While reading “Toward a National Literature: A Body of Writing” by Lee Maracle, I found her discussion of the deliberate disconnection of Salish peoples from their “original bodies of knowledge by colonial forces” to deliver her message in a particularly effective and moving manner. She mentions the Potlatch Law that came into effect in 1880 to ban cultural practice, and the “final disconnection” (79) as being the separation of Indigenous children from their communities through residential schools. As I continued to read this chapter by Maracle, I began to consider literary criticism as being a potential method that would enable the rectification of this disconnection, as a way to reclaim history that was altered and/or stolen by colonizers as they interfered with indigenous oracy.
In order for criticism to arise naturally from within our culture, discourse must serve the same function it has always served. In Euro-society, literary criticism heightens the competition between writers and limits entry of new writers to preserve the original canon. What will its function be in our societies? (88)
To answer her own question, Maracle describes her view of literary criticism as functioning to facilitate the growth of the Salish nation and communities. She explains that examination and criticism of a story begins with understanding it, then seeing oneself, their nation, and their community in the story (Maracle 85). After this, one can see the “common humanity” (85) of their people through the story, so that they can assess its value as the society progresses in the face of modern challenges and changing ideals. To summarize, literary criticism within Salish tradition allows for the growth and progression of their national identity.
According to Lee Maracle’s analysis, myths play a significant role in nation building within Salish society in terms of collective identity. She describes myth-making as being the process of community or nation transformation, beginning with the traditional stories that create a discourse within a society “around healthy communal doubt” (Maracle 85). This discourse enables a confrontation of themselves and what is new to their society, which in turn, allows growth and transformation of clan knowledge as the creation of a myth is founded from the new collective being. Thus, new myths are made from the old stories when set in the “modern or contemporary context” (Maracle 85), and promote changes in behaviour to overcome prior challenges and build a community or nation towards achieving a better way of life. Further, Maracle explains the responsibilities underlying the process of myth creation, as it requires that the “myth-maker use the original processes and spring from the original story in the interest of the nation” (85).
Somewhat similarly, Northrop Frye describes myths as keys to a poems real meaning. This is beyond “the explicit meaning that a prose paraphrase would give,” and is rather “the integral meaning given by [the poems’] metaphors, images, and symbols” (Frye xxxv). In other words, a myth is a structural principal of the poem itself. Frye also describes the national identity within Canada as a confusion which is “perpetually coming apart at the seams” (xxxvi) and left to the imagination to be reconstructed, as the imagination is “occupationally disposed to synthesis” (xxxvi). Thus, the function of myth-making in literature within the communities and nation of Canada may be to recreate this identity in the face of the modern and contemporary questions that work to pull it apart. While Frye and Maracle have considerable distance between them in terms of critical traditions and ideological eras (as discussed in our lesson), both provide comparable analysis of myths as being integral and influential in the building of Salish and Canadian nations, as they enable the reconstruction of national identity in the face of modern influence.
Works Cited
Hansom, Erin. “The Residential School System.” Indigenous Foundations. Web. https://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/the_residential_school_system/. 27 Feb. 2020.
Frye, Northrop. Author Preface. The Bush Garden; Essays on the Canadian Imagination. Toronto: Anansi, 2011, pp. xxvii-xxxvi. Print.
Maracle, Lee. “Toward a National Literature: A Body of Writing.” Across Cultures, Across Borders: Canadian Aboriginal and Native American Literatures, by Paul Warren Depasquale, Renate Eigenbrod, Emma Larocque, Broadview, 2010, pp. 77-96. Print.
“Potlatch Ban: Abolishment of First Nations Ceremonies” Indigenous Corporate Training. 16 Oct. 2012. Web. https://www.ictinc.ca/
