Home. Home is a story. May I tell you mine?

My Home began with sunny beaches and the scent of fresh-sliced oranges. My father was doing his Master’s degree and my mother was growing our family in Northern California.

Next, Home became Downing Road, with its willow-treed cul-de-sac, strawberry garden, and small, pig-tailed playmates. Here Mitza the cat – Mitza the patient, Mitza the black-and-white – came Home to join us.

Then Home became woodsy, with deer and adventures and berries for foraging: a place to imagine, to create, and to drift off to sleep hearing tales about the Dog Named Blue. Home was soft cuddles, warm PJs, and prayers; my sister, my mother and father, and my insular bedroom. Home was the space between our house and town, and the books on the shelf and the toys on my bed; the boys from next door and the ranch down the road, the flowers we picked and brought Home to Mom.

 

 

Then, we moved to town ourselves, and home was what we brought with us. In town things were different. In town, home was drawing and watching TV, finding time between lessons to run through the woods and pretend that they were wild, too – that they had not been domesticated.

Soon after that home was Kelowna, and everything changed. Home became growing up, learning… and striving. Home became peace talks and What is this? questions; classes and “time to know What Really Matters.”

But, home was still books and still critters and playing. Home was still parents and sister, quiet evenings and family dinners. Home was still prayers, and there was a farm not too far away.

Home was also a view of the Valley, skies, and mountains. Home was always mountains. The ones that ringed the Okanagan weren’t as high as the ones I was used to, but they still whispered home to me. And, if some of the other things home had been had gone missing, home was still love, and there was still food on the table and a kitten snuggled up in my bed.

Next, home would become a place to retreat from the trials of middle school and the perils of high school; but I could never have imagined as a child that home would become a place to sneak out of at night, a place to hide boyfriends and to put what I was really going to wear in my purse before I walked out the door. Home was where I brought friends for sleepovers, where we dressed up for our cameras, took pictures, and uploaded them to MySpace; and where we laughed together and then – maybe – cried alone later. It was where we learned to cook, learned to focus, and tried to learn to fail. It was where we learned that we could not be perfect, but that we ought to be loved anyways.

Home is still BC, and now home is rest and retreat. It’s a place to belong; to reserve space for what matters most inside. It’s a place where connection is more important than time, and values matter more than practicality.

It is also, however, a place where prudence takes precedence and survival originates. It’s a place to search for when it disappears; a place to wrestle with the confusion that I hide in my day to day life. It’s a place to gather up the scattered pieces of myself and fit them together into a coherent whole; And it’s a place where, no matter what, I can always find help.
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Once upon a time, in a land not far away, there was a kingdom that was ruled by a king who had four children.

The children were all of an age to rule, and in this kingdom the crown was passed when the king chose to give it rather than when he died and to the child who most deserved it rather than to the firstborn. It was a very peaceful kingdom in a peaceful land that had never known fear (though rumours of fearful things were heard of from other lands).

The health of the king was strong, so, while his hair grew white and his fingers gnarled, he showed no signs of dying nor of feeling the need to give his throne to a younger ruler. His children were all even-tempered people with good heads on their shoulders and good hearts in their chests, but they felt their youth and opportunity for doing great deeds as kings or queens slipping away, and so – without desiring to do any harm – they wondered if they might not be able to hurry the process up a bit. To this end, one Sunday afternoon, they gathered in their castle library to talk.

“If only there was some trouble in our land!” The firstborn said from his leather chair. “Trouble that would make us need to go to battle, that would call for a younger ruler to helm the nation and to save our people from disaster!… or something.”

His siblings, two young men and a woman, agreed that it would be nice if there was such a thing (though they had never witnessed it).

The youngest prince piped up. “What if we caused a little trouble?” he said. “Nothing serious, of course, and we would do it secretly; but what if we introduced a little worry to the kingdom so that our father would feel the need to pass on the throne? Surely our goal would be reached, and the new king or queen could stamp out the problem easily enough when they were crowned!”

The others thought this was a great idea, and each suggested a way to bring it about. Because he had had the initial thought, the youngest went first. He suggested that, as Christmas was coming, they could tie a chicken to the tail of each of the postmaster’s horses on Christmas Eve so that the horses would be so worried that they wouldn’t be able to deliver the presents on time. This idea brought about chuckles, but the eldest said it was cruel, and the wings of the thought were clipped before it could take flight. His own idea, however, was similarly useless, as was the young lady’s, so that before they knew it there was only one chance left for the plan to work.

