After reading more in depth about the story of Coyote and his twin brother, I definitely have a greater sense of the story.  In reading Harry Robinson’s version of the story, I was more concerned with the fact that the younger twin stole the paper and what that action said about that younger twin, versus what that action meant to Coyote.  I was so caught up in the younger twin’s actions, that I missed the fact that Coyote’s literacy was stolen after he was already literate.  I thought that it was stolen before he was given even the chance to be literate–which shows my ignorance.

After reading Keith Thor Carlson’s Orality about Literacy: The ‘Black and White’ of Salish History, I realized that I, along with most European settlers, was taught to believe that the European’s brought literacy to the Indigenous people of North America.  This assumption only further led me to believe that Coyote’s white younger twin stole literacy from Coyote even before Coyote was able to become literate.  Thus, my assumptions ran so deep that I misread Robinson’s story in the first place.

But, after reading about Salish history, I see the probability that “literacy [was] something indigenous that was itself once taken away” (43).  More importantly, “there was a time in Salish history, no matter how fleeting, when at least a few of their ancestors had working knowledge of literacy that preceded, and was therefore independent of, newcomer initiatives and influences.  They were literate because powerful forces from the spirit world had wanted them to be literate, and they would become literate again for the same reason.  Literacy is not, according to this version of history, something imposed on or introduced to Aboriginal people as part of the colonial process” (45).  Yet, this new development (for me) does not change my opinion of literacy being no more important than oral stories.  Bertha Peters, Salish elder, addresses this point by concluding that “literacy was not necessarily a source of knowledge or power in itself.  Rather, it was principally a tool for preserving certain kinds of knowledge that could have assisted Salish people during times of great distress, such as those associated with the arrival of Europeans.  White people’s mastery of literacy gave them an advantage not only in terms of preserving their own European knowledge but in terms of their ability and propensity to steal and profit from indigenous wisdom… [the] knowledge of medicine was taken away from the Indians by the white people because they didn’t write it down” (48).  Because Indigenous traditions put more emphasis on word of mouth/story telling than literacy, it is no surprise that certain things/ideas were stolen by the Europeans.  I find this fact very interesting because it is reminiscent of the whole ownership over land debate.  I feel like Indigenous people saw most things, including land and knowledge, as things that were not owned or patented.  There was no stealing of ideas, but rather knowledge was shared.  Conversely, I believe that the Europeans were more concerned with patenting ideas and having the pleasure of seeming superior and powerful by claiming Indigenous creations/inventions/ideas as their own.  This idea is especially heart-breaking when the only determining factor is the fact that the Europeans wrote things down.  Thus, generations of story-telling and information being passed down, meant nothing next to something being written down by a European settler later on.

In the end, the most important idea I learned was that literacy was not something brand new that was introduced to indigenous people, but rather something that was stolen and then brought back and embraced again by Indigenous people when their lives were threatened.  After all, “at least some Salish people believe not only that their ancestors were not necessarily awestruck by the arrival of Western literacy but that they embraced it as part of their historical identity” (52).

Works Cited

Carlson, Keith Thor. “Orality and Literacy: The ‘Black and White’ of Salish History.” Orality & Literacy: Reflectins Across Disciplines. 43-72. Print.

Robinson, Harry. Living by Stories: a Journey of Landscape and Memory. Ed. Wendy Wickwire. Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2005. Print.

Reading the story of Coyote and is twin brother, I can’t help but smile.  I found the story fascinating and, honestly, more believable than many of the other creation stories I have heard.  I don’t mean to discount other creation stories, but just find that I can relate more to this one; which, is essentially, the trademark of belief–feeling more connected to one thing than another.

What I find fascinating about the story is that it hits one of the most prominent issues between Indigenous people and European settlers: what is the truth, and whether or not it is proven by literature or story.  The very fact that “the younger twin [(the ancestor of white people)] stole a written document–a ‘paper’–he had been warned not to touch,” (9) shows immediately the connection of the younger twin to the written word.  This connection is only solidified “when confronted by his actions, [the younger twin] denied having done this” (9).  I find this element of the story fascinating because I believe it to symbolic of European settlers’ curiosity and need at the time to find a better way “to undertake a series of important tasks related to the creation of the earth and its first inhabitants” (9).  Yet, in contrast, Coyote (the ancestor of Indigenous People) “performed his duties exactly as instructed” (9).  I feel that these elements of the story show the heart of the problem of the conflict between the two cultures.  The European settlers live for change and making the world a better place according to them, and the indigenous people live for respecting the land and living through their promise to take care of the land and its people.

