We began this unit by discussing assumptions and differences that we carry into our class. In “First Contact as Spiritual Performance,” Lutz makes an assumption about his readers (Lutz, “First Contact” 32). He asks us to begin with the assumption that comprehending the performances of the Indigenous participants is “one of the most obvious difficulties.” He explains that this is so because “one must of necessity enter a world that is distant in time and alien in culture, attempting to perceive indigenous performance through their eyes as well as those of the Europeans.” Here, Lutz is assuming either that his readers belong to the European tradition, or he is assuming that it is more difficult for a European to understand Indigenous performances – than the other way around. What do you make of this reading? Am I being fair when I point to this assumption? If so, is Lutz being fair when he makes this assumption?
I believe that Lutz’s statement about entering “into a world that is distant in time and alien in culture” unintentionally plays on the discourse of “us” versus “them”. The performances of the Aboriginal peoples are based on stories that they may already have. From Wickwire’s introduction in Living by Stories, the stories Harry Robinson tell are not necessarily distant in time. He includes stories about the recent past and also includes objects that are usually associated with European culture such as guns. Therefore, I think that posing the difficulty of comprehending Indigenous performances in this way categorizes Aboriginal peoples as ‘other’. Certainly, there are always problems in interpreting stories. From Dr. Paterson’s blog on first stories, it is evident that sometimes it is difficult to ascribe meaningfulness to the story when the ceremony of telling it has been lost, and translating and collecting stories present their own issues. However, the performances of Indigenous participants in ‘First Contact’ need not be situated as so far away in a way that suggests primitiveness.
Since Lutz’s paper seems to suggest the divide between the European tradition and Indigenous tradition, I think that Dr. Paterson is fair when she highlights the assumption that Lutz makes about his readers belonging to an European tradition. I can see this creating two problems (please comment if you can think of any more). First, that because someone might belong to the European tradition, it gives them a crutch when they say that they cannot understand Indigenous performances and stories and thus interpret them incorrectly. Then, Indigenous stories may be highly spiritualized through myths, in contrast to the European tradition of a spirituality that is backed by science. For example, this Historica Minutes of the Peacemaker presents the Aboriginal peoples as highly spiritual and even bordering on the occult. But this interpretation is problematic in that if Aboriginal peoples strayed away from the spiritual, then they could be violent. Second, Lutz does not consider readers of non-European traditions. Does this mean then that they do not need to engage in learning to understand and interpret Indigenous stories in order to see the intersections of various cultures? From my own personal experience, I feel like as an Asian-Canadian, many other Asian-Canadians and my own family do not really have much interest in the issues of Aboriginal peoples. We may not belong to the European tradition but it is easy to see how the European/colonialist view is so dominant that we can just follow it as well. In school, I always perceived Aboriginal peoples to be violent, savage, feather-wearing, etc. because that is the idea that was taught. So that shaped how I viewed Indigenous stories as just myths and untrue. I’m really glad that this course and so many others I have taken at UBC are helping me to be more sensitive and informed about Aboriginal stories.
Speaking of non-European tradition, I would just like to mention the TV series Fresh Off the Boat. It seems that a lot of people are raving that finally, after so long, a show about an Asian-American family is finally airing. After years of Asian families not being able to relate completely to European/White families on TV, many Asians are happy that their family life is being represented on TV. But I do not know of any TV shows where an Aboriginal family is featured. If anyone knows of any, please comment! I hope that as we learn more about first stories and the assumptions and differences we all have, we are able to better understand all of the stories that we encounter without seeing them as ‘other’.
Works Cited
Historica Canada. “Peacemaker.” Online video clip. Youtube. Youtube, 11 Sept. 2014. Web. 5 Feb. 2015.
Jung, E. Alex, “Watching Fresh Off the Boat with 999 Asian-Americans.” Vulture. 5 Feb. 2015. Web. 5 Feb. 2015.
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