The third son, the second born, simply told a story, and asked his siblings to observe the effect; and it was a terrible tale, full of death and dismemberment. By the time he was finished, the others felt so ill and fearful that they decided that he, undoubtedly, had the key to introducing the trouble that they were seeking. They also noted thankfully that it was just a story, and decided that it could be published anonymously in the kingdom’s newspaper, that everyone would read it, that many of the citizens would feel ill and not show up for work the next day and that the king would receive many postcards expressing concerns about national security and then the matter would be done with.

So they published the story, and it worked like a charm. What they had predicted happened, and the king received so many messages asking that he give his throne up to an heir who, with youthful energy, would be able to handle the things that the story described in case they came true that he selected his daughter for the throne and before the week was out she received her crown. All of the others were happy about this (except the second-born, who was never the same after the session in the library).

The problem was that the people did not forget the story, and it had a much larger effect than anticipated. The new queen and her citizens were so harried by the fears that it had raised that the council of governors felt obliged to craft a new law in an effort to prevent the things which were written of from taking place. They decreed that anyone exhibiting characteristics that were not normative to the people in that land should not be allowed past their borders, whatever their situation may be, since their land had never had any events such as were written about in the story before and so if they were likely to come they were likely to come from without (they thought).

Fear had entered the kingdom, and it came in the form of a story.

Have you ever thought that a story could have so much power?

 

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You’ve just read a tale that was adapted from Leslie Silko’s piece about the witches that brought evil into the world as related by Thomas King in his book The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative (9-10). The original story can be found in Silko’s Ceremony.

After writing this piece, I told it orally to friends and family and observed what took place. As I told it the first time, I found myself changing the tale to increase the amount of logical sense that it made. This was an interesting discovery. I also began incorporating words and phrases that suited the genre and setting of my story even if I hadn’t had them in the written version. These factors said to me that a story reflects the culture and values of the person from whom it issues, which means that oral literature may change from generation to generation in order to stay relevant to its people.

It seems to me that while there are upsides to the written word, the ability of an (primarily) oral story to change is a great boon to the culture to which it belongs. To illustrate this point, don’t you think it’s strange and probably detrimental to our youth that Western school systems continue to teach classic literature even though many of the values represented by it are no longer relevant in our world? Don’t you think that this must confuse our kids?

Another thing that I noticed as I told my story was that the person to whom I was telling it influenced the telling HUGELY. Like, MUCH more than I had imagined it would. Storytelling is clearly an art unto itself. For example, some audiences made me very nervous, which made me less expressive, and less expressiveness made the story less engaging; some audiences felt better suited to the way that I had crafted the tale, and this made me more comfortable and excited, which made the story more successful; and, no matter who I was speaking to, the parts that I emphasized most were dependent on the personality of the listener and what I thought they would like.

Overall, I feel that telling memorized stories in a skillful way to varying audiences is a thing that takes a lot of practice. Some performers make it look so easy; but it clearly isn’t!

 

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Works Cited

Grimm, Jacob, and Wilhelm Grimm. Trans. Edgar Taylor and Marian Edwardes. Ed. Authorama. “The Robber Bridegroom.” Fairy Tales by the Grimm Brothers. Authorama, n.d. Web. 31 Jan. 2015. <http://www.authorama.com/grimms-fairy-tales-23.html>.

King, Thomas. The Truth about Stories: A Native Narrative. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota, 2005. Print.

Silko, Leslie Marmon. Ceremony. New York, N.Y.: Penguin, 1986. Print.

Expert Village. “Singer Songwriter Performance Tips: Stage Presence Tips: Story Exercise.” Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, 17 Oct. 2008. Web. 31 Jan. 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdWdHp7z3xE>.

This post is in response to this question:

At the heart of the intersection between story and literature we will easily find the meeting of native and newcomer, and as Chamberlin says, “I keep returning to the experience of aboriginal peoples because it seems to me to provide a lesson for us all. And for all its [Canada] much-vaunted reputation as an international mediator and peacemaker, it is in this story of natives and newcomers that Canada really has something to offer the world” (228). And, then he goes on to propose: “Why not change underlying title back to aboriginal title?” (229). Explain how Chamberlin justifies this proposal.