At the same time, with value being placed on either stories or truth, it is funny because although many people put more value on the written word, I have to admit that I place more value on stories.  Especially after reading this story, I realized why I have come to this conclusion.  In all honesty I believe that it all stems from fact that there is way too much emphasis put on the written word.  For example, the bible.  I don’t know too much about it, yet I know that it is a collection of stories that are believed whole-heartedly as truth and seen as fact by many people, mostly due to the fact that they were written down by someone who is believed to have spoken to “God.”  I feel like a lot of people justify their belielf in “God” solely because of the bible (a.k.a the written word).  But, because Indigenous people rely on stories as truth, I believe that this form of truth (especially before settlers came) is more reliable.  I feel that to believe a story requires more trust and thought than believing in something written down.  In addition, to continue to choose to pass down that story requires even more trust that the story is true.  After all, who would repeat a story/information that they felt was false?  At the same time, repeating said story and backing it up purely by trusting your ancestors for generations upon generations also requires a lot of trust, whereas backing up stories purely through a book means putting your trust in a stranger, essentially.  What I am getting at is that at the end of the day, more often than not, people tend to believe the written word than someone else’s.  If I were to tell you personally that UBC is closing down for the summer and then you went online onto a random person’s blog who said that it wasn’t, chances are you would believe the person online over me–regardless of the fact that both of us have the same credentials.  And I believe this is purely because somehow when something’s  in writing, it means more.   But, again, I feel like the spoken word has more weight.  I feel like anything can be written down, but through stories we strive to speak the truth.  Because of this, I rarely ever speak up in class because I am terrified of speaking lies (a.k.a the wrong things).  Yet, I am more comfortable writing (even when I am not sure of the “right answer”) because I am okay with being wrong on paper, as long as I write something down.  After all, it’s a lot easier to pretend like you know what your talking about on paper versus in person.  For that very reason, stories hold more weight for me because personal experiences hold more weight that “fact”/written word by a stranger for me.

I think the younger twin stealing the piece of paper is symbolic of the need for some people (a.k.a the European settlers) to hold the written word above all else as truth, so that when others question those truths they can pull out that piece of paper as evidence.  In contrast, Coyote’s trust in not needing to grab hold of that paper is symbolic of the trust he felt in whoever gave him the task and his belief that others would trust in him carrying out his task as well.  Thus, Coyote doesn’t have any reason to rely on the written word in creating his people until his twins decedents cross the ocean and start killing his people.  In a sense, he uses the written word only to stop his twin’s decedents from killing his own decedents because he knows the written world is the only thing that will stop them (people that hold the written word above all else).

Works Cited

Robinson, Harry. Living by Stories: a Journey of Landscape and Memory. Compiled and edited by Wendy Wickwire. Vancouver: Talon Books, 2005.

Reading other stories, I was shocked by the fact that although everyone’s story was different, there were still a lot of similarities.  What I found interesting was that quite a few people have trouble knowing where their home even is, whether it was because they moved around a lot or just don’t feel connected to a place that an outsider would view as their home.  But the what struck me most was the desire for a “home” read so strongly to me in other people’s stories.  Even though I have lived in the same house since I was born and my father has lived on the same street since he was born, my grandparents are all immigrants who came from Lithuania, Sweden, and Iceland.  Thus, even though I have a lot of roots in Langley, BC, when people ask me about my heritage, I say I am Icelandic or Scandinavian because that is where most of my roots are.  Yet, my last name (originally Deglau, but Canadian immigration/customs mistook it for “Deglan” and it never was corrected) is German because my Papa’s family were Germans who moved t0 Lithuania before WWI.  So even though my last name is German and I have lived in one place my entire life and see Langley as my home, I still feel like my other more important “home” is in Iceland.  I feel this way because my facial features come almost entirely from my Icelandic side.  At the same time, I have a much stronger connection to my Icelandic heritage because of all the stories my Grandma told me growing up about Iceland.  Thus, I feel like what is common between all our stories is the desire to have a “home” that is almost fictitious in a sense.  A place where everything is perfect and everyone we love is close.  Recently two of my brothers have moved away and I have realized how different home feels without them; because two people I love are no longer here.  So in a sense, reading other people’s stories has got me thinking that “home” has kind of a dream-like quality and is reminiscent of heaven.  Even as someone with no religious ties, I can somewhat understand the idea of heaven.  It is similar to “home” because although we all have somewhat different ideas of what is there, most of us want to go there.  I mean, who doesn’t want to go to heaven when it is advertised as having everyone we love who has passed, will house all of the people we have loved once they pass, and where there are no worries or pain?  Because of this, I believe that “home” is a lie.  Even though I have a home, it is by no means perfect and I still hope to find a better “home” for myself in the future.  I think our “home” is where we are right now and it could change tomorrow, but other than that a “home” is something that we strive for, but is something we will probably never achieve.  At then end of the day, I have never come across someone completely content where they are.  I don’t mean to be cynical, but rather feel like understanding this could only help us realize that because there is no such thing a “home,” we might as well live in the present and not be stuck trying to find something that isn’t there.  “Home” is wherever we are right now and wherever we have been and wherever we will go–we define our “home,” our “home” doesn’t define us.

