Harry Robinson tells both a first story (creation story) and a contact story (how settlers and indigenous people in North America first met) (Robinson, 9-10). I will give a very brief retelling of this story, but I will change some of the words in order to hopefully capture the intended message but also further illuminate that message. I will use “We” to denote settlers, and “They” to denote the indigenous people of North America (or Indians as Robinson says).
We and They were twins charged with performing certain tasks related to creating the earth and its first inhabitants. They performed their tasks. We may or may not have performed our tasks, but we did steal a text that We were told not to touch. When asked about this, We denied having taken the text. For this We were banished to a distant land, and They remained in Their place of origin. [This, Robinson says, is how They were here first before Us]. We were told that Our descendants would travel to the home of Their descendants to share the story from the text. When Our descendants came to the home of Their descendants, We not only killed Them and stole Their land, but We refused to share the story.
There are a few points that struck me in this story. First, We and They shared a common home (the place of origin). Robinson says that this story tells of how “the Indians were here before the white” (Robinson, 9, emphasis added). If We and They were in different places at the time of banishment, the banishment story would not need to be told to demonstrate how They were here first.
Second, We were not banished because we took the text, we were banished because we would not admit to taking the literature. We wanted to keep this text to Ourselves.
Third, if They were here first, and if the twins were both here originally, then we must not have been We (“white”) and they must not have been They (“Indian”) until the moment of banishment.
Putting these three points together, my first response to Robinson’s story is that the twins became ‘white’ and ‘Indian’, became Us and Them when we separated; and the twins separated because We wanted to keep Our newfound text – comprised of story(ies) – to Ourselves.
It wasn’t that We had the text, or the stories contained within it, it was that We wouldn’t share them. Jeanette Armstrong wrote that “when my words form I am merely retelling the same stories [of my people] in different patterns” (King, 2). We can only contextualize ourselves in that which has already been said. Having taken the written story for itself, neither the younger nor older twin could situate themselves in the same story, and so the twins became something different – Us and Them. Upon returning, We would still not share Our story, perhaps could not share Our story – much like the government officials in Chamberlain’s story (1).
But while the paper (text) was taken, the story of the paper could not be taken. You can steal a written document; I don’t think you can steal a story, at least not in the same way. You can retell it (and attempt to make it your own, attempt to appropriate it), but each and every story belongs to the moment of telling. Outside of that moment, it is a different story, and so has not been ‘stolen’ but rather recreated. [That being said, one can refuse to share a story, by refusing to tell it – which can also be a way to exert power]. But a story written down can be stolen by virtue of possessing the written document.
The story of the paper, however, is separate from the contents of the paper. It can stand irrespective of the text (paper). This is perhaps why Robinson’s story has such power, because even when written down, it retains important elements of orality – impermanence and flexibility. The storyteller or listener/reader can decide for themselves what the paper or the book Black and White contain (or leave it unsaid). [This echoes our previous assignments, in which we told the story of how evil came into the world, but didn’t necessarily tell of that evil].
This point relates to how we see Robinson himself – whether he is a mythteller or a storyteller. Wendy Wickwire suggests he would be insulted if called the former (Robinson, 29). I think the distinction is almost immaterial – he is a storyteller, and in the course of telling stories he may tell of myths and of historical events. What is important is that we recognise the stories he tells, and in particular the story of the twins, are not bound temporally. Robinson is telling us what happened, but he is also telling us what is happening, and what will or may happen.
He is situated within a much more expansive ‘contact zone’ than described by Lutz (Lutz, 4). In this sense, ‘first contact’ occurred almost at the moment of creation, which is given credence by the notion that any contact, at any point, is contextualized by a retelling of spiritual, cultural, moral stories of the people making contact, of all that has come before that point. And the contact zone is ongoing, and I wonder if it must continue until that story (Our story) is finally shared. At that point [and this is just a wild tangent at the end of a long blog post], perhaps We and They will again become something different, sharing common ground that enables We/They to contextualize the self and the other not in a single story (there can be no single truth), but in a fair and equal sharing of stories.
Chamberlain, J. Edward. If This Is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories? Finding Common Ground. Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2003.
King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories: a native narrative. Toronto: House of Anansi Press, Inc., 2003.
Lutz, John. “Contact Over and Over Again,” in Myth and Memory: rethinking stories of indigenous-european contact. Ed. John Lutz. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2007.
McAllister, Jamie. “It’s Your Story Now: how evil came into the world.” What’s the Story: Literature and Canada. n.p., 28 Jan 2014. Web. 09 Feb 2014.
Robinson, Harry. Living by Stories: a journey of landscape and memory. Ed. Wendy Wickwire. Vancouver: Talon Books, 2005.
Rollo, Tobold. “Sage Against the Machine: being truth to power.” Nations Rising. n.p., 10 Dec 2013. Web. 09 Feb 2014.