My first reaction to this story is sadness. It makes me sad because it so strongly demonstrates how the white settlers treated the Native People of Canada. There is no surprise that the story shows white men as descendants of “a liar and a thief” (Robinson 12) because that is what they did – lied and stole. My sadness at this story comes from two places. The first from the reality of the horrific and devastating atrocities committed against Native Peoples’ for so many years. Though I had never heard this story before I quite readily recognize it as truth, because everything in life is based on our perspective. This story it is true to those who were brought up with it, and to those who experienced situations that demonstrated the truth within it for many years. The second part of my sadness comes from the truth in this story – the idea that I have descended from a lying thief. I began to wonder, how can I combat this identity? What can I do to make up for the errors of my ancestors?
The “written document” is such a an interesting dynamic of this story. What does the document represent? I was wondering right away – what was written on that paper? But I realized, it doesn’t matter what was written on it because the significance of the document is not what it said but what it represents; writing and literature. This led me to thoughts of the intersection between orality and literature and the way they are often viewed as conflicting. I began to wonder what part did this idea of conflict play in the relationship between settlers and Natives?
Instead of sharing the contents of the “paper” as prescribed, white men came brutally enforced their interpretation of those contents. Natives seem to highly value and respect the art of storytelling, but White culture attributes a significant amount of validity and authority to literature over orature. In white culture it is a comparison, in which literature is deemed “better.” This white culture perceived contradiction in values is a very saddening outlook. It not only encourage white settlers to try to annihilate Native history, language and culture through assimilation – but it is still a major barrier to widespread societal acceptance and recognition of Native rights, history and knowledge.
White settlers did not have to act “true to their original character” (Robinson 10); they did not have to kill and steal. But they did. And this reality is devastating and painful. However, while this story demonstrates the truth of that history, it also offers hope for a more cooperative future. Though it may be too late to share the contents of the “paper” in an honouring and reciprocal way. Maybe we (a new generation) can repair the damage that has been done. Perhaps there is still an opportunity to return to the original plan, perhaps we can uphold our part of deal struck upon our ancestor’s banishment; perhaps together we can all create a new and happier end to this story.
Works Cited
Mitchell, Terry. UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: Monitoring and
Realizing Indigenous Rights in Canada. Centre for International Governance Innovation, 2014. Web.
Robinson, Harry. Living by Stories: A Journey of Landscape and Memory. Ed. Wendy
C. Wickwire. Vancouver: Talon, 2005. Print.
Trigger, Bruce G., and Bruce G. Trigger. The Contested Past : Reading Canada’s
History : Selections from the Canadian Historical Review: The Historians’ Indian: Native Americans in Canadian Historical Writing from Charlevoix to the Present (1986). University of Toronto Press, 01/01/2016. Web.
When you write, ‘Natives seem to highly value and respect the art of storytelling, but White culture attributes a significant amount of validity and authority to literature over orature,” I am not sure that I completely agree with you. I agree that European culture has understood written word as more valid than oral word for hundreds of years, but I do not agree with you in that you have separated the art of story telling from the written word. Even the most serious of written documents such as laws or math equations are part of story telling. Einstein’s E=mc2 tells the story of mass and energy being the same physical entity and being able to be changed into each other. Meanwhile filled out divorce papers tell a story of what will happen when two people separate. We tell each other stories all day – both orally and written.
I appreciate the last paragraph of your assignment in that reconciliation is needed to heal the deep wound that has been created between the Indigenous peoples of Canada and Canada’s post-imperial colonizer population.
What do you think that we as a generation should do to reconcile with Indigenous peoples, besides sharing the contents of “the paper?”
Wow good question. But to address your first point – I did not mean to separate telling stories from literature, Of course our culture embraces stories and literature is one of the most common mediums we use to tell stories. I guess I should have specified that I meant the art of oral storytelling. Referring mainly to the idea that many Indigenous Peoples’ relay their important stories orally, while ‘white culture’ tended to prefer written stories.
Now to answer you question – I think a start to reconciliation is that we, as a country, begin ensuring Indigenous Peoples’ basic human rights and freedoms. As was mentioned in the article I linked to above, “Globally, Indigenous Peoples share the worst measures on all indicators of health, education, and social and political participation” (Mitchell 1). But further then that, I also believe that it is our duty to do all that we can to help Native communities find and restore their history, language and cultural traditions.
Thanks for you comment!