As I lay outstretched on the grass in our backyard, I take a deep breath in and smell the lilac trees that separate our property from my aunt’s.  They were planted by my late Nana in the ’60s and still come back every year, smelling of her.

As I close my eyes and feel the soft grass squish into the tough ground beneath me, I can feel the spirit of my Nana blooming from the soil that she and my Papa nurtured long before my parents did.  With my eyes closed I can see her walking barefoot through the grass calling to me, “Lara! Ah, there’s my pet.”

As I open my eyes, I see the top of the cedar tree that should’ve died twenty years ago, but still holds on.  The top of if reminds me of the vulture tree scene from The Jungle Book, yet the middle and bottom remain relatively healthy; definitely sparse, but still healthy.

As I sit up, I see the cedar next to it that still has remnants of our failed tree fort.  Instinctively I grab my foot and hold onto the bottom, feeling the phantom pain of where the large nail sliced through the bottom of my foot.  My dad made my eldest brother take it down after that horrible day and I still feel to blame.

As I stand and walk towards the back of the property, I hear the faint buzzing that puts a smile on my face.  I pass our old ’91 Explorer and the buzzing grows as I get closer and closer.  As I round my dad’s old ’77 f150 gathering dust with weeds growing through the hood, I see the hive about 15 feet up from the base of a large cedar.  What seems like thousands of bees are flying around above my head and I can’t help but feel in awe.  This hive has been on our property for about 20 years.  Our neighbour was a bee-keeper so at one time he tried to bring the hive over to his property, but the bees just kept coming back.  Staring at the hive, I am amazed by how much things have changed in the last ten years.  I can’t help but be reminded of the time I single-handedly tried to destroy another hive on our property, causing my little brother to get stung countless times because he ran right, while I escaped the swarm by running left.  But now, looking at this hive, I feel a huge  level of protection.  I want these bees to prosper because there aren’t enough bees these days and we need them way more than they need us.

A yellow glare distracts me and I look to the left of the beehive realizing it was the sun reflecting off the Jitney (my Papa’s creation).  My papa invented it to take out tree stumps and it still runs to this day, even though it has taken up permanent residence behind our shop.  Looking at it, most would see it as an eye-sore, but all I see is the sweat and hard work that my Papa put in into building it.  It is also a representation of my papa’s gift of turning a dream into a reality and just his initiative to always build something he needed.

As I walk back to our house, I pass our shop.  Each window is new because every original window was broken from a time when my brothers and I went through a delinquent phase and didn’t realize the necessity of windows beyond the fact that they make cool noises when they are smashed.  It is the shop that my Papa built for his bulldozing business over 50 years ago and now it is my dad’s shop for his excavating business.

As I pass the shop and our house comes into view, I see the roof that my great-grandfather helped build and a house that my dad built.  My dad built the rancher part when he married my mom and then they added the addition after my second-oldest brother was born.

