This is in response to prompt 2: “In Wickwire’s introduction to Living Stories, find a third reason why, according to Robinson, our abilities to make meaning from first stories and encounters is so seriously limited.”
With the first reason being that “the social process of the telling is disconnected from the store and creates obvious problems for ascribing meaningfulness”, I have a couple thoughts on the matter. First I feel that this was expanded upon well in lecture 2:2. It’s the “collecting, translating, and publishing” acts that lose some of the significance in the story. That’s not to say that we can’t take value in any translated works, however perhaps we need to be more cognizant of the process that these stories (or any story really) has gone through to get to our hands. In our lecture we are invited to think about the who and the why, and how that connects to the overall understanding of the story. I feel that this is an important lesson to remember. As we are encouraged constantly to search for credible sources in our science papers or literature analysis; we should also be more critical of how our history is represented in different texts. Personally, I find that I learn on a more critical and more meaningful level on First Nations culture/history when I read text from someone with a First Nations background. Of course, this is not to stifle any other scholarly discourses from authors of other backgrounds, but it seems relevant to listen to stories as close to the primary source as possible. I wanted to mention the book Celia’s Song by Lee Maracle (Canadian and from Sto:lo nation), as reading her novel has given me insight to talk upon the topic of witnessing https://quillandquire.com/review/celias-song/. This leads into the second point of the prejudiced acts against First Nations communities.
Being that Canada has had a history with residential schools and criminalization of certain cultural acts, we need to maintain open ears for stories to be re-told. Being a witness might mean to be able to listen to a story, thus legitimizing the situation at hand. In Koptie’s article on the idea of being called to witness, he states that “through witness memory exploration… frameworks of compassionate reflective autobiographic narrative for assisting recovery from crimes against humanity such as the residential school experience (121, Koptie).” This point was mainly directed to Indigenous scholars/witnesses, but in his next point he references the role of the witness “challenges all humanity to accept responsibility for the inconvenient truths of ‘events that produced no witnesses (122, Koptie).’” Koptie also interviews Lee Maracle for this paper, which I find really encouraging! Continuing on, the issue from this prejudiced history impedes on this role of witnessing stories, thus creating a causal effect on future understanding and enabling meaningfulness of first stories.
From reading Wickwire’s introduction, it seems that Wickwire has gone through a transformation of her own when it came to her reading of Robinson’s stories. Interpreting this third reason from Wickwire truly baffled me for a while. I might not have fully encompassed the reasoning presented but here’s my interpretation of it. Wickwire says that,
“He (Harry) wanted to show the cultural importance of maintaining a full range of stories. If people – whites and “Indians” – knew that stumps could turn into chipmunks and that chipmunks could turn into “grandfathers,” they would cultivate a very different relationship to the land…if they knew…Tom Shiweelkin who was wrongly killed by an early brigade of whites, they would carry a different view of their history.” (29, Robinson).”
My understanding of what is implicitly being said here is that us (non-Natives) do not hold the same point of reference when it comes to the essence of these stories. I’m also not relating essence to the meaning of the story, but more the spirit of the story. Wickwire notes that there’s this constructed notion on her part of the “single, communal account rooted in the deep-past (29, Robinson).” That seems to be a false sentiment with Robinson as he does not care about the “twists and turns” crafted into these stories with other storytellers. This makes me believe that the issue is that our frame of history as a single account might be too simplistic to make meaning of the first stories. There seems to be a space for interpretation and fluidity that might not be understood for those of us that seeks out the singular “truth”.
References:
Brydon, Diana. “Imagining Community Resurgence: Lee Maracle’s Celia’s Song Revisions a West Before and After the West.” dianabrydon.com. May 11, 2016. https://dianabrydon.com/2016/05/11/imagining-community-resurgence-lee-maracles-celias-song-revisions-a-west-before-and-after-the-west/
Koptie, Steven W. “Indigenous Self-Discovery:“Being Called to Witness”.” First Peoples Child & Family Review 5.1 (2010): 114-125.
Robinson, Harry, and Wendy C. Wickwire. Living by Stories: A Journey of Landscape and Memory. Talonbooks, 2005.
Sidney
February 11, 2020 — 6:25 pm
Hello! I do agree with your points but I also wanted to bring in another factor. I also feel that the reason why it can be difficult to understand and make meaning of First stories is because when we just read these stories on paper or hear these stories recorded the atmosphere is not right as well as the conditions have not been properly met. For example in Edward Chamberlin’s book interview he explained that it could sometimes be difficult to get elders to tell him their stories as he explained that an “elder … wouldn’t [tell the story] if the conditions did not exist [and] he was quite willing to die and not transfer the stories because the conditions were not right the ceremony could not be produced properly so the story would not be told” (Knopf). I feel that this shows that for some indigenous stories in order for it to be properly understood the proper ceremonies need to be done and the conditions need to be right to tell this story and if we look at the story outside its context with out the proper conditions it is harder to understand the real meaning. I feel like their have been times where I have read Indigenous stories written down and have not been able to appreciate or understand the true meaning of it and I wonder to myself now if this was because the story was not told the proper way and if the conditions were met and the proper ceremonies were done maybe I would have been able to appreciate and understand the story better. Have you feel like this has ever happened to you, and if so what do you think could have been done to make you better understand the story?
Lisa Hou
February 13, 2020 — 6:05 pm
Hi Sidney!
Thanks for your comment! I liked your point about the conditions, it basically did not cross my mind at all. Speaking to your question, I wonder if that idea of conditions have always been in the back of my mind. I would say that I always kind of get the sense that I would never be able to understand the real meaning beyond surface level, like as opposed to on a spiritual level. I also think this to me goes for all stories, probably not just the First stories.
I think for me personally, to better understand such stories is to have someone relate the context of the story to me. Context could definitely include the conditions where/how the story is told. I think it would help me interpret these stories by listening to how other people might interpret these stories. I say that because of what Wickwire says about different storytellers might develop different “twists and turns” for a single story. I imagine that Wickwire suggests that we should depend less on the story and more about perspective. I definitely think I could be exposed to more perspectives!
Thanks again!