In my most recent post, I wrote about the first impressions that I had upon reading Harry Robinson’s creation story regarding two twins whose descendants became the Europeans and the indigenous peoples of North America (Robinson 9-10). In that story, the younger brother steals a written piece of paper and is banished across the ocean as a result. He has stolen literacy, which means that, in the long run, it will be in his children’s power to create the laws that will govern not only his progeny, but also the children of his elder brother (the First Nations).
Since reading Keith Thor Carlson’s article “Orality About Literacy: The ‘Black and White’ of Salish History,” my thoughts about this story have expanded greatly. I’m sure that I don’t understand its significance completely, but I do understand that stories in Salish culture are taken very, very seriously, and that this story would not have been told by Harry Robinson unless it was seen to reflect a deep truth.
Of course, there are different kinds of truth, and it may not be possible to know what the degree of historical accuracy within the twins tale is in relation to the Western way of thinking about this; but – here’s the question – does it matter? This story is much more than one of many stories of creation: it tells about the importance of and the knowledge of literacy among the Salish people throughout history. As such, it is an important piece of thinking which has a great deal to say about a subject surrounding which Westerners have long carried assumptions: Europeans have assumed that literacy was something new to First Nations cultures when they arrived on North American shores. This story assures us it was not (Carlson 45).
Strangely tempting to the Western mind is still the question of whether Robinson’s story is “authentic”; which, in this case, might mean whether it originated long enough ago to reveal that there was actually (“factually”) literacy stolen from the Salish people by whites before contact or whether the story was created post-contact as an imaginative explanation for why things were the way they were at that time. Again, I ask: does it matter? Knowing how important it is in Salish culture to relate stories faithfully (Carlson 59), we can be confident that their stories are not told lightly, and that anything resembling fallacy within them is extremely rare; and so, regardless of whether or not there was something like the stolen piece of paper once, long ago, we can be confident that the twins tale relates a sensibility and an understanding of literature which goes back a very long time among the Salish people and which reflects how they saw the written word as used by Europeans when they first saw us using it.
This brings us back to the question of truth. It’s a funny thing, truth: elusive, nuanced, and frequently contested. What is truth? May we always keep asking, and may we never be satisfied with the answer.
Works Cited
Carlson, Keith Thor. “Orality and Literacy: The ‘Black and White’ of Salish History.” Orality & Literacy: Reflections Across Disciplines. Ed. Carlson, Kristina Fagna and Natalia Khamemko-Friesen. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2011. 43-72. U of Victoria. Web. 12 Feb. 2015. <http://web.uvic.ca/vv/stolo/Orailty%20and%20Literacy%20K%20Carlson%20Chapter.pdf>
Cash, Johnny. “What Is Truth?” Columbia, 1970. Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, 7 Jan. 2010. Web. 12 Feb. 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0KQWTBljjg>
Hjalmarson, Lauren. “Here’s what I think of that.” Stories & Tellers. UBC Blogs, 6 Feb. 2015. Web. 13 Feb. 2015. <https://blogs.ubc.ca/hjalena/2015/02/06/67/>
Robinson, Harry. Living by Stories: A Journey of Landscape and Memory. Comp. and ed. Wendy Wickwire. Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2005. Print.
Hi Lauren,
Thanks for your insight! Carlson’s article definitely expands my knowledge of Salish culture and the seriousness that is placed on the accuracy and truths of story. The feeling I got from this article brings me back to Chamberlin’s article and the aspects of it that pose orality versus literature in terms of which one holds more weight when it comes to proving history. You ask, what is truth? For the Salish, it is honestly. For the more western attitude, I believe it is viewed as honesty with proof. So again, the debate is which “truth” outweighs the other? So, like you, I am left to ask, does it matter? At what point do we rely on trust and respect for the Salish culture to educate us? And are we too engrossed in western ways to even consider changing the way we know history? These are hard questions, but I think they are good to mull over.
Sarah C.
Hi Sarah! Thanks for your reply. You’re right – the questions that we’ve posed are hard! The Western idea of “proof” (which usually has to be scientific) is definitely super entrenched in occidental minds. Simple honesty, however, does seem to be something that we need to learn to accord greater respect to, especially when it is coming from a whole PEOPLE as opposed to just one person. I feel like perhaps that is the Salish version of proof: that a story comes from the voice of the PEOPLE as opposed to being something that was casually made up by an individual. Since the casual concoction of fictions is apparently not something that is really done in Salish culture, and since stories are passed down for generations and there are strident requirements for proper transmission, stories, for them, seem to have both the weight of proof AND honesty inherent in their telling. I definitely do think that this is something Western culture needs to come to recognize. We seem to have trouble doing that partly because we have a tradition of fiction versus non-fiction, whereas they have a tradition of non-fiction told with degrees of metaphor. It’s all very interesting and definitely does lead back to that question of “what is truth?” to which I think part of the answer is that it is not in the FORM but in the essence.