Assignment 3.1 Question 3:

“A much more complicated cultural tension [more than two languages] arises from the impact of the sophisticated on the primitive, and vice a versa. The most dramatic example, and one I have given elsewhere, is that of Duncan Campbell Scott, working in the department of Indian Affairs in Ottawa. He writes of a starving squaw baiting a fish-hook with her own flesh, and he writes of the music of Dubussy and the poetry of Henry Vaughan. In English literature we have to go back to Anglo-Saxon times to encounter so incongruous a collision of cultures (Bush Garden 221).”

It is interesting, and telling of literary criticism at the time, that while Frye lights on this duality in Scott’s work, or tension between “primitive and civilized” representations; however, the fact that Scott wrote poetry romanticizing the “vanishing Indians” and wrote policies aimed at the destruction of Indigenous culture and Indigenous people – as a distinct people, is never brought to light. In 1924, in his role as the most powerful bureaucrat in the department of Indian Affairs, Scott wrote:

The policy of the Dominion has always been to protect Indians, to guard their identity as a race and at the same time to apply methods, which will destroy that identity and lead eventually to their disappearance as a separate division of the population (In Charter, 23).

For this blog assignment, I would like you to explain why it is that Scott’s highly active role in the purposeful destruction of Indigenous people’s cultures is not relevant for Frye in his observations above? You will find your answers in Frye’s discussion on the problem of ‘historical bias’ (216) and in his theory of the forms of literature as closed systems (234 –5).

Duncan Campbell Scott joined the federal department of Indian Affairs in 1879, and became a deputy superintendent in 1913 (Robert L. McDougall).  While there he helped write policies with the intent of destroying First Nations culture:

“I want to get rid of the Indian problem. I do not think as a matter of fact, that the country ought to continuously protect a class of people who are able to stand alone… Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian question, and no Indian Department, that is the whole object of this Bill.” (Scott 1918 qtd White)

Yet, this man set on getting “rid of the Indian problem” was also a prolific writer that many literary critics such as Northrop Frye exemplify as an important part of Canadian literature. Frye discusses Scott’s writing in regards to his “complicated cultural tension” (221).  He praises how Scott writes about “a starving squaw baiting a fish-hook with her own flesh, and he writes of the music of Debussy” (221).  One thing Frye does not bring up however is Scott’s active role in the destruction of Indian Culture.  To modern readers this is a huge omission.  How can a Canadian literary critic look upon a man who lead the way “to a final solution of our Indian Problem”( Scott 1918 qtd White) in Canada.

For starters Frye sees Canadian literature as a reflection of Canadian experiences and “it is more significantly studied as a part of Canadian life than as a part of autonomous world of literature” (216). He outlines that Canadian literature is so often tied to the writer’s experiences and often times Canadian literature made stories out of “knowledge and observation but had no particular story to tell” (234).  With this in mind it would seem that Frye could overlook the racism in Scott’s work.  Scott is writing from his experiences of life in Canada.  He was in a position where his job was to “solve the Indian problem” and his writing reflected his situation.  Scott was reflecting on his lived experiences in Canada . Even if that meant he was helping to destroy First Nations culture his writing is still informative of Canada’s literary Canon at the time.  

Furthermore Frye says “literature is conscious mythology” (234).  It develops over time as society develops.  Different places all have different structures of traditional stories and images and a writer of that place is constricted by these closed literary systems. Scott would have been restricted by the conscious mythology of Canada that developed through “cultural tension” (221) between the Settlers and Natives.  As Frye puts is Canadian literature was shaped by “Indians” who “were seen as nineteenth-century literary conventions” (235). Frye can ignore the implications of Scott’s work because he is just reflecting Canada’s literary canon.

On the other hand it is hard for me, as a modern reader, to accept this idea that one could simply overlook writings about culture genocide when they are criticizing them as Frye has.  I think a more likely explanation of Frye’s neglect of Scott’s involvement in the cultural genocide of Canada’s indigenous people is time.  During the 1960s, when Frye’s influence was the strongest, racism was rampant towards First Nations people (Ayre).  Canada’s government was trying to commit cultural genocide and no one questioned the systematic discrimination of the times. Living in an environment like this would have made it easy to overlook the racism in Scott’s writing it is very possible Frye shared the same views as him.

Works Cited:

Ayre, John. “Northrop Frye.” The Canadian Encyclopedia. Historica Canada, 4 Oct. 08. Web. 10 Mar. 2016.

Fine, Sean. “Chief Justice Says Canada Attempted ‘cultural Genocide’ on Aboriginals.” The Globe and Mail. The Globe and Mail, 28 May 2015. Web. 11 Mar. 2016.

Frideres, J.S. “Racism.” The Canadian Encyclopedia. Historica Canada, 2 Jul. 06. Web. 10 Mar. 2016.

McDougall, Robert. “Duncan Campbell Scott.” The Canadian Encyclopedia. Historica Canada, 8 Nov. 08. Web. 10 Mar. 2016.

White, Angela. “Colonialism and Race.” The American Historical Review106.3 (2001): 1-47. UBC Learning Circle. 9 Nov. 2013. Web.