I have just now returned from a profound journey through logic and imagination in the form of J. Edward Chamberlin’s book, “If This Is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories?” This book is about the need for “Us’s” and “Them’s” around the world to recognize that we share a borderland of faith which allows us to believe that the stories of our culture are true simply because they originate in our ways of knowing and our cultural histories. It encourages us to forge a new respect for one another by meeting in this borderland; and the book’s final chapter demonstrates the validity of the stories of all cultures by relating the events of a land dispute in which facts from an aboriginal myth were corroborated by scientific inquiry (219-221). In telling about these events, Chamberlin points out that an occidental mindset would be inclined to see scientific evidence as confirming the indigenous myth, which it would view as previously having no legs to stand on, whereas in reality all forms of story are equally valid.

This can be understood in light of the fact that most scientific ideas are actually theories, or “likelihoods” (Chamberlin 125), despite Western culture’s tendency to pretend they are more. Building on this thought, Chamberlin points out that the structure in North America of underlying land title is just another story, and that it, therefore, can, and perhaps should, be changed to reflect a deeper truth about this continent (228).

Currently, underlying land title belongs to the monarchy, or “Crown,” in Canada, and to the republic in the United States – but does that really make sense? Does it reflect truth? Or should it belong to the indigenous peoples?

Chamberlin points out that nothing in our everyday realities would change if we gave underlying land title to aboriginals: it “wouldn’t mean that an Indian chief could come and sit on my doorstep or walk into my house, any more than the Queen or the president could right now”; yet “this new title would constitute a new story and a new society. . . . [It] would finally provide a constitutional ceremony of belief in the humanity of aboriginal peoples in the Americas” (230-31).

The indigenous peoples of Canada and the United States have been displaced since settlers arrived. Changing underlying titles would be a step towards sharing the lands between us. It would provide common ground, which is an absolute necessity if we are to exist together peacefully.

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Works Cited

Chamberlin, J. Edward. If This Is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories?: Reimagining Home and Sacred Space. Cleveland, Ohio: Pilgrim, 2004. Print.

D’Errico, Peter. “Canadian Court Grapples with Native Lands, Preserves Crown Dominion.” Indian Country Today Media Network.com. Indian Country Today Media Network, 9 July 2014. Web. 16 Jan. 2015.

Welker, Glenn, comp. “Native American Mythology.” Indigenous Peoples’ Literature. N.p. 10 Jan. 2014. Web. 16 Jan. 2015.

Hello, readers!

My name is Lauren Hjalmarson, and I have created this blog to join in on the web of discussion that will take place under the umbrella of the fourth-year UBC English course “Canadian Literary Genres” (or: “Oh, Canada… Our Home and Native Land?”). This online course of studies concerns the complex and contested narratives that make up the diverse field of Canadian literature, and examines why some of these stories are publicly celebrated while others are often ignored.

I am excited to be diving into this field, as I know too little about the stories connected to the land I live on, and I feel that the sort of knowledge that I am about to gain is the kind from which all Canadians could benefit. The injustices that Canada’s indigenous peoples have endured since contact have been atrocious, and I find the ongoing violence against aboriginal women particularly heart-rending.

While I expect English 470A to be a challenging course, I am looking forward to learning about the colonizing narratives in Canadian literature as well as exploring what can be done through stories to assist in the process of decolonization, because I am an artist who is interested in making work about this subject. I have done so now and again while studying in the Interdisciplinary Performance BFA program at UBC’s Okanagan campus, as I was galvanized in my first semester by the story of Helen Betty Osborne as related by Marilyn Dumont’s famous poem. In fact, this past semester I wrote a children’s chapter book with the goal of communicating to young people the need for settlers to develop a greater appreciation for “Canada’s” land and people. The story is about a coyote and a golden retriever puppy that become friends. It will be published as part of a project called Dig Your Neighbourhood in April of 2015, and I am currently in the process of finishing up the illustrations. Below is a photo of a work in progress:

 

I will sign off now for the time being, but I am looking forward to returning to this blog next week to post again. I hope you’ll leave a comment so that we connect!

–  Lauren

 

 

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 Works Cited

Dumont, Marilyn. “Helen Betty Osborne.” Native Poetry in Canada: A Contemporary Anthology. Ed. Jeannette C. Armstrong and Lally Grauer. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2001. 258-59. Google Books. Web. 14 Jan. 2015.

Manitoba govt. Aboriginal Justice Implementation Commission. The Death of Helen Betty Osborne. AJIC.MB.ca. Manitoba govt, n.d. Web. 14 Jan. 2015.