As I enter the mud-room, I am reminded that it used to be the garage and the fact that my brothers and I helped my dad add walls and fill it in.  Standing in the mud room I can still see the garage that it used to be.  The fact that all the concrete and plaster has been covered and it is now a beautiful tiled mud room is reminiscent of terrible memories that have been masked in my mind as well.  When I was 4 or 5 years old, my family and I were coming home from a relative’s house and I fell asleep in the very back of our car.  Like normal my dad had parked our ’91 Ford Explorer into the garage and locked the garage doors, thinking that my mom had carried me up because he didn’t see me in the car.  But my mom had thought that my dad had carried me up.  Needless to say, I was left in the Explorer and when I woke up freezing (because it was the middle of winter), I was terrified.  I got out of the Explorer and remember just banging on the garage door, hoping that my parents would hear me.  I was too short to reach the garage door opener, so it wasn’t long before I realized that I would be stuck in the garage all night.  So, I rounded up some tarps and coats and anything that I could use for warmth in the garage and went back to the Explorer and buried myself underneath them.  I then proceeded to cry myself to sleep.  I then woke up to my dad hugging me and my mom crying for their mistake.

As I walk through the rest of my house, there is nothing spectacular about it, yet it is spectacular to me.  The walls are loaded with pictures of my entire family and there isn’t any system to them, they were just hung at the times that pictures where taken and then more and more were added; baby pictures, little kid pictures, tween pictures, teenage pictures, and adult pictures.  Literally and figuratively, my brothers and I have grown up on/within these walls.

My home is filled with some of my happiest memories as well some of my most terrifying and most hurtful memories.  Home for me is about memory.  It is a place where I can look at something and have a reference/story that goes with it.  It is a place where I am comfortable, yet has places within it that are uncomfortable because of the events that happened there.  To me, home is not where the heart is, home is where the memories are (or rather, home is where the head is).  And fortunately for us, we can make memories wherever we are.  Most of mine just happen to be scattered on one piece of property that I continue to grow up on.

Works Cited

91 Ford Explorer SUV. n.d. Web. 12 June 2014. <http://www.edmunds.com/ford/explorer/1991/?sub=suv>.

“vultures from jungle book.” 12 Nov. 2006. YouTube. Web. 12 June 2014

My Story:

About 4 years ago, a psychologist named Jane Fletcher bought a cabin on East Barriere Lake in Barriere, B.C. to act as a summer retreat for her patients. The cabin was beautifully crafted and very secluded on a three-acre lot, complete with a beach volleyball court and a large fire pit area in which Jane used to hold daily meetings with her clients. Because Jane specialized in helping those who were prone to inflicting pain on themselves, most of the meetings she held included every patient so that they could all talk openly with each other as well as develop trust with people outside of themselves and/or their immediate family. Jane quickly became known as “The Cabin Psychologist” and over the subsequent years has helped more than 500 people to stop harming themselves. But everyone wants to know, what is her secret? Why does her retreat seem to help people cope with their issues better than any other retreat in B.C.?

Well, that is exactly what the current 10 people sitting around the fire pit where about to find out. Jane came barging around the corner of the cabin with a good-looking man who seemed to be in his mid 30’s. Because it was week three of their four-week retreat for those sitting around the campfire, this was the first time in over two weeks that the patients saw someone from outside the retreat. They were shocked, to say the least. Jane introduced the man as George Lefray and mentioned that he was a former patient who was there to listen to everyone’s stories of what brought them to Jane’s retreat, as well as tell his own.

Slowly but surely, each patient told their story of how they came to be at Jane’s retreat. Most shared stories of how the fast paced nature of their lives left them feeling inadequate and overwhelmed, causing them to cut themselves because their pain was one thing that they could control. Others felt guilt for committing crimes that they escaped charges for and, therefore, hurt themselves to ensure that they did receive some form of punishment. One thing that almost all the patients had in common was the fact that feelings of guilt caused by their involvement in something deemed “inappropriate” or “bad,” led to them harming themselves.

