The Indian Act was created and set into effect in 1876, nine years after Canada was “created” in 1867. The act enabled the government control over First Nations Indian status, resources (such as where they were able to hunt), wills, education, land, and band management (Montpetit, 2011). The objective of the Indian Act was to assimilate as many First Nations as possible, excluding Metis and Inuit, into an idealized British-Canadian society. For example, under the Indian act First Nations women who married non-status men would automatically lose their status, the government’s way of robbing of identity and ensuring forced integration. Indian status was “seen as a transitional state, protecting Indians until they became settled on the land and acquired European habits of agriculture” (Henderson, 2006).

One of the most horrific outcomes from the Indian act of 1876 was the use of residential schools, which were in operation from 1879-1996 (Montpetit, 2011). As intended, the schools forced many First Nations children to forget their language and culture, as well to suffer frequent verbal and physical abuse. Here is a very explicit account from one woman of the abuse she endured when she was forced by the Canadian government to attend a Residential school. Her story is akin to many First Nations who recount their lives at these schools. Unfortunately, Canadian government propaganda attempted to justify the schools through ads such as these which completely dissimilar to the accounts told by First Nations people themselves.

Canadian Residential School

Since 1876, there have been many amendments to the Indian act as well as the Canadian Constitution that make it possible for First Nations to control their own lives and identities. In 1982, the government amended the Constitution so that those First Nations who had lost their status through marriage because of the Indian Act of 1876, were now able to be reinstated as status First Nations / band members along with their children (Henderson, 2006).

After my research, I conclude that the Indian Act of 1876 was a way for the Canadian government to justify forced robbery of First Nations identities and control over an entire race. The idea that author Daniel Colman discusses is of English-Canadian identity being tied up with an exclusionary model of British civility and masculinity. Colman argues that colonials, nation builders, and the government were fixated on ways to “formulate and elaborate a specific form of [Canadian] whiteness based on the British model of civility” (Colman, 5). However, as Coleman demonstrates, the code of civility was inherently based on a racist assumption of white priority, where “others”, such as the First Nations, could be accepted as long as they modeled themselves according to White British values. Hence acts such as the Indian act of 1876 which aimed to completely strip First Nations people of their original identities and assimilate them into a British-Canadian culture so that Canada could be seen as one great homogenous nation.

Works Cited

Coleman, Daniel. White Civility: The Literary Project of English Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 2008. Print.

CTV. “Accounts of Residential Schools Continue”. Youtube, March 1, 2012. Web, Febrary 27, 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3i_ootZDgM>

Henderson, William. “Indian Act”. The Canadian Encyclopedia. 2006. Web. February 27, 2015. < http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/indian-act/>.

Montpetit, Isabelle. “Background: The Indian Act”. CBC News Canada. CBC News, May 30, 2011. Web. February 27, 2015. <http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/background-the-indian-act-1.1056988>.

PenTV. “Canadian Residential School Propaganda Video 1955”. Youtube, May 2, 2009. Web, February 27, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_V4d7sXoqU.

Stout, R (2010). “Residential School” [Image]. Retrieved from http://www.mediaindigena.com/roberta-stout/issues-and-politics/residential-school-money-has-it-helped-survivors-heal.

I was instructed to read Roughing it in the Backwoods as well as her sister Catherin Parr Traill’s story for a Canadian literature class two semesters ago. I have linked her sisters book The back woods of Canada, you may find it interesting to compare both stories! I enjoyed learning about Moodie’s experience and responses to the culture shock, the difficulties, and the pleasures of immigration and pioneer life. With many unpleasant experiences, she gives a sober reflection on the hazards of immigration but offers some praise of Canada as a refuge for the poor (of England) and as having the potential to be a great country.

After reading the introduction and first chapter, the readers will defiantly get a sense of the entitlement Moodie feels as she lands upon Grosse Island. Moodie describes the utter pandemonium of people at the islands shore, “literally stunned by the strife of tongues” (Moodie, 2003). Moodie goes on to describe the people of the island (Irish and First Nations) as they “appeared perfectly destitute of shame, or even of a sense of common decency. Many were almost naked, still more but partially clothed. We turned in disgust from the revolting scene” (Moodie, 2003). Using words such as revolting, disgust, and shame, really gives the reader a sense of Moodie’s claim to hierarchy at the time as she sees herself as socially above all of these people and their lifestyles. Here, she is bringing with her the ideals and norms she grew up with in England, not realizing that this island and her new home do not follow the same social principles.

Moodie also makes reference to the Garden of Eden a couple times during her story. The first being in the poem about Canada at the beginning, the second when she first views the island “basking in the bright rays of the morning sun, the island and its sister group looked like a second Eden just emerged from the waters of chaos” (Moodie, 2003). She completely disregards the island as a place that other people may already call home and does not once see herself as an invader of it. Instead, the island is a God-send, basked in sunlight as if God was shining a spotlight on it from heaven. This is a good example of the narrow minded visions that many explorers and immigrants had when they first arrived in Canada.

In Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water, Susanna Moodie is modernized as a polite, traveling Canadian named Sue. She is accompanied by three other friends, two men and a woman who all are proud that “none of us is American” (158). The four friendly travellers have stopped at the Dead Dog Café and are being served by Latisha, who makes polite conversation with her guests and finds out that they are “roughing it” on “an adventure” ( alluding to Moodie’s story Roughing it in the Bush), and are hoping to see some First Nations people. This peculiar desire would normally not be understood or accepted as politically correct in Vancouver today. First Nations people are not objects in a museum that you can openly view and discuss. However, since King’s entire novel is filled with satire, this strange yearning of the four travellers is something to be expected. It also seems like Sue is almost mummifying the “noble but vanishing Indian”, as she proudly proclaims that her accompanying friend Polly is part Indian and a writer. This leaves the reader to wonder if Polly is going to attempt to document their “adventure” and encounters with First Nations peoples just as Moodie did in the 1800’s.

At the end of Latisha’s encounter with the four travellers, she discovers that they have left her a twenty dollar tip and a book, The Shagganappi. I googled the title and discovered it online here, written by Emily Pauline Johnson (Polly for short?), and is a collection of what seems to be short stories about First Nations people here in Canada.

Works Cited

Johnson, Emily Pauline. The Shagganappi. Canadian Poetry. Online. February 13, 2015. <http://www.canadianpoetry.ca/abteds.htm>

Kings, Thomas. Green Grass Running Water. Toronto:  Harper Collins, 1993. Print.

Moodie, Susanna. Roughing it in the Bush.. Project Gutenburg, 18 January 2004. Web. 9 Apr 2013

Traill, Cathrerin Parr. The Backwoods of Canada. Gutenburg. Online. February 13, 2015.  http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13559

John Guy’s 1612 encounter with the Beothuks in Trinity Bay. This piece of artwork is a depiction of a European’s first encounter at Trinity Bay. Notice the body language of the people in the art, the Indigenous dressed in few clothes (vulnerability?) and trading with/welcoming the Smartly dressed Europeans onto their land with outstretched hands. Notice the difference between the Europeans grand ships and the Indigenous peoples small wooden huts, as if the artist wanted to depict an obvious economical hierarchy between them.

Question 3:  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?

First contact was often focused on minimalizing danger and maximizing opportunities for both parties, however it was not simply a diplomatic/trade based relationship and often included the spiritual as well (Lutz, 2007). For Lutz, first contact and the imaginary are closely linked and the encounters were often a product of expectations. The Europeans “went into new territories full of expectations, ideas and stereotypes”(Lutz, 2007), discovering what their popular myths at the time suggested they would find. The Europeans did “not see their new worlds with fresh eyes; they saw them through the lenses of their ancient stories” (Lutz, 2007). The First Nations of the Americas also drew encounters from mythologies, claiming that the Europeans were from the spirit world, spirits revisiting earth. It is important to note that both encounters were based off the imaginary, but, because storytellers in modern European tradition wrote first hand narratives using the “I/eye”, this gave them a credibility of sort, even though it has been discovered that many narratives were either borrowed, exaggerated, or fabricated (Lutz, 2007).

Lutz claims that it is difficult to comprehend performances and stories of Indigenous peoples, therefore we must “perceive indigenous performance through their eyes as well as those of the Europeans” (Lutz, 2007). I believe that Lutz is attempting to explain to his readers the reasons as to why Indigenous performances may have been/continue to be difficult to comprehend for many non-Indigenous people ( of European origin of not). He does so through speaking about the imaginary encounter (of both Europeans and Indigenous), as well as both groups strong beliefs of a spiritual world in regards to their realities and historical events. Lutz offers a reason as to why many non-indigenous people cannot comprehend oral narratives; it is because the “narratives will often unsettle the European notion of event” (Lutz, 2007). The indigenous peoples “framed the event differently with different causality and temporality, making the narrative with series of related happenings into a single story” (Lutz, 2007). Therefore, the structure of oral narratives already have people such as the Europeans confused, even before the analysis of the actual story itself.

According to Lutz, a way that we can understand another cultures performances is to begin by stepping outside our own culture and viewing our own practices, spiritual beliefs etc as alien themselves. I imagined what someone  might think of a typical British, Christian wedding (since I am both British and Christian), if they had never been exposed to one. How strange would our practices seem to others?

– a bride dressed entirely in white

– the exchanging of rings that must be worn on a certain hand/finger

– a first dance to a specific song that symbolizes the couples “eternal love”

– best man’s speech, cutting of the tripple layered wedding cake, or tossing of the brides bouquet of flowers.

If I was to tell a story about my parents wedding to a person who had never encountered a Christian wedding, they might misinterpret certain elements,  express confusion over my traditions, or even take what I am saying to be fictional. I feel that Lutz is maybe addressing a more “European” audience, by instructing the reader to “think outside the box”. By giving examples of the Europeans own spiritual and imagined encounters with Indigenous, he is claiming that both cultures first encounter histories and performances are equally difficult to understand.

As a reader, what struck me about “First Contact as a Spiritual Performance…”  was the part about spiritual performance’s and the First Nations of the Northeast coast. The Gitxaala story of first contact was very intriguing; a European ship had sailed into Gitxaala territory around 1787 and the First Nations people believed them to be raven tricksters, (because of the ship appearing over a spot associated with supernatural beings). On first contact, the Gitxaala man recalls his feelings of fear and awe at the spirits (European men) who eat maggots and fungus, with his natural reaction being to douse himself in Urine for protection (Lutz, 2007). Reading this as a Canadian in the 21 century I automatically knew that the “raven spirits” were Europeans and their food of rice and bread was misinterpreted as maggots and fungus. However, if I had been one of the Gitxaala hearing a re-account of this story later that day, I would have been terrified! Likewise, one of the Europeans recounts in a letter home about a “man who peed on himself twice” would have baffled the reader. First encounters are not only filled with the will the maximize opportunity and minimize danger, but they are also wrapped up in confusion and misinterpretation.

I leave you now with a video of the Pikangikum First Nations story of the Thunderbird. Challenge yourself to watch the clip while alienating yourself from your own culture and possibly absorbing another 🙂

Works Cited

Gitxaala Nation. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Feb. 2015. <http://gitxaala.com/>.

“John Guy’s 1612 encounter”. Colony of Avalon. Web. February 06, 2015. http://www.heritage.nf.ca/avalon/history/bry.html

Lutz, John. “First Contact as a Spiritual Performance: Aboriginal — Non-Aboriginal Encounters on the North American West Coast.” Myth and Memory: Rethinking Stories of Indigenous-European Contact. Ed. Lutz. Vancouver: U of British Columbia P, 2007. 30-45. Print.

Lutz, John. “Contact Over and Over Again.” Myth and Memory: Rethinking Stories of Indignenous- European Contact. Ed. Lutz. Vancouver: U of British Columbia P, 2007. 1-15. Print.

Thunderbird Story: Pikangikum First Nati. Youtube, 2013. Web. 6 Feb. 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mC4xalWuSuE>.

For this weeks post we were instructed to read our fellow classmates blog posts about what “home” was to them, and their own traditions/meanings behind the word. Obviously, it was very hard to pick just three blogs because I found all of them to be so interesting! However the three classmates posts that I felt were most similar to my own concept of home were Jennifer, Nick, and Charlotte .

– The understanding and idea of home is generally attached with great force to a persons memories of their family. Jennifer’s depiction of her dad’s quirky breakfasts or the lovable family dog are things that occurred inside her childhood home, therefore making the space special  for her.

Home is always there. Even as the years pass or the distance between ourselves and home grows, we still hold on to that familiarity and feeling of being grounded to a certain place.

Our homes are important to us, we develop relationships with the physical space as well as the people inside it and the sentimental memories that develop are instantly linked to the home. Charlotte’s blogs described beautiful stories about their family traditions and her attachment to home through these experiences.

As Nick so eloquently said, “home is more than the four walls that surround us most of the time, it is a sense of belonging that can exist anywhere and at any time” (Thompson, 2014). Home is what we make it, but it can also be a figure of our imagination. Nick created three fictional characters who all seemed to sacrifice something for home. I think that sacrifice is an important part of home, whether that be working a horrible job to pay the rent for your dream apartment or sharing a bedroom with your brother, we sacrifice so that we can eventually be happy.

Interestingly, all the blog posts described a sense of home using memories that involved family, friends, pets etc and not necessarily focused on the physical home itself. I found this very intriguing because my idea of home was also centered around the senses that I could remember, the smooth wooden floors, large bay windows, smooth white walls etc. I do however, believe that home is where you make it, whether that be a room with four walls and one window or a mansion, as long as you can create these fond memories’ that will last a lifetime.

“Where we love is home- home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts” Oliver Wendell Holmes, SR.

Works Cited

Heinz, Jennifer. “Smarties and Thieves”. Jennifer’s Blog eh? UBC Blogs. January 30, 2015. Web February 2, 2015. <https://blogs.ubc.ca/canadianjennifer/>.

Hodgson, Charlotte. “This is my Home: Piece by Piece”. From Far and Wide. UBC Blogs. January 29, 2015. Web February 2, 2015. <https://blogs.ubc.ca/charlottehodgson/>.

Holmes, Oliver Wendell Sr. “Home quotes”. Brainy Quotes. Web February 2, 2015. <http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_home2.html>.

Thompson, Nick. “Home”. Like Molson, I am Canadian…Or am I?”. UBC Blogs. January 27, 2015. Web February 2, 2015. <https://blogs.ubc.ca/nickthecanadian/2015/01/27/home/>.