese Olympics team’s success but Team Canada’s, with two homes living in harmony in my heart via the language that speaks the best to it. Canada is My HOME And Not
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“I want to begin by thanking my classmates for sharing their stories of home. After reading many of them, I’ve quickly realized that many shared very personal experiences–as one would imagine when talking about their home. However, I am stunned that such authenticity in regards to personal life can be shared and discussed in an academic environment. It was an honor to read your stories; I am humbled.”
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Wickwire speaks of “a living Coyote linked to Harry by generations of storytellers” (Wickwire, p.8). This sort of connection cannot be replicated by modern (white) retellings of first stories, as evidenced by how writers’ terms for Coyote were fundamentally different than how a First Nations storyteller would describe him (Wickwire, p.8). Words like “trickster” were used in the written versions of Coyote’s story, but never by the storytellers. Modern written stories simply lacked the “detail, dialogue and colour” (Wickwire, p.8) of the oral stories. Wickwire also makes mention of how we erase things that give context and meaning to these stories, such as removing the names of the original storytellers, locations, and the communities where these stories were told in written editions (Wickwire, p.8). These omissions disturb the narrative of the story (Wickwire, p.8).
Wickwire also talks about how the Boasian tradition ignored recent stories from First Nations, instead focusing on past, mythic stories “set in prehistorical times” (Wickwire, p.22). She quotes Harkin, who says their “goal was to document ‘some overarching, static, ideal type of culture, detached from its pragmatic and socially positioned mooring among real people’” and “‘systematically suppressed…all evidence of history and change’” (Wickwire, p.22). Just as we have suppressed First Nations culture during the period of cultural genocide, so too have academics who seem to have had a preconceived notion about what stories were important to understanding First Nations people, history, and culture. It’s another way in which we undermine our ability to make meaning of First Nations stories by refusing to examine equally important modern stories that First Nations have used to make sense of their position in the world in the 1920s and beyond.
Finally, Harry Robinson speaks on the importance of “living by stories” (Wickwire, p.29). These stories needed to be passed down through generations because they give meaning and help First Nations understand the importance of the land, their culture, and their history (Wickwire, p.29). This is something that has been diminished, deprived, and nearly destroyed during the age of residential schools, the 60’s scoop, etc. I would like to leave you with several links I found while reading about residential schools. Living By Stories