Once they had all finished their stories it was George’s turn. George admitted that he was brought up in a privileged family in London, Ontario. He was raised by two mom’s and therefore was a sperm donor baby, sharing genes with only one of his mothers. In grade 10, he and his moms moved to Vancouver, where he met his best friend, Beth, who was also a sperm donor baby with two moms. The only difference was that Beth was able to get information about her sperm donor, and at the very least knew that her father lived in Victoria and was of German decent. Though she didn’t know his name, she always bragged about being the kid of sperm donor 2H2T (or who she like to call “Too Hot To Trot”). Unlike Beth, George had no desire to learn who his biological father was and even if he wanted to, it was harder to get that information in Ontario. Though they disagreed on this point, they became very close due to their strong understanding of the struggles that they each faced growing up without a strong male influence in their lives. And after two years of friendship, George got the courage to ask Beth to be more than just friends and she said, “Yes!” George could not be happier because he knew that Beth was the love of his life. Two years later, they married and then were blessed with three beautiful children: Jack, Hannah, and Tim. After Tim was born they decided to move to London, Ontario because George’s Grandma was battling cancer and George wanted to help her win the fight—which he did. After a year of living in Ontario and enough nagging from Beth, George decided to find out who his father was, after all. He didn’t tell Beth that he was going to do it, but instead, decided to surprise her on her 30^th Birthday with the news. So the day before her big surprise party George was throwing for her, he went to the sperm clinic to pick up the results. He was hoping that his father was Swedish because Beth’s celebrity crush was Swedish actor Alexander Skarsgård, so he wanted to be able to joke about her falling in love with a fellow Swede. But the big surprise was that he wasn’t Swedish, but instead German. And the biggest surprise of all? His sperm donor was 2H2T. George stayed parked in his car for long time just staring at the sheet, hoping that the “2H2T” would morph into a “242T”. All he could think over and over was that his wife was his sister. His wife was his sister. His wife was his sister. THE LOVE OF HIS LIFE WAS HIS SISTER. After the shock began to subside form a 100/10 to a 90/10, George was faced with the question of what to do next. Does he tell his wife…/sister? Can he just pretend it didn’t happen and burn the results? What about his kids? George decided that because this news devastated him beyond belief and changed everything, he did not have the heart to tell Beth. The pain and, quite frankly, the disgust he felt made up his mind that he never wanted Beth or his children to feel as lost and upset as he was. Knowing he could not look at Beth the same way ever again, he knew he had to end it. So he did the one thing that he knew would make her leave him and allow for her to move on and possibly find someone else. He cheated on her with her co-worker and made sure she caught him in the act. Sure enough, she left him and George moved to Barierre, B.C. and now sees his kids for a couple weeks every summer.

George finished his story and everyone around the campfire was silent. George wiped the tears of his face and looked everyone in the eye one by one for the first time since he began his story. He then proceeded to tell everyone,

“That is my story. I have felt more pain than every single one of you around this campfire and have broken the hearts of every single member of my family.   Yet, I have still never managed to harm myself. So every time that you think you’re in too much pain and you want to harm yourself, think of my story. You will never feel as much pain as I have. Killing someone does not equal the pain I have felt. If I can keep living with the guilt I feel, then everyone around this fire can too.”

Everyone around the campfire wished they hadn’t heard George’s story, yet knew that they needed to hear it in order to bring tremendous perspective to their lives.   Jane ended the meeting by thanking George for having the strength to tell his story again and told everyone that not a day will go by that they will wish that they had not heard George’s story, yet not a day will go by that they will not be thankful for hearing it.

“And that my friends,” said Jane thoughtfully, “is why my retreat works.”

My Comments:

My goal for my story was to not only make sure that the characters in my story wished that they hadn’t heard the story, but also that all of you reading my story would also wish that you hadn’t heard it. Did it work?

I was inspired to create this story because the story that George tells is inspired by an allegedly true story that a man anonymously posted on an advice column. (Here is a link to the story).  My friend told me about it a year or so ago and I remember thinking when she told me, “I wish I could forget that you told me that.” Not surprisingly, I didn’t forgot it and it was the first thing I thought of when I thought of things that I could add to my story that would make my audience wish they hadn’t read it.

I never considered myself much of a storyteller, but when I told my family my story I realized that story telling is something that I do constantly. I love to laugh and I find that the best tool to make myself, and others, laugh is telling real life stories; personally, I think the absolute truth is hilarious (real life being thrown in your face).

I also realized how fun it is to write stories. I’ve always wanted to write a book and I feel like doing this assignment has made me even more determined to write one. After all, what’s the worst that can happen? Someone will read my story and wish that they hadn’t.

Works Cited

“Alexander Skarsgård.” IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 31 May 2014.

Daniels Hussar, April. “Man Finds Out He’s Married to His Sister on Their Anniversary.” The Stir. 24 Feb. 2013. Web. 31 May 2014

King, Thomas. “The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative” Toronto: House of Anansi P., 2